Jennifer’s California Adventures

Monday, Aug 18th: Britain, Team Jumping (Equestrian) — sadly, they didn’t place on the medal stand at all. The US team won, though, which is still exciting to me!

Tuesday, Aug 19th: Bernard Lagat (USA), Men’s 1500 meter track

This was an easy choice, as Lagat is the favorite for this race. I hope that Lopez Lomong also makes it to the finals and places. Lagat got the bronze medal in this race in the 2000 Olympics in Syndey and the silver in 2004 in Athens, both times competing for his native Kenya. I would love to see Lagat and Lomong both medal since they are both recent US citizens.

Sadly, neither Lagat nor Lomong made it past the semifinals…

Wednesday, Aug 20th: Russia, synchronized swimming duet

The Russians were favored to win the synchronized swimming duet event, which they apparently won in both 2000 and 2004. I’m curious to see if it’s shown on TV broadcast here, as I think synchronized swimming is fun to watch for about 15 minutes. TiVo is a great thing during the Olympics!

T’s parents were in town recently, and we took them out to Big Basin to see the giant redwood trees. We’d been to Muir Woods in the fall (here and here, second picture), so we thought we’d explore another option, which definitely did not disappoint.

(Apparently the GIANT redwood tree that you can drive your car through is not a coastal redwood tree but an inland redwood tree. The coastal trees grow taller and don’t get quite as wide while the inland trees get really, really wide and not quite as tall. Just FYI as to why you won’t see a picture of us driving my car through a tree.)

The drive out to Big Basin was long and winding, but it was worth it. The trees were most definitely impressive, and my favorites were the ones that made me feel like they could have been straight out of Middle Earth.

Last, but not least, does anyone know what kind of berries these are? I heard someone call them huckleberries, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or not. Anyone?

In case you can’t remember why I’m posting all of these Olympic picks, you can go here to see the rules that I had to follow when picking my “bracket” of Olympians. The main idea is that I picked one a day.

Friday, Aug 15th: Shawn Johnson (USA), Women’s all-around individual gymnastics — SILVER!

Saturday, Aug 16th: Italy, Women’s team foil fencing — BRONZE!

Sunday, Aug 17th: Dana Torres (USA), Women’s 50 meter freestyle (swimming) — SILVER!

Monday, Aug 18th: Britain, Team Jumping (Equestrian)

The equestrian events are some of my absolute favorite at the summer Olympics. Sadly, the cross-country and show jumping aren’t being broadcast (at least to the best of my knowledge) this year. I got to watch the cross-country at the ‘96 Atlanta Olympics, and it’s sooo incredible. Having tickets for the event meant that you could be pretty much anywhere on it. It’s one thing to watch the horses jumping on TV, and it’s a whole different (and significantly more impressive!) thing to be there, 15 feet from the jump that is four-feet tall and four-feet wide. Seeing the muscles on the horse and the communication between the horse and rider is something you don’t forget. I chose the British team to with the team jumping event, and I’m hoping that they do well as I’m having some pick-er’s remorse that’s wishing I had chosen Australia insteand of Britain…

There was a card-making party at my apartment recently, and I love how some of these cards ended up so I thought I would share. Enjoy!

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)

I get to see these ladies oh-so-soon….

Thursday, Aug 14th: Yang Wei (China), Men’s all-around individual gymnastics — GOLD!

(That’s 6 for 6 of my choices!)

My choices for the weekend are below:

Friday, Aug 15th: Shawn Johnson (USA), Women’s all-around individual gymnastics

The teeny, tiny, teenage gymnasts never cease to amaze me. I haven’t been following gymnastics, so I had never heard Shawn Johnson’s name until a few weeks ago. She is the favorite and also so cute! She also was interviewed on the Today Show this week, and I was impressed with her presence of mind. She only practices four hours a day and hasn’t upped that while preparing for the Olympics but has just stayed consistent. Her coach tells her to do her best but that it’s OK to make a mistake, which is a balance that I feel like I have rarely heard about when it comes to the Olympics.

Saturday, Aug 16th: Italy, Women’s team foil fencing

Again, this was a stretch. I took the advice of this prediction list and chose Italy to win the women’s team foil fencing, which I now feel like I need to watch so that I have some idea of what foil fencing actually IS and how you do it on a team. The other prediction site had Russia as the Gold medal favorite, but I’d already chosen Russia to win an event later, so I was happy with Italy.

Sunday, Aug 17th: Dana Torres (USA), Women’s 50 meter freestyle (swimming)

Who doesn’t love the 41-year old woman with a child who’s swimming in her FIFTH Olympics and holds the American record in her race?

My office threw a baby shower last weekend for one of our Chinese co-workers. I could probably count on one hand the number of baby showers that I had previously attended (and definitely never planned one), but I was somehow the expert this time! A majority of my co-workers either had never been to one or are not from the U.S. and had never heard of a baby shower before, so it was all on the shoulders of myself and one other coworker. But everyone helped out a ton and the shower went wonderfully! Everyone showed up a little bit early to help decorate the party room:

Including the food table with lots of fruit and edamame and seaweed salad and veggies. The mom-to-be’s mother is in town from China, and we were so happy that she could make it to the shower as well.

She got a lot of clothes for presents, including precious jelly shoes from Gap and a lion set.

Last but not least, we played a team game that was Olympic-themed and was a combination of Cranium and Jeopardy (somewhat similar to the game from “Friends” when Monica and Rachel lost their apartment to Joey and Chandler). One of the categories was “Yummy in the Tummy” and required your team to taste Gerber baby food and identify the two main ingredients.

The two ingredients in the 3 baby food jars we had to taste? Apple/oatmeal, macaroni/cheese (disgusting!), and sweet potatoes/turkey. Babies really eat this?

Ugh. The whole time-delay thing is finally getting to me. From here on out, when possible, I’ll just post the results as soon as I can to make things make sense.

Tuesday, Aug 12th: Natalie Coughlin (USA), Women’s 100 meter backstroke — GOLD!

Wednesday, Aug 13th: Michael Phelps (USA), Men’s 200 meter butterfly — GOLD!

Again, another easy choice. Michael Phelps holds this world record. Plus, if someone works out/trains enough to need to eat 8,000 to 10,000 calories a DAY, they must be working hard.

Thursday, Aug 14th: Wei Yang (China), Men’s all-around individual gymnastics

Morgan Hamm of the US had to pull out, and I decided to follow the advice of this website and choose Wei Yang as the gold-medal favorite. I don’t make a point to watch men’s gymnastics like I do women’s gymnastics, but I do enjoy the pommel horse and men’s vaults. Hopefully this will be a fun event to watch on TiVo.

My picks are five-for-five so far!! I’m sure I’ll start missing some soon, but I’m enjoying this…

Go read this.

If you were to write a letter to a 17-year-old you, what would it say? I would agree with a lot of the things said in that post, I think…