Tuesday, August 19, 2008

I love the Olympics and my DVR

...but apparently I don't love sleep as much. I have to say, this Olympic experience has been different for me than any other, and that has to do almost completely with the DVR. I just finally gave in and got one about a year ago, and it's been great. In fact, I hate it when I'm watching TV in another room and want to rewind and can't.

However, I've never enjoyed the DVR as much as I have for the Olympics. We keep the DVR in our room, since we typically only watch TV at night, after the kids are in bed, or we're in bed too, so we watch most of the TV in our room. This has been perfect for the Olympics. I just record everything and watch it at night, and start watching the primetime Olympics around 9-10pm and watch until midnight or one... or two... and skip all the commercials and other things that I might not be interested in.

I love it because I get to watch so more of the events that sometimes you miss during primetime. I love so many of the events, swimming, gymnastics, diving, track & field, basketball, beach volleyball, indoor volleyball (I love the men's indoor volley ball, Clay Stanley is a beast!), even trampoline.

But I have to say there have definitely been a few amazying things this Olympics. Michael Phelps is just unreal. The 4X100m freestyle relay was amazing, how we beat France, and then the 100m butterfly was just magical. I couldn't believe that he out-touched the other guy. From almost every camera angle until it was slowed down and from below, I thought it looked like he lost. Then the men's gymnastics team taking silver with their best two gymnasts injured and gone. Then Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson going 1-2 in the all-around.

Also I have to say that Usain Bolt (what a great name for a sprinter--Bolt) is a freak. He runs a 9.69, even while celebrating the last 15 meters! I could have done without the grandstanding, but what's this guy going to do when he gets a better start (he had probably the worst start in the group) and runs the whole way. Is 9.5 or even 9.4 out of the question? That's so stinking fast.

Then there's one thing that has just become an inside joke for Tara and I. On Saturday we were watching trampoline. It really is amazing, they jump like 20 feet in the air. Anyways, there was a Chinese man who competed who is named Dong Dong. No joke. Why would the parents do that? I guess there's probably some cultural explanation, but Tara and I start laughing at even the mention of the name now, so it gets thrown into conversation at random times now over the last few days.

So that's it. I highly recommend a DVR. Great for the Olympics and General Conference too (if you're LDS). And if you haven't tuned into the Olympics much, do it. You're missing out, and you're one of the few in America who's not watching :-)

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Grace

Here is a little video of Grace. Not a very good one, but Ellie wanted to see her in action. She is laying on a quilt I am making. Doesn't it have pretty colors?