Olympics!! (hand pump in air!!)

So far, since Friday ~I (heart) DVR~ I've been staying up late every night watching the events for the day and sometimes from the evening before. I've even been totally lazy on my days off, just sitting and watching and fast-forwarding TV and munching popcorn and chocolate chips. Love it!!

AND, I have enjoyed my Olympic watching so much that I've involved the children...well, I've tried too anyway. Pretty much the only thing that will hold their attention is figure skating...and it's pushing it with the short program, so the long program is out. They're off doing whatever else before the skater has finished their second combination!

Regardless, watching the Pairs Skating last weekend with their short programs, of course I'm going to be behind the USA guys! However, I always have a soft spot for underdogs, too. Since the judges took any chance away from the US couples ~even though none of the US couples had any falls yet somehow received lower scores, whatever~ I was all for Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao from China (the couple who have been together for 18 years and were married last summer) to get the gold! Good for them! Love a good story!!

Then, there is the Canadian Men's skater, 19 year old kid who has so much pressure on his shoulders, did a great job but according to the commentators, has a lot still to develop. Bless his heart :) and I loved watching him skate to the Phantom of the Opera!

But it wouldn't be fun unless it came down to Russia vs USA. Apparently the scoring system has changed ~ not that I knew much about it before ~ but I guess falls still take points away. Dang. Unless you're on a pairs team, in that case an "almost-fall" takes away more points than the actual "fall" but I digress. Anyway, Plushenko from Russia had a quad jump planned in both his short and long programs. And he did it, in both, but from my untrained eye the landings were wobbly and not as clean as others or even as clean as his triple jumps ~ and apparently my untrained eye can't figure out how falling can equal more points, but we're moving on. But, yes, to his credit, he landed a quadruple jump. What did Lysacek have? A whole bunch of other jumps and fancy footwork! I could have done with out the feathers, but hey! Even with a wingspan rivaling Michael Phelps, he was the most graceful grown man on ice I've seen in a long time! So, the Russian feels the gold was stolen from him, but read this article and you'll totally agree with how and why Lysacek has every reason to cherish that gold medal! Good for him.

It's been a fun week and I can't wait for the weekend again!! Men's Hockey on Sunday, Canada vs USA!!! And I don't even like hockey, but I'll watch this! Also, I totally cried when Lindsey Vonn made it down the mountain ~ ALIVE ~ and won the gold. What an amazing feeling that must have been. And that's what I love about the Olympics: even if our country is out of the race, there is always another story, another person's personal trial to overcome adversity and struggle to the top. And we can all celebrate that! Speaking of celebrating, how about celebrating that two Koreans trip over each other right before the finish line leaving space for you to slide into the Silver medal?? Now that's a nice day, Apollo :)