For Gracie

*Read my sister-in-law's comment from my last post

Dear Gracie,

I'm so glad that you want to be an olympic bobsledder! In 2026, I'll be right there on the sidelines, cheering you on. You can do it, little buddy!

I love you!

:) Aunt Kristen

Bobsleigh

I saw this a few times at Whistler. I'm not sure the proper usage of "bobsleigh" versus "bobsled" but it has a nice ring to it. As though I should use a European accent and say, "Oh yes, just let me fetch my bobsleigh."

As promised, a part two to my olympic posting. We had a long and exciting day in Canada. After the two and a half hour drive, we had to take another two hour bus ride to get to Whistler. The atmosphere at the ski resort was infectious.

It was also very cold and I spent more money than I anticipated buying a hat, gloves and an extra jacket. Sorry, Emily, unfortunately they weren't the iconic red Canadian mittens that are all the rage. The shops have been sold out of them for several days.

We took the gondola up the mountain to watch women's bobsledding. It was packed at the top but by the end of the first heat, we worked our way up to the closest spectator spot. This was my favorite part. I loved watching them get ready, get a few final words from their coach, and perform their pre-race rituals which usually involved grunting and hitting each other. I'm glad to say no one wiped out all night yesterday, which was unfortunately not the case tonight.

This will give you an idea of how close we were. Wow! By the way, these ladies from Japan may not have won a medal but they should win a prize for the most beautiful sled.

We worked our way down the mountain, getting to watch the sleds zoom by at different parts of the course.

Here is the jumping picture I mentioned in my last posting. Marissa was the reason I went to Vancouver the first time and kindly let me buy her extra bobsledding ticket for our second trip.

Okay, I probably spent an inappropriate time working on this last picture but I sure had fun with it. If you haven't already seen it on my facebook profile, here it is again.

Well, we scoured the NBC footage of the event and I'm sad to say that I don't think we made it but hopefully I have presented you with sufficient evidence to assure you that I was indeed there.

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS!

Vancouver Twenty-Ten!

Okay, first of all, sorry these pictures are huge but I can't seem to figure out how to do the whole click-on-the-picture-and-make-it-bigger thing. So I just made them big to start with.

I went to Vancouver with some friends yesterday and it was fabulous. We didn't go to any events but got to soak up the olympic culture.

We stood in line for almost an hour to go to the olympic superstore, which seemed a little ridiculous but we sure wanted our souvenirs. I got this shirt which I felt captured the Canadian olympic spirit while being tastefully understated. Unfortunately, caught up in the excitement, I failed to properly read the label and consequently bought a man's medium instead of a woman's medium. By the time I realized how large it was, we were far from the store and may I remind you that took an hour of waiting in line to even get in the store. Definitely not going back.

I just googled, "how to shrink a t-shirt" and we'll see how it goes.

We saw some of the arenas and then went to the waterfront. Seeing the Olympic Torch was a much more inspiring sight than I imagined. It is huge! Bigger than my shirt! Also, there were tons of people around and they were all so nice.

I love my jumping pictures! We got a better jumping shot of my buddy Marissa and I but it is on her camera. I'll try to get it later. The city was giving away these Canadian flags because it was Flag Day which was perfect timing for our photo frenzy. We must have gotten some of the last ones because everywhere we went people were asking to borrow our flags for their pictures.

We got home late and watched Tivo'd olympics until really late. I have to say that I wasn't super excited about the olympics until yesterday but now I'm hooked!

So, hopefully, this will just be Part I of my olympic blogging. I may get the chance to go to bobsledding next week at Whistler.

Go team!

The Seven Year Itch

I probably should've suspected something was wrong when I woke up at 5 Saturday morning because my feet were itching so badly. After a string of night shifts, I had stayed awake all day in order to switch my sleeping schedule back to normal. So, in my sleep-deprived state, being awoken after 4 hours of sleep may give you an idea of how itchy my feet were. I gave them a good scratching, slathered on some lotion and went back to sleep for an hour or so.

I had signed up for an all day disaster relief training with the Red Cross. As the training started, the itching spread from my feet to my arms and legs. Luckily, my roommate who is also a nurse was sitting next to me. I rolled up my sleeves and asked her if it looked like hives to her (it is always so much harder to diagnose yourself). The rapidly appearing red splotches made it clear I was having some sort of allergic reaction. I itched like a 4 year old with chicken pox until our lunch break when I was able sneak away and buy some Benadryl. While it eased the itching, it did not help what was already an uphill battle to stay awake during the long and monotonous video segments.

Well, at the end of the day, I was trained to work in a relief shelter and I was also convinced that I was allergic to the antibiotic my doctor had put me on for a minor skin infection. I channeled my inner Sister Missionary yesterday wearing my longest skirt and highest blouse and now, thank goodness, the hives are all but gone.

So I guess I should just call it the seventy-two hour itch.

Honesty is it's own reward

Just talked to overstock.com- they are going to charge my account.

Untitled

I couldn't think of a title because these things have nothing to do with each other. But I figure that is the beauty of blogging. You can literally write whatever you want. So, here we go.

Last week, I had a dream that I was a pirate and I had to protect my loot from some nefarious thieves. It was awesome, first, because I felt like I watching an action movie with me as the star which is a big improvement from my normal dreams where I am at work. Secondly, it was awesome because the dream resolved (I won!) just before my alarm went off. I woke up feeling completely satisfied with my night even though I only got a few hours of sleep.

Yesterday, the world came crashing down on me. I had to find some more push pins to put it back on my wall.

Confession: this didn't really happen to me but I read it somewhere and thought it was funny. Also I do have a large map of the world in my bedroom and I figure that it is only a matter of time before it does fall down.

I bought a white blouse last Saturday. Late that night, I realized that it still had the antitheft

ink tag on it. I really wanted to wear it the next day to church so I had to weigh my options. I decided not to try to take it off myself as I'm sure that would have resulted in an explosion of ink. I ended up just wearing the blouse, ink tag and all.No one else knew because it was under a dress but occasionally I would bump against something and suddenly remember that I had a cone-shaped piece of plastic protruding from my side. In case you were wondering, I took it back to the store the next day and had it removed.

Recently, both a Jimmy John and a 5 Guys have opened within a mile of my house. My new motto- twenty-ten, the year of thin (yeah, I know, it doesn't quite rhyme) is facing some serious temptation.

I am obsessed with my new ukulele. With some of my Christmas money

(thanks mom and dad!), I bought a ukulele and 4 weeks worth of lessons. I originally bought the purple one you see below from a company that I won't name. I totally

loved this ukulele! Unfortunately, after they had charged my account, I got an email saying that they were out of stock and they were going to refund my account. I was bummed but found this ->

ukulele at a local music store which is also very nice. We began to make beautiful music together and I was happy. THEN today I

came home to find this huge box on my doorstep. It was the

purple ukulele!! (I still don't know why they used such a big box) I checked my bank account and they hadn't recharged me. Theoretically, I could do nothing and maybe get it for free, but I don't roll like that. I'll call tomorrow to see what the situation is. I'm hoping it will turn out like in high school when I would point out to my calculus teacher that he hadn't marked enough points off my test and he was so impressed with my honesty that he just let me keep the points.

Waste Not, Want Not

My parents are moving 1000 miles away, which is mostly good because it is a lot closer to me but a little sad because I really love that house. Over Christmas, my mom mentioned that I still had several large tubs in my old room. I thought it may be helpful in their moving process if I tried to cut down on the stuff they had to lug to Utah. However, as I went through my childhood memories, I struggled to get rid of anything. Even though most of these things I haven't seen or thought about in several years, when I was actually faced with the decision of whether to save it or not, I suddenly turned into a sentimental fool.

Of course there was the normal photo albums, debate trophies and cross-stitches but I thought I might share with my faithful blog readers some of the more eccentric items I found:

- Intergalactic Cow Day t-shirt, circa 1992

- A foley catheter insertion kit from my nursing school days (I actually did throw this away)

- "If You Give an Armadillo a Pizza"- my original short story from third grade that got an A+

- 14 Donny and Marie LP's with matching record player

- Roggenvolkornbrot- Canned bread from communist-era east Germany, given to me by a member while I was on my mission. I'm told that it has enough preservatives to last for another 50 years.

- A dolphin toothbrush that had been boiled and bent into a bracelet. I almost wore it back to Seattle until I remembered that it wasn't 1996 anymore. Man, I miss 7th grade.

This is just off this top of my head. There was tons of stuff like this in there. Why do I keep this

stuff? Part of me says, you never know when you might need it. But seriously? Will there ever come a time when I will suddenly have a need for the dried corsage that I wore to my brother's wedding eight years ago? Doubtful. But I'll keep it anyway.

What does this say about me? Mostly I think it says that I have been very blessed. That I had a happy childhood full of good memories. That I have good parents who helped me develop talents. That I went to schools that helped me reach my full potential. That despite normal growing pains, I have loved my life. And that makes me excited for my future life. I still have tubs to fill.

Maybe in another 10 years, I'll be able to part with some of these gems but for now I'm content to be a packrat. And if you comment on my blog, I'll keep it forever.