The Games of the XXIX Olympiad--Winter Wheat Style

On 8/8/08, in honor of these Olympic games we held our own Olympic Party.


Chinese food before the opening ceremonies:
And some cupcake carbo-loading to help the athletes prepare for the events to follow.
On March 24, 2008 the Olympic torch relay began in Athens, Greece. 21,880 torchbearers traveled 85,000 miles in 130 days to get the torch to Beijing. That must have been a logistical nightmare. It was hard enough to get our 15 kids to space out along the side of the road stretching from the Benham's to the Dobson's houses so they could jog the torch to each other. You'd think this was their first Olympics or something. I can't imagine what it takes to get a torch across countries. Maybe that's why they don't use kids.

This was our first opening ceremonies and it showed. I have to admit that China outdid us, what with all the music, dancing, fireworks and all. But we've got four years to plan and improve so watch out London.

Let the games begin. The first event was track and field. Our athletes are so well rounded and capable that limiting their skills to one event seemed wasteful. Instead, we created an obstacle course:

First, throw the yoga ball
then jump the hurdle
stop for a long jump
and run to finish with a high jump.
It was timed and the distances for the throw and jump were recorded. This one was too fun to leave just to the kids. I was too busy keeping time to take pictures of the adults, but boy do I wish I had. I do have the results though, in race order:

Men's Track and Field Obstacle Course- Official Results
Athlete	Throw Distance (feet)	Jump Distance (feet)	Time (sec)
Paul	35'	7.5	6.9
Matt	42'	5.5	9.53
Richard	49'	7	8.34
Tom	36'	7	11.4
Jerry	35'	6	12.35
Mark	46'	7'	15.72
Kevin	48	7	8.26
Women's Track and Field Obstacle Course- Official Results
Athlete	Throw Distance (feet)	Jump Distance (feet)	Time (sec)
Laurie	14	4.2	9.09
Lori	21	6.2	8.87
Lynne	14	3.5	11.53
Kliss	21	6.1	7.3
Lyn	23	5	10.98

From track and field we went to a very impressive gymnastics competition. The kids had to perform one trick on the trampoline.

Then show their balancing skills on the beam:


Noah's tricky dismount increased the level of difficulty for his routine.

And finish with a cartwheel. Zack added a little additional tumbling (rolling around) to the obligatory cartwheel. He's always so fancy.

But some judges are impossible to please.
Also included in the games was a target shooting competition
and, in the interest of time, the triathlon was limited to cycling.

Of course we finished with the medal ceremonies. My camera is against taking good pictures at night. The only viewable picture is of the results from one of the heats in track and field. Noah won gold, Rilie silver and Brayden bronze.
Sadly, it wouldn't be the Olympics without some sort of tragedy. Our favorite gold medalist gymnast/babysitter Dana broke her foot in a non-Olympic event shortly after the end of the our games. I am sure it will only make her a stronger competitor next time.