Doping 16 year olds

This Olympics has been weird for me as I have never planned my nights around watching Olympic events. But this year with Michael doing his thing and the women’s gymnastic team doing theirs I cannot help but be drawn into all the competition. The swimming events and women’s gymnastic events both have HUGE gray clouds hovering over head. With swimming it is the NEW swimsuit and doping allegations. With women’s gymnastics it is the under age girls. So I can’t ignore these two any longer because let’s face it people are going to start saying, “well what if…”

Let’s start with swimming. Doping has been around for years and can affect almost every sport. I was surprised to hear that at the Olympics they test the top 5 swimmers of every heat once they get out of the water. Yes this won’t catch everyone or every drug because drugs usually advance before the science to catch them but they are going to keep that sample on file for some amount of years and who knows maybe they might take away your gold medals in 10+ years. At least the Olympics has recognized that doping might be an issue and is trying to deter it from happening or catch it if it is, maybe MLB should take some notes. But if you are doping STOP it really is LAME and you will bring shame to yourself and most likely the county and you sport. The other issue is the new NASA designed swimming suits. World records are being broken with even new gold medal handed out and many people think that the suits are giving swimmers an unfair advantage. How is there an unfair advantage when everyone swimming the race is wearing one or had the option to wear one? Sport equipment has changed over time thus making the competition in sports heightened and making the games better (Kobe is not playing with the same ball or shoes as they did 50 years ago). People cannot stop science and science will always affect sports. So my suggestion to watching swimming for the remainder of the events is to celebrate these athletes for their hard work, dedication, and endurance because I know even with all the doping enhancements in the WORLD and a new state of the art swim suit, ALL of the swimmers in the Olympics could kick my butt in any race with their eyes closed and feet tied together.

Now to women’s gymnastics. Why is it that women, well girls, have to be at least 16 years old to compete in the Olympics? I thought the Olympics were about putting the best of each country against each other to see who was the best in the World? But those are the rules and everyone is playing by them, RIGHT? No way. Don’t get me wrong the American girls fell apart, they lost but they didn’t lose to a team who was following the rules that have been laid out. No they lost to a Chinese team who has many little tweens under the age of 16. One announcer said they were much shorter and thinner than their American counterparts – come on now most Chinese people are thinner and shorter than their American counterparts so throw that defense out the window. My defense has everything to do with those girls teeth. They had little kid messed up teeth and it looked as if a couple of them didn’t even have all their teeth in yet. I don’t know about you but I had all my adult teeth in and they fit the size of my mouth by the time I was 16 but not at the age of 12. And come on China we know you are a communist country so to doctor up some passports to “prove” these girls are 16 or will be turning 16 by years end is a JOKE. Of course they altered passports, I am sure if I tried hard enough I too could get an American passport made up with all my contact information that said I was 16, you think people would believe me? And if these girls are really the ages you claim them to be why aren’t they on the Official Website of the Chinese Olympic Committee? These are your golden girls be proud of their accomplishments. And why is it that the only official picture of anyone on the team is Fei Cheng? Maybe because she is the oldest and you don’t want people comparing the others to her? We get it you WON your girls did an outstanding job but why the need to cheat? This article is great (read me) and I suggest people read it because it isn’t about how to try to make countries conform to rules but to change them because they have been broken by many and only adhered to by few. After all the Olympics is about being the BEST and you can’t claim you are the BEST if a 12 year in China, the United States or any where can beat you.

With all the gray cloud that have hung over the Chinese Olympics I can truthfully say I have enjoyed them very much and I hope you have too. Until next time.

Are they all 16? You be the Judge.

xoxo

britt

Home Sweet Home

I got a call today that proves just how quick time goes and just how much Barry and I have done in the last year or so. About 10 months ago we moved into our first home. We always knew that the Valley of the Sun is where we would call home, put down roots, and start a family. With that goal in mind and the CRAZY desire to get out of “ghetto court” (our old apartment complex) we saved and scrimped for about a year and a half so save enough for a down payment on a home that we can see ourselves starting a family and living in for at least seven years.

Being in the real estate industry I had a good idea of what to pay for a home in a given area, what to expect from a given price point, what builders had good floor plans, and other general real estate knowledge. Barry and I knew we wanted a lot of indoor entertaining space – we like people to come over and have a goodtime – but we didn’t know if we NEEDED a backyard and a pool. We didn’t look at any resale as the market in our area has tons of new build homes and nothing is like being the first to live in a home with fresh carpet, toilets, showers, bedrooms, etc. We also knew that we would not have the knowledge, time, or money to be doing repairs or upkeep on an older home. After looking at a few communities that I did research on that were within our price range, in cities we would want to live in, and not to far out we ended up buying the FIRST home Barry saw as we drove through the FIRST subdivision and it was also the FIRST model we toured together. It is only fitting that this is our FIRST home.

Many first time home buyers might look to their parents for guidance on making such a large decision but we played on each other strengths. Barry followed my lead for choosing a good location and agreed that it would be a good time to buy while I followed his lead with the mortgage and all financial decisions. When all was said and done we had a “casa azul grande.” We love our home, we have never had any buyers remorse and I think today I love the flow and space our home provides more than when we wrote the purchase contract. In the last 10 months we have made many memories and I am 100% certain that even if we live in this home for the next 10+ years we will love it the same if not more than the day we moved in.

Our Home -- Check out the SOLD sign!

xoxo
britt

A little bit of this & a little bit of that...

So I wouldn’t call myself the type of person who waits around for the Olympics to start every 2 years but this year after so much hype I was excited to watch the opening ceremony on Friday. Boy was I glad I watched the 4 hours of it. From the opening drums to the lighting of the torch there was so much to see. Don’t get me wrong, the parade of nations got a little LONG but the fact that the Chinese even tried to make that interesting (the paint with the canvass and all the athletes’ footprints) proved that this opening ceremony will be hard to top. Good Luck London. I am excited to watch a couple of event but I don’t think I will be staying up late or waking up early to watch table tennis.

In other news we officially have a flower girl and ring bearer. I could not be more excited to have these two special little ones be apart of our day. They will be so cute walking down the aisle and they are season veterans in the wedding business as our wedding isn’t their first rodeo (march down the aisle) together. Now we just need to officially ask the rest of the bridal party (which I’m guessing most already assume they are a member) but we wanted to do something nice and within the next couple of weeks the bridal party will be in place.

We also found out that the US Open of Surfing, which is a large surf competition, is starting the same day of our wedding. Now you might be thinking, why does this matter. Well I will tell you that Surf City USA (location of said competition and said wedding) is very congested already. This presents many negatives and positives. The negatives include more people, higher prices for everything and everyone, plus grandstands on the beach. The positives include tons of stuff to do and see, an awesome vibe and a true taste of what Surf City USA has to offer, and a unique experience. Now don’t get me wrong if we knew the Open would start the same day as the wedding we might have chosen another date but one thing I have learned in this whole wedding planning process is to control what you can and roll with the punches or in this case roll with the ocean and make the best of what you have. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is that we will finally be married and be surrounded by our families and friends.

Hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend and is ready for the work week ahead.

Surf City USA, US Open of Surfing

xoxo

britt

Night Fishing

Really. We went night fishing in Pierre, South Dakota and did well. Matt, my family, and I went “camping” in my parent’s new recreational vehicle, which I refuse to call a fifth wheel. We spent a couple nights in the “wilderness” and it was a great time, but it is nice to be home.

Matt caught several walleyes (good fish – part of the perch family) and some catfish, which were quickly returned to the water. Not to tell many fish stories, but at one point, while in the fast water below the dam, Matt caught a huge walleye, but the current was pulling the boat up to the face of the dam. So Matt had to reel like never before and my dad had to reverse the boat, in order to avoid hitting the dam. While this was happening, there was suddenly a walleye surfing on top of the water, Matt's fish. We netted him before he got away, but I am surprised we did not lose him. He was definitely a keeper.

We are home and survived, barely. The mosquitoes were outrageous and I can not wait to see how many bites I received. I am thankful Arizona does not have those critters! But camping was great, if you call having a microwave, refrigerator, stove, television, surround sound, DVD player and so forth camping. We did cook outside one night.

While camping, I received a call from Brittany about a girl’s weekend to LA which I am excited to plan. I also got a call from Mike, the stationary guy, stating that our save the dates are in. This is official wedding business! This means time to get addresses. Next week Matt and I plan to finalize the cake lady, a DJ, tuxes, and register.

On an uplifting note – Brittany and I tutored a Lost Boy while at the University of Arizona through a community service organization. His name was Eric and it was a great experience. Since then, I have had a special place in my heart for the Lost Boys. They are such fantastic individuals to be able to go through what they did and to emerge as well as they did. It is too bad after 9/11 Lost Boys were no longer allowed in the United States. So I was pleased to read on CNN that a Lost Boy was going to lead the US Olympians in to Beijing. I was going to boycott the Olympics for various reasons, but I may tune in tonight to watch the opening ceremonies.

See the story at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/07/flag.bearer/index.html

A picture is worth a thousand words

I know I know who cares who we pick to be our wedding photographer. Well I care a lot. I think I have actually paid more attention to my photographer than my dress, flowers, cake, hotel, and honeymoon combined. You see finding a GREAT photographer within the budget that Barry and I have set for it has been a struggle. Many of the great photographers in the LA/OC area have an experience fee. An experience fee? I just want someone to come to my wedding and take amazing photos of us, our family and friends and give me them all to me on a high res DVD so I can print them out to my hearts content. So after contacting 100+ photographers in the LA/OC area I started to get depressed that I would not find one that I loved and was within our budget. But I did find a photographer that I really liked her work and she was kinda within our budget (what is an extra $500 at this point). So I contacted her to set up an appointment to meet with her because that’s what all the planning books tell you to do. So we met with her and as we left I would say I was 99.999% sure we would book her to photograph our wedding. But now I am 100% sure that she will NOT be the photographer at our wedding. So you are probably thinking what the heck has happened since that meeting. Well I will tell you what has happened and that is nothing. She was supposed to email me with some references, a link to a full wedding, and some other things and to this day I have nothing. So a week after our meeting I was still holding out hope so I sent her a follow up email reminding her that I still didn’t have any of the info she was supposed to send and now over a month since our meeting I still have NOTHING. I have taken her off the list because I want a photographer who is easy to get in touch with (no I’m not going to be BRIDEZILLA but when I am paying that much for your services I accept some half way decent customer service.) So I am/was back a square one.

So being back at square one SUCKS but I was gung ho about finding a photographer. Lucky for me I read message boards on tons of wedding sites and look for recommendation from women who have been married and have had good enough results that they would put it on the internet for all to see. That’s how I found Julia. So after looking at her photos and blog I sent an email asking for her package pricing and when I got an email back within 2 hours we were already off on the right foot. I called her and we talked for about an hour about all things wedding related and about ourselves. She not only showed interest in photographing my wedding but also in us as a couple. Julia is not your standard wedding photographer. Julia is a lawyer. Now many of you might know this but 3 people in our bridal party are wannabe lawyers but I found Julia’s blog/website/recommendation on the last day of the bar for 2 out of the 3 people in our bridal party. Is this a sign? I think so. Julia has responded to my emails quickly, let me give my two cents about her blog entries, and has even sent me more ideas that might work for my wedding. So now you are probably asking why we haven’t booked her yet. Well you see I want to book Julia but I am nervous we haven’t met in person and lets face it her photos will hang in our home and the homes of our families (if they so choose) for generations to come. So I’m at a cross road do I take the leap of faith and book the photographer without meeting her or do I wait and try to find sometime to meet with her but there is no guarantee that I or she will have the time when we are home for the holidays?

Oh the joys of planning a wedding from a far.

One of my must take photos. I wanna see the BLING!!

some kind of wonderful…

I think I am in a bit of a funk. A lot of little things that wouldn’t piss me off are, I don’t have the motivation to do a whole bunch and I have caught myself slipping into old ways lately. I really have no idea what my issue is but I have one guess and it has to do with the quality of sleep I have been getting. You see we have been sleeping in the guest room as it has been way to HOT to sleep in our master bedroom. Many might think this is not a problem and easily fixed but when it is still 100 degrees outside all night and your bedroom doesn’t cool down enough you have to make due with the other options you have. So for about a month now we (Barry, me and LILLY) have all been sharing a full size bed. This worked in college – in fact twin beds worked in college but now that we are a little older with wake up times before noon this no longer works. We have our comfy queen bed just sitting there waiting to be used until it A. getting cooler (maybe by October) B. we go and buy another fan for the master bedroom or C. crank up the A/C to freeze out the other rooms of the house so our master bedroom can be cooled down. The way we see there are two legitimate options and those are A & B as if we did C our electric bill would easily jump above the 300 dollar mark (not cool, not cool at all APS). And after sharing the full size bed for about a month I really think option B is the only option that will work for us. So this weekend I plan on going out and buying another fan (hopefully one that will do the job) and move back into my master bedroom and my LARGER than a full Queen bed. Hopefully this will change the funk I am in.

On a brighter note this weekend was “some kind of wonderful…” We got a lot done but also did a lot of nothing. Barry had his first Saturday off in about a month and we spent the day cleaning. In the morning we took off and went to Walmart (yeah I have no moral dilemma with shopping there – lets face it, it isn’t going away anytime soon and if I can save a few bucks I will). We needed cleaning supplies. As I filled the cart with TONS of cleaning supplies Barry so politely asks if he should call the City of (town we live in) and let them know that we will be cleaning the whole city today. HAHA I am going to marry a funny one. After that we went home and cleaned the whole house top to bottom – well maybe middle to bottom as the top floor didn’t need any cleaning. We finished with plenty of time to shower and rest up before we headed to the Scottsdale to meet up with Rachel for dinner at PF Changs.

On our way to dinner the 101 was closed at the 60 so we ended up taking side roads all the way there. It was so nice to see Rachel and to catch up on all the gossip and news of women and men who I/we have spent many a nights with drinking and having a good time. Rachel also offered to let 5+ college alum sleep on her floor for the home football games. She has even invited Lilly to come and stay to so looks like this fall our trips to Tucson on Saturday’s will not end once the game does but in fact continue at the bars after the football teams victory. Rachel has also offered to help with the wedding as she is a way better planner than I and she has some way better ideas than I do too. I love Rachel and we wish we could see her more and this Fall it looks like we will see each other so much that she might get sick of seeing me.

After dinner we thought it would be a good idea to stop by the grocery store and pick up some drinks and invite some friend over for a little late night gathering. We were all hanging out upstairs and with a blink of an eye the boys (Barry, Ryan, Sam, Chris, and Alan) were all down stairs drinking, and I mean DRINKING. After about an hour we heard a loud laugh and Pearl looks up and goes “yep Sam’s drunk.” I love it how when couples have been together for 5+ years we can tell that our love is drunk based on a laugh. Also that night Pearl and I got a talking about how we need to go to downtown LA. I don’t know if you all know this but I LOVE downtown LA and all the good deals that can be found there. So we are determined to have a GIRLS weekend trip to LA. So who is with us (if you don’t want to talk about weddings and wedding planning for at least 48 this isn’t the trip for you)? At about 1am everyone left, Barry and I crawled into our little bed for some sleep.

Sunday was LAZY. The only thing we had to do was go to the grocery store. The rest of the day was spent napping, watching TV, playing video games or blankly staring into space pretending to watch someone play video games. Weekends like this are good the only thing that makes them not GREAT is the fact that they end and a new work week starts.

I hope everyone had a good weekend and has a good (well as good as it can be) work week.

xoxox

britt

It is over!

It is over, so over. I feel as though I have emerged from a deep, dark hole, hung-over. The two days, 12 hour test was not fun at the slightest. The MBE (200 multiple choice questions) was terrible; I almost had a breakdown after the first 30 questions because I think I got the first 29 wrong, really. The test is not fun. My favorite question is: “which argument is the strongest?” So all four choices are correct, you just need to find the most correct one. That is fun. Now we have to wait until October to find out the results. There will be lots of prayers until then.

The test ended on Wednesday. Matt and I returned to Phoenix to hang out with friends. We are thankful for such great friends: Brittany and Barry surprised us with a bottle of champagne, Eric drove us (keep in mind everyone had to work the next day), and Ryan, Jeff, and Chris came to celebrate with us. We also met up with April and her friends at Dos Gringos. It was great to hang out with friends again stress-free. Thank you to all who celebrated with us!

We had to wake up at 5:00 on Thursday to make our 7:30 flight out of Phoenix to Omaha. We were picked up by Eric, who drove the night before – we are very thankful for great friends. We arrived in Omaha and it is HUMID. But it is great to be back. I am excited to go boating, water skiing, and Barbie’s wedding!! I woke up at 7:00 this morning and went to the gym with her. She is going to have a great wedding.

As I said, it is great to be back as I am typing in my area of the house, the basement. A toad is trapped in our window well, poor guy. I will free him soon. There have been lots of critters trapped through the years: rabbits, toads, neighbor’s dog, and such. I free most, and once negligently ended the life of a toad. So I am hoping to successfully free this guy.

I love being home and look forward to seeing friends and family. I am excited to return to Phoenix bar-free. Brittany and I will have some major wedding planning to do. And hopefully Mike, the stationary guy, will send me the proof for the save-the-dates. For now, I am enjoying life guilt-free.
-Jen