Winter Olympics (in Summer)

Now I know one of the reasons why it's been so long since I made a blog post. I forgot I started this one in March and never finished it! It's long overdue, but better late than never, right?

Friday February 28th

To celebrate the last day of summer, we had an office party to hold the winter olympics (in summer). I am so amazed at our social club committee for being so creative. I was really skeptical when I heard we were going to hold some actual events to compete for the gold, but it worked out wonderfully.

Opening Ceremonies

For whatever reason, I was chosen to bring in our "Olympic torch" to kick off the games. So I ran in waving it around and got a good laugh out of everyone.

Here we have moved outside to receive our instructions for the first event.

Event #1: Curling

How do you curl on grass, you ask? I was surprised at how well this really worked!

1. Spread out a large tarp to act as your ice rink
2. Fill some large buckets with soapy water and get a couple of sponge mops
3. Freeze a scrub brush that has a handle on it in some water inside a pie tin
4. Remove the pie tin and you have a curling stone

I got to be a sweeper for our team. Go team Norway!

And we were the best! See the blue handle? That's my team :)

Event #2: Tandem cross-country skiing

And the creativity continues. For this event, we had to "cross country ski" in tandem across the lawn. All it took were some straps to be stapled on to some 2x4's. Simple, yet effective! My team did not medal in this event, because I fell over. I was wearing high heels and had a hard time keeping my balance haha. But I didn't want to go barefoot and get slivers - oh well!

Event #3: Olympics Quiz + Lunch!

Mmmm - Subway! I was quite happy with the lunch choice today. It's not every day we get to order Subway sandwiches and they were tasty.

Anyway, for the third event we had a quiz - sort of like the quiz night game I posted about a year ago. Each team had questions specifically geared toward the country we were representing. Luckily we had done our research and knew questions like the capital of Norway, how many gold medals Norway won in the 2014 Olympics, and the population of the country. 

And once again - my team won this event! 

Enjoying food - and conversing with team Russia

And the winners are...

Team Norway!!! (can you tell my competitive side kicked in? I think patriotism is part of the DNA of Americans) We won the gold in 2 of 3 events, so we were the overall champions as well. What a satisfying day :)

We are anticipating our victory! From left to right - Quynh Tran, me, Laura Cotter, Caitlin Gray, Carl Stuart and Richard Perrett)

Caitlin is accepting our gold medals for the team - hip, hip, hooray!

And here we are donning our bling - and wore it proudly for the rest of the day!

Funny story. I really did wear my two gold medals for the rest of the day. That evening, Brian and I went to dinner at our favorite little middle eastern restaurant (that closed soon after) and while we were there I realized I was still wearing them. How embarrassing!

Netball Neophyte

Wow - I was so excited about the name for this blog post that I have writer's block on where to begin haha.

So PwC puts together an indoor netball team every year. I didn't join last year because I had never even heard of netball before and didn't want to make a fool of myself. But as I was talking to the girl that organizes the team, she said they have taught several people to play over the years and I thought, why not? I can accomplish several things by joining up: learning a new sport, getting more active and making friends.

My first game was pretty scary because I didn't know any of the rules or where I was supposed to be. It was pretty funny. I've played in four games now and it's definitely getting better. I always play the same position, wing defense, which means I at least know where I'm supposed to stand and who I am supposed to mark. But that's about it so far lol. 

Here are some of the basics, if you're interested (pulled from Wikipedia). 

1. Netball is a ball sport for two teams of seven players, predominantly played by women - we play in a coed league with 4 girls and 3 boys per team.
2. Games are played on a rectangular court divided into thirds, with a raised goal at each short end. The biggest difference from basketball hoops is there is no backboard. Make it much harder to shoot! 
   
3. The object of the game is for teams to score goals, by passing a ball and shooting it into their team's goal ring. 
4. Players are assigned "positions" that define their role within the team and restrict their movement on court. I play wing defense, which means I can only go in the back and middle thirds of the court, but not the goal circle.
5. During general play, a player with the ball can take no more than one step before passing it, and must pass the ball or shoot for goal within three seconds. No dribbling! It took me a few times to make sure I stopped moving before catching the ball, but I haven't been called for traveling in the past couple games. Also, passes have to go through each third as you move up the court. That means you can't pass from the goal you are defending all the way up to the goal scorer.
   
6. Goals can only be scored by the assigned shooting players. 
7. Netball games are 60 minutes long, divided into 15-minute quarters, at the end of which the team with the most goals scored wins. In our games, we just play two 15 minute halves and the only subbing is done during half time.

Brian came to watch me play tonight because my game was after Young Men's ended (usually they are at the same time). He was kind enough to take a few pictures so you could all see that I really am playing the game. Thanks baby!

You can't see the line, but I am stopped at the front of the middle third. I just sit and watch while my teammates shoot the ball and score (front right).

Here you can see me waiting on the line just in case we miss the ball and the other team gets the rebound.

The action shot is a little blurry, but I'm in the left corner passing the ball. Hopefully I made a good pass! (I have thrown quite a few away because I'm so out of practice - plus you don't get very long to hold the ball)

As you can see, I'm having a great time! It's a great cardio workout for me - there really is a lot of running around even though the pictures don't show it :)

And even though I'm the least experienced member of the team, I bring us good luck. Of the four games I've been to we have won 3 and tied 1. I'm pretty sure they have only one 1 of the games I haven't been to. I think I motivate everyone to pick up their game to make up for me being the weakest link haha. Thanks team for letting me play with you!

Where has the time gone?

So once again my Dad has given me crap about not posting on the blog. I keep telling him we haven't really done anything as we recover from the expense and days off from our trip with them over the Christmas holidays. Plus, somewhere in there was busy season for us tax accountants.

But I didn't realize it has actually been three months since my last post. Inexcusable! So this is just a quick note to say I am back on the job and I will be posting some things we have been doing around town over the next few days.