Our Iceland-UK-Olympics Vacation PART I

The 2012 London Olympic Games

I know I said I was going to tell you about our recent Iceland-UK vacation in one post, but I'm sitting here watching the 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony on TV right now and am feeling inspired to at least tell you about the Olympic games part of our trip!

Many years ago we decided that we wanted to visit England one day. Then when London was announced as the host to the 2012 Summer Olympics, we decided that's when we should go. So this vacation has been part of our plans for a long time. Over a year ago, we bid on tickets to several Olympic events and ended up with tickets only to women's court volleyball. Our entire trip was then planned around these tickets for Olympic volleyball on August 2, 2012.

We left the USA for Iceland on July 26, 2012, visited Reykjavik for a day, arrived in London late July 27, 2012, took a train to Scotland for several days, returned back to London where we spent the rest of our trip, save for one day when we left the city for a whirlwind tour of Bath, England, Stonehenge and Windsor Castle. I'll tell you all about the rest of our trip in another post. For now, here are some photos from the Olympic games we attended.

In the afternoon of Tuesday, July 31, 2012 we met a family from Canada who had extra tickets for women's football [soccer] that night so my husband and eldest daughter were very lucky to be able to go to that game. They saw Great Britain vs. Brazil! So fantastic to see these two teams play each other. Let me tell you that any Olympic game is just AWESOME to see in person. But when the host team is playing? The crowds go WILD! It's like nothing else. You can imagine what it's like to be there in person when you're watching the games on TV and you see and hear the spectators cheering, but when you're there it's SO much louder, more thrilling and you cannot help but feel so lucky and so happy to be a part of something so spectacular. Great Britain won that game, by the way. GBR vs BRA 1-0.

Earl's Court Venue for Court Volleyball
2012 Summer Olympics, London

Two days later, on the afternoon of August 2, 2012 we headed to Earl's Court for women's court volleyball. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you probably saw most of these photos already. We had only picked up our tickets that morning in London, but when we got to the stadium we noticed that our seats were split up! Not good. I guess this happens often enough because we were directed to the ticket reconciliation counter to see if we could switch our seats. I was worried that we'd get worse seats, but no! They were even better! We were in the FIRST ROW! Yay! How's that for luck?

We saw two matches that afternoon. First was Turkey vs. Serbia, in which Turkey won in three sets. SRB vs TUR 0-3 and then Great Britain vs. Italy in which Italy won in three sets GBR vs ITA 0-3. We had a fantastic time. We were all smiles and kept on the edge of our seats watching these fantastic athletes compete against each other. Here are some photos from women's Olympic court volleyball:

Women's Volleyball
TUR vs SRB 3-0
2012 Summer Olympics, London 

Team GB Women's Volleyball
GBR vs. ITA 0-3
2012 Summer Olympics, London

The court sweepers for women's volleyball.
2012 Summer Olympics, London

Whenever we were in our hotel room we had the BBC coverage of the Olympics on the television. On Saturday morning, August 4, 2012 we caught the women's triathlon on television and I remembered that I made a note to myself WEEKS ago that I wanted to try to see some of this event! You know, since I became a triathlete myself last year and all. ;) So I did some super quick research on the triathlon course and where would be the best place for spectators without tickets to go for viewing this event. We booked out of our hotel, hopped on the Tube and raced over to Hyde Park where we were able to catch the last few laps of the running component of the triathlon. Even though it was really crowded and we had a limited view of the course, it was still SO thrilling or me to be able to catch part of this event in person. I was quite happy. Here are a few shots of the athletes in women's triathlon:

Women's Triathlon
2012 Summer Olympics
Hyde Park, London

Women's Triathlon
2012 Summer Olympics
Hyde Park, London

And that my friends, is how we were spectators in the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Truly an experience of a lifetime. And if I could do it again, I would. In a heartbeat.

A view of Beach Volleyball
as seen from the top of The London Eye

Now I want to go to Sochi in 2014. :)

A Slush Run

Sounds like a post about an impulsive run to the local quickmart to get a slushy drink, doesn't it? ;)

It's actually in reference to a really great run I had the other day at the park after we had that snowstorm last week. Since we can't leave my father-in-law home alone anymore, I had asked my husband to come home two hours early the other day to watch over his dad so I could get the girls to a 5 pm appointment, and he surprised me by coming home even earlier than I asked so I had a few extra hours to myself. Awesome! So what did I do with that time? Go running, of course!

I headed to my favorite running spot to check out the trails, not sure what condition they'd be in only a short day or two after the snowstorm. This is what I found:



A lot of the paved trail is covered with soft packed snow or slush and a few patches of ice.

Sounds crazy to run on, I know, but wow was that fun!

I started out walking cautiously on the hard packed or icy spots, but found that it was actually really fun to run on the soft packed stuff. Almost like running on sand, which is more work than running on pavement, that's for sure.

My pace turned out to be pretty slow. I ran 4 miles in 51 minutes. Ugh. I probably shouldn't even admit that in a public place!

I'm sure I was so slow because of the extra caution I was taking on the mixed conditions, but it was almost like interval training, in a way, as I frequently changed my pace depending on the conditions underfoot. Either way, fast or slow, it felt so good to be out there. The temperature was in the mid 30s (around 0 C), the sun was shining, the sky was so blue, and I was loving it! The run was both exhilarating and relaxing. And what pretty views, too.

Speaking of pretty views, here are a few photos I took of the yard during last week's snowstorm.

This is the side yard where my feathered friends dine on berries and hide from the mean hawks. This was taken a few hours into last Wednesday's snowstorm. Six inches down, eleven more to go.

This photo was taken maybe two hours after having just shoveled the first 6 inches off the cars, driveway and sidewalks and it was still coming down strong.

The next morning, my husband took this photo of yours truly, finishing up the third shoveling in under 24 hours. I love the smell of the air and the clear blue, sunny skies the day after a snow storm.

It was snowing again last night into this morning. I took this is a photo the backyard this morning when I ventured out to the compost pile with an overflowing bucket of a week's worth of kitchen scraps. You'll see and read more about my compost pile in the coming weeks and months because I started an experiment this morning. I'm sure you're all dying to know more about it. ;p

The house looks a lot different now compared to back then, huh? Or even then? Or wow... way back then!?

I mentioned the other day in my Snow Day Chili post how much I love snowstorms and snow days. How magical it is to watch the landscape outside turn into a glittering winter wonderland. Well, just so you know, that prettiness lasts about two days, if you're lucky. Soon all those piles of snow along the streets and sidewalks become so dirty from mud, pebbles, street grime, piddled yellow from dog pee and children's snow sculptures start to keel over, and it all looks like such a big ugly mess. Lucky for us, though, it snowed another 2 inches last night to cover all that ugliness with a fresh, clean white coating. The beauty of it is that this snow isn't sticking to the pavement. Except by some cruel intervention by mother nature, because our driveway is the only one in the whole neighborhood on which the snow stuck! As I drove my youngest to school... NOT ONE other driveway or sidewalk in our neighborhood had snow stuck to it! What the heck is up with that? Even my neighbor called out to me as I was shoveling and said, "Hey, looks like it only snowed over your house last night." Followed by a laugh! What the HECK? I know I said I actually enjoyed shoveling the snow, but COME ON!

Anyway, while I'm on the subject of fun in the snow.... are you watching the Olympics? I love watching the Olympics, both summer and winter, but I think the winter games are my favorite. Maybe because my husband and I were big time skiers back in the day B.C. (before children). Now we are lucky if we go once or twice a season. Or at all. :(

My husband and I vacationed at Whistler Blackcomb ski area back in 1993. I know that sounds like a long time ago, but it feels like just yesterday for me. Anyway, such a beautiful place with some really great skiing.

So we've been watching the games every day and night. When I was a little girl, I absolutely loved the figure skating. Now I enjoy watching it, but it's not my favorite. My favorite events are all of the ski and snowboard events. The freestyle ski and snowboard events are so fun to watch, as are the cross country events, the combined events, and the races. Oh, and I like to watch the speed skating. Curling is an interesting event, too. I'm going to try to catch some of those events on t.v., too.

What's your favorite event?

One more thing. If you have an iPhone and you're into following the Olympic games, you need to download the free NBC Olympics app. It gives you access to just about anything you want to know about the games including the daily schedule of events, what's going to be broad casted on television or online and when, the medal counts, stats about the athletes and countries, news stories, and so much more.

I think that's all the snow talk I have for now. I hope you're enjoying whatever kind of weather is in your corner of the world. :)