Saturday, August 20, 2016

Olympics Day 16: Track & Field Extravaganza!

Today was day 16 of our Olympics, and I must admit, it's a little bittersweet to be almost done. Today was our Track and Field Extravaganza, and we celebrated Spain, the last of our countries. 


 But before we got to that business today, we had to get all caught up on candy bar election stuff. Tomorrow we'll have a new round of states, so we wanted to make sure we knew who had voted and who still needed to vote. 


We did finally get the last of the results in for week 1, and with the Olympics coming to a close, we'll be able to be more involved with the Candy Bar Election (and finally getting to our Religion unit). 


But, until then, we're still in Olympic mania. My country was up last, so today I gave my country presentation, and we opened the Spain bag. 



For lunch, Asa made Paella. I am sort of over rice dishes, but I thought this was awesome. Plus, we made our sangria for dinner. Because you can't have Spain day without Sangria. 


There were four easy events for track and field day. The fist event I put together was hurdles. Basically, just a bunch of things to jump over and see how fast you can do the course. 


Asa and I sat this one out, but the boys all took turns at the course. Fastest time won, with a second penalty for every hurdle you hit/kicked over. 


I maybe should have made this a little easier for Hayden. But, he was ok with the bronze. Peyton won the silver, and Calib took home the gold. He told everyone he was going to sweep today. 


Next up, was discus. I picked this huge disc up at Target for like 90 cents or something crazy during the summer clearance. 


Everyone threw it as far as they could, and we marked it with chalk lines on the sidewalk. 


Everyone had three throws, but we rotated the order, so you didn't just take three throws in a row. It made it more fun that way. 



 Even though Asa and I played, we both failed to medal. Here's our Discus medalists. 

Next up was Javelin. We used straws as our javelins, and you got various points depending on which bucket your straw landed in. We decided to do this one inside because it was so fricken hot out today. I gave them some time to practice, and we decided we needed bigger buckets. It was harder than it looked! 


So, we got out bigger buckets and held our event. Asa and I played this one, too. Everyone got six javelin throws, and the best score won. 


And again, Calib ended up winning, Hayden took the silver, and Peyton took bronze. 


Dinner was awesome. We had tapas. Asa made marinated olives, and smoked paprika almonds. I highly recommend both. Peyton and I loved the almonds especially. 


He also made Artichokes Al Ajillo and Tortilla Espanola. The artichokes were all three of the boys 'least favorite thing' on their plate. But the potatoes were pretty popular. There wasn't any left. 


I helped Asa out and made the Spanish Apple and Manchego Tapas. Those were universally loved. And the Sangria wasn't bad, either. 


We topped it all off with some shrimp fitters, and some cookies and dulce de leche spread from Trader Joes. If you ever go, pick up that and some cookie butter. You'll thank me. 


After dinner we played our last track and field event, Shot Put. I colored some skewers to mark where everyone's throws landed. We used the baby pools for the circle to throw from, and everyone had to spin around three times, and then throw the ball from their shoulder. Hayden had a baby pool a little closer than everyone else's. 


We all took turns, just like in discus. Everyone took a throw, we marked it with the colored skewer, and then the next person went. We all threw three times. 




 Even though he threw from further back than everyone, it really was no surprise that Asa was the winner. 


Our shot put medalists. 


We did have one other event today. We pulled out all the pizza boxes and voted for gold, silver, and bronze. (Asa said his box should be excluded since he only did about half of it- but someone has to work some time!) 


Hayden and I tied for gold in votes, so we decided we could be co-gold medalists instead of trying to break the tie. Instead of not having a silver, I just structured it so everyone could have a medal. 


In Spain, they apparently sometimes have churros dunked in hot chocolate for breakfast. But, my kids don't get up early enough for breakfast. So instead, Asa made us churros for dessert- complete with hot chocolate! 



Our bags are all done, sort of. I have one surprise for tomorrow. 


Final medalists are pretty much set, I think, barring anything crazy. I mean, with all of Italy's medals, I think Calib has gold wrapped up. 


The medal board is almost complete. We have two events tomorrow, and that will be that. 


The only final medalists in question is really whether Asa or Hayden gets the bronze. It will come down to trading cards, but Hayden has the edge there, so I think the boys will finish first, second, and third- which of course is by design. 


Not sure I will be back tomorrow night with the final Olympics blog. That might not happen until Monday, but all we have left is two events: our Pentathlon and Closing Ceremonies Bingo. We're doing something a bit different with the Pentathlon than just having five track and field events. So I'm pretty excited about that. It's going to be a great way to wrap everything up. 

I leave you with a cute picture of Hayden and Ellie taken this morning. 


 Next Up: The Closing Ceremonies! 

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