If you've been with the blog for awhile, you know I love myself some Olympic Games. Mostly because we hold our own Olympics here! It all started in 2014 for the Winter Games in Sochi. Then, we "headed to Rio" in 2016 for the Summer Games. Which kicked off my idea for the country project, in which we cooked a meal from every country recognized by the UN over just over 13 months. I had hoped to finsih it in a year, but it worked out- because we finished up our country project along with the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang. Those are some links, you guys. We do fun stuff around here.
Anyway, I always knew I'd be pushing my luck to get them to do the 2020 Olympics. You're looking at a 20, 18, and 14 year old at that point. But then, 2020 became 2021, and I kind of can't even believe my now 21, 19, and 15 year olds were cool with doing this again. (And now, fingers crossed I'll get them to do it one more time because we're only 6 months out from the next winter games, thanks to the delay. If not though, I'm at peace with being able to do the Summer & Winter Games twice each).
But before we even think about 2022 Winter Games. It's time to spend the next two weeks FINALLY celebrating the 2020 Tokyo Olympics! Now, we are starting just a smidge early. That's because we're heading to Disney the last couple days of the Olympics and won't be home. And I do NOT want to be cheated out of any Olympics! (Also, Wednesday's are Calib's day off so it worked out!)
So on Wednesday July 21, we kicked off our Olympics. Of course, the first order of business was to make a torch for our relay race. A little foam, a wrapping paper roll and we have ourselves a nice festive torch.
And of course I dug out our Olympic Flame to be lit.
But before we can get to that, we've got some other business to attend to for Day 1 of our Olympics. I'm reusing the country/presidential area in the kitchen (spoiler alert: I've got a new project for the fall too!)
Over on the chalkboard in the living room we'll be keeping track of our medals.
And the "podium" is there too.
Medals for the Olympics in past year has been candy- and then "real" medals given to the person who has the most points in medals overall (3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze). But this year, we're upping the stakes. You get candy AND you get money. The Bronze medal is a penny; the silver, a quarter; the Gold a William Henry Harrison Buck (it's a gold dollar, and highly sought after).
So, of course money is an incentive all in it's own (maybe not the penny, but it's bronze colored, dang it). But, I'm also letting them use that money to bet on events! There is a maximum they can bet, and they don't have to...
But if they want to, they write their bets on their dry erase betting cards.
Because of the time difference in Tokyo, we do have two boards. One for an event taking place tomorrow (those are the open bets), and then that's moved to the "Betting Closed" board before bedtime. Below you'll find the jars they're keeping their medals (aka money) in.
This betting thing is also cool, because they're all watching stuff with me! (We're on day 7 now- and no joke I got them to watch equestrian dressage with me!)
In past years, we've taken the Olympics as an opportunity to learn about various countries throughout the world. We've had projects where everyone picks a country, we've done the country project in coordination in them. But, we've been there and done that-- several times. Still, I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate something like that again.
So, I came up with a way to put that knowledge into action with our 'Olympic Spotlight Countries'. Each day I place a new mystery country sheet in the mailbox. They can't use google, books, or anything but their memory to figure out what country it is.
They fill out their guesses and put it in the mailbox, and if they're right they can either choose to add that country's medal total to theirs in the end (a max of six countries- and this isn't always an option), or to get an advantage in their next Olympic event.
I post the country and the winners here.
Japan was an obvious one, and I used it as an example to show them what the info sheets would look like.
All of that- the Spotlight guesses, the betting, their money banked, and their medal counts are all recorded on their clipboards here.
Now the Spotlight country is also important, because you know I love a themed meal! So the day the Spotlight Country is revealed we're having the same meals we had during the country project.
Japan was a little different though.
But it did entice everyone to show up for dinner, so that's cool.
I took some help from the Costco freezer section and Trader Joes.
But we also had an Door Dash coupon for half off, so we ordered some food to share from Ginza as well.
Lots of sushi.
And some hibachi.
Of course, this is the Olympics. So we're going to need some individual country flags!
After dinner we got out some sharpies and went to work.
I went the Disney route.
Asa's was simple but cool.
Of course, we have the nation of Calb (yes, no I, it's a family joke).
Hayden's features an axolotl (and the colors in which axolotls come).
And Peyton's features a little of everything: mountains, sea and sky.
The flags were raised (we'll later use these to keep track of the medal race, to show current placings).
And now, there's just one thing left to do: Light the Olympic flame.
And who doesn't cook smores over the Olympic flame?
Our torch rally started outside by the fire..
Hayden "lit" the torch,
And handed it off to Peyton..
Who took the torch inside to Calib..
Who was waiting to "light" (flip the on switch) of our Olympic flame inside.
So why Calib? Because he won the last summer games in Rio.
And just like that, the Tokyo Olympic Games are FINALLY open... just a year late!
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