2020(1) Summer Games Day 4: Skateboarding & Basketball

 Welcome to Day 4 of our 2020 Summer Games! 

It was a Saturday, so while Calib was at work, Asa had the day off. So we did take a small(ish) Saturday bike ride. (It's soooo hot out there, people!) We ran to Publix to pick up a few things for our country dinners.. 

And then swung by Capital Tacos.. 

To split some nacho fries and fried cheesecake for lunch. 

There's a couple of new sports debuting in Tokyo this year. Baseball and Softball are back. But, never before have they had Surfing, Karate, Sport Climbing, 3x3 basketball, and our event today... Skateboarding! 

I debated what to do with this event, but decided to pull out our pool noodle letters (these always come in handy!) and make a track in the kitchen. You had to ride the little blue board around the track.. 

And spell Skateboarding Debut on the Longboard, bringing only two letters at a time. 

Peyton went first... 

And then Hayden was up. We discovered the little blue elementary school boards didn't super support the weight of nearly grown adults, so halfway through Haydens run, he switched to Calib's skateboard. 

Both respectable times, but they would have to wait until Calib got home to find out their times and the winner. 

In the meantime, we hit the pool (which is feeling a lot like bath water these days). 

And then when Calib got home, he did the run. 

And he ended up beating Hayden's time by about 9 seconds. 

Peyton was asleep by the time we did the medals, so we took the podium picture without him. 

For dinner, our Spotlight country was Austria.  Everyone got this one correct too. 

Dinner was Wienerschnitzel (kind of, we made it with chicken), Austrian Hash, and Austrian White Aspargus with Brown Butter Sauce

We served it with apples and had some strudels from the Publix Bakery for dessert. 

For our next event, we headed out to the driveway for around the world. To denote the spots to shoot from, I brought out some flags. Festive, right? 

It was kind of funny, as soon as I put down the flags a bunch of neighbors were like "are you guys playing the Olympics?" 

They stayed out for awhile and played some actual basketball, which is why they're all sweaty and dying. But, here are your basketball medalists for 2020. 

A check at the current medal count.. 

And the current standings.. 

And a locked in bet.. Calib went and looked at odds and picked South Korea, sure one of their two standout fencers would win. Hayden picked Italy because he watched Luca that day. And, Italy came out on top. So, that was kind of funny. 

Here's where the boys stand with everything.. 

2020(1) Summer Games Day 3: Fencing & Handball

 Welcome to Day 3 of the 2020 Summer Games! It was a Friday, so Calib had the day off, and Asa is done with work by lunchtime- so those are the days when I schedule the longer (and usually funner) events- and the events where everyone needs to be at the same place at the same time. Up first a couple of my favorites: Handball & Fencing. 

Ok, really fencing is my FAVORITE. I would have saved it for last, but in case Olympics participation fell off, I put it first. 

So, how do you play fencing? Well, all you need is an egg, some packing tape, a headband from the Headbandz game, and a pool noodle (for spacing, we do use baby pools to keep everyone in a contained space). Oh, and goggles for safety. Safety first! 

 It's a pretty easy set up- all you do is tape the egg to the headband, and then you beat the crap out of each other with pool noodles, trying to break the other person's egg (or knock the whole headband off, that's acceptable as well). 

The boys all got the spotlight country correct and chose an advantage in fencing- so they received a first round bye, which meant... 

It was me... 

vs. Asa. And, judging by the picture, you probably already know who won. 

My egg was smashed in record time. 

The next bout... Calib... 

vs. Asa... 

A hard fought battle, but Asa advanced to the Gold Medal Bout. 

Up next: Hayden... 

vs. Peyton (who goes abnormally hard during this event- in fact, everyone did. Over the years this one has gotten much more violent.) 

Again, a hard fought battle.. 

But, Peyton came out on top.. 

Leaving Calib and Hayden to play for the bronze medal. 

Tough one for Calib (who has a hard time keeping the headband on his giant head). Hayden ended up with the bronze. 

And now.. for the gold medal bout. 

Peyton went really, really hard. Too hard in fact, he ended up taking a swing, which Asa backed away from, and falling flat on his face, breaking his egg. 

Our 2020 Fencing Medalists! 

And now, for another one of my favs: Handball. Peyton bowed out of this one. So, I played Hayden in the first match. Handball is basically like a kid friendly giant beer pong. And, Hayden isn't great at it. I won and advanced to the gold medal match. 

Then Asa and Calib faced off. 

Asa advanced, which left Hayden and Calib to play for the bronze medal matches. We decided for the medal matches, when your opponent got the ball in one of your buckets, you had to dump the water from that bucket over your head. 

It wasn't too bad, it was a hot day, so the water was actually refreshing. 

Ultimately, Hayden lost that one too. And the bronze went to Calib. 

And then Asa and I faced off for gold. 

Of course, he murdered me. But hey, at least I got the silver! 

And the podium for 2020 Handball... (notice how we're all a bit drenched). 

After all of that he hit the pool for a bit. 

Our spotlight country was an easy one: Australia. But, I was trying to get one in from every continent and there's a couple stipulations I followed: the country had to be in our five spoons up cookbook from the country project, And the country had to be predicted to win at least some medals in the Olympics. That did not leave me with any options for Oceania but Australia. 

Our dinner was a hit the second time around: Aussie Burgers with the Lot! Served with chips, Roasted vinegar asparagus, and Granny Smith apples (they were first grown in Australia). 

The Olympics in Tokyo were finally getting started, so we had our first event to bet on, too! 

The current standings.. 

And then we spent the evening watching the Opening Ceremonies from Tokyo. We particularly enjoyed the video played of how the Olympics was delayed (they went from ball drops for 2020 to showing empty landmarks from around the world, to Olympians home videos from trying to stay in shape during shut downs), and the pictogram guy who demonstrated all the Olympic sports, oh and the music for the parade of nations (the boys do enjoy the parade of nations more since the country project for sure). I actually got everyone but Peyton to watch the whole Opening Ceremonies with me, which was more than I expected! 

And that's it for our day three!