Without Wax

So as many of you know, I am kind of a fan of the US Women's National Team [soccer]. Just a little bit :-)  I'm one of "those people" who gets up at 3 in the morning to see them play.  After last years 3rd place finish in the Women's World Cup, I was looking forward to seeing them play in the Olympics.  Leading up to the Summer Games, three players were injured [Leslie Osborne tore her ACL, Cat Whitehill tore her ACL, and Abby Wambach broke two bones in her leg] After Abby broke her leg in the game before the Olympics, many people gave up on them saying that their Gold medal dreams were gone and that there was no way they were going to do anything.  In the first game against Norway, it looked like those people may have been right. They weren't playing their game and Norway scored twice in the first 4 minutes of the game.  But, they didn't score the rest of the game either, but neither did the US.  They beat Japan in their next game, 1-0.  This morning they played New Zealand.  There were many scenario's where the US could win the group or get second in their group which means they would move on.  There were also many where the US would get third and would only move on if they were one of the two third place teams to move on.  The game couldn't have gone better.  Heather O'Reilly scored in 40 seconds [yes, that's an Olympic record!] and then A-Rod, Tarpley and Hucles went on to score as well resulting in a 4-0 win.  This win meant that the US would move on, but it gets better.  Japan ended up beating Norway 5-1 which meant that even though Norway beat the US, the US won the group because of goal differential.  This probably isn't every exciting for any of you reading this, but I was ecstatic.  All of the people who doubted this team after the injuries they suffered are hopefully re-thinking what they previously said :-)Congratulations ladies and bring on Canada!

Melissa, Nichole, Shelbi, me and Mitch on the giant hot dog

All of us on their aunt's boat!

Our pyramid!  I started on the blue one by myself then Mitch jumped on and then when we were ready Melissa jumped on...all while the boat was moving! 

Okay, so the next few pictures have a little story behind them.  On the last full day we were down there, we were just tubing and swimming and stuff and they saw some people cliff jumping and so we decided to go do it.  We made sure it was deep enough with the distance thing on the boat and then we climbed up.  I'm not sure how or why but I originally got voted to go first.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I did [10 minutes later...and I'm not exagerrating we have it on tape] Melissa kept telling up to jump out but in a pencil jump and keep our legs together and point our toes.  Even after hearing this and picturing how to jump, I ended up just jumping out in a sky dive sort of jump arms and legs flailing.  I don't remember jumping or anything.  Just the pain of hitting the water.  I'm pretty sure I got a concussion, I got the wind knocked out of me, chipped my tooth and my mouth was all cut up.  It hurt.  I climbed back up to do it again but then I remembered the pain and decided against it.  Even though it hurt, it was fun!  As soon as I get the video, I'll post it on here.

All of use getting ready to jump off the cliff

This is the cliff [but not me jumping..that will be added when I get my pictures uploaded.]

This is over a month overdue, but keeping with the unspoken theme of my blog, better late than never!  

On June 10th, the Chicago Fire were in town playing the Columbus Crew at Shea Stadium.  The Sinclair's had some extra tickets so they invited me to go, thanks Sinclair's!  I was so excited! The last MLS game I went to [well the only one before this one] was the Chicago Fire vs. DC United back when they were still playing at Soldier Field, and they lost despite an awesome comeback in the second half.  

This game ended up going into overtime and the Chicago Fire winning :-)    I really wanted to see penalty kicks, but I guess it's for the better that they won during overtime, although they ended up scoring the winning goal on a penalty kick :-) 

One day I brought Jacob over to my house for a little bit after dropping Evan off at dat camp because he likes seeing Pele and stuff.  Well my mom was crushing cans so Jacob and I went out to help for a little bit and he loved it!  Then a couple days later, both of the boys were here before Vacation Bible School and Jacob wanted to crush some more cans so he and Evan went out and finished crushing what we had left and searched the house for more [they found two more in Luc's garbage can].  I wish I had pictures of them doing this because it was so funny to watch! 

Me, Zach, Lexie and Lucas

Emily, Greg, Brinnie, Jessie, Zach and Jeff