Utah Summer Games

I have been volunteering at the Utah Summer Games the past few days because of Kami. She had signed up to keep score and do the books for the basketball games, but there weren't enough volunteers to cover all the games so I got dragged along to help out. It was a lot of fun! More fun than I thought it would be - especially considering that I don't really like basketball that much. I've decided that basketball goes on the list of sports that I only enjoy watching live (joining baseball, soccer, pretty much any sport really....except football, that I'll watch on tv).

Watching the men's games definitely was the best part. There are some hot men that play basketball and they play it well. Kami and I had fun staring at the cute players. It got a little distracting though, I forgot to start the clock a few times cuz I was more focused on the player instead of the game. But since I'm so cute they forgave me :) One of the refs took it upon himself to find me a husband. Too bad the first three guys he asked were either too young or married. It did make me feel better that the ref, Phil, thought I was 20 which explains why he tried to set me up with the 18 year old. The best part of that night was when I completely embarrassed myself, without any help from Phil.

At one of the games there were no fans at all - just the teams, refs, and us - so it was pretty quiet. Since there were no fans we decided to that we had to cheer and make it a fun game for the teams. As we were discussing which team to cheer for, the realization came to me that #24 on the white team was cute! Unfortunately, I decided to relate that realization during a foul shot, in a louder-than-I-thought voice, so everyone heard it. I just slapped my hand across my mouth saying "crap, that was loud". Phil turned around and gave me the biggest smile that said "yep that was loud, but awesome". Luckily #24 took it well and just smiled throughout the game every time he looked our way.

The overall best part of the weekend happened today. Kami, Amy, and I were at the scoreboard table waiting to get the team's rosters when I hear from both Kami and Amy "Hey, that's Randy!" I looked up and indeed it was Randy from Kid History. (If you haven't seen any Kid History episodes go here NOW! and watch all 5 episodes. It won't disappoint, I promise.) That's when I realized that the guy writing down the roster was also from Kid History - he just has a smaller part, he had to give up his moneys. So we got to meet celebrities and watch them play basketball! Mark, the guy who wrote down the team's roster, was really nice and had fun talking to us before the game started.

We had to delay the game by a few minutes cuz one of the coaches missed the Cedar exit. A few guys came over to talk to us when I kept changing the time for when the game starts. They teased us telling us that we should be the officials and talked to us till it was time to start. It was one of those same guys who came to tell us good job at the end of the game, he also happened to be shirtless at that time..he totally planned it that way too. I saw him take his shirt off, wait about two seconds, then come to shake everyone's hand to say thanks. It made me smile, not just because he was cute, but also cuz he actually made the effort to try to impress us.

Sadly, Randy only talked to us when he came to tell us good job at the end of the game. But we had a lot of fun watching him play and trying so hard to not quote Kid History so as to not be distracted - I totally failed at that one, bytheway. Kami overheard the family of Randy's team talking during the game saying that they should try to bribe one of us by offering us Randy's autograph. She also caught Randy's mom giving him a face that said "she's cute, you should talk to her" but we don't know which one of us that look was about.

It was pretty much an epic day and weekend. I totally enjoyed it and I'm excited to see what else this crazy summer has in store for me!

Days 13 - 14

Yesterday I totally forgot to go see the kids until it was almost their bedtime. I figured that it would be better to not go over cuz I tend to make them hyper for the first half hour or so after I show up, so I didn't see them. It was a busy Sunday. Jake, Sean, and Craig came over to make some yummy treats for Shawesome's birthday party. They ended up staying at our house for 3 hours having fun. Then we headed over to the party.

Today the kids and I went for a walk that ended at my house. Nilla and Kami had fun playing with the kids. Most of my roommates had expressed how much they wanted to see the kids again before they leave, so I figured it would be ok to offer to let them sleep at my house tomorrow night - don't worry the roommies have all said it would be sweet :)

Coloring time with Nilla!

Popsicles with Aunt Katie - it's a tradition :)

Special Olympics end - Day 12 of kiddos

How to describe the way I am feeling....I know! I'm tired, sore, sunburned, exhausted, and happy! In comparison to the other days, the last day of the Special Olympics was pretty much amazing. There were many, many pros to the day and almost no cons.

This morning was the easiest beginning of all the days. We didn't have to worry about anyone not getting picked up because the drivers had to get the correct luggage packed, so they were going to all the hotels anyways. Not only was the morning easy, all day was easy. The drivers didn't need any real supervision from us. So instead of stressing over buses, Melody and I decided to entertain ourselves in other ways.

One of those ways was to play with Melody's hacky sack. Since we aren't talented enough to use our feet, we made up our own game - we call it hand hacky sack. It's the same game you just use your hands instead of your feet. We had a lot of fun playing that game. But I have to say my favorite part was that Nathan - one of the SUU co-directors for the games - and I had a lot of fun flirting over the radio as the hand hacky sack game was developed and played. I don't remember how the flirting started, but it was lots of fun and lasted for a while (I'd totally go out with him if he asked). Nathan wasn't the only one I flirted with today either. One of the bus drivers and I had fun talking today during his off time. Sadly I only got to see a glimpse of the cute BYU coach or I'd have tried flirting with him too (have I ever mentioned that I'm kind of a flirt when there's cute men around? Cuz I am).

We didn't have very many volunteers today - the least we've had all 3 days - so Melody and I helped out at Olympic Town every now and then. It was a nice break from the hot, hot sun. While we were helping out Cindy and the kids showed up!

I often thought that the kids were only happy to see me because they got cotton candy..

I love how Jason sticks his face in the cotton candy

Emily preferred snow cones over cotton candy

Finally, the kid will eat an apple! We've been trying for a week to get her to eat one. I should have know that I just had to tell her that it was MY apple and she'd eat it..

Just as Cindy and the kids showed up, so did a special guest....DARTH VADAR!!

They were mobbed as soon as people saw them. We had to have body guards around them when they were walking over because the athletes would just swarm them and block traffic. Shelly really wanted to meet one so I took her over there to meet a Storm Trooper. Except that she was so scared of him that she wouldn't even wave or give him a high five. To get her to not be scared anymore, the Storm Trooper took his helmet off so Shelly could see that he wasn't really all that scary. He was really nice and let her wear the helmet to see what it was like.

Shelly the Storm Trooper!

She warmed up to him in the end

She ran back to Cindy afterwards and told her all about her new friend

Some of the Games Organizational Committee

(left to right: Storm Trooper, Taylor [I think], Kaite B, Chewy, Me, Jose, Nathan [yes he's the one of the above mentioned flirting])

Olympic Town had a bean bag toss game. The kids had fun playing around there. Jason made some new friends while playing with the bean bags. The athlete would throw the bag, Jason would go pick it up, and bring it back to him to throw again. It was too cute!

At the end of the day Melody and I were trying to get our buses out of town so that we could be done! Every time one of them left we would jump on the radio and celebrate. When it came time to turn our radios in, Melody and I had the following conversation:

Me: Hey my friend, Melody!

Melody: Yes my friend Katie?

Me: Guess what! We are officially DONE!!!!!

Melody: (half through the radio, half heard from far away) YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Rochelle: Hey my amazing transportation girls

Us: Yes?

Rochelle: Are you officially done?

Us: YESS!!!!

-We were only a little excited :) -

Rochelle and Bobbyjo (the SLC directors and the big bosses of the whole games) had nothing but praise for us. Rochelle specifically asked me if I was coming back next year and if I enjoyed doing transportation enough to do it again (Yes and yes, Rochelle). Both Rochelle and Bobbyjo were amazed at how well we were able to come together as a committee in such a short amount of time. They are very excited to come back to SUU next year for the games and want all of us to come back as well. I'm all in!!

Special Olympics the Second

Today was very boring compared to yesterday. It started and ended a little crazy, though. I texted all our bus drivers at 7:30 to make sure that they were up and getting their people at the hotels to the different venues. We had to make sure that that someone stopped at every hotel - we have 5 drivers and 10 hotels - so that we didn't repeat yesterday and forget someone. After the buses each made 2-3 trips, we sent all but 2 away.

During the day, we just had 2 buses making a loop between the two different venues. Our job mostly consisted of answering any questions the bus drivers (or passengers) had, sitting around making sure the buses showed up at regular intervals, and joking around on the radio - that one sentence basically describes 10 hours of my day.

The busiest time was at the end of the night. Melody and I had to figure out not only where the buses were going tonight, but how we were going to get everyone's luggage to the right bus tomorrow morning. Luckily we have great drivers who are willing to go around to multiple hotels in the morning and pick up those people who are leaving Cedar on their bus. Hopefully tomorrow morning won't be too hectic for us..

Ups and Downs of today:

-I officially look like a lobster

-Cindy brought Shelly, Jason, and Emily to come visit me!

-Nilla brought COLD water and umbrellas to shade ourselves with

-Rochelle (our boss) loves us

-Found out that playing card games in the hot sun with no shade is only fun for about 20 minutes

-One of the BYU coaches is totally cute!

-Didn't get yelled at today

-The cute coach complemented us on our smooth running of the bus shuttling

-We actually got to EAT!

-Sitting out in 70 degree weather without shade for 10 hours makes me tired, grumpy, and very, very sarcastic on the radio (turns out most of people think I'm funny when I'm that sarcastic)

Special Olympics!

K, I've got about 10 minutes of energy left in me, but I wanted to quickly write up my crazy day. It started at 5:30 this morning when I woke up to jump in the shower. Jason woke up as I was rummaging around getting my clothes. I got him situated with a movie so that he wouldn't go roaming around the house waking people up and showered. After Jason and I were fed, I took him over to Cindy's. I was able to see the kids for a bit - Shelly is still pretty sick - and I was off to begin this next adventure.

Honestly, I can't remember what happened this morning...It is a jumble of random last minute set up details, finding out where everything was happening, and meeting the bus drivers. Melody (my cohort over transportation) and I had to figure out the bus schedules, making sure they didn't go over 10 hours - it was hard since they had all just driven 6 hours to get here. Then we had to worry about who needed to get where and when, and if we had enough time and drivers.

The biggest problems of today:

-Forgetting to send a bus to certain hotels, we had some people waiting for an hour or two

-Lost luggage, a good Samaritan turned out to be not such a good Samaritan, since the luggage actually went to a different hotel...

-One of the bus drivers didn't have a hotel reservation...he got it figured out, not too sure what went on there..

-Making one bus driver go over his 10 hours because we were bad at communication

-Getting yelled at at the end of the night because of the 30 minute wait for a bus

-Lack of cones for blocking off where the buses were parking, so we had to stand all day in the spots telling people to move

-Going far too long without food because we had to figure out the above problems

The biggest ups of today:

-Getting to know Melody really well (we spent all day with basically just the two of us at the bus drop off/pick up), we have a TON of inside jokes now

-Spending time with the Special Olympics athletes

-Having a radio and listening to the funny things that were said

-Ranking the bus drivers by likability

-Having Nilla show up with food for us!

-Being asked if we are free to come back next year to work it again (TOTALLY!!) and it's only the first day!

Day 9

I am tired! Today was set up day for the Special Olympics, which start tomorrow. I got to lug around chairs and tables and set up soccer goals for 3 hours today, it would have been longer if I hadn't had to go get Jason. Shelly is sick - she barely responded to me when I said hi - and Cindy didn't want Jason to catch what she has, so Jason is asleep on my floor. I have to be at the Colliseum at 8 am tomorrow morning and I doubt I'll be home before 10 pm. So basically, I'm not gonna be doing anything other than working the games till Saturday. This is gonna be fun! I'll see y'all again on Sunday!