Friday

I went to New York this week, I left this morning at 6 am. I have more to say but oh my oh my I love that city. 

Father's Day

Several years ago (eight of them to be exact-time is starting to feel like a joke) I was getting on a plane back to Boston after a day of meetings in New York. It's a short trip so I just grabbed one of the lame free magazines they have in the terminal for people like me who would likely be on their blackberries anyway.

I happened to pick up a preview for Men's Health (what?) that had an article about fatherhood with 10 lessons from a "wise guy who's done doing the dad thing." The piece reduced me to a complete mess in my seat and I have since dragged that magazine through two more country moves and then here to Colorado. I read it every so often and I read it A LOT after I get my heart broken to remind myself what kind of guy I want playing dad to my future kids. It's a terrific article and although I've never been able to find much more than this online, you get the gist.

So I was pretty thrilled a few weeks ago when my dear friend from college wrote to tell me he has a book coming out called "Dad Rules" -a collection of some of the advice he has picked up in his years as a father to four beautiful daughters and one baby boy.

I met Treion my sophomore year at Southern Utah University. He was South African and really handsome so he became something of an instant celebrity at our small town school. We delighted in getting him to say things with his cool accent and kept him up way too late on school nights entertaining us.

Fortunately Treion was far more than a sophomore year novelty and we stayed good friends throughout the rest of school. We worked in the campus bookstore together and he holds the distinction of being the only candidate for Student Body President I ever supported who actually won. He's quite simply one of the nicest and most humble guys I know and over the years watching him become a husband and father and take it incredibly seriously has been a delight.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of the book-I ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting and feeling the same way I did as I read that article on the plane.

I love that we live in an era where being a good dad is cool. I love that men are more involved with their children's lives than ever before, and I really, really love having so many wonderful examples of outstanding fathers in my own life.

Treion's book comes out this Tuesday and if you are a dad, you have a dad, or you know a dad, you should pick it up.  Even though my three brothers TOTALLY RULE at being dads, I'm getting one for each of them.

My brother being an awesome dad. 

                                     

Girls Girls Girls

This week one of my coworkers invited to me to what he called "E's fourth birthday or really, an excuse for the adults to drink beer and listen to music on a sunny day." They were also getting a bounce house so obviously I was in.

So Friday night I braved the toy section at Target, pretty excited to buy little girl stuff for a change. Imagine how my excitement turning to horror as I realized that little girl's toys are actually THE WORST. Everything is pink and apparently little girls like hair, makeup, clothes, horses, nails, shoes and dolls with giant breasts. Jon and his wife are smart, cool people with two smart, cool daughters and I just couldn't imagine they would be thrilled for me to walk in with something wearing a halter top. I walked around and around until I found a Lego set made just for girls. It was pink, and apparently you build a cute pink house but it was definitely something smart and more aspirational than the ten thousand items you can buy so your little girl can grow up to be a princess.

When I was a preteen, my mom wouldn't let me read The Babysitter's Club books or the Sweet Valley High books. I was a pretty obedient kid and instead, I spent a summer reading all the L.M. Montgomery books. When I did finally sneak and read a BSC book, even my teenage brain understood that while there was nothing particularly offensive about the series, there was certainly a disproportionate emphasis on boys and clothes and popularity. Meanwhile, Anne Shirley and Emily Starr were imaginative young writers who had adventures and kindred spirits and went to college and didn't worry about soul mates until they had the careers they had dreamed of. Anne doesn't marry Gilbert Blythe until book five and she meets him pretty much at the beginning of book one.

Look-I love clothes and make up and boys and popularity. I played with Barbie's and My Little Ponies and walked around in my mother's high heels. But my parents also let me play with the bag of organs in the Thanksgiving turkey because they wanted to encourage my dream of becoming a veterinarian. I have observed over and over that being the SMART girl in a pair of great heels will get you way, way further than playing the dumb girl in any kind of clothing.

So yesterday at the party, I found myself saying to the little females-tiny girls really-"oh you are so cute, but you are also so smart!" Cheesy? For sure. Possibly unnecessary at 2 and 3 years old? Maybe. But I met my nephew Brady tonight-the one we were eagerly awaiting in December-and these are the girls that Brady is going to hang out with. I want them to be the kinds of women who get up on Saturday morning and ride their bikes to the top of a mountain instead of taking pole dancing classes.

Watch out little future nieces, I will totally be the aunt who buys you a microscope.

Sisters!

Baby sister face

Oldest sister face

 I love being in a family. 

Slip away

Last night was kind of a perfect evening. The kind where you show up at the venue alone but within about 20 minutes you are sitting in a nest of a bunch of friends you haven't seen in ages and then the music starts and it's warm and inviting and the audience is totally with them the whole time.  If you ever have a chance to see either Motopony or Typhoon please go.

I'm posting one more Motonpony song today because this one almost made me cry last night. Waiting is far more romantic in love song theory than it is in cold hard reality but this song is so pretty. It does a good job of capturing that "I hope this happens but it likely won't but please if it could" feeling you get when you are trying to be patient in what feels like an impossible situation. Not that I have ever been in one of those of course.



(These guys left my house just as clean and put together as they found it. And even left a thank you note. Polite musicians are my favorite. )

Poker

Funny things sometimes happen when your friend is a widely read music blogger. You might find yourself  on Josh Ritter's tour bus at midnight on a Wednesday, you might get to enjoy Friends and Family night with Devotchka and the Colorado Symphony, you could be sitting in an old stone church listening to a member of Band of Horses play an acoustic set for six people.

Or last night, you could be blowing up an air mattress for two very sleepy members of Motopony who just needed a good night's rest after eight shows at SXSW.

Motopony is opening for Typhoon tonight here in COS and Heather's blog is presenting the show. Something I didn't know until I met Heather is how often that scruffy band you see at a tiny club show goes and sleeps on a stranger's couch after their show. Last night she had way more musicians than soft sleeping surfaces so a few spilled over onto my living room floor. I got a drummer and a lead singer who were peacefully snoozing away when I snuck out the door this morning way, way earlier than I believe these noncturnal species usually wake up.

I will confess that I hadn't heard any Motopony songs until yesterday and now I believe I have listened to "King of Diamonds" approximately 1 million times give or take. I went for a run last night and it was sort of cold and bleak and this track was the perfect companion-I listened to it on repeat for the entire 45 minutes. As my music guru friend Jayd said, "this is honestly a perfect song. Pure hit." It was awfully fun to get to tell Daniel how far it had crept into my heart and I'm excited to see it live tonight. I particularly love these lyrics:

I've been lookin' for the king of diamonds

But I guess the queen will do
I've been lookin' for the king of diamonds
'Till the dealer gave me you

History

Once upon a time I lived up in a neighborhood with eight other kids my school age. Five girls and three boys and lots and lots of energy. I think it became some form of punishment if you ever got assigned to teach our church classes. We talked to much and teased each other like crazy. The boys would toiler paper our houses and we would ride our bikes over to spy on their basketball games. Someone always always had a crush on someone else but never the same ones at the same time. We played truth or dare and made prank calls during epic sleepovers. I'm quite certain that I never knew quite how lucky I was. I keep in touch with most of the girls and see here and there what those boys are up to through Facebook.

It was such a treat today to log in and see my old friend Ryan from that group in one of the I'm a Mormon ads. If you can watch this without kind of wanting them to adopt you-you might not have a heart.


So fun to see what a terrific guy he grew up to be. Even if he did pull my pigtails when we were five.

Old World

This was one of those weird weeks you have every now and then were everything is at once the best and also kind of the worst. 

I was in London for most of it and had a super productive trip. As has tended to be the case with these site visits, I come away feeling really REALLY good at my job. We're close enough now that I'm starting to wake up in the middle of the night imagining the entire rowing team is eight feet tall and we'll have nothing to fit them but for the most part, the Games could start tomorrow and we could likely pull it off. 

I managed to squeeze in dinner with my old SLOC friends who are working for the organizing committee which was awfully nice. And in a surprising turn, a sorority sister from SUU who I haven't seen in 14 years and who I didn't realize was living in London contacted me on Facebook and we had lunch one day. She was a baby freshman when I was a senior and I'm certain our little Cedar City selves would have fallen over dead to see us in our heels and scarves sitting in a pub in SoHo and catching each other up on our interesting resumes. 

Great trip all around, I have no caveats. 2012 has been a nonstop thrill ride and it's only going to get cooler. I'll be in New York for a week in April for our big 100 days out celebration in Times Square and then I get to spend 10 days in June watching people make the 2012 Track and Field team over and over. You will be hard pressed to find someone having a more interesting and exciting few months at work. 

So it makes sense that I cried on the plane most of the way home right? 

I was over tired already and made the mistake of watching several romantic comedies and the result was that I completely broke down when Ryan Gosling does the "Dirty Dancing" move with Emma Stone and it unleashed this overwhelming fear that I have done the order of things terribly terribly wrong. It did not help when I went to a St. Patrick's Day party yesterday that one of my coworkers threw and I was definitely the only single person there and one of only a very small handful who wasn't chasing after a couple of kidlets. I used to be comforted by the fact that it was just my LDS friends who had babies when they were themselves were babies and that out in the real world, there was plenty of time to get to that part of my list. But last night I looked around and all the dads of all the two year old had grey hair and it was just all a little bit too much. 

Just to be clear-I love my life and I am able to make lists and lists of things I am thankful for every night before I go to bed. And inevitably, it feels embarrassing to follow those lists with any kind of "hey could I maybe meet a nice boy soon?" prayer because I've already got more than my share of good things in my life. But guys, being alone. can get. exhausting. And being eternally optimistic about being the single one can also be exhausting too. I hate hate hate the word lonely because it seems like such a stupid thing to admit to when I have so many great people in my life but sometimes what you really want is someone to get the damn tires rotated because I'm just never going to remember to do that. 

So today I was feeling extra alone at church and I was scrolling through Instagram (which I shouldn't be doing but raise your hand if you have never played with your phone during sacrament meeting and I'll say you lie) and came upon this quote: 

"God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season-He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable of and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him." 

Pretty simple little quote and something I've known pretty much since I was born but it came along at just the right moment and reminded me that I'm a) not as alone as it feels sometimes and b) that everything I have always believed about timelines is totally true. There isn't a schedule, I'm not behind. It doesn't mean it's not sometimes really scary and that I'm not going to keep worrying about it. But it's nice to have these moments of clarity I can go back to when I'm terrified that I'm going to have to compete harder for Favorite Aunt status so someone will come visit me in the rest home someday. 

So thanks Instagram friend of a friend I can't quite remember why I'm following. I needed that. 

p.s.

if you haven't seen the Dirty Dancing bit from "Crazy Stupid Love", it's pretty awesome. And it would totally work. 

 

Remix

So I'm packing for London again-just a quick six day trip to tie up some loose ends so that in four short months (breathe, breathe) we can head back and outfit 2000 people.

In the meantime, I am pretty sure I have the man I want to marry. Behold ladies and gentleman...a bounty to anyone who can deliver him to me.



I seriously can't stop watching. Cute and clever and smart and goofy and likely to be rich?

BRING HIM TO ME INTERNET.

First

I've been sort of taken with this Lady Antebellum tune this week-it's all about young love and first kisses and the chorus talks about losing track of that first love and them staying 18 and beautiful in your memory. It's got a sweet melody that has been tugging at me despite my resistance to being sucked into yet another pop country song.



However, yesterday I got the giggles because thanks to Facebook, I know my first kiss now wears his blackberry on a belt clip. So while I can still remember the perfect summer night I met him and we talked and talked and talked until I had to be dragged out of the party, I have to close my eyes a little tighter to see his big green eyes and not that damn blackberry*. So much for 18 and beautiful.

Technology, I so love hate you.

(*I should disclose that he's also got two kids and a pretty wife so. You know. I guess he did OK even with the belt clip.)

Still still still

I counted and it looks like I have slept in more hotel/village/friend beds in 2012 than in my own. This weekend was going to be a "run errands and catch up with my life" couple of days but when my good friends Tara and Bryce invited me to join the first few days of their annual Vail vacation I couldn't really say no. So I packed a suitcase once again and hit my fifth ski resort of the season.

I am still mostly terrified every single time I start down the mountain but I must say-this skiing thing has turned out to be one of my favorite decisions in a long time. I have been no fan of winter pretty much since the first one I spent in Huntington and discovered a life where snow never once interfered.

But tell me a better way to spend a Saturday in February than with good friends in a beautiful place, doing something that is is really fun and pushes your comfort zone a little (a lot!). It makes me significantly less grumpy about scraping my car on a Monday when I know this could happen at the end of the week.

Not a bad view

Cute girls!

I drove home this afternoon and still sort of can't believe this state is my home right now, I wanted to stop and take pictures every five minutes. We met people from all over the world on the lifts and this is driving distance from my house.

Let it snow says I.

Reunited and it feels so good

On February 8 in 2002, my dear friends Lori, Bev and I sneaked onto the roof of the Steiner Ice Arena in Salt Lake and watched the fireworks for the Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympic Games. It was the relative calm before the storm of the next 17 of the craziest days of my life.

On February 8 in 2012, I spent the day with our two biggest sponsors while they showed sneak peeks of Opening Ceremonies and Medals Stand uniforms to all the team leaders for London. I didn't even realize until 1:30 on the morning when we were still lingering over drinks in some bar downtown that I had completely forgotten to wax nostalgic.

So despite being on the road for five weeks and still trying to get my life back to a bit of normal, I hopped on another place and went to Salt Lake for the weekend for the 10 year anniversary celebration of the 2002 Games.

You might not realize this but at the Organizing Committee in Salt Lake, there were two layers of very seasoned and qualified Directors and Senior Managers. And then there were hundreds of us who were young and inexperienced and hard working and we had far, far more responsibility than you would ever imagine a bunch of almost kids should have had.

We were a funny mix of completely aware that we were out of our league and utterly convinced that we knew everything. I would quite regularly tell my 35 year old, four time Olympian, silver medalist boss the many and varied ways in which I thought he needed to do things differently. I cringe now when I think of some of the things I said and did but I was lucky to have some incredible mentors who patiently let me say and do ridiculous things and still managed to teach me things I use just about every day.

We had a staff reunion Saturday night and it was the typical too many faces to properly catch up with anyone but still super super fun to see them kind of event. I loved checking in and hearing where people went after the Games, meeting some significant others, and fielding some questions about my recent Euro-adventures (maybe don't post photos of a trip with a boy you aren't dating on FB right before you go home and see tons of people!).

After the reunion there was a special Stars on Ice Anniversary Show at the venue that housed Short Track and Figure Skating. My friend Kari managed the event so she got Lori and her family and me some sweet tickets down on the floor. I got there a little early and as I took my seat I looked around and saw ghosts everywhere. The last time I was down there was the final night of Short Track. The last spectator had no sooner left the building than the place was swarming with guys starting tear down. We took a few photos in the kiss and cry before someone barked at us that there was a basketball game to get ready for and poof, the Olympics were over kids. I wasn't quite prepared to be as emotional as I was looking around and remembering a million tiny things I haven't thought about in a million years.

It's been a busy decade. Lori married one of the Transport Managers, Bev and I had dinner in London last month-she's worked every Games since that one, and the boy I held hands with at Closing Ceremonies left the next day to go back to his real life and has two kidlets now. My figure skating boss helped me get this current job. A member of the 2002 Long Track team who I never met ended up being my intern last year and became a dear friend.

I have no idea what that 25 year old version of me would think of the 35 year old sitting in that VIP section Saturday night. Disappointed that she's alone? Glad she looks pretty good? Relieved that those Games were a start not and end to an adventurous career? I don't know. I wonder what I'll think of whatever 45 has done with my life at the next milestone anniversary.

I'm so glad I went. I'm also so glad that despite all it's wonderful moments, I don't wish I could go back. Pretty satisfying.

Junior high pal Paul turned into SLOC friend Paul turned into one of my favorite grown-up friends

Oval peeps, still running flawless events and being awesome

Lori's little one touching the ice right where momma used to work. 

Flat

The worst thing about your job being tied to a gigantic world event that is that just about daily there is some post on the internet somewhere about the Olympics being RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER. People, I don't need a countdown clock reminding me every day that we still have uniforms to approve and pipe and drape vendors to hire and please please please bless that all the tee-shirts being made in Mexico really DO make it to my warehouse before the boats leave in May. We're doing some new things with the way we process athletes and I sat in a meeting with one of our sports today and the team leader and I just looked at each other with a "I sure hope this works!" grin as we went through the hundred tiny details to figure out before this summer.

So in an effort to keep myself from spending all my free time and energy into worrying, I'm going to spend as much of free time and energy as I possibly can being busy busy busy. Starting this weekend where I go from a Devotchka show to Salt Lake for 48 whirlwind hours to skiing on President's Day to starting my "you don't have to be an athlete to look like one" Games prep regimen. If I leave myself any down time I fear someone will find a trembling heap of swooshes and big pony logos on the floor under my desk.

I'm also collecting music like a crazy person so if you have suggestions for my "Road to London" playlists, bring it. My friend Amanda made me a mix this weekend and it's got all kinds of new favorites on it. Like this one. Lyrics to which I think all of us can relate! Ouch.

Truth

Today I

1. Got a thank you note from one of our Chiefs for "showing good leadership"
2. Nailed down the details with USA Basketball on how to get LeBron and Kobe through Team Processing efficiently
3. Gave $ to a good cause
4. Put in a good workout
5. Bought cupcakes for my coworkers

Today I did not

6. Get flowers from a boy

I'm pretty sure 1-5 say way more about me than 6 ever could. Letting Valentine's Day get to you is a choice.

Behind the Scenes

Reality hit with a long day of running around trying to get plugged back into the office. The funny thing about being gone forever is that obviously life is absolutely going on just fine without you and it's almost like having to put in a pair of earrings after you haven't worn them for awhile-the holes are still there but you sort of have to push to get them in.

I've been debating whether I wanted to do a post about the trip and elaborate a little more but I honestly don't know how interesting it would be for anyone but me and possibly Lance. So he and I can just tell each other inside jokes over FB chat and spare you the travelogue. Suffice it to say that if you ever have a chance to go to Munich, or Berlin, or Prague or Amsterdam, go. And if you have a "to visit" list, add them. 

I do have a few fun photos to share though. And maybe a thought or two along with them. 

We started the trip with a ski day in Austria. My coworker Todd who was the leader of our Innsbruck delegation was a Freestyle Skier for Team Canada and then ran the program after he retired so obviously I was in way way over my head. Lance and Chuck, one of our volunteers who joined us, are decent skiers so they were fine, I felt like crying all the way up the first lift but the guys were super patient and I feel like my skiing improved ten fold. As we headed home that night we figured Italy was just across the border so we drove into the border town and had dinner. Not a bad way to unwind and a killer kick-off to the road trip.

Todd getting ready to school all of us

So very cold

Ready for battle

The next day we headed to Munich. And this is when I realized that I was going to love traveling with Lance. We checked into the hotel, got a map from the concierge, walked into the city center, found a restaurant and spread maps and guide books out and spent a few hours figuring out what to do. It was so low key and perfect for a girl who spends her whole professional life planning every detail.

Church

Beer hall 

Shutterbug

We did something like this every single day 

Museum

Dachau

Just friends but seriously, this wasn't a bad view for 12 days

Planner (also nerd)

So after two days in Munich we were off to Prague-but not without a stop at the Neuschwanstein castle (after a lot of coaching I finally learned how to say that). Lance had already been and it was a five hour detour/backtrack but so very worth it. It's Sleeping Beauty's castle you guys! We got to Prague early evening and went out exploring. I don't know what else to say about Prague except that you should probably go there and you should probably know before you go that it's an insanely romantic city. Like you'll fall in love with pretty much everything. Another sign I was with a dream traveler-the evening Lance says, "how about we go back to the warm apartment and take naps before dinner?" Check please!

What happens when you send a boy for breakfast by himself

Even lovelier in real life

Hey Bavaria, be prettier

Fairy castle!

Exploration

Nose in a guide book

I really liked this tree.  

One of the few shots we took together

One of my favorite shots of the whole trip

We left Prague, turned on The Economist podcast and listened to it all the way to Berlin. Berlin turned out to be a lot like Barcelona for me-never a city that was on my list and turned out to be the sleeper hit of the trip. I could have spent a month there. So much interesting history but a very cool modern feel too. We walked for what felt like a month looking for the still standing part of the Berlin Wall and couldn't really believe that such a thing was actually real in our lifetime. 

So. Much. Graffiti. I kind of love it.

TV Tower, cathedral. Old, new. It all sits right next to each other. 

I can't overstate how unbelievably cold it was.  

Olympics!

Checkpoint Charlie 

Following the wall 

One of my favorite stops 

Making Riechstag reservations. And a mess.  

The huge elevator we rode up to the Dome. 

 Then there was more driving. 

So. Much. Driving.

After a night at Lance's we took a train to Amsterdam. I cashed in some hotel points so we could stay in a swankier hotel to finish off the trip. We hit the Van Gogh museum which was on my must do list, I managed to trick Lance into shoe shopping with me and then we spent a good 90 minutes fake arguing about whether the cat photo I had tagged "Amstercat" was funny or not. (It was). 

Someone who can't read German bought buttermilk. 

Another city where EVERYTHING IS SO CHARMING

Mapping

CHARMING EVERYWHERE

My Amstercat. I love her. 

And then suddenly it was Sunday and I flew to London and Lance took a train back to Germany. I never like leaving vacation but it's always nice when you feel like you really squeezed all the awesome out of your days off.  I'm sure it's fun to go to Europe when you are young and broke but it was sure fun to be able to just do whatever we wanted for 12 days. Sure let's eat there/see that/stay there-it's pretty rad to travel as an adult with a little disposable income.  Now I just need to work on the next destination-as my singles ward bishop once said "either be on a trip or be planning one." Words to live by.

Shaaaaazam

One of the sweetest simple pleasures of my life is hearing a song I like in the car and then being able to identify it with an app on my iPhone, immediately download it, and be enjoying it on repeat 90 seconds later.

Also irresistible to me is a song that is so relentlessly upbeat I can't sit still. I happen to be pulling into a parking lot yesterday when this little gem came on the radio (yes I still listen to the radio, don't faint) and I went from being in a good mood to being in a GREAT mood.

I have to get back to the office tomorrow after five weeks of gallivanting and I'm certain it will be a shock to my system. So of course I spent the weekend having fun with my friend Amanda who is in town for work and talking about boys and music and life plans. I have come to the conclusion that we single people have WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON OUR HANDS to sit and ponder "what it all means." I need a husband and kids so I can focus on things like nagging and diaper changes.

In any event, this song is going to get into my all time most played on iTunes at the rate I am going (and yes, I'm dancing at the kitchen table-it can be done.)

First Aid

Nothing better than traveling with someone who shares your musical taste. First Aid Kit was a Lance find and we listened to them from Innsbruck to Amsterdam and all the stops in between. This song was my favorite-and I very often heard it being hummed in the shower when I would sneak in to dry my hair so I think someone else liked it too.

Nest

After Berlin and on our way to Amsterdam, we spent the night at Lance's apartment in Geilinkirchen. I couldn't stop teasing him about his SUPER CLICHE bachelor pad. Bare walls. Camping and sports equipment everywhere. Video game consoles all over the floor. Mismatched glasses in the sink. 

I was joking around but then when I couldn't stop putting things away and mindlessly organizing piles we ended up sitting on the couch for a few hours browsing websites and talking about what he could do with the space. At one point he turns to me and says, "we've both been to Amsterdam, wanna skip it and go to IKEA instead?". I couldn't decide if I should have him committed or marry him on the spot. We obviously  went to Amsterdam but we kept talking all weekend about furniture he should get and how to arrange his artwork on the walls. It made me homesick for my own little space.

I finished up all my meetings and visits yesterday and since I'm just going back to London in a month for yes, MORE meetings and visits, my boss let me come back to Colorado a couple of days earlier than planned. Coming back to this felt even better than I was expecting.

 Home. It's hard to overstate how awesome it is no matter how super fabulous the trip was.

And today the Head and the Heart released their video for "Down in the Valley" which is one of my favorite songs about the concept of home.  

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to sleep in my OWN BED. 

Tripped

Euro-Road Trip 2012 has come to an end. I’m sitting in the airport in Amsterdam, which oddly I’ve flown through kind of an inordinate amount over the last four years, waiting on a delayed flight to London for my FINAL COUNTDOWN meetings. That’s not a stressful name for a meeting is it?

The trip was a screaming success. We skied in the Alps, we nipped into Italy one night just to say we went to Italy for dinner. We walked through a zillion cathedrals, ate our own weight in Haribo candy, walked on cobblestones, sat in cafes, looked at works by at least three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle namesakes. We went to Dachau and parts of the Berlin Wall. I bought some art and some lovely boots. I took more photos of Lance with his nose in a travel book than he is entirely cool with but he didn’t break my camera. But maybe the most fun thing was all the talking and laughing and laughing some more and more laughing we did.

I’ve traveled with a lot of friends and never had any trouble getting along with people but this trip has been surprisingly and delightfully easy in that department. Lance and I originally became friends in Boston, hung out a handful of times there and haven’t actually seen each other since an afternoon in San Francisco five years ago. We starting instant messaging quite a bit when I was up at night owl hours and he was working in Korea-this trip hatched on a similiarly late night while he was in Afghanistan getting anxious to finish his deployment and I was getting a little bit panicked about having done this slightly spontaneous and mildly uncharacteristic thing of convincing my boss to just let me stay in Europe between events. I know this might sound a little silly from a 35 year old woman who has been pretty independent for my entire adult life, but I felt like 2011 was the year I finally realized I can do whatever I want. When I was moving to Boston for the first time I went on quick weekend trip to find an apartment. I went to meet up with this girl who was super nice over email and who I had sort of tentatively told I would take her empty spot. The apartment was dark and cold feeling and in a neighborhood that just made me sad. I called my mom that night and broke into big heaving sobs telling her I guess I was just going to have to sign the lease. I still remember the confusion in my mom’s voice as to why on earth I felt like I had to take a terrible apartment that was making me cry simply because I felt some completely internal pressure to help this girl out. Fortunately I came to my senses and told her I was passing on the place but I’ve made plenty of weird decisions over the years kind of based on thinking that you ought to deny yourself some of the things you want. I’m not sure if that’s a factor of being a terribly responsible oldest child, or some odd over application of long held religious restrictions but I can think of way too many times in my life when I thought, “oh I can’t possibly do that.” When I moved to Colorado I decided to make a much more conscious effort to live more deliberately. Could be an early mid-life crisis but I didn’t want to wake up one day and be fifty and have all of my stories sound the same.

So part of this little adventure was just about saying to myself, “why not?” And I was delighted when we got to Munich and started walking around and ducking into buildings that Lance is totally a “why not?” kind of guy. We didn’t really plan too much. I set up all the places we stayed but that was just about as far as we got. We had some guide books and a few things in each city that we felt we really should see but other than that, we just kind of got up, ate something fattening for breakfast and hopped a subway. Lance is very funny and smart (and super handsome too just as a bonus). I’m a quick laugher and appreciate having someone around who can be goofy one minute and then discuss something from the Economist podcast the next (yes, that’s what we have been listening to in the car. Nerd alert.).

I’m certain that I am a travel cliché at this point but now having been away from my regular life for over a month, I feel like I’ve had some time to really think about what I’m really doing with it. We’ve had some good chats about “what we want to be when we grow up,” and it’s always comforting when someone else who seems to have their life together is equally as uncertain as I am.

Now it's full speed through five days in London of site visiting and talking about clothes. I get to see some old friends and well, London is London so even though I am weary of pulling clothes out of a suitcase and sleeping in a different bed every few days, there are certainly worse ways to spend a week.

2012, you are sure knocking it out of the park.

Prague

Well, we are pretty much having a blast in Prague. I had five minutes of worry just before Lance arrived that 10 days with just about anyone could be tricky. But here we are at day 5 and still laughing. 



Pre-teen

Dear 15 year old girls-

Instead of daydreaming about marrying a rich guy someday, how about you make a goal that some day, you'll check into a hotel somewhere in Germany and they will say, "welcome Miss Clifford, we have an upgrade for you and here's your access to the Executive Lounge," and the boy you are with traveling with will be so impressed. I promise that feeling is way, way awesome.

-k8

Munich is beautiful. We are having so much fun. Tomorrow we leave for Prague. Hard to believe this is all real.

Finale

In what was maybe the perfect ending to two weeks spent trying to keep kids from doing dumb things, I jumped off a pile luggage tonight, split open my lip, sprained my wrist and got my pride injured just a little bit when three of our hockey boy who witnessed it told the other kids about my "scorpion dive".

Hey nice work ADULT.

Raining in Baltimore

January 20. Fifteen days since I got on the plane in Colorado Springs. As is often the case when you work an event, I have lost all track of time. Something that happened yesterday feels like it was a month ago, my short term memory is shot and getting up at this point feels like some kind of evil torture tactic.

So yeah I'm tired. And I am a little weary of getting wanded every time I go to dinner or come into the village. I haven't worn anything that isn't dri-fit in two weeks and I've chosen sleep over working out every single day.

But oh my am I have a good time! At a normal Olympics you usually have very narrow access. Even in Salt Lake where I could anywhere my little heart desired in my own venue, I couldn't go waltzing into the coaches box at the Halfpipe. Which we totally did in Kuhtai last week. I wouldn't be sitting in the second row of the Lindsey Vonn Q & A with our ecstatic little Alpine Skier who got to meet Lindsey afterward. I don't think I would know the names of all the athletes at a real Olympics and I'm sure I wouldn't have met as many of their moms and I have this time. I've been to hockey, short track, cross country, halfpipe, curling and medals ceremonies.

Things are starting to wind down and competition has ended for many of the sports which means 57 teenagers are starting to get a little antsy. I had to bust a snowball fight with the Brits last night when the main office called and told me to "control my kids". I felt like sort of a grinch having to tell them to cut it out when I still remember that a spontaneous coed snowball/food/water fight is the kind of thing you live for at 16. I've turned a blind eye to my share of late night convos on the stairs and boys lingering in door jams for longer than they probably ought to. I have discovered that if you give them a little bit of freedom, they seem to respond better when you do actually have to say "cut it out guys".

Austria is beautiful, I've managed to sneak out for a few touristy adventures, done my fair share of flirting (this job will get at least 35% less fun should I ever get married), gotten to drive up a mountain pass in a zippy little euro car. It's been more of a true Games experience than I've had other times. Next month marks the 10 year anniversary of the Salt Lake Games and there is something very sweet about being roommates with some figure skaters and some short trackers while I look back on what was such a life-changing moment.

And I guess that's why I do love these events so much. The last five months have been absolutely exhausting and if I think too much about the next six I can work myself up into a tizzy-but I've stretched and I've grown and I've tried to figure out what I'd like to do next since I'm coming to the conclusion this isn't what I want to do forever...but for now, I'll go to the medals ceremony for our snowboard team, who just won their fourth and fifth medals of the Games and are some of my favorite kids (I might think that about all of them though).

Wordless

This is how much snow there is in Austria. (This is also how tired I look after 12 days of event life)



This was my office today.

All Mixed Up

So.

I've worked a ton of events at this point in my life. I am pretty comfortable running an operation, I'm pretty good at solving issues and actually really enjoy the feeling of being able to put fires out left and right. Any event of this scale is going to have hiccups and I love the process of making the right contacts and figuring out how to get what I need as painlessly as possible.

What I DON'T know how to fix, and what caught me so by surprise, is a kid who got injured in a training run and wasn't allowed to go to compete, nor attend Opening Ceremonies, sobbing in my arms while we tried to track down her parents.

I'm in a weird position in my life. Plenty plenty old enough to be a mom and as an oldest child and a female, all the instincts are there. But oh gosh, as I'm trying to figure out how to console this girl there are a million questions in my head about the right thing to say, and that her mom is 4000 miles away and getting a "there's been an accident" call, and I should know how to do this, and what if I never get to do this myself?

These kids have been so much more fun than I was even expecting. They are smart and they are funny and they are polite (and they are messy). It's fun watching them flirt with each other, make friends across different sports and countries, deal with disappoint, get excited about victories. I know to them, I'm the nice lady in the office who helps them fix issues and gives them passes to bring their moms into the Village. Not really realizing that in some ways, my life is more like theirs than it is like their mom's. I still feel like I'm figuring out what I want to be when I grow up and trying to be alone with boys. I snuck into my room at 12:30 last night after staying out later than I should have given my long days and early wake-up calls and couldn't help but laugh at the fact that all my teenage roommates were fast asleep. I don't feel 20 years older than they are, I don't feel old enough to almost be their mom but it's impossible not to wonder if I've done this all wrong.

But hey, I was standing in the Austrian Alps today, watching three of our snowboarders win medals. These mountains are more beautiful than I know how to describe and I'm getting paid to do this right? I have such a good life.

Grow up

Last night I was standing out in the cold with four young biathletes trying to get some equipment brought over from offsite storage so they could see with their own eyes that it arrived. I heard myself saying to one of the girls not to worry and that I had everything under control.

The fact of the matter is that I actually wasn't totally sure I did, in fact, have it all under control and I wasn't sure I could fix the issue they were having. But there is a look that a kid under 18 will give you are the grown up and they are the kid that says, "I totally trust you," that last night scared the crap out of me. Trust me? I want to solve this, I hope I can solve this but kid, I don't KNOW if I can solve this. And just for a second I felt 100% certain that being a parent must be the bravest thing on earth.

These kids are great, their energy is a lot of fun. The enormous weight of responsibility to make sure they are safe and out of trouble thousands of miles from their parents is not something I am used to at an event. It's not something I am used to in my life.

I'm still sorting out exactly how that makes me feel.

Village People

Highlights of the first 72 hours in Austria..

*My coworker Todd taking the long way from Munich so we could stop in a couple of the cities he trained in when he was in the Canadian Ski Team. Like driving into postcards. We drank hot chocolate by a fire in a ski town called Kaprun and I almost burst into "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things."

*Upgraded to a suite for the one night we spent in a hotel before moving into the athlete village-probably the last comfortable bed I'll be sleeping in until February.

*Finally meeting a bunch of the IOC people I've been emailing with for years. And the woman who does my job for Team Australia. And all other sorts of new faces and we're only three days in.

*The smell of a Village Welcome Center (no really, it has the scent of something awesome just about to happen).

We're already working 18 hour days and I think I slept about five hours last night with all the thinking and planning I was doing in my head. But it's new and it's exciting and I feel pretty darn lucky to be here.

Our delegation starts arriving tomorrow and I'm sure I'll have good stories coming RIGHT UP...

Ciao.

On and On

I read tonight that 2012 is the year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. I was born in a year of the Dragon. It's an even year. I turn 36 this year. There are lots of superstitious reasons to think this is going to be a great year.

The break was dreamy and it was harder than normal to leave on Sunday. I feel like I could move back to Utah and slide right back into a life there surrounded by people I love and a city that I miss way, way more than the 25 year old who jumped at the chance to get out of there in 2002 would have predicted.

But I have a good life in Colorado too and the long solo drive across Wyoming was a nice opportunity to do some serious thinking. And planning. And maybe just a little bit of stressing out over the first six weeks of 2012.

I leave tomorrow for Innsbruck for the Winter Youth Olympic Games. You have likely heard nothing about them and you probably won't but for the next three weeks I'll be with our team of 58 athletes aged 14-18 enjoying a small scale Games before the complete zoo that will be London 2012. Then I am off to a few days of scouting potential locations to process the 2014 team. It will be long and tiring but I'm excited to do something outside of my normal job description for a few weeks.

Then my friend Lance will meet me in Munich and we will spend a few days road tripping through Europe. Lance is an old pal from my Boston days and he's coming home from a deployment in Afghanistan so I imagine our conversations will be lively.

After we say goodbye in Amsterdam, I head to London for six days for meetings with the team leaders for all the summer sports and final venue walk-throughs with the sponsors I work with. Words like "final" make my stomach turn a little bit and the truth is, I've been somewhat freaked out this week worrying about getting everything done in the office, how much there is left to do for London, and how close on it's heels Sochi will be upon us.

Tonight as I'm pulling out all my warmest clothing and packing for what seem like an eternity, I feel some nerves about the unknown we take off into tomorrow morning but mostly I feel really gosh darned lucky to be living this life right now. Sometimes going to Utah can make me feel like I'm missing out on all the husband and kid stuff that honestly EVERY SINGLE HUMAN I KNOW is doing there. And there was some of that with this trip. I am not giving up on that dream-it's still something I definitely want. But there are worse things than seeing that glint of jealousy in the eyes of your lady friends when you talk about the hot 26 year old cyclist you made out with or the fun trips you've been on. I'd like to sing lullabies to sleepy babies one day but for now, I'll take playing den mother to a bunch of super stoked 16 year olds and crossing some countries off my TO DO list to kick off my year. I'm getting opportunities I never dreamed big enough to imagine and I'm thankful every single day for that.

Since I know I won't have much time to blog this summer I'm hoping to capture a little bit of what a Games really feels like. It might not be interesting to anyone else but I'd like to write about that part of my life. So hopefully I'll have a chance to update more often than I typically do when I'm dealing with thousands of pieces of apparel until all hours.

I'll leave you for now with a song from a band I'm somewhat obsessed with right now. They are called Pickwick, they are from Seattle, and this song is keeping me company tonight while I pack my face off.