Living the Olympic dream

I hadn't realised how long it was since I last blogged, but the truth is we have been so busy doing "Stuff" there hasn't been time to write about it!

As we have done so much and my last blog was a long one, I will break down all that we have done over the next few weeks.

So the first thing to share is our trip to the Olympic Games.  With all the media fuss about tickets, we consider ourselves very fortunate to have obtained 5 event tickets in the first two rounds of the "draw" and then were able to pick up a few more tickets as well.

We started our Olympic dream with a trip to Millenium Stadium, Cardiff to watch Team GB ladies football.


View from behind Even Swindon Primary school's seats

 At the same game were some teachers and children from the primary school where I am chair of governors, so we managed to meet up with them between games.

We returned home to finish packing then headed up to London to take up residence in Putney for the week.  We had an ealry start on the Monday (5am!!!) to ensure we had breakfast and to get across London in time for Hockey at 8.30am.  The tube and DLR presented no problems and having chatted to some Games Makers at the station we also managed to work out how best to get to the Olympic Park without having to walk to far.

We saw Australia play South Africa and New Zealand play South Korea.  The speed of the game was amazing and nothing like the game I used to play at school!! I thought goal keeping was safe then, but I wouldn't want to keep goal at this level.

 

We spent the afternoon in the park watching events on the big screen.

 

Tuesday was a later start as we had Archery in the afternoon followed by more ladies football with Team GB ladies taking on Brazil at Wembley.  Josh has recetly started Archery, so we had a great afternoon watching the arrows fly and even had a go in a demonstration area.  Josh has been inspired to try harder as he would like to go Rio for the next Olympics!!

The atmosphere at Wembley was amazing, with a nearly full ground all cheering for Team GB, with a few exceptions.

Wednesday we were up early again for Basketball, with more seats at the back of the arena, which appeared to be the theme for our tickets.  The crowd would get behind the underdog team and for half of the morning, we were Angola!  The half time entertainment was great, with Twist and Pulse from X Factor during the first game and a local cheer leading team in the second game.

Thursday we had tickets for volleyball at Earl's Court.  We also managed to meet up with the lady we made friends with at Wimbledon, who was in charge of the venues in the west of London.

Andy spent the afternoon chasing around London taking photos of  Wenlock and Mandeville statues that have been put all over the city (he is going back to take some more).  Jacob and I went shopping at Harrods and Josh watched the Archery finals on tele.

We came back home and Andy & Josh managed to get some canoeing tickets so they went up to Eton Dorney for the morning, while I did some preparations for holiday club (more about that next week!).

The Bible reading generated for this week is :

For just as each of us has one body with many members,

and these members do not all have the same function,

 so in Christ we, though many, form one body,

 and each member belongs to all the others.

Romans 12:4-5

 

Our prayer for this week is for all those who have taken part in the Olympics and all those taking part in the Paralympics, that they use their gifts to the best of their abilities and that we might all be inspired to use the gifts we have to our best.

 

With God's blessings from my family to yours,

 

Jo x