back from the Olympics

Yeah, the title says it all. My partner, Apple, and I didn't do any better at the state games than we did at the area games back in October. We got the bronze medal, 3rd place out of 3 teams Because of a flight snafu, one of the islands teams couldn't make it, hence only 3 teams in our division. Basically, we flew all the way to Oahu so we could play against 2 teams from our island that we play against all the time in practice. There weren't a lot of bocce teams because fall isn't really bocce season - it's bowling. But not all islands have a bowling alley. We've got one on our side, but it's been closed for remodeling, so we couldn't bowl, which is why we did bocce.

We had a really fun time at the games. They were held at Hickum air force base and they flew us there in military transport planes. They're not a comfortable as commercial flights, but it's more fun on them. They even let one of the athletes sit up in the cockpit and he got to turn the engines off when we landed on Oahu. Saturday night, when all the volunteers were exhausted after catching a 6am flight, then spending the day outside with bocce ball or in the gym with the basketball team (West Hawaii got the silver YAY!) all the athletes were shaking their groove thang out on the dance floor. I don't know where they got their energy. The dance was held in a huge hangar and man, was it noisy. They don't build those things with creating good acoustics in mind.

I also got a new nickname over the weekend. I am now known as The Alabaster Princess because of my skin's amazing ability to stay pasty white despite spending 2 days out in the sun with a dab of sunscreen on my nose only. Yep, I don't tan OR burn - at least very easily. I just reflect. I tried to tell them that, but they didn't believe me. But, by this afternoon when I was the only bocce ball participant who wasn't sunburned (besides the Hawaiians, who just get a gorgeous dark tan), they knew I was telling the truth. There were even a few on the basket ball team who had more of a burn than me, and they'd spent most of their weekend inside a gym. I have few talents, unfortunately, one of them is my body's complete inability to tan (and one of them obviously ISN'T bocce ball). Once they post the weekends pictures on the S O website, I'll give you a link so you can see how much fun we had.