It all began when they played Mario and Sonic at the Summer Games at the home of friends. They loved the game and looked into the version for the Winter Games which at that point, were still a few of months away.
They had some background knowledge about the Olympics from a Magic Treehouse book they read a couple of years ago. Pieces started to fall together and Sag received the Mario and Sonic at the Winter Games for Wii for his birthday and the following month, both boys received a Wii for Christmas.
In January, they learned a lot about numerous Winter Games events as they played the game daily, often with Vanessa. They taught me about Half-Pipe, Skeleton and Snowboard Cross, sports that I knew absolutely nothing about.
The Vancouver Games commenced in mid-February and the boys were riveted. They developed favorite athletes, favorite sports, and watched hours and hours of coverage (including trials, finals, medal ceremonies and interviews/information pieces) which they recorded on the DVR.
Favorite athletes: Apolo Ohno and Shaun White (same for both Sag and Gem)
Favorite events: speedskating short track, curling, snowboard cross (Sag); snowboard cross, ski cross (Gem)
Somewhere in there, I don't remember when, the TANDA Olympics were born. TANDA, the word, is comprised of their initials sandwiching the word "and".
There have been training timed trials (they have moved on from counting for each other/others to using a stopwatch gadget on iGoogle), competitions (the main event these days are the 1-Lap and 2-Laps around-the-apartment sprints), medal ceremonies (friends and family have gone home adorned with homemade medals)...wrapped up in a big hug of camaraderie and fun.
the medal shop.
the medal count.
on the medal podium.
No comments:
Post a Comment