Quick Hitters

Saintly Sister:

We couldn’t have survived the past few weekends without Aunt Martha. My dear sister-in-law, who studies at our alma mater, is an absolute saint. For the two years she’s been attending we’ve shamelessly taken advantage of her superb babysitting. The boys love her and she is, at the very least, great at acting like she enjoys them. I spent perhaps too long feeling guilty each time I dragged her away from all the cra-zay college parties and night life. ;) She told me a few weeks ago that she was waiting to get her hair cut until after the semester ended so that nobody would bring it up on campus and she wouldn’t have to needlessly talk to them. It was at that point that I decided to get over my guilt. Aunt Martha: we LOVE you and are SO thankful for you. All of the public (but on a blog so as not to start unwanted conversations) shout outs!

That's right...think of all this quality time with the boys away from college as a "promotion."

Baby Oh-livia:

I have a new goddaughter! I was surprised, honored, and sooooo very excited to be asked to serve as godmother to the newest Hamlet. Baby Olivia Grace was born last Tuesday and I have already done my godmotherly duties in buying baby girl clothes (Oh the joy! I have been telling myself that baby boy clothes are just as cute for so long, but all it took was one little excuse to buy girl clothes and my stance was shot to bits.) and snuggling her on several occasions. She is absolutely precious and we are grateful to our dear friends for supplying Owen with his very own Hamway bride.

 

Squeal!!

Gymnastics 101:

People. The Olympics are less than four months away. FOUR MONTHS. (This also means less than four months until I am at the beach…you can see why all of this is so very exciting.) The USA has a big problem. They could send two teams to the Olympics and win gold and silver. They could send three teams and sweep. But they can only send one team, and the size of team has shrunk over the past twenty years from 7 to 5. Five gymnasts. Four years ago I correctly predicted the Fierce Five several months out. This time around I have crunched names and events and specialties and I’m not 100% settled. But I am sure of this: somebody that is TOTALLY deserving is going to be left out. And I’m afraid it’s going to be Maggie Nichols, which completely sucks because she’s Simone Biles’ best friend, she loves Jesus, and she is an incredible gymnast. Maggie’s best shot is if she gets her Amanar back and something happens consistency-wise to Laurie Hernandez. (I personally think Maggie would be better off replacing Gabby Douglas, but I think somebody might shoot me if I said that too loudly.)

Current team prediction and the events they’ll perform in the team final:

Simone Biles (Vault, Beam, Floor)

Gabby Douglas (Vault, Bars, Beam)

Aly Raisman (Vault, Beam, Floor)

Laurie Hernandez (Bars, Beam, Floor)

Madison Kocian/Ashton Locklear: Bars (this is a total tossup, but both are UB specialists and both have struggled with injuries. Whomever is healthy in July gets to go. The other is probably an alternate.)

Alternates:

Madison Kocian/Ashton Locklear

Maggie Nichols (kills me to write that)

MaKayla Skinner (she gets named alternate as an honorary “thank you for your service to USA Gymnastics” but Martha will never let her take the floor)

(If I had MY way:

Simone, Aly, Laurie, Maggie, Madison, with Gabby, Ashton, and Ragan Smith as alternates)

PS. Simone just debuted her Cheng vault and it was off-the-charts great. She is now the runaway favorite to win every single gold medal in Rio except bars. I cannot…I just canNOT tell you how incredible she is.

That's from only three world championships. Needless to say, she's not real big on sharing.

MINE:

One week until the MINE conference! One week until sunny (pleeeeeaaaase) Baltimore! One week until making great music with great people and not having to pay for great food and great accommodations. We had our first rehearsal last night and it was so stinking fun. It’s a not-so-secret dream of mine to sing tight harmonies with super capable singers and this is my chaaaannnnnnce.

Reading update:

Book 25/50: A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea. Title says it all. Roy has an upcoming audition in San Francisco and I'm not thrilled about even entertaining the idea of halving the distance between myself and Kim Jong II...

Halfway to 50 books!