Good-Bye Olympics

Since we have now all shuffled out into the bright lights of this post Olympic world, its time to pause and reflect on the past 17days and all they gave us. In bulleted form to make this quicker and less painful.

• I thought the closing ceremonies were good, a little jumbly, but I got the overall theme they were going for. I especially liked the overhead view of the stadium. Oh, and lighting it up green and yellow for Rio was definitely a nice touch.

• Yay Spice Girls!! That was a pretty cool mini reunion or whatever you want to call it. I also liked the Oasis-minus-whichever-Gallagher-brother-was-missing band doing Wonderwall. A nice 90s flashback amidst all the other British music, which was fabulous, but being a teenager in the 90s, well, that's what I appreciated most.

• Did anyone else notice that not only are these athletes extremely talented, a large percentage of them are ridiculously good looking? How is that even fair? Just out of the American female track athletes, there is an astounding number of gorgeous people - Allyson Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Sanya Richards-Ross - just to name a few. Plus there were so many teenage athletes with beautiful, glowing skin (Missy Franklin, McKayla Maroney, I'm looking at you). The 16 year old in me was doing quite of bit of glowering at that. Heck, the 33 year old me was glowering too.

• There was so much inspiration in these games, so much heartfelt goodness, its easy to write it off as cheesiness, at least for the cynics of the world. But I found these Olympics to be a nice little oasis of well, niceness. I enjoyed watching them with my family, talking about it with friends, all the so called cheesy goodness the Olympics should be.
• Back to the inspiration stuff for a moment, that American sprinter, Byrshon Nellum, who was shot through both thighs 4 years ago and now has an Olympic silver medal...I mean really!! I've never been shot and I don't have a bronze. That's pretty awesome if you ask me.
• Again to the inspriation point yet again, I get why Oscar Pistorius is so inspirational, I do. But I don't know why that is overshadowing his hotness. I haven't heard it mentioned once, and well, it definitely should be.

I was truly impressed with these Olympics. London did a fabulous job, so if anyone out there cares about what I think, thumbs up GB. There were so many great stories, from Kirani James winning the first gold for Grenada and being a seemingly great guy to the first female athletes competing from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain to the multitudes of new world records, it was all so awesome to witness. But most of all, I loved seeing it through the eyes of a very excited 4 year old. He just adored "The Games" and watched with such a gleam in his eye, wanting to know who would win, who got a world record, what would happen next. He decided that win an athlete wins a gold medal, they also get candy, popcorn, and toys. Who knew? He's getting ready for 2028. So thank you games of the 30th Olympiad for making my baby smile. What more can I ask for?