Celebrating the Winter Olympics

Things are going well in our celebration of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Here's the medal count at present (as of Wednesday, the 12th):

For those of you keeping track, that means that Daddy (a.k.a. Jonathan) is in the lead with his country of choice, Norway. Mommy takes a quick second with Canada. And oh, USA! COME ON! (You are welcome to beat us!)

This week we have mostly kept up with the Olympics via regular news sources although we did spent about 4 hours straight watching some snowboarding and some figure skating. Speaking of figure skating, if you missed 15-year old Julia Lipnitskaia's (Russia) gold winning performance (in the team competition) then you've got to watch the following video. It is her performance from the European Figure Skating Championships but it is the same routine she used in the Olympics.

Watching figure skating as revolutionized my two year old's life. She loves watching it. She calls it "finger skating". I asked her if she wanted to sit next to me on the couch and watch it. She looked at me askance. "No, I have to dance." So, while the athletes are twirling about on the ice, my daughter is twirling about the living room, perfecting her ability to stand on one foot. (It's so adorable I can hardly stand it.)

Of course, there are books we are reading in conjunction with the games. The children love the few books I have found at Goodwill from the Disney "Small World" library. I only purchased three titles even though I found what looked to be the complete collection. I'm kicking myself for not picking up a few additional titles because the kids are so eager to read them. Each book puts Mickey and Goofy in a different country having a specific set of adventures that relate to said country. For example, in Goofy and the Gondola Mickey and Goofy travel to the island of Venice. Goofy wants to buy Mickey a small toy gondola but he sees the price tag of several thousand lira, assumes he can't afford it, and tries taking up various odd jobs around the island to earn the money to afford it. He attempts selling gelato, driving a gondola and making pizza, all to no avail. Meanwhile, while Goofy is working, Mickey is touring both Venice and the neighboring islands of Murano and Burano, learning about lace making and glass-blowing. At the end of the story there is a page spread of information about notable sights to see in the country being featured as well as information about food and arts. It's a very entertaining way to learn a little something about other cultures. We've found them to be perfect for our kids (at ages 2, 5 and 7). Here are the other titles I picked up:

The reason I didn't pick up more in the series was because one of the titles I was looking through (I think the one on Scotland) featured a ghost in a castle and so I decided to leave it behind. Now I'm not sure that I wasn't being too picky. You can purchase all of the titles in this series used on Amazon though (for $0.01 a piece + $3.99 S&H!) or purchase as a whole: Disney's Small World Library: 15 Volume Set. Now that I know my kids love them so much, I think I'll keep my eyes peeled to add more titles to our collection.

Tomorrow we are having a bunch of friends over for an "Around the World in 80 Minutes" lunch wherein each guest is to bring a different ethnic dish of their choice to share with everyone. I'll post about that next week!

Any else out there enjoying the Olympics or doing something special to celebrate the games? I'd be curious to hear of it!