there and back again

YIPEEEE! We got our American Consulate appointment yesterday afternoon. We are heading to China September 7th - GOTCHA DAY will be September 11th (a good thing to remember on that day). Please begin praying now for our Rebekah Wei and her transition to us. Pray that GOTCHA DAY is not too traumatic for her and that she bonds quickly with us.

We purchased our international air travel tickets yesterday as well. Our initial plan to fly out of Los Angeles was scrapped and we are now taking the northern route through Minneapolis with a stop in Tokyo, Japan. Our trip is longer than initially expected and we have also added 2 days on the front and back of the trip to break up the hours spent in the air and on layovers. We learned, though, that the Minneapolis airport has a ticket price penalty if your layover is longer than 24 hours (oddly enough, it seems they do not want you staying in their city spending $$). SO our overnight stays in Minneapolis, going and coming, will be 3 hours shy of 24.

You may notice the writing on the map is upside down and backwards. Well, the only map I could find showing the route our plane would take, over the North Atlantic Ocean was an upside down map. It actually is an excellent map for dyslexics like me.

GOLD FOR GEORGIA / BRONZE FOR USA

Well, the alert I set up from NBC to wake me @ 5am for the Women's 70kg & Men's 90kg Judo Finals did not come so I slept through them. This was probably a good thing consisdering I got to sleep about 3:30am after watching the preliminary rounds. congratulations to Rhonda Rousey of the USA winning the BRONZE and who brought home America's 1st olympic medal in Judo. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS goes to Irakli Tsirekidze of Georgia who smashed the Russian Ivan Pershin in the 1st round of the finals to bring home the gold. I was able to watch all the match replays and was very excited for all.

a VERY SAD wednesday morning

I watched my first Olympic Judo tournament tonight (actually this morning @ 12:30) and did not have a clue about what was going on but I am a fan now. I wish I had better news but my brother-in-law, Brian Olson lost in the first round by 1 point to Diego Rosati from Argentina (Congratulations to Diego) in the golden score (sudden death) round on a penalty. To be honest, I did not see the penalty, but then again remember, I know absolutely nothing about Judo, I am learning as I go (thank goodness for Google). I am waiting to see if Brian will get to the Repechage Round to compete for the Bronze. For that to happen Diego Rosati will have to get into the finals. But Diego is going up against the Russian Ivan Pershin who won his first round match by ippon. I do not think Diego will get past Pershin though, he looks mean! By the way, I just learned a Repachage Round is, in Judo single elimination brackets are used to determine the two athletes who will compete in the final match for 1st and 2nd place. The repechage bracket is built by selecting all the athletes who were knocked out by a finalist and building brackets to determine third place. Well it is now official, Brian will not compete for the Bronze. Ivan Pershin not only defeated Diego Rosati by ippon but also his next competitor, Andrei Kazusenok of Belarus, man this guy is a tough, that is 3 wins by ippon. I will now be cheering on Irakli Tsirekidze of Georgia to beat the Russian Ivan Pershin in the 1st round of the finals - GO GEORGIA!!! Well Diego Rosati redeemed himself from that horrible 2nd round performance against Pershin with a win by ippon in his 1st Repechage match only to loose to Patrick Trezise of South Africa in his 2nd repechage match. Well it is 2:52am and the prelims & semi-finals have just ended. I am now officially a Judo fan. Good Luck to Rhonda Rousey of the USA as she competes for the Bronze. I will try to be up at 5am to watch the Finals but don't bet on it. Congratulation to the winners so far. Good night, or should I say good morning?