Monday, February 02, 2009

Cardless in MN....

...or is it Hopeless in Seattle???

I'm pretty sure it's Cardless in MN because I wasn't able to steal a minute in my stamp room this past weekend. Tonight I managed to sneak away into my little hideaway and make a card or two....but shhhh, don't tell anyone I'm here, ok?

This past weekend was JAM packed with stuff to do. Friday night I was in bed, asleep by 830pm! That's right. 8:30pm. I couldn't keep my eyes open one minute longer than that. On Saturday, I worked at 8a, although I went in at 715a to try and get some stuff done before I had to work the front desk. That, however, did not happen as the scanner was giving me fits.

After work, I had about an hour to run home and get a minute of rest before I went BACK to work for our annual Christmas party. The itinerary was a surprise until we were almost at the secret location....get this....we went CURLING! Yep, curling. Do you guys know what curling is? It's an Olympic sport that entails sliding a stone down a rectangular sheet of ice that is specially prepared. It's very hard to explain, so I'll give you this link just in case you find yourself especially moved to want to learn to curl for yourself.

We were split into teams of 4, and then we proceeded to have a round-robin tournament. Do you know what a curling tournament is actually called? It's actually called a BONSPIEL. Each of the four team members takes a turn shooting (or sliding) a stone (which, by the way, weighs 42 POUNDS!!!) down the length of ice (which is about 150 feet) to try and get it to stop on the bulls-eye (or "house") and score a point. Let me tell you, getting that monstrous stone down the ice is hard work! I slipped and fell many times. And when you're not throwing your stone, you are then either the "skipper" down in the "house", or you are a "sweeper", sweeping a clear path in front of the stone as it's moving down toward the target. Keep in mind, you are running on ICE! This shot is of the Hubster, delivering his stone down the rink....

Whew. I'm exhausted just writing about it. My body is so sore you wouldn't believe it. I have a newfound respect for those Olympic curling champions, that's for darn-tootin sure!

Here are a few pics of the fun event. Oh, and by the way. I just have to tell you that I was chosen as the MVP of the afternoon by the curling professionals who run the rink...{{puff-puff, tongue-in-cheek}}. Yessiree, I was the best "thrower", "slider", "pusher", or whatever you want to call it, because I had a lot of my stones end up in the "house", scoring points. Now, if the MVP award was based on form while delivering the stone, I assure you, I would NOT have won this award. Let's just say it was beginners luck, LOL. This is me with my MVP award...an Owatonna Curling Club hat!

All in all, curling was a blast and if you ever get the opportunity to give it a whirl, go for it! Here are a few pics of our fun afternoon...




Here's Sarah and me, sweeping our little hearts out to get our yellow stone closer to the bulls-eye...Here are a few co-workers sweeping on down the rink in front of their stone....they are actually running and sweeping those little brooms back and forth as fast as they little arms could move!And finally, here's the whole gang after our bonspiel was complete. I'm in the front row on the right, and the Hubster is on the opposite end in the front!

Hope you enjoyed today's lesson on curling...hopefully I'll get a card photographed one of these days to share with you.

Hugs,

Amy

9 comments:

  1. Only YOU two would go...CURLING! Did you know it was invented in Finland? My friend Joel Lurvey (that's a pure Finn name) introduced me to it. Those suckers is HEAVY, ain't they?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my goodness, that sounds like it would be a blast!!! Looks like you had a great time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks like such fun and quite a memorable time!! Congratulations on your award, and thanks for sharing!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That looks SO fun! Wow...just imagining it all. Glad you had fun and that you discovered new muscles!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous10:28 PM

    Terrific pics Amy, looks like you all had a ton of fun! Congrats on the MVP!! Way to go!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh Amy, I LOVE curling! I guess because you and I live in a winter sports themed area, it's popular! LOL! My daughter used to curl too! Can you imagine an 6 7 or 8 year old throwing rocks? She LOVED it though. I was sort of disappointed when she didn't want to sign up this year and chose indoor soccer instead...haha! I must say it's MUCH warmer ;)
    Love all the fun pics!!! Glad you had a good time!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That is hilarious! My DH and I met at college in Owatonna and I had no idea they had a curling club! lol Thanks for sharing!!
    ~Lana B~

    ReplyDelete
  8. I enjoy watching curling in Olympic coverage on tv, but there's not much chance I'll ever get to try it down here in TX. On second thought, after hearing your sore muscles story, I'll just sit & watch! : )

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is so cool. When I first saw this sport I didn't understand anything about it, of course I still don't know much. When we lived in Alaska there was actually a curling club just down the street from us but we never went in. Looks like a lot of fun though.

    ReplyDelete

Blog Widget by LinkWithin