Monday, August 18, 2008

Family Night: Olympics

I will admit that I have been out of the loop on the Olympics. Since we don't really get any channels except for PBS, we don't keep up with what is on television. However, when I saw Amy's great idea of a Family Night themed around the Olympics, I wanted to try her idea.

Friday was a long day with all my littles, so we opted to go out for Chinese. David took us to a place new to me - oh, it was soooo good! I discovered Honey Chicken which I'd never heard of and it was so delicious!

David put a lot of effort into figuring out how to download some Olympics and burn them off onto a DVD so we could watch them when we got home. It was a review of highlights from Day Five and from BBC - so a different perspective than we were used to! I will say that they have not made it easy to watch the Olympics if you don't have network television access.

While we watched the highlights, we had hot tea and fortune cookies! I think the little ladies enjoyed it - thanks, Amy for such a great idea!!

Anyone else watching any Olympics? How are you involving your children with this?

18 comments:

Katy said...

That sounds great!!!
We have been watching the Olympics off and on a bit. The kids like to watch it a little bit! LOL

Edi said...

We have been watching some of the Olympics...there are certain events I've always enjoyed...mostly gymnastics. My 6 yr old has been watching some Olympics...not sure if he really enjoys watching the sports or just happy to be watching ANY t.v.

Tara said...

I LOVE your family night themes. I am getting such good ideas for my own family. How old was Emily when you started this tradition?

Thank you for stopping by my blog, by the way! Hope you have a wonderful day!

Wendi said...

We have been watching a little bit each evening. Hubby is enjoying swimming and I like the gymnastics. If you can find a copy of the opening ceremonies the kids might enjoy that. I really enjoyed it. Megan loved the fireworks.

We are planing to celebrate during the closing ceremonies. I am going to break out the tea set that we purchased for Megan while in China. I am still working out the rest of the plan, but I will be sure to post the results. ~Wendi

Anonymous said...

Great idea! I agree that the opening ceremonies were amazing and would be good to watch part of if you can. These family nights are a wonderful tradition! :) Love to all, Mom

Melissa said...

Since Jane is a baby we don't have any Olympic traditions yet, but I remember as a child we would gather around the TV to watch gymnastics in the summer and ice skating in the winter. Mom would pop popcorn on the stove (a treat) and we would vote for our favorites. These were always fun times together!!!

Anonymous said...

Yay for the Olympics! and Yay for DVR. We have been recording the Olympics and can fast forward through anything we don't want. the best part was the other day we were watching the girls gymnastics all around and I had misunderstood that we didn't win. How surprised was I we won gold and silver. I started crying (weirdo I know) I was so excited. I love the olympics and have enjoyed watching swimming and Gymnastics. has David tried NBC's website? I have heard that you can download events off of there.

Chrissy said...

My children, Hubby, and I have been cheering for Michael Phelps as he swims his way into history. I can only imagine how his Mother must feel!

Amy said...

That looks like so much fun, Monica. I love to get take-out Chinese so that is right up my alley. I am so glad you guys were able to figure out a way to watch it! Love it!

Anonymous said...

We had a main dish theme around different countries for the first week and then this Saturday we had our own family Olympics complete with thumb and arm wrestling, track (race around the house), standing jump, and maybe more to come. :D We are making a lapbook and checked out some great books on the Olympics from the library including a National Geographic one with some wonderful pictures.

Anonymous said...

We have been watching it every night. My 7 year old son is obsessed with Michael Phelps wanting to know how he became such a great swimmer. We told him it was hard work and determination and not giving up that helped him get there. That has really sparked him to do his best with things he is doing. We've also been showing him on a world map where some of the nations are located and he has loved that.

Kris

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the Olympics. It's the only thing we have been watching all week long. My husband never really paid much attention to them as he was growing up, but since he married me, he's really grown to enjoy them almost as much as I have!

Even though we don't have cable, we are blessed to pick up NBC on out antenna.

We don't have children, but for the opening ceremonies, we hung out with my cousin and his wife and their two daughters. We all made a big deal out of this and had an opening ceremonies party!

We had Chinese food delivered and looked at their pictures of when they lived in Hong Kong. Then they had each one of us pick a country that is not a World superpower (USA, China, etc.) and we made our country's flag (I chose Liechtenstein) with construction paper and flags and then they had us look up five fun facts about our country!

During the parade of nations, they would pause their TV when our nation would come into the arena (they have TiVo) and we would stand up and read our fun facts!

We had so much fun and it was educational too!

Monica Wilkinson said...

Wow - so many great ideas here!

Tara - I am thinking that I started doing Family Night when Emily was about 2 or even 2 1/2. It has been such a fun thing and Rachel has grown up knowing nothing different since she was just a baby when we started! I have a list of ideas still to try - so am excited to keep at it! :)

Anonymous said...

We've watched a lot of the Olympics. It's so funny to me that my 4 yr. old knows who Michael Phelps is. We haven't done any dinners around the theme but we all watch them as a family.

Unknown said...

My older kids (4,6 and 9) are LOVING the Olympics. They watched the opening ceremonies and looked up each country on the globe, and my 6 year old daughter loves to cheer for any country that she can guess the flag of. They also make medals for themselves and make their own competitions, and have laurel (well, caragana in our case) crowns and make us be the judges. Too fun.

3boysmama said...

Its actually been easier to watch the olympics this time with out network television. Go to www.nbcolympics.com. There you can watch pretty much anything on demand. That's how we were able to watch all of Phelps medal races.

Linda said...

We've only been watching the runners ;)

My husband used to be a runner, back in his country.. and he personally knows the man that is running for CuraƧao.. so for him we're big supporters of course..

greetings from holland!

Jamie - Family Focused Fun said...

Hi Monica,
Very fun! I love all your family nights!