China!

I really have fallen behind with my posting and this one will be VERY brief because I'm trying to get things together here before going to Cedar City for our annual trip to the Shakespearean Festival.

So, i just wanted to QUICKLY (nowhere near my long prose) say how much i've LOVED watching the Olympics. I was up working on a computer last night until 4:00 am and didn't realize what time it was because I was watching the games.

I am especially excited because it is in China and Lissette and I LOVE China (we even named Tristan after a city in China - her middle name is Xian which is where the Terracotta Army was found). We've been there several times and really enjoy the culture, country and food. The people were wonderful and we were planning on going to the games but things didn't work out. After watching the Opening Ceremonies we were pretty bummed we didn't make a bigger effort.

I know there is some controversy because of China's human rights history and i'm not excusing that at all. We aren't perfect here in the "Promise Land" either. No country is perfect (although Brunei comes close :-), but knowing there are 1.3 billion people that are just trying to live and survive and only a very very very small fraction of those are the leaders who've made some horrible decisions (read Wild Swans - one of my favorite books - for an overview of 20th century Chinese History and Mao's government), makes me wish more people would go and visit this amazing land to meet the rest of the 1.3 billion and find that common ground.

Well, a little longer than I'd thought at the beginning, but NO WHERE NEAR what I really want to say about China. I absolutely love that country! And, i'm SO EXCITED that they got the Olympics and hopefully are showing people what a great land and culture they are.

For those of you that missed the opening ceremony i'd try and find someone that has it in High Def (come on over anytime to watch it at my place)...if you can't, then here are some highlights to show you how cool it was...these little videos don't really even come close to doing it justice, but they do show you some of the coolness of it...

These videos will probably stop working in a while. I searched for the Opening Ceremony and found a TON of them that were taken down. I was surprised to even find these...enjoy!

Man, i really wanted to be there...100 degrees and all!

Not sure how different this one is...it is hard for me to watch this small - sorry...