End of Summer 2007: Part 1

The last month or so of Summer 2007 was quite eventful. Here are the highlights:

Lumberjack World Championships

On the #4 log with Jenny

As always LWC was a very good time. Olivia and I shared a room which smelled of lavender (as did my car, all of my clothing, and my suitcase) but Olivia needs her flowers! And hey, flowers do make a hotel room homier.
I had some great matches over the weekend and made it to Sunday finals with the fastest boom run time and a finalist in log rolling against… Jenny! This was the first year I had ever been in the log rolling finals at LWC. I’m not quite sure what happened to me on Sunday, but in the boom finals I fell in (sometimes it feels good to get wet!) and Jenny beat me three straight in our log rolling match. To be completely fair to Jenny, I feel we both rolled at 100%, but she just rolled a lot better. The match was quite exciting, with no falls happening until the #4 log. She is an awesome roller.

Chippewa Valley Outdoor Games

Eating my mic after announcing for 8 hours in the hot hot sun.

The smaller tournaments are always by far the most fun. Sure there wasn’t much of a crowd on the first two days, but we rollers can be loud enough! I got to MC the youth log rolling on Friday, and WOW were there some exciting matches. It was hotter than spit out and these amazing kids make it to the #4 log numerous times. Some of the girls were on the #4 for over three minutes! Talk about insanity! Announcing was fun for those matches, “And they are still on the log….”. I had never been more proud of the log rolling youth.
Saturday was the women’s professional competition. My first match was with Leah Stanton, who in my opinion is one of the strongest rollers out there. She got me in two in a row (thank god the matches were three out of five) but with some sort of dumb luck, I was able to win that match. If you have to roll Leah in 2008 be afraid, be very afraid. I made it to finals once again against… you guessed it, Jenny. At the log rolling world championships I beat her three falls straight, and at the Lumberjack world championships (confusing, I know) she beat me three falls straight. With luck on my side I won the match 2 falls to 1. Saturday night Tanya, Kevin, Kelly, Travis, Lori, John and I all went out to party it up in the exciting town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After watching some very exciting rugby at the first bar, Travis, Lori, and John all went back to the hotel. Tanya, Kevin, Kelly, and I decided to go dancing. Us ladies (oh yeah, and Kevin) were a force to be reckoned with on the dance floor. Tanya protected everybody (including Kevin) from the scary rednecks, and we danced until we sweat all possible fluids out of our bodies. Too much fun.
Sunday the men rolled. It always amuses me how not serious the men are for competition. Water was splashed, immature words were exchanged, etc. I had the joy of MCing for the day. A HUGE thank you to Chippewa Valley Convention and Visitor's Bureau for hosting this fun event!

Too be continued (did you really bother to read THIS far???)…