Well, happy Friday guys. Yay! So who else is crazy excited for the Olympics? I’m a huge nerd about them every time they come around, and the winter games are my favorite. Of course, these games are especially interesting with all the Sochi shaming that’s been happening on social media lately. So funny, but hopefully everything goes well now that the actual games are starting.

My father was lucky enough to be a torch bearer for the Salt Lake games in 2002. It was an amazing experience for him and the whole family, and I love that we now have an actual Olympic torch in our house!! It has his name engraved on the bottom. Before the Salt Lake games, the Olympic committee sent out a request for torch-bearer nominations, especially looking for candidates who were influential in their communities and dedicated to athletics. My father was a long distance bicyclist (he once rode from Alaska to Florida) and also very involved in local politics, so I submitted an essay without telling him… and he got picked. He actually almost threw away the acceptance letter because he thought it was junk mail!

I was moving some things around/redecorating the other day and put together a little tribute to the Olympics in our dining room. I put the torch together with some matryoshka dolls that Andy’s aunt recently brought back from Russia for us. The painting in the back is a scene by the well-known Alaskan artist Rie Munoz. There’s a lot of Russian influence in certain areas of Alaska. The bowl on the left has nothing to do with the Olympics or Russia, but I just think it’s pretty!

Yesterday I posted a photo on Instagram (follow us @burritosbubbly) of my great grandfather, who spent some time in Russia in the early 1900s, just before the Russian Revolution. He sure had a pretty fabulous hat!

Happy Olympics watching, guys. What events are you most excited for? I had huge dreams of winning ice skating gold when I was little (even though I dropped out of skating lessons after a few weeks because I was too shy to talk to other kids), but right now I’m most excited for the skiing and snowboarding events.