Give Said the Basketball Stream

After being her for so long, you'd have thought we'd have figured a few things out. We made good progress this past week as I often heard some of my friends tell about watching BYU basketball games online (since none of our cable providers carry the MTN or VS). I was introduced to the a few sites that stream the games... sometimes fuzzy... sometimes a little lag... but they have the games nonetheless.

Last week, I was able to watch the SDSU-BYU game until it cut to audio only the last minute (when BYU had put the game away). I saw most of the BYU-WYO nailbiter, and part of the BYU-UNLV game (since we were on a family walk to the Rio de la Plata). If you haven't understood the magnitude of what I'm saying, it's that we are able to watch BYU sports from here. Go figure. The time difference often makes it a pain to stay up so late, but it's an easy sacrifice. Plus, watching a small box (full screen makes it too grainy) on the computer isn't the same as a large flat screen TV, but it's better than the alternative, which is a big fat nothing (or the audio stream). Either way, I'm able to follow the season a little better, and it's great.

We had a good day yesterday, heading to a bowling alley in our neighborhood in the morning, and having a few folks over in the afternoon for dinner and a walk down along the water. While a beach it's not, we are able to look along the shoreline and get a surprisingly great view of the city. If you can look past all of the garbage, stray animals, and unkept park facilities, it was a pleasant walk. We went with another American family, two of which have very blonde hair like Claire's... so many heads turned. We're used to it by now. Caroline is our only child to have dark hair and dark eyes (i.e. the Mouritsen look).

It was kind of funny this week when Candace was talking to her mom... Her mom was sending us a package and said that she had some room left (thank goodness for USPS flat rate boxes) and she asked if we wanted anything stuffed into the empty space. We debated, but settled on Miracle Whip. It's the small pleasures. It turns out that the common practice is when someone travels to the States for a short trip, they take two large suitcases (practically empty) and come back loaded up with essentials you can't get here like good garbage bags, Ziploc bags, brown sugar, Miracle Whip, peanut butter, syrup and chocolate chips, just to name a few. You've got to have it down to a system, and I think that I've got a few trips to the States in the next several months that we'll have to plan ahead so I bring back what we need when we need it.