Olympians in our own backyard

 Last Saturday was a busy day, but I decided to pack up the kids and haul them to a local park, and I'm so glad we went! The occasion was a Welcome Home celebration for Colorado's Olympians. It was hosted by my city, the same city which happens to be home to a particularly decorated female Olympian. Can you guess who she is?

The event was emceed by Chris Marlowe, who also lives in my city. Most recently he did play-by-play for the 2012 Olympics beach volleyball broadcasts, which is fitting because he was captain of the gold-medal-winning men's Olympic volleyball team in 1984. He is currently the play-by-play announcer for the Denver Nuggets. He also happens to be a neighbor of that young lady I mentioned earlier!

The event was designed to be a celebration of all Colorado Olympians--at least, all that list Colorado as their current residence or train here. Six of the athletes who competed were able to attend the celebration, including Lance Brooks, who competed in discus

and David Herman, who we actually watched compete in BMX!

A total of 39 Coloradans participated in the Olympics (with more to come in the Paralympics) and brought home 9 of the 104 total medals won in the whole Olympic games. That's a pretty high percentage and includes this young lady, Taylor Ritzel, who won a gold in rowing (which is pretty awesome when you consider Colorado is land-locked and mostly dry!)

It wasn't a surprise to me that a Coloradan won a medal in mountain biking! This is Georgia Gould, who won a bronze medal (the guy she's greeting is our governor, John Hickenlooper).

And since we don't have any oceans, apparently we like the swimming pools--maybe that accounts for our history of awesome female swimmers! This is Kara Lynn Joyce, who didn't medal in London but has 4 silver medals from the Olympics in Athens and Beijing.

And even though the event was for ALL Colorado athletes no matter where in our large state they reside, this young lady was the star of the show and got the biggest cheers from the crowd. When she was introduced, the giant screen played the funny video the US Swim Team made singing to "Call Me Maybe" and cute Missy danced and sang right along!

Missy's high school is about 10 minutes from my house so she is very much the local darling. And by what I saw, she's every bit as bubbly, genuine and humble in person as she was in all those TV interviews you saw during the Olympics. She's the kind of athlete I'd be happy to have my daughter look up to--she works hard at her hobby and at school, she's humble, she has a positive attitude, and is genuinely kind and friendly--all traits that I want my daughter to aspire to!

We didn't stay to try to get autographs because it was HOT and Porter was cranky, but I'm so glad that we attended anyway. What a fun opportunity for our community to come together under happy circumstances and celebrate together!