Ventura's Olympic Hero

What a busy Saturday today was.

We had intended on starting the day with a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's, one of the boy's favorites, followed by a 1 hour training hike for Marion and me in the Ventura Foothills. Our plans hit a snag before we even left the house when Nik woke up complaining of pain in his knee. He had fallen on our hike at Point Mugu last weekend and one of the scratches on his knee had become infected. So, instead of a hike after breakfast we visited the Urgent Care at Kaiser, and then the pharmacy at Walgreens.


From there we were off to the Ventura Community Pool for a hometown sendoff for Troy Dumais, a Ventura local who leaves next week to compete at his third summer olympic games for the U.S. Troy is a springboard diver, and Brodie, who has just taken up diving this summer was very excited to meet him. So excited, in fact, that he gave up the chance to go horseback riding in Griffith Park for his cousin Shoja's 10th birthday party. Brodie got to talk with Troy and got his autograph. Brodie also wanted to say hi to Ventura's mayor, Christie Weir, who was also at the event.

With the ink on his autograph still wet we jumped in the car and headed out to the Valley for the second half of Shoja's party at his house in Northridge. They had a giant jolly-jumper slide set up in the back yard equipped with a system for spraying water on the slide and a big splash pool at the bottom of it. Brodie and Nik had a lot of fun with their cousins Shoja, Logan and Erica.

We left there at 4 o'clock and drove out to Santa Clarita where Brodie and his team had their second diving meet of the season. Brodie dove well and we left the pool at 7 o'clock and found a nearby shopping center where we had a late dinner before the hour long drive home. Whew!