San Diego - The OTC

We just got back late Friday night from a wonderful week long trip to San Diego with Tim's family (minus Cam, who was missed). Thinking back to when we first arrived at the airport Saturday morning, I can't help but laugh. It was quite comical watching us all try and get our bags checked at the airport. With all of the babies and kids, it was quite the chore, but we made it alright, and here's a picture of us relaxing before we took off.

Once we arrived in San Diego we went to see Tim's brother, Marlon, who lives at the Olympic Training Center. (For those of you who don't know much about Marlon, you can visit his website http://www.marlonshirley.com/ , and we will also do a post on him sometime during the upcoming week) He took us on a tour of the Training Center, which was really interesting to see, and we ended up ordering some pizza and eating dinner there in the cafeteria.

Here is the super sized golf cart that took us around the Olympic Training Center. Well I guess I should say that took us part way around the Training Center. We all got out to walk around the Visitor's Center, and when we got back to the cart, it was smoking and wouldn't start!


At the entrance to the Visitor's Center, there are two huge posters of Marlon.

After the Visitor's Center, we walked down to the track to see where the athletes worked out and trained. Tim, being filled with some olympic spirit, thought he would attempt the long jump. Tim was lucky to make it to the sand!

Feeling dissapointed in his failed attempt at the long jump, Tim thought he might have better luck at table tennis. Marlon had Tim play an olympic table tennis player. (or at least that's what he told him!) After having beat his opponent 5 out of 6 matches, Tim was ready to move in with Marlon and train full time for the olympics. Common sense then kicked in, and Tim realized that he probably wasn't playing an olympic table tennis player as he had been told (Marlon later confessed that he was actually an archerer). I think it's safe to say that Tim's hope of becoming an Olympian, were then officially dead, although Tim is still holding on to hope that throwing the Aerobie ( basically a frisbee that flies a long way) will someday become an olympic event. Even then, I'm guessing he wouldn't have much of a chance, unless losing them in the ocean or in tall trees is the objective, in which case, I think that he would be the overwhelming favorite for Gold!

Later that week we went back to the training center to watch Marlon train. As you can see from the picture below, a television crew was also there to get some footage for some promos for the Paralympics.

We had a great time seeing Marlon in his element and looking around at the Olympic Training Center. In the next few days I'll post some more pictures and stories from our trip.