A new site and Secret Santa
The big news for this week is that I finally got my website up and running! You should check it out at TaraKirkOnline.com! I’ve got to add a few things to it, but I am really excited about it. For this achievement, I have to give major thanks to Michele, who runs BrendanHansenOnline.com, for pretty much building and putting up all of TaraKirkOnline for me.
The whole process was kind of convoluted because I had already bought the domain name a year ago but could never get anything together to put up (some jerk bought Tarakirk.com the day after I made the Olympic Team and was trying to sell it for more than $600 — there was no way I was going to pay him for being lame like that). Michelle emailed me for a little piece on BrendanHansenOnline, and I randomly asked her if she could help me with my website. Lucky me, I asked the right lady. I think that it looks pretty cool. Hopefully, I will be able to get some fun pics up on the gallery page in the near future.
In other news, the big question for the past week has been, “Who is my Secret Santa?” Our team plays a little team activity called “Secret Santa” every year during winter training. Each person on the team draws a name out of a bag before winter training starts. Then, over the course of the week, everyone gives 3 little gifts to their person. After all the little gifts are given, the person who has been getting the gifts guesses who they have and gives a big gift back to their Secret Santa at a get-together that we have at the end of the week.
Things are kind of boring during winter training so the main activity was trying to figure out who each person had as their Secret Santa. Everyone knew who I had because I got my person pretty Tara-like gifts (including chocolate, travel-sized toiletries, and an energy saving light-bulb). But I could not figure out who had me. The embarrassing part was that EVERYONE knew who it was (which was in itself a clue). Finally, after a series of helpful and not so helpful hints and eliminations, I figured it out — JULIA. I think she traded my name for the names of other people.
Whew, I’m glad that it was her because I bought her a big gift before I knew I was giving it to her. I’m not sure that everyone on the team would appreciate mugs, hot cocoa and Love Actually.
Now, winter training is half over and I am on the plane back to the Pacific Northwest. We will resume winter training after the New Year. For now, I am looking forward to Christmas with my family and my Grandma’s 95th birthday party!