People Magazine
Olympic Gold medalist Shawn Johnson is loving her newlywed life – even if she’s living out of a hotel room!
Johnson, 24, and her NFL hubby Andrew East of the Oakland Raiders moved to California the day after their private Tennessee farm wedding in April.
The pair has been residing in team housing and will continue to do so until summer training camp when East finds out if he has a spot on the team. Johnson says the situation is “not ideal,” but they make it work.
“I’m cooking on a skillet that I bought from Target!” Johnson tells PEOPLE at the recent Manhattan Dairy Queen iced coffee and frappé happy hour launch. “We aren’t leading a very glamorous lifestyle right now. We are traveling like crazy, but it’s fun.”
She pauses and smiles, “It’s still so, so cool that I get to call him my husband!”
Johnson says she and East aren’t thinking about kids anytime soon – but the couple definitely wants a “big family” when the time is right.
“I’m an only child, but family is my life and I want a big one,” says Johnson. “And Andrew comes from a huge family, so it just makes sense.”
And when the time does come for kids, Johnson says she isn’t sure she wants them to pursue gymnastics.
“I would do it over again in a heartbeat, but I don’t think I could stand to see my own child go through the intensity of gymnastics,” she admits. “I think gymnastics is the greatest sport in the world for recreational sports but that intensity would scare me for my kid.”
She adds, “When you think of what you’ve gone through personally, you could never think of someone, your child especially, going through that.”
Johnson says the only gymnastics coach she would trust to mentor any future children – should they show an interest in gymnastics – is famed trainer Liang Chow, the coach that led her to Olympic gold at the 2008 Games.
“He called me when I got married and he was like when can I have your baby [to coach]?” says Johnson with a laugh. “I was like calm down, that’s weird! It’s too early!”
Still, “We’re definitely going to have athletic babies,” she says. “We live for sports.”
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