Vancouver 2010: Cross-country skiing

I am finally sitting here watching the closing ceremony and able to write a blog about some of our events up at Whistler. It's been a crazy busy week going up to Whistler and back 3 times in 4 days, our Career Day at school, a conference in Seattle, and helping host a baby shower for a friend. Phew... Next week looks fairly normal. Now all I need to do is get over my cold.

We went up to Whistler Olympic Park on Saturday on one of the many Olympic buses from Vancouver. The bus ride was pleasant and the weather was gorgeous! We got to Whistler Olympic Park, where they host the Ski Jumping, X-country, and Biathlon, early. So we hopped onto another bus and headed into Whistler Village. Even our bus ride was entertaining. We were the only ones on the bus except for a volunteer. Our bus driver was a Hatian man from Florida. He was so excited to be helping at the Olympics. When he found out we were from Bellingham, we learned that he had stayed in Bellingham for a few days before his bus was allowed to go into Canada. He loved Bellingham because his hotel was next to the mall and the Old Country Buffet! He said it was better than any other OCB that he had ever been too. He was so excited about it. It was so cute! He would eat one big meal there for all 3 of his meals. We walked around the village for a while but we didn't have too much time. We found the US Ski Team store but were disappointed and didn't feel like waiting in line for the regular Olympic store. Then we hopped onto another bus to go back to the park. This one was filled with official Russian Team members (not sure which sport). They were singing very loudly the whole time! It was very entertaining.

One of the reasons we chose to go and see the X-Country Pursuit was in hopes of seeing an old family friend from Andover, NH (where I grew up), Kris Freeman who is on the US Olympic Team. We got to the venue and it was packed with supporters. While changing into our snow boots, I just happened to see Kris's dad, Donavan, go by. I re-introduced my self. Of all the thousands of people, I actually saw him. We went and joined him and Kris's mom, Barbara, along the fence to watch the race. They were very excited that we had come to cheer Kris on.

The view from the hill. It was such a beautiful day out! Adam was just in his shirt and I had on only vest.

If you watched any of the x-country, this was the last hill before coming into the stadium. We could see them go by 3 times during the race here.

Go Kris go!

Kris was doing great the first two laps but then really fell back after the 2nd lap. We are not quite sure what happened. He has type 1 diabetes which is hard to manage for an athlete who competes in such endurance sports like x-country.

And a Swede wins!

It was really fun to be there to cheer all the athletes on! I loved the enthusiasm of all the fans including the Canadians. Even though the American's didn't do well, it was still such a fun day. We even made it home before Corbin went to bed. Thanks to Kevin and Meghan who came up for the whole weekend to take care of Corbin.

Vancouver 2010: Short track speed skating

As you've certainly noticed, the Olympics started several days ago (though you're just getting to see them now, due to NBC's tape delay and inspirational filler). With Vancouver just an hour away, we are heading up for four events, and the first was the short track.

By the way: The border was excellent. A lot more Canadians going to these games than Americans. Five minute wait in, five minute wait out. Plus, entertaining questions!

"How do you know each other?"

"We're married."

"Have either of you ever been arrested?"

"No."

"Never?"

"No."

Very persistent, that one.

We had to go into downtown to pick up our tickets, and unfortunately didn't have much time to check things out. Main observation: The quantity and variety of Canada gear is baffling. Canadian pride is in full effect.

The short track was at the Pacific Coliseum, where we have seen several hockey games, Dave Matthews Band, and J.K. Rowling. VANOC has the public transportation down pretty well, and it wasn't much trouble to get where we needed to go, via SkyTrain and bus. Plus, it was all free with our event ticket!

Our short track night consisted of several heats of different sorts, and the Men's 1500m final at the end. My favorite event in short track is the relays, because they give each other huge pushes when they "tag." We saw two semifinal heats of the Women's 3000m Relay.

The highlight, of course, the main event, was the Men's 1500m. We saw a whole bunch of qualifying heats, later the semifinals, and last the finals. There were a couple Canadian racers who came close, and it did indeed choke us up a little to hear so many Canadians cheering their countryman.

The US had two highly touted skaters, Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski, both from the Seattle area. I was particularly rooting for Celski, because (a) Ohno wears headbands and (b) just five months ago Celski crashed and sliced his leg down to the bone. The skates are so sharp that the cut was so clean and a short recovery was possible. Quite the comeback.

He just sneaked into the final

Getting the ice ready for the final

The final was pretty exciting. Around the last bend three Koreans held the lead. But the third tried to sneak in for silver, and knocked his teammate and himself into the wall. Ohno and Celski cruised by for silver and bronze. Crazy that Korea could have swept if they weren't so competitive. Crazy, too, that it took a crash to give the US any medals. But that's short track; it's part of the deal.

Celski takes bronze

Ohno takes silver

It was great fun. This is Erin's third Olympics, and my second. For me, it's an opportunity for enjoyment of and participation in patriotic fervor, without any political undertones. Everyone there is just there to support their country and their athletes. No politics required.

When we were in Europe during the World Cup in 2006, we were watching in a restaurant and some English guys came by. They asked who we wanted to win in the England-Argentina match. We said it didn't matter. His response:

"Every hear of a little thing called the Falklands War?"

I guess politics can get in there sometimes.

Yesterday we spent all day watching the Olympics so we wouldn't miss Nordic Combined and the possibility of a first ever US medal. Erin found out the results early, but I kept my ears closed and found out as we watched. Pretty exciting!

Congrats, Johnny! It's fun to have met a medalist. Hopefully the team can work it on the 23rd and we can witness a gold!

We'll check back in after next weekend; Biathlon and Cross-country and the long bus journey to Whistler (twice).

Go USA! Go Canada! Go everyone!

Use that pumpkin 10

Chocolate chip pumpkin bread

Oh baby baby!

We are excited to announce that we will be having a GIRL! Corbin will have a little sister! We are so excited. I was hoping for a girl, even though two boys would have been fabulous too. I am getting ready for the flood of pink. Some will be ok but hopefully some other colors will shine through too. Yahoo a boy and a girl!!!

Splish splash

We decided to take the new car for a drive and decided to head to Birch Bay because it was such a nice day out. We also wanted to check out the Olympic store at the Birch Bay Outlets but it was disappointing. So to the beach we headed. We brought along Corbin's full rain suit :-) It was almost 60 degrees out but there was a little breeze on the beach and the water was cold. Corbin and Brindzi had a blast though!

New Wheels

So we finally decided on a car! After test driving 5 cars and agonizing over them, we went back to the Subaru dealer on Sunday and bought a brand new 2010 Subaru Outback! Holy wow! I can't say that the process of buying a new car is fun but we do love having it now! We pretty much got screwed on our trade in. We agonized and lost sleep over it the night after we bought it. Car dealers are sneaky. But the deal is done. We now know what to do differently next time. We can't go back, though if we did, we could have saved thousands of dollars. Ugh.

Here is our new car! We are excited. The new Subaru has more room inside, a little less cargo room than previous models, a built in roof rack, and gets up to 29 mpg, which is awesome for an all wheel drive vehicle. We can watch how many gallons we are getting on average, at that exact moment, and more.

It had come off the truck only the day before. So yes, that says only 6 miles!

Corbin likes all his new leg room! And the middle console comes down and is the perfect height for him to stick his sippy cup into the cup holders! He keeps saying "new car" over and over :-)

Enough room for 2 car seats, front and backwards facing, and a skinny person to sit in between!

We got all weather mats to go with it... Brindzi has already gotten her muddy paws all over! We wanted leather seats to go with her shedding fur and the cherrios that get smashed into it...but we can't get everything we want... next time maybe.

Corbin loves to walk around in our shoes. Dad's big boots were a challenge though!