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.