For Gracie

*Read my sister-in-law's comment from my last post

Dear Gracie,

I'm so glad that you want to be an olympic bobsledder! In 2026, I'll be right there on the sidelines, cheering you on. You can do it, little buddy!

I love you!

:) Aunt Kristen

Bobsleigh

I saw this a few times at Whistler. I'm not sure the proper usage of "bobsleigh" versus "bobsled" but it has a nice ring to it. As though I should use a European accent and say, "Oh yes, just let me fetch my bobsleigh."

As promised, a part two to my olympic posting. We had a long and exciting day in Canada. After the two and a half hour drive, we had to take another two hour bus ride to get to Whistler. The atmosphere at the ski resort was infectious.

It was also very cold and I spent more money than I anticipated buying a hat, gloves and an extra jacket. Sorry, Emily, unfortunately they weren't the iconic red Canadian mittens that are all the rage. The shops have been sold out of them for several days.

We took the gondola up the mountain to watch women's bobsledding. It was packed at the top but by the end of the first heat, we worked our way up to the closest spectator spot. This was my favorite part. I loved watching them get ready, get a few final words from their coach, and perform their pre-race rituals which usually involved grunting and hitting each other. I'm glad to say no one wiped out all night yesterday, which was unfortunately not the case tonight.

This will give you an idea of how close we were. Wow! By the way, these ladies from Japan may not have won a medal but they should win a prize for the most beautiful sled.

We worked our way down the mountain, getting to watch the sleds zoom by at different parts of the course.

Here is the jumping picture I mentioned in my last posting. Marissa was the reason I went to Vancouver the first time and kindly let me buy her extra bobsledding ticket for our second trip.

Okay, I probably spent an inappropriate time working on this last picture but I sure had fun with it. If you haven't already seen it on my facebook profile, here it is again.

Well, we scoured the NBC footage of the event and I'm sad to say that I don't think we made it but hopefully I have presented you with sufficient evidence to assure you that I was indeed there.

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS!

Vancouver Twenty-Ten!

Okay, first of all, sorry these pictures are huge but I can't seem to figure out how to do the whole click-on-the-picture-and-make-it-bigger thing. So I just made them big to start with.

I went to Vancouver with some friends yesterday and it was fabulous. We didn't go to any events but got to soak up the olympic culture.

We stood in line for almost an hour to go to the olympic superstore, which seemed a little ridiculous but we sure wanted our souvenirs. I got this shirt which I felt captured the Canadian olympic spirit while being tastefully understated. Unfortunately, caught up in the excitement, I failed to properly read the label and consequently bought a man's medium instead of a woman's medium. By the time I realized how large it was, we were far from the store and may I remind you that took an hour of waiting in line to even get in the store. Definitely not going back.

I just googled, "how to shrink a t-shirt" and we'll see how it goes.

We saw some of the arenas and then went to the waterfront. Seeing the Olympic Torch was a much more inspiring sight than I imagined. It is huge! Bigger than my shirt! Also, there were tons of people around and they were all so nice.

I love my jumping pictures! We got a better jumping shot of my buddy Marissa and I but it is on her camera. I'll try to get it later. The city was giving away these Canadian flags because it was Flag Day which was perfect timing for our photo frenzy. We must have gotten some of the last ones because everywhere we went people were asking to borrow our flags for their pictures.

We got home late and watched Tivo'd olympics until really late. I have to say that I wasn't super excited about the olympics until yesterday but now I'm hooked!

So, hopefully, this will just be Part I of my olympic blogging. I may get the chance to go to bobsledding next week at Whistler.

Go team!