i believe

beauty, energy, tears, anticipation, excitement, sweaty armpits, and a song that i could not get out of my head - this is what i will take away from the 2010 winter olympics in vancouver.

i desperately wanted the girls to have photos of themselves in this place so that they would know that they were here, that they experienced, that they were apart of something historical. maybe even that said photos would transpire to desires and passions, a drive even, to be athletes themselves. that i would be the parent in the stands, that it would be their name announced to the world that they were the champion. such were my romantic dreams.

reality came when a wednsday brought sickness for little penny.

then came thursday which attacked scott.

friday again for penelope.

saturday had my name on it.

sunday was a free day.

monday came for both sophie and my mom.

tuesday we cleaned and laundered, wiped out buckets and ate toast.

we were a beautiful smelling family.

my desire to share the olympics were put on standby.

then a message from friends in calagry. they were driving out just for this occasion. we would join them, without the girls and spend the night in the reality that CTV had brought me for so many nights.

welcome to vancouver 2010; brought to us by the hudson bay company

count down to the olympics, now it counts up from the beginning. said friends, shauna and scott kelly, and shauna - note the Olympic rings in the background. the cauldron. amazing really, you could feel the heat from it. the medal standings on the day we were there. a little official restaurant participation. walking the streets of downtown vancouver didn't watch any other feed than this one. hard to see by scott is infront of pam here. sunday; game day.

spent again with the franks as well as kelly and trevor.

we sat with many others at the langley events centre and watched history being made. dude, we just made history!

and this was our olympic experience. i kinda miss the "i believe" song being sung multiple times a day. i miss brain being apart of our living room every night. i miss watching sophie and penny trying to dance to the figure skaters.

best line by a three year old during figure skating, "ohhh daddy, this is the part where she turns into a beautiful mermaid."

yes, these were our experiences.