Paralympics !!

That is Vivian Forest posing for a picture with the girls just minutes after her medal ceremony in the visually impaired super-g. An absolutely beautiful day spent watching all three super-g categories,( visually impaired, sitting and standing) in both the mens and womens. 6 medal ceremonies with Canada winning gold (Lauren Woolstencroft standing)and silver(Vivian in visually impaired). The visually impaired skiers were going around 60 km per hour and the standing athletes around 70! A far different event than the olympics, with far less security and lots of interactive areas for the crowd to try out paralympic technology, such as sit skis and sledge hockey sleds. The crowds were big and cheering for every athlete with some of the biggest cheers for the poor competitors who crashed right at the finish line and would end up caught up in all the safety padding. The girls thought that this was one of the best olympic experiences they had and were glad that we skipped another day of school to take it all in.

Final Olympics Update!

What an absolutely crazy 17 days. Too many highlights to mention, but probably the best part was the spirit in the city and Whistler. Everywhere you went were thousands of happy people celebrating the achievements of their respective countries and doing so in a responsible way. We watched the mens gold medal hockey game in Pikas on the top of whistler. It was so busy in the village that people were taking the gondola up to the top to watch on the tvs that had been set up. After the game and medal ceremony we skied down and walked through the village, Blue Rodeo was performing a free concert in the middle of the village and it was so packed you couldn't walk. As far as we are concerned the Olympics were a huge success and we had no issues with transportation or excessive line ups. Here are a few more photos. Not only were the crowds well behaved but none of them were skiing! This is a photo from the final saturday of the games taken at lunch time in the cafeteria! That same day Monique, Vera and I enjoyed some powder skiing on Doom and Gloom and Vera's secret tree runs.