Olympics (hey, we're in Vancouver, give us a break...it's big news here)

I promise, there are other things happening in our family, but the Olympics are the dominant focus of each day.

Today, the girls and I ventured downtown on the Canada Line to check out the big action. We were impressed. The vibe downtown is very different than our little bubble here. There is lots of foot traffic around here, but nothing to compare to the crowds clogging the pedestrian areas of downtown. The most transformed neighbourhood has to be Yaletown. It actually looks very cool when I don the unjaded perspective of an Olympic visitor. There were buskers and street entertainers galore. Tons of people walking around with the giddy touristy expression that only comes when you don't have to return home that same evening to cook dinner in your own kitchen.

We watched the Checkerboard Guy at Robson Square. He was pretty good. Then we watched Circus West. They were not good. I watched the girls experience the discomfort that comes from watching public failure. They wanted to watch and not watch. They wanted to be honest ("she is trying...but not doing very well") and generous ("it DOES look hard"...in my head, I was thinking that the point is to make something look EASY). We saw sports on big screens and cheered for Canadians. We had hot chocolate and cookies.

We walked down to the foot of Thurlow Street to see the cauldron. As we made our way down the hill, the girls' excitement built. Molly was psyched that the pillars looked like ice. She and Finny waxed poetic for the whole walk, praising the majesty of fire partnered with ice. We got up to the chain link fence and Molly's shoulders slumped. "Up close, it looks plastic...", she moaned. Not so much with the majesty, then.

We walked along the water on our way back to Waterfront Station. The Olympic tour was deemed a success. Home for dinner, then out for an evening family swim.

Tonight, the kids stayed up late to see the fireworks at Livecity Yaletown (yep, that was us...the only parents with little kids out. Seriously. The only ones.). We watched from the seawall next to their school. Lukey said fireworks are beautiful, but he insisted on keeping up his jacket hood...you know, so the fireworks wouldn't fall on his head.