Running girl

Finny is a runner. How do I know? Running makes her happy. 

She does long distance training twice a week with the Thunderbirds Track and Field club. Those two sessions are tough. But she never complains. She looks forward to them. She goes into those long runs carrying all the details of her day. Then she bounces into the car when she's done. She's lightened. 

She leaves her baggage on the trails.

She ran a race in Coquitlam last weekend. That's her down below in the green top. 

The course was 2.5 km long, peppered with hills. She was running with kids her own age and a year older, boys and girls. She had no idea how she was doing against girls born in 2004 (which is how she gets ranked). She just had to run her hardest.

She ran hard. I found a spot on the course, close to the end to cheer her one. She ran by as I cheered. Her cheeks were bright, flushed with warmth and exertion. She flashed me a huge smile and she flew by...

She was exhilarated when it was over.

We waited for the results and she was 2nd. She was passed right at the end. It was only the two of them with times under 10 minutes.

She even got to stand up on a "podium" to accept her ribbon. 

And afterwards...we went to Ikea for fish and chips and her favourite: Princess cake. 

And the bonus? For me? I got to spend all day with this girl. Chatting and laughing and singing along  to music on the radio. That means I won, too.

The Documentary

Take a look at Mike Hamilton's project to make a documentary on Steve Nash. As a Canadian basketball player and fan, how can you not want to support what Mike's doing?

 

A Vancouver Day

While Eric and Lukey were over at Rogers Arena, the females of the family (plus, the lovely Maya) headed to the Aquarium for Super Saturday.

How lucky are we to live in a city that delivers these joys? Less than a 10 minute drive from our home and we are watching the Canucks or hanging with dolphins.

You may notice the fuzzy hat Finny is sporting. It's her dolphin hat. She wore it to visit her favourite animals.

And the devil horns the older girls are sporting in the 4D movie theatre...? I have no idea. I doubt they do either.

E-open practice

Despite living so close to Rogers Arena, we don't go to many Canucks games. It's a lot of money to take the family and you never know what kind of effort you'll see with a random game in the middle of an 82 game season. Lukey and I are pretty happy to be able to zip through a game on the PVR in less than an hour instead.

However, getting the chance to see an open practice and scrimmage was a great experience. As you can see, we got to sit right by the ice and have a great view of the players.

I liked seeing the practice part the best. It was incredibly well organized and seemed well thought out. The players seemed ready and focused for the whole session and played at a high intensity throughout.

It was great for Lukey to see how hard the players worked at during the 15 minutes of pure skating at the end of practice. In this picture Lukey is standing in front of Luongo and Tanev and a prospect, who are taking their break, while Jannick Hansen is skating his laps. Yes, even the goalies have to do the same conditioning!

Even a quick boat trip to Blaine to get measured for a new canvas Bimini is an opportunity for adventure. Eric, my dad, and the kids boated down and I drove and met them.

My poor dad got dragged around to hardware, appliance, box and warehouse stores. By the time we got back to the marina for the return trip, the fog was incredibly thick. The kids were freaked out, so elected to come home in the van. Which meant we had time to stop and ride a couple of killer whales.

How awesome is that?