Carter's Interview

Sometimes when you screw something up, things turn out better because of your mistake.  Well, ok, maybe that doesn't happen that often, but in this case, my mistake turned out to be very beneficial for Carter.  You might remember that he wanted to interview a woman, Camilla, that he met from Australia because his class is studying the country.  Well, we did the interview only I didn't actually record it like I thought I did. Ooops! So we had to go back to Camilla and ask to do it again.  She was very understanding and agreed to do it again.  A few days had past, and we finally had time to do the interview, so Carter went searching for Camilla.  He didn't find her, but did find her camera man and explained why he was looking for Camilla.  The camera man smirked at my mistake and said, "I will tape it this time."  This was an incredible experience! Carter got to do a real live interview, with a crew, lights, cameras, and in a studio!  And then, the team did the editing.  It was so cool!  Here is the final copy, it was so fun!

**I am going to continue to post some stories and pictures as I have time because there was lots more I wanted to share, but internet access and difficulty with posting with the IPad limited my ability, so feel free to keep checking in here to see what is new. And feel free to leave me comments, I love getting them and knowing that people are really reading this!

More pictures

*Just a reminder: pictures are not as easy for me to upload and position as I would like, so please forgive me if this seems poorly done, it is not my intention!

One of the Russian regions

Beautiful artwork

Virtual skiing

We are still here!

I know it has been awhile, but things have gotten very busy and all of us have gotten very tired. This combination has left me little time to blog. Our typical day is beginning at the latest with getting out of bed by 9am and then ends with getting back to the hotel as late as midnight. And the time in between is full! To say the least, we are exhausted!

On Monday we went to our last curling game. Though the team did not do as well as we hoped, we are all so proud of them and never stopped cheering for them! They are an amazing group of woman that represented our country with pride at these games. Our family is so lucky to be a part of their efforts.

Display at the Russian Regions
Exhibit of nesting dolls

Since curling was over, we had sometime to explore some of the park and see other sports. One of the most interesting places they have here to explore is the Russian regions exhibit. This is a great big building where there is a display from all of the regions in Russia. Many have interactive exhibits, live demonstrations, and are staffed with people from that particular region that speak English. They were all excited to tell us about their area and often would give us something from their region. Some things we got were honey, postcards, pins, magnets, birch wood cup, stuffed animals, rocks, and a decorative bag. It was so informative and made us realize how little we really knew about Russia. One of my favorite things I saw there was part of the meterorite that hit Russia one year ago.

The part of the meteror
is in the display case 

 We have also gotten to see two other women's hockey games. One was USA versus Sweden in the semifinal and the other was Russia versus Finland. Both were a lot of fun to be at! On the USA game, Brianna Decker had a goal and two assists. Then we got to see speed skating. We went to the women's 5000m race. None of us had ever seen speed skating in person before, so we were all fascinated by this new adventure! The USA did not do well, but we did see a new track record by the winner of course. 

At this point, things are winding down for us. We have one more event to see. We are going to the women's gold medal hockey game tomorrow. We will all be wearing our Decker t-shirts and cheering loudly for Brianna and the rest of the team! The game does not start until 9pm! Going to be so very late for us, and the next day we begin our jouney home.

Musical Experiences

As mentioned previously, there are lots of cultural experiences that we have been apart of. These here are musical videos. The bagpipers are outside of the curling venue before every game and then pipe the teams onto the ice which is a curling tradition. On this particular day there was also a cameraman and guess who he picked out of the crowd? Watch and see!

More pictures

Twin Biathlon athletes. One
gave up her spot on Team
USA so her sister could
compete!

Noelle, she won a silver
medal in skeleton!

We keep "running into" amazing people. Yesterday all of us were to go to a women's hockey game, but realized when we got to the gate that two of our tickets were for a different game! So Donnie and Wesley went to the game and Carter and I went to The Today Show. It was a great experience. We met three amazing athletes, two who are twins, and all had wonderful stories. Look them up and read about them!

Vernon Davis of the San Fransico
49ers is a curling fan!

Practice Interview

Carter is hoping to interview a woman that is working at the P&G Family Home who is from Australia because that is the country they are studying right now. To prepare we wrote out questions and he was reading them back to me when Summer Sanders (yes, the Summer Sanders that works for NBC!) approached us and asked what we were up to. When she realized he was preparing to interview someone she offered to practice with him and gave him pointers! I taped just a small portion of it, how cool!

Sweep of the Podium!

When you have family that is an athlete you get to see this sort of stuff! So amazing, these boys swept the podium!

Olympic Village

We got into the Olympic Village! We had tried many times in Vancouver and it never worked out. Obviously you can't just go to the Olympic Village. Debbie had to request passes for us, but there is never a guarantee you will get the passes because they are limited each day. It was a fun behind the scenes peak that we feel so fortunate to have had! We saw their post office, bank, store, art gallery and cafe before venturing further into the village. We decided to eat in their dinning hall. They have tons of choices to eat. The athletes eat free of course, but guests can purchase a meal ticket for about $25 per person to eat there too.  My boys and I chose to try the sushi first and it was great! All the food was great, and the boys got to go McDonalds for a mcflurry at the end. Yes, there is a McDonalds in the dinning hall which means you can get anything you want whenever you want from there if you are an athlete. Wow!

McDonalds at the Olympic Village!

We also got to go the houses for the athletes. The street is lined with buildings, some decorated with flags from various countries, for the teams to stay in. The house Debbie and her team is in also houses men's and women's hockey and the men's curling team and probably others but I don't remember what she told us. The team has a lounge area that has a living room and bathroom and a balcony that has a gorgeous view of the Black Sea. They told us that they see dolphins swimming by at times. Two players share a room, so Debbie is with her teammate Jessica. There room is very nice. It has two single beds, a bathroom, and a small balcony that faces another building, but you can see the water when you are standing it. Annie and Erika, from the team, share the room across the hall.  When we were on our way to see the rooms, we ran into Brianna Decker! Got to give her some hugs  and introduce her to Debbie.

On the balcony at Olympic
Village

After our time at the village, we decided to try to find the taping of the Today Show. After a bit of walking and trying to get non-English speaking volunteers to understand where we wanted to go, we got into the taping! There were not too many people there, so we felt fairly confident that we would get on. During breaks, the cast of the show came down and talked with us and took pictures. We met Matt, Al, and Savannah. The pictures are on my camera, but friends and family from home say they saw us in the crowd.

At the end of our day, we went to a curling game. The USA played Japan and we won! This was our first win and it felt good to see them be successful! Later, when I got back to the hotel, I had a bunch of messages on Facebook that my family was on TV at the end of the curling game cheering! Guess this was our day to be almost famous by being on television.

Women's Hockey Game!

Another great day on Sochi! At this point I can't imagine at there will be any day that isn't great!

Brianna Decker(right) and Amanda Kessel

We were all very tired and slept in today because we didn't have a curling game until 2pm. It felt wonderful.  After our curling game, we went directly to the women's hockey game versus Canada. We had a bit of an issue with tickets, but eventually it all turned out! We got two tickets from two ladies just outside the ice arena and some tickets from the P&G folks. Two of the tickets were right behind the USA bench! My husband and Carter were in another section. They ended up meeting and taking a picture with Ryan Miller, the men's hockey goalie! Even though the women lost, it was so fun to watch! And just amazing to see Brianna Decker play, she was a student of mine!

After the game we went to the P&G House and were able to sit down and chat with Brianna and her family a bit. And of course, the rest of the team was there too! I really find it fun to see all of these athletes. Carter took some pictures with his camera and I took some with mine, but forgot to pull out the IPad much, so will have to share some later.

Travis Ganong's family wanted a picture
With Carter. Travis is a downhill skier.

Tomorrow's plan is to go to the Olympic Village! The athletes have to request passes to get their family in and the passes are very limited. We got bumped out each time we requested in Vancouver, so we are hoping this time we really get in. By chance, Debbie and Brianna ended up on the same floor! So we may just run into Brianna during our visit.

I also figured out where the Today Show films, so we may try to take a peak tomorrow and see if we can wave to everyone at home. Also, below are some videos I took to show you the cultural experiences I mentioned up in an earlier post. There are musicians and dancers all over the place and they are so very talented! Video seemed easy to post from my IPad, so I will try to take more. Enjoy!

The Day In Photos

We watched curling today

Wesley is ready to cheer!

We got to have lunch with Debbie! 

Evan Lysacek

Joey Cheek

JR Celski

Did some interviews

First Day at Olympic Park

The day is finally here! We went to Olympic Park and cheered on our team in their first game. It was so exciting! We started our day off with the breakfast buffet at the hotel. My favorite part was the crepes. My family makes these occasionally, but we call them Swedish pancakes. I have the feeling I will be eating LOTS of them!  

Then we had a bit of time before we needed to head to the game, so my husband and Wesley went back to bed and Carter and I stayed in our room and worked. He did a little school work and I figured out how to get pictures on the blog. Well, figured it out enough to get a few pictures on, I have found it is much easier to do it on my laptop(it is in the states) than the IPad. Boo. So I apologize for the non-captioned, large pictures at the end of my last post.

Then we jumped on the train to head to Olympic Park. It takes about 45 minutes to get there, but that is not bad. The train is clean, easy to use, and seems very safe. We even saw a porpoise playing in the Black Sea on our way in! However, not everything in this area is beautiful and we can also see that from the train. The news about stray animals is true and we see many from the train.

At Olympic Park we had to first verify our spectator passes. Everyone has to have one and wear it at all  times, though the line looked long, it did not take us too long to get through. Then we had to meet a man from the US Curling Association to get our tickets for the day. This also went smoothly and we were finally ready to head into the park. 

The park was amazing and huge! The curling venue, called the Ice Cube, is at the exact opposite side of the park as the entrance so we did a lot of walking, but then got a good sense of the layout of the park and got to see almost everything as we walked by! They have lots of Russian culture on display! We saw lots of accordion players, including two men that were playing almost hip-hop on the accordions, dancers, singers, and marching bands! Just amazing! The caldron is in the center so we saw that of course, too. Since Debbie is a four time Olympian, we had all been to multiple Olympic Games and we all agreed this is by far the best set up of any of the games since '98 because everything is right there! It is more like going to Disney or Great America, whereas in places like Salt Lake City, we were an hour away from anything else because the curling venue was in Ogden, but nothing else was.

We also got to see our first curling game. It was exciting! Team USA played very well in the beginning of the game, but then struggled at the end and lost to the Swiss. There is a ton of curling left to do, so no worries. We play Russia tomorrow morning and then Great Britian in the evening. We will have to cheer really loudly because as expected, the crowd is heavily occupied by Russian fans!  

I hope you will be able to watch too and cheer for them from back home!

After our game we went to the P&G Family Home(see older post to see what it was like in Vancouver) and had dinner. It was yummy, but the P&G is smaller than usual and this time doesn't have a computer room. I was going to relie on these computers to upload photos from my camera, but now I can't. Therefore I don't have any new pictures because they are all on my camera. Boo. I will do a better job tomorrow. For me some of the fun of the Olympics is spotting athletes, and the P&G is the place to do it! Today we saw Lolo Jones, Shani Davies, (don't know if I spelled everyone's name correctly) and my favorite was Jaime Anderson! She came in with her mom and five sisters, and the GOLD medal around her neck! She gave a small speech, we watched her gold medal run, and then congratulated her with a toast! Goosebumps!! Incredible experience! Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings! Go USA!

The Adventure has Begun!

Well we are in Russia! And it has been adventurous already. We began our trip on a coach bus in Madison, WI around 7:15am on Saturday (keep in mind this entry is going to involve time zone changes). Our first stop was O'Hare airport in Chicago, but around 9:30 am we got a call from our travel agent that we had gotten bumped off the cruise ship in Sochi and would be staying in a hotel instead. This was not entirely a surprise as we had just heard of two other families that this had happened to just the day before, however, it didn't make my husband happy. After we got to our gate at O'Hare, he spoke with the travel agent again and was able to get some clarification and we decided this might not be terrible and we would just need to be flexible.

Wesley, happy traveler on first flight

Carter, Chicago to NYC

Our flight to New York from Chicago was uneventful, but the New York airport was where the "fun" began. We were told we needed our boarding passes from the Russian airline we were flying to Moscow and we were to get them in New York. Well this meant we needed to walk a bunch, take several elevators AND escalators, get on a train (which we took going the wrong way at first), and go out of the secured area.  We checked in and had to get into a long security line and of course we picked the slowest line. Then when we finally got to our gate, we had to go through security again where they opened up and went through all of our carry-on bags. We were told by some nice Canadian travelers that the TSA agents were removing all food from carry-ons, so before we got into this last security line, we sat down and ate a bunch of candy and drank some water(my kids liked this part a lot!). Then we went through, but they did not remove anything. A bit frustrating. After going through

Driving the air train in NYC

this security at the gate our 3 hour lay-over was just about done, and we had to sit in our secure spot that was far too small and really hot! All this security delayed our flight by about a half hour. This was immediately a concern for us because we were to get a connecting flight to Sochi in Moscow and only had about an hour to get that connection. But there was nothing we could really do about it so we just tried to enjoy the flight.

Made it to the Big Apple

We flew Aeroflot, and it was great! The crew dressed like the crew from Pan Am, hats,white gloves and all! We got two meals! Not snacks, meals! I had fish both times and it was yummy! Each seat had a tv and you could choose what to watch, from kids movies and tv shows, to newer movies and documentaries, it was great for us all. And of course we slept, too. Then with about 45 minutes left of the flight, the flight attendant came to us and said we needed to be ready to get off the plane immediately when we landed because they were going to make sure we got our connection. We started to pack stuff up and get shoes on and my youngest son, Wesley, began to vomit. A lot. He used a couple of the bags. We grabbed a few extra just in case, and had him carry one with him when Olga, our flight attendant came and got us. There were 8 of us total on the plane going to the same connection and they had us move to the door before the plane even stopped. Then they changed doors and had us walk through first class. During this time Wesley got a bit separated from me and my husband, Donnie, and my brother in law, Pete was with him

and he started to vomit again! Pete ended up carrying Wesley and getting a little vomit on him, while we ran through the Moscow airport with our crew of folks trying to get the connection. We were lead by several Russian officials that yelled out "Sochi",  waved their hands to show us where to go and encourage speed, got us through customs,  zipped us through security like you wouldn't believe, and held Carter's hand to get him to the gate. During this time, Carter is yelling how fun this is because it is like we are on the show The Amazing Race. We got some looks, but we made the flight! And a friend. I ended up sitting next to a gentleman that was in our racing group and his wife is one of the doctors for the hockey teams! We chatted quite a bit on our way to Sochi.

You might think, well that was an adventure!  And it was, but there was more. When we got off the plane in Sochi we discovered that my father in law's luggage did not make it. He filled out all the necessary paperwork and we headed by train to our accommodations.  My family went to our hotel, and Pete and Wally (father in law) went to the cruise ship hoping they still had a room there.  When we checked in at our hotel, they informed us that our reservation is until the 15th. This is a bit of a problem considering we don't leave until the 20th. We are still working on this. Our rooms are nice. We needed two to fit us all in beds as the rooms are a bit smaller than in the US.  The water is clean, toilets flush, and the hotel is finished. We were pleased. But hungry. So one last adventure before bed.  A trip out of the hotel to find food. The first thing we spotted? McDonalds! Tired and needing something fast, we went straight there. You could order and  on a computer! They were super busy, so  Donnie went to the counter to order by pointing to a menu as it was all in Russian, while the boys and I found a spot to sit outside. Yup, we sat outside at about 8:30 at night without jackets on our first night in Russia eating happy meals and cheeseburgers from McDonalds. We are American!

The Question

Lots of people have questions for me about our trip.

But the number one question

I get is about security. Honestly, I am not very worried.

I don't have time to be worried.

I truly believe that Russia wants to show the world the

best show they can and they will 

do everything they can to make sure that happens.  

My husband, Donnie, and I both 

believe in living life to the fullest and taking advantage of 

opportunities when they arise. 

Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  And we can't live in fear.

So changing our plans never came

to mind when security concerns started to surface in the media.

As a family we are going on an

adventure that likely will not present itself again, and 

we are all ecstatic! Not afraid.

5 more sleeps and the adventure begins!