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!