Happy Holidays

It has been an exciting and fun holiday season.  Last Tuesday I took a day off and we went downtown to go skating on the outdoor rink on Robson street.  

In the evening we went on the Christmas train in Stanley park. 

Canucks vs Wings.  The Jensen’s and I took the bus from the pub down to the game.

I sold my old mountain bike and bought a new one on the 23^rd.  

On Christmas eve Dayna and I went for a ride to try out my new bike.   Try and find Dayna in the woods.

Christmas tree at the Picco’s

On Boxing day Dayna and I went to future shop at 6am to buy a Dyson vacuum.  It was crazy how may people were at the store at 6am.  If we were 10 minutes later we would have totally missed out.   Crazyness.

Lastly, so far we are not moving next month.  We have been looking at some houses and we may put in an offer on a house in Maple Ridge.  Stay tuned to see how it progresses.

Happy Holidays to All! 

Movember

A full months update, so i'm being lazy and doing bullet points with pictures.

BC Lions game

o   With BC place reopening and the BC Lions on a roll.  We went to the BC Lions game against the Edmonton Eskimos, the battle for first place.

Halloween

o   My favorite thing so far this fall has been being able to spend some time at home with my wife and relax.   I was home for 3 weeks in the end of October and after a 2 week trip to Ontario, I’m home for another 5 weeks for Christmas.

o   For Halloween Dayna and I carved our annual pumpkins

Movember

o   In the month of November I grew a moustache to raise money for prostate cancer.  Thank you for everyone that donated, I raised $220.  

Weekend in Seattle

o   The first weekend in November we booked a last minute trip to Seattle on my La Quinta points. We spend the night in downtown Seattle, when for a nice dinner and relaxed. In the morning we went on the Underground tour of the old city and walked around the city.  We had lunch by the pike fish market.  

COC OES

o   Off to Toronto for a couple of days of meeting and an interesting hot yoga session….. no for me.   Following our meeting we had the COC OES (Canadian Olympic community Olympic excellence series).  It was exciting to meeting other Olympic coaches and talked/plan for the games in august.

Copetown

o   What to say about the slave labour tour.  No, I had a great time visiting with my family and probably got a years worth of work done in 7 days.   I was great to see my family and spend time with them, one of the things I really miss living so far away is my family.  Plus when I buy I house, they’ll have to come out and do some work for me.

o   Now in December we have put in our notice that we will be moving.  In January were moving back to Maple Ridge into another basement suite.  It will be a good test as to where we’ll want to buy.  Were hoping to buy a place in the next 8-12 months. 

Pan Ams wrap up

Our female team pursuit team on their way to gold and a pan am record.

Morning of the BMX race.  They scheduled our event for 9am, so we had to be at the track at 7:30am and it was still dark.  The races went well and the lone Canadian Jim Brown made the final.  We were happy for Jimmy to end the season with a solid finish.

Here is Curt Harnett (1996 Olympic medalist in track cycling) reenacting his Pert Plus commercial to the cycling team.  He quoted it word for word, we watched it on YouTube after to confirm.  Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-xxC_qImd0   ….. Priceless

To go to event we supposedly needed ticket, except when we arrived all we needed was our accreditation.  Jim and I walked into swimming and tennis (almost on to the court). 

How to make working the road race interesting

We finished off our games with a Canada vs. Brazil female soccer game.  The 2 top ranked teams ended 0-0.   Then it was off to bed for a 3am wake up call and a 12-hour travel day home.

Home sweet home. So happy to be home for a couple of weeks.  Food never tasted so good!

Pan Ams – Guadalajara

I have been in Mexico for a week today and a week to go.  The first couple of days we used to orientate ourselves with the village and venues.    The traffic here is crazy, we went on a 4 hour drive take took us about 40km in total.  

On Friday I got to walk in the Opening ceremonies with the Canadian team.  We were 400 hundred strong, it was very exciting walking into the stadium and being apart of the group.   The Ceremonies were really well done and impressive, it gives me chills to think of what London will be like in August.

On the opening day of the games cycling took home 2 medals in mountain bike.  With BMX not until next Friday I am helping with the other cycling disciplines and athletes.  On Sunday morning I got to ride in the team car following Laura Brown to her Bronze medal in the Road Time Trail.   

Every other night the Canadian team gathers to celebrate our medal winners.

Today I was with the men’s track team at the velodrome. Tomorrow we start with the training for the BMX events.

The food:  The food at the village is….. ok.  We have a good selection but you are never sure what your getting.  They never have any real Mexican food, so today when the velodrome program was done we went to a small place across the road for some really good, authentic tacos.

I’ll post more pictures of the games after the games are complete.  Due to media and privacy reasons we have been told not to post stuff. 

Thanksgiving and Pan Ams

Last Weekend Dayna and I finally went to the Pitt Meadows corn maze.   I say finally because we have only been talking about this for the past 8 years.  It was great to be home for Thanksgiving with Dayna, it’s an odd thing to say but we were able to spend some quality time together. We also celebrated our 3 month wedding anniversary!

On Monday I was off to Pan Am games in Guadalajara, Mexico.  This is my first major games.  It’s exciting to be here in the athletes village with all the Canadians.  Were in a complex dedicated to the Pan Ams athletes and staff, complete with dinning hall, gym, swimming pool, sports bar, etc.

So far we are having a great time, I’m looking forward to the week ahead.

Montreal

I just got back from a week in Montreal.  I was there is meet with B2ten about funding for Tory leading into the Olympic games in London.  I got to meet Alex Bilodeau and Eric Guay while they were training at the gym with Tory.

My Favorite thing about going to the Montreal airport. Moe's smoked meat sandwich!

David Suzuki recently wrote an article about Dayna’s school aka “Tree School”.  Check it out, she’s a big deal!  http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2011/09/environmental-school-has-lessons-for-all/