Movember

Dayna had the Friday off on the Remembrance day long weekend off, so when she got home from work on Thursday night we headed to Portland for a couple of days.  It’s a 6 hour drive down to Portland.  I was able to use my La Quinta points to get us a room for a couple of nights.  We did some shopping and visited an old Asylum turned into and brewery/ distillery.  In the evening we headed to downtown Portland to walk around and visit a few more brew pubs.  Portland is home to many microbreweries.  The next day we drove to the coast to visit Lincoln city and up the coast to Seaside.  We spent 2 nights in Seaside relaxing and visiting Canon Beach.  Peter and Sandy also came to Seaside on a different vacation for Sandy’s Birthday, so on the last night we all went out for Dinner.   It was great to have four days of to relax.

Seaside Beach

When we got home it was time to tare down the wall between our kitchen and dinning room.  I have wanted to do this since I first walked into the house.  It is so much better, i can't even picture what it used to look like.  Here are some photos on the work.   I just put on the final coat of mud (hopefully). 

Before from Kitchen

Before for Dinning room

Removal of the pocket door

Wall gone, before light switch moved

First mud

Final coat of mud

Lastly, for the second year I participated in Movember.  This year I raised $205. 

Sweet mo!

Time to start getting ready for Christmas!

Don’t relax yet

After I returned home from the Olympics all I wanted to do was take a couple of weeks off to relax.  This would not be the case I would be running around for another month and not fully sleeping each night for another month and a half.

A week after I returned was Dayna’s 30^th Birthday.  I had planned a BBQ at our house along with a scavenger hunt. 

The following weekend I was off to Edmonton for an event.  While in the city of Championship we stopped off at Rexall place to visit Wayne.  

Hot seat for Time trail

If that wasn’t enough we held National championships on Labour day weekend in Abbotsford, our Provincial finals and lastly our World Cup event in Abbotsford in Mid-September.  Not exactly down time. 

With all our events done for the year, I still had plenty of office work and season wrap up to do.  However, I was able to slow down a bit and take a few days off here and there.  We started cleaning up our back yard.   I removed the swings and play set to make room for the future pump track.  Then we started clearing the trees and brambles along our back fence.  We took down 3 trees that were close to 30ft tall and a 40ft holly tree.  Then we moved on to clearing the brambles and digging out all the stumps, about 8 in total.  We borrowed a trailer from a friend and filled it twice with greenery.  Once the area was cleared and tilled, we moved 3 bushes from beside our driveway to along the back fence.  We finished our gardening by clearing up our front gardens, replanting the rose bushes and planting a bunch of bulbs.  Can’t wait to see what it will look like in the spring.

Somewhere in this time I got Dayna a new bike.

I also started the pump track that is going in along the side of our backyard.

Before we were finish we planted a Tulip tree in our front yard to mark our first year in our house.

With the cooling weather I added a carpet to our living room to warm up the place.

Ontario

Tulip Tree at my parents house

Canadian Cycling was having a celebration for all the Olympic athletes and coaches.  I was able to coming home a week early to visit my family.  I played 3 rounds golf with my brothers in 4 days.  

While it was sad to she Oma pass, I was happy to be there to see her before and to see all my family though-out the week.

Sometime in the Summer Meagan and CC, created a sign for the bridge I made in field at Copetown.

It was great to see everyone and have some down time.

I left Toronto for Olds, AB to build an indoor track for Alberta.  It was cold.

Our house for Halloween.

Lastly, I am once again participating in Movember.  Here is the link to my Mo-page if you would like to donate.

http://ca.movember.com/mospace/2235652

Movember Day #1

3 years, 3 weeks & 3 days

Just over 3 years ago I was hired at the BMX national team coach with Canadian cycling.  In that time I have traveled a lot on the World Cup circuit and helped a group of athletes prepared for the Olympic games in London.   It has been an exciting, stressful and wonderful experience.

In our journey to London, I spent 3 weeks in Europe.   First stop was Cavaillon France, home of PH (Tory’s personal coach).  The next day we drove 5 hours north to Agile, Switzerland for a couple of days training with the French team.  Then we drove back to Cavaillon for a day.  On our Day off Tory and I went to the Harbo factory.  Then it was on to Brussels.  Peter and Damien joined us in Brussels and our team was complete.  From Brussels we drove two hours to Lumbres, France for a weeks training with 7 other countries.  Lumbres is a tiny town in Northern France, that happens to have a great SX track and not much else.  We all stayed at a hotel on a nice golf course.  I always travel with a wedge or on this trip I happen to bring two.  (this way when the airline asks what’s in the bag I’m not lying when I say golf club)  Each night around 8:30pm Damien and I would walk out on to the golf course and play few holes until, it became known as the French open, a great stress relief from our training.  Long story short, after 2 days I dug myself a big hole, came back to tie on day 4 and won in extra holes on day 6.   After 7 days of quality training we were ready for London.

Off to London:

We arrived in London and were greeted by an Olympic volunteer, who guided us through the airport.  Once we had our bags, Tory & PH were off to the village and the rest of us were of to the PC (Performance Center – an apartment for Canadian staff not in the village).  The next day we were off to outfitted to get our team Canada kit.  Then we went to the village on a day pass.  Each country has its own apartment building, decorated with flags and in Canada’s case the moose. 

3 days: It was very exciting to be apart of the event.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best of luck on race day.  I’m super proud of Tory and how performed.  With the stress of the event over we were able to relax a little and walk in the Olympic park to see what was going on and get a feel for the games.  The next day we watched the finals of which we had to get tickets.   It was great to watch, but bitter sweet because we should have been in the pits.

 

The staff then moved back to the PC for the final 2 days.  This gave us time to rest and see the sights on London.  On Sunday night we had a party on the 33^rd floor to watch the closing ceremonies, we were able to see the fireworks from the stadium. On Monday we traveled back home and were greeted by around 200 fans including Dayna & sandy at the airport.

Quick Highlights:

-       Watching 100m final at Canada House

-       Star sightings in Village: Lebron James, Kobe, Usain Bolt & Yohan Blake

-       Having to choose from 4 different areas in the food hall, plus free McDonalds

-       Watching 200m final from live sight in Olympic park

-       Holding Sara Walker’s (female bmx) silver medal

-      Missing Dayna

It was a great adventure and the experience of a life-time.  Thank you to everyone for your support. Proud to be Canadian!

Watch Olympic coverage at the PC

Olympic Stadium 

Ticket to the BMX finals

Men's marathon with Big Ben