Our Olympic experience

So a little thing called the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics have been in town the past two weeks. To say that this town has gone a little crazy is a wee bit of an understatement. The crowds are truly something to behold! So that's what we did...we beheld the crowds. Not once, but twice!

On our first trip down we were joined by friends who actually stayed with us for a whole week and galavanted off to events almost every day. We piled on to transit bright and early in the morning and joined the masses heading into downtown.

That's Maison du Quebec and Saskatchewan House in the background. Abner kept calling it a beach ball and she wanted to take it home with her.

One of the volunteers told us LiveCity in Yaletown would be a good place to go with kids. They were wrong. The only pavilions there were corporate ones (and the City of Vancouver, which was displaying a gorgeous laneway house), there was no beer and the concerts didn't start for, oh, about 8 hours! Because we'd waited 30 minutes in line, we did check out the Panasonic 3D movie which was kind of cool. Not surprisingly, we passed on the Coke tent.

They did have giant TV screens up so we did get to watch some of the events while we waited in line so that we could go wait in another line so that we could wait in another line...you see where this is going, don't you?

Like I said, it wasn't a great place for kids so we wound up leaving LiveCity and wandering through the crowds looking for a place we could eat at, watch TV and drink beer with kids. Sadly, I didn't take any photos of all that fun!

Our second trip into the mayhem was on the second-to-last day of the Games. Sadly, the weather was a bit more seasonal for this trip.

We made it to the cauldron this time. I must admit, the thing looks a heck of a lot better in-person than it does on TV.

And took in a few moments of the ice show at Robson Square.

Abner was mesmerized!

Robson Square was THE place to be if you have kids. We stood in the rain and watched The Kerplunks perform for quite a while. TDSH is a sucker for any kind of live music.

Abner showed her appreciation for the show by clapping at the end of the songs. It drives me nuts when I see kids not learning how to be a good audience member, so I am very pleased to see that Abner is already off to a good start!

The zip line over Robson looked pretty cool, but not worth the line up (seriously, I think lining up should become its own Olympic event!).

The art gallery has been decked out in some amazing outdoor artwork. I loved this particular stop for the unique photo opportunities. Abner loved this stop for the opportunity to climb the stairs.

Don't let that smile fool you...she wasn't thrilled to have to come off those stairs.

Her disappointment was short-lived once she noticed the water fountains. For a kid who was terrified of water parks last summer, she sure has changed her tune! Could not tear her away from here.

We also made a stop into the new CBC building where they had an entire wall of Olympic-themed sock puppets on display. What this has to do with the CBC, or with the Olympics for that matter, I don't know.

About three hours into our adventure we discovered that, yes indeed, Abner can still fall asleep in the Ergo! She missed out on seeing the athlete's village, the Right to Play tent (sponsored by Cadbury so they were giving away candy by donation - t'was my favorite tent!) and Maison du Quebec (which I thought should have been called Maison du Poutine since that's all they seemed to have there).

She did wake up just in time to check out Saskatchewan House and watch the first end of the men's gold medal curling match where Canada took on Norway and their truly awesome pants.

And this concludes our Vancouver 2010 Winter Games coverage. See you in 2012 in London!