Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé visit Kayla

My parents just spent a week in Seattle to see Kayla for the first time – and to visit us as well, I suppose :) I had not seen them since last August when we went crabbing in the Puget Sound, so it has been a long time! Cheryl had an entire list of fix-it tasks all ready by the time dad arrived, and dad immediately started knocking them off one by one (the list was empty by the end of the week), mom spent the week not just cuddling Kayla, but also helping us out around the house all day, every day – we’re definitely grateful for all the help!

Here are some of the first shots of mom and dad (Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé) cuddling Kayla:

Grandma spent untold hours with Kayla lying on her knees as in the picture above. I think that might be one of Kayla’s new favorite positions!

The week was not all spent inside. Although the weather forecast called for rain all week we had sun every day, and we did make good use of it.

Here’s mom trying out the stroller she bought us, on our way to walk along the boardwalk on Lake Washington on a beautiful day:

We stopped for coffee at Cafe Vita up near the local PCC:

Grandma, Grandpa, and Kayla visiting the new Studios on the Microsoft campus:

And, for St. Patrick’s day Kayla wore green, and the grown-ups had Guinness:

We also spent some time over at the University of Washington to see the cherry blossoms:
 

And no visit to Seattle would be complete without eating some quality seafood! We all went to Ray’s Boathouse to savor some of Seattle’s best seafood, from salmon to halibut, we had an amazing lunch! Kayla slept the whole time! Thank you Kayla!

Here are Grandma, Grandpa, and myself at Ray’s (Kayla at my feet):

After Ray’s, it was clearly time to go to Golden Gardens. It was such a beautiful day, the Olympic ranges were out, the sun was shining, and lots of Seattleites were doing their thing (from kite surfing to building sand castles).

Here are Grandma, Grandpa, Kayla, and myself with the Olympic range in the background:

One benefit of having guests is having babysitters so that Cheryl and I can go out to dinner, or do other things that aren’t easy to do with Kayla around. Grandma and Grandpa held the fort for a few nights during the week to let Cheryl and I go out. One night we went out to La Medusa, a Sicilian restaurant in Columbia City, and another night Cheryl came to watch me play in a volleyball tournament (this is the first time Cheryl had seen this team play together). Those nights were much appreciated!

Here’s a picture Cheryl took of our volleyball team:

This week we also had a party to commemorate Henry’s final MBA exam. He’s spent the past 3 years on his MBA at UW while working full time. Clearly that takes a lot of effort, and after his final exam we wanted to do something for him. The cake you see on the right was clearly not baked/decorated by a professional :)

A few pics to on the congratulations dinner:

Well, I drove Grandma/Grandpa to the airport early Saturday morning, and they made it home safe and sound. Usually we do a lot more activities outside of the Seattle area, so this is a bit of a different visit for them. I still think they had a good time, and I’m pretty sure they were both pretty impressed with Kayla – she’s the cutest baby we’ve ever seen :)

I want to once again thank mom/dad (Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé), for coming to visit Kayla, it was a great help, and we do hope that they are able to make it again in the summer.

Before signing off I want to make sure everyone is keeping up with Kayla’s activities by regularly checking Cheryl’s blog and checking out the latest big upload to Shutterfly. 

Ok, here are a few more pictures of Kayla before signing off :)

Until next time!

Pandemonium as Team Canada takes gold in men’s hockey

Wow.

…

I was sitting at home in Seattle on Saturday when I casually mentioned how amazing it would be to watch the 2010 gold medal match between Team Canada and the US Olympic hockey team in Vancouver. I mean… Not only was Canada the host team, but hockey is Canada’s game - gold in hockey is seen by many Canadians as the true measurement of our success as a nation in the Olympic games. As  if that weren’t enough, they were also playing the US – Canada’s longtime Olympic hockey nemesis who had already upset them once in the preliminary matches of these games. Above and beyond this, it was the final day of the Olympics with the closing ceremonies set to run just after the hockey game. If I were to have any chance to experience anything Olympic at all, this was not only my best chance, it was now my only chance.

Cheryl simply said “You should go”, but I wasn’t very comfortable leaving Cheryl by herself to take care of Kayla, and Kayla could not come with us (Kayla does not yet have a passport, and her birth certificate was sent out with our passport application, so she’s currently without enough ID to cross the border.)

As I pondered the idea Cheryl was already dialing Shawn (the only person I know who would be in for a day trip on short notice), and before I knew it we were scouring the Vancouver 2010 Olympic site working on our park-and-ride strategy for getting into downtown Vancouver and the various Olympic venues.

I set my alarm for 7:15am, but Kayla had a different plan for my morning. After keeping her downstairs for a bit to let Cheryl get a few more minutes of sleep, I headed over to pick up Shawn for our 8am departure to Vancouver.

The ride up was pretty uneventful… Just the way I like it. The border lineup was amazingly short, we basically went right on through. The border guard asked all their usual questions, but upon looking at our Washington plates also asked… “Who are you rooting for?” We said “Team Canada”, she said “Good, have a nice day”, and we were off.

We decided to park off of King Edwards St by the SkyTrain station, though it was definitely difficult to find parking nearby. We eventually settled on a spot about 6 blocks away and squeezed into an otherwise full train to bring us to the Olympic Village station.

We scoped out the grounds near BC Place, and the Molson Canadian Hockey House before walking over to Robson St. to check out the outdoor screens there.

There was no shortage of Canadian spirit on Robson:

We watched the first period on Robson, but then went back to Molson’s Hockey House because the screens were much more accessible, and the crowd was just as raucous.

The game started fast, and the pace seemed to just get faster through the second period. It was quite clear that both teams were not happy with a silver showing.

The Molson House was packed on the inside, but just as packed on the outside next to the big screens:
  

The game went on… 2-0, then 2-1… The feeling was electric, and the crowd got louder with every minute that went by. With a couple of minutes to go it was looking like there was nothing at all between Team Canada and the gold… With just over a minute left, the US pulled their goalie to gain the 6-5 player advantage. Everyone was bracing for victory, drums were beaten, cowbells were smashed, horns were sounding, flags were waving, people were jumping, hockey sticks were thrown into the air, and even the sky was opening up to showcase the sun as though something magical was about to happen. With 30 seconds left it looked like it was all over, time to celebrate, and then…

With 24.4 seconds on the clock Zach Parise took his stick and instantaneously ripped out the hearts of over 30 million people with one swipe. Grown men fell to their knees, flags dropped, people cried, painted faces fell into trembling hands, as some simply stared into the sky in disbelief. You could hear the sound of people’s collective jaws dropping on the cold, wet, pavement in a sorrowful harmony.

It seemed as though CTV managed to warp both time and space in order to play the replay of that goal 1000 times in the span of a minute prompting people to start yelling fruitlessly at the screen to please stop the pain.

We were in overtime, not just any overtime, but some strange Olympics 4 on 4 twilight zone overtime. From euphoria to dejection in a millisecond, it was now an entirely new game, with new rules, and nobody in this audience thought that was good news.

They say the 15mins in Team Canada’s dressing room was relaxed, but I don’t buy it. These players knew their performance in the next few minutes would be the difference between the history books, and throwing a silver medal into the corner of the first room in their house they managed to crawl into. They say winning bronze is arguably better than silver in Olympic Hockey because you always “win” the bronze in your final game. The silver medalist always ends their Olympics with a painful loss.

With Team Canada back on the ice, the crowd was braced for a full 20mins of pain and sorrow. I was convinced this was going to end in a shoot-out, but the crowd cheered as though we were always in the final seconds of the game.

7:40 into OT Sid Crosby made about 30 million new friends when a wrist shot managed to sneak past Ryan Miller to end the game, and clinch Canada’s most coveted gold medal of the Winter Games.

This sparked the biggest sea of red and white I have seen in my life. The estimates suggest over 200,000 fans (56 times the population of my home town) took the streets of Vancouver in celebration, but to me it felt like millions. I truly believe their estimates are off because I felt like I bumped into at least that many people :)

Just after Sid’s final goal:

And now, on to Robson, Granville, and anywhere else downtown!

The people dancing to the tune of “Another one bites the dust” blasting on a massive stereo were only overshadowed by a crowd of people singing the Canadian National Anthem, and the sound of horns blaring from every car within the downtown core became a familiar sound over the next few hours. Almost every vehicle driving by had at least one Canadian flag flying high, and nobody was shy in their liberal horn use. People were climbing on street cars, traffic lights, bus stops, and even playing hockey in the streets wherever there was room.

A few seconds of video does not do this justice, but here goes:

I do not know what would have happened if Team Canada lost that game. After that painful tie goal I had already mentally written my blog post title as ‘24 seconds from awesome’. An American came up to Shawn and I just after the win and said the same. She was upset the US had lost, but after seeing the massive crowd painted or draped in red and white, and the emotion on display, she almost felt like switching alliances for just one day. Almost.

I do not think I will ever have an opportunity to see a game this good, with people this crazy, in these numbers, in a place this perfect, in a time like this again. People will be talking about this one for a long time. This game now holds the record for the most watched television broadcast in Canadian history. 80% of Canadians tuned in at some point to watch this game. In the US, only one match has ever had more viewers, this was the “Miracle on Ice” when the US beat Finland after a surprise victory over the Soviet Union in 1980.

Anyhow, after Shawn and I spent some time getting crushed by crowds we decided it was time to check out the flame: 

Then we started the walk back to the car, and from there - back home. Again, the border line was completely empty, and the ride was smooth. The border guard on the way back did not ask us who we were rooting for – which I saw as a very good thing :)

I clearly owe Cheryl for this one. She offered to take care of Kayla for the day, and that’s the only reason I had this opportunity. I made it to the 2010 Olympics to watch and experience the nation win an epic gold medal! Wow.