Our Olympic Adventure

We decided to head into Vancouver yesterday because we are so close just to check out the Olympic atmosphere.  We had some grand plans to check out the city, and then go to one of the venues to see if we could scalp some reasonable tickets.  I looked online when we decided to move to Seattle and tickets were crazy expensive, so we passed at that time.  Things didn't quite go as planned.

We got a late start and left the house a bit before 11am, expecting a 2.5 - 3hr drive.  Well, after a short stop for lunch, and an hour long delay at the border, then finding parking, it took us 4 hours to get into Vancouver.  Ella got a hold of the camera and took a great picture of someone getting a ticket in her boredom.  And we had to park quite a ways away on the street.  We parked close to a subway station and rode the train into the city.

Our first order of business was to check out the Olympic torch.  We got sidetracked on the way there by some shopping.  After spending way too much money getting outfitted in the official Team USA Olympic gear (except for Sarah, she couldn't find anything that she liked), we turned our attention back to goal number one.  When we got to the site, it was absolutely packed.  It didn't help that they have the whole area fenced off.  You can only get about 75 - 100 yards from the torch by pressing up against a big fence.  They had an elevated viewing area, but the line for that was probably an hour long.  It would have been a lot smarter to have fenced right around the cauldron, then put security around it (which they had anyway).  It is in the middle of a big plaza that was not being used, so all the people needed to cram into a little space to try and get a shot of it.  It was really nice looking in person.

Settled into Seattle

It has been awhile since our last post.  We have been pretty busy getting moved into our new place in Seattle.  There are a few more boxes to unpack still, and need to buy some bookshelves, but other than that we are pretty well settled in now.  Here is the house that we are renting in Redmond.  I am just about 5 minutes from work, although we just announced that my group will be moving over to the main campus which will take another 10 to 15 minutes which is kind of a bummer.  The job is going really well so far, Microsoft does not act like the huge company that it is.

Ella has gotten into her new Kindergarten class at Alcott Elementary, and Max just started pre school at a Timberlake Christian, which is a local church that we have tried out.  Both of them are really enjoying it, Ella gets to ride the bus to school, I think that is her favorite part of the new school.

The family has Olympic fever again, we have enjoyed the first 2 days of coverage so far.  We are planning on heading up to Vancouver next weekend to check things out.  We don't have any event tickets, but we'll check it out when we get up there to see if we try to see something or not.

Usain Bolt - Crazy fast, but can go a lot faster

Usain Bolt was one of the cool stories of the olympics, running faster than anyone has ever run before. He set a new world record in the 100m at 9.69 seconds, and that was with him pulling up at the end because he was so far ahead of everyone.

I came across this article today that is really interesting, it predicts that humans will probably get down to 9.44 seconds in the 100m.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/bolt-is-freaky.html

Men's 4x100m Freestyle Olympic Race

By far and away, the most exited event of the olympic so far was last night's swimming event. It was Michael Phelps', 2nd of 8 events to win gold in, and the one that was going to be the toughest. The French team have been really good and were talking trash about the Americans saying that they were going to smash the Americans.

We were behind going into the last leg, with the anchor for the French team being the current world record holder in that distance, but the American, Jason Lezak didn't give up and swam the fastest leg of this relay ever...at 32 years old. He had to make up about a full body lead by the French halfway through his leg, and he really burned it down the stretch. It was unbelievable, they smashed the world record in the process.

In case you missed it, you can check it out here:

Link to video on NBCOlympics.com

Take that Frenchies!

I also added a nifty little video viewer from NBC over on the right.

Olympic Fever

Olympic fever has hit the Wynn household, it has been the only thing on our TV since the opening ceremonies began.

Max has really liked Boxing so far, he calls it boom fighting. Ella is enjoying gymnastics right now and has worn only her gymnastic outfit and does her version of the routines in front of the tv for us. Swimming is also popular with both of them.