One thing you don’t see on TV much is the Mascots for the games. In Vancouver the mascot designs are everywhere, and are, of course, adorable. My favorite is Quatchi, the sasquatch. I fell in love and Mike picked up a Quatchi for me at the figure skating event. He joined us for all of our olympic adventures ;) He is sorry he didn’t get to go see the torch with us, but he got to go to two fun events, meet Mounties, ride the train and drive to and from Vancouver one and a half times.

Quatchi has Red Mittens.

At Figure Skating, woo!

Riding the crowded bus back to Vancouver

Mmm, McDonalds at midnight.

Back to Vancouver!

Meeting Mounties with Mikey

Going to Curling, beautiful day!

Watching the exciting Curling match. (Quatchi was rooting for Canada.)

Mmm, a coffee. It was freezing in there.

Cute!

Look, I’m on TV!

Riding the train with MukMuk. (He’s a marmot.)

Look who didn’t help pay for parking…

Cool rings.

Bye!

It takes a loooong time at border crossing. Quatchi doesn’t have a passport, oops.

See more Quatchi!

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It deserves more exclamation points!!!  The Olympics in Vancouver were totally awesome. I had been looking forward to it forever, and it did not disappoint.

Friday we arrived in Vancouver at around noon. Border crossing was a cinch. We drove out to the airport to park, which is right on the train line. We took that all the way to downtown Vancouver, over to Robson Street which you may have heard about on TV. It’s the center of all the activity, and basically where all the free stuff is. There were lines and lines for all sorts of things! But everything is free to do, including a zipline over the square, an ice rink and other such things. The official STORE is also here. And there was a loooong line.

We walked from here to the waterfront to see the torch. This is also where the media center (a.k.a. Vancouver Convention Center) is located, where Brian Williams is every night, etc. Then we thought it was time to get to our event, which was a few hours away still. We took the train out to another suburb, and from there you have to take a bus that’s provided to take you to the venue. (Friday was figure skating.) It probably took about an hour (or more) to get there, go through security, walk from security to the entrance and get to our seats. But it left us a decent amount of time to find food, look at the shop, take pictures, etc.

Skating was fun — yes, even watching compulsory ice dancing was fun! The music was (mostly) the same for each team, but who cares? It was the olympics, and it was awesome to watch the process. The Canadian pair has just won the gold medal, and I think it’s awesome. The home crowd was so excited and supportive. Canada is totally behind their athletes and seem to be LOVING the games.

Here’s a few pictures to start. It’s my bedtime, but I will continue with olympic adventures soon, and introduce you to my new friend Quatchi. ;)

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… Mike finally updated his blog ;)

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With the business of eye surgery, I didn’t post about our amazing overnight at Alderbrook. It was absolutely beautiful there, great spa, wonderful dinner — relaxing! I have pictures.

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LASIK is a miracle. Just amazing that you can receive a 20 minute surgery, go home and rest a few hours, and wake up the next day with perfect vision.

My procedure was last Thursday at Bellevue LASIK and Cornea. I had a great experience there, I’m very happy. They regularly do the Custom Vue LASIK with Intralase (laser cutting) and this was the procedure I originally wanted but my original Old School doc didn’t find it necessary. (Which was fine.) So, I’m happy that I’m DONE and that I ended up somewhere I was comfortable and price was also relatively comparable.

I won’t go into any details. I’m on some restrictions — lots of drops, sleeping with guards taped over my eyes, no rubbing, no heavy activity. And this is the first day I’m really using the computer regularly. I’ve probably already used my eyes too much, but it’s kind of hard to know what to do with yourself all day…

It was worth the expense and time. I’m happy I finally “got it over with,” and my contacts and glasses will be a distant memory someday. Amazing! And I’m very, very grateful I will be seeing [at least] 20/20 at the Olympic events we will attend next week. Yay!!

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