Our Olympic Experience so far ... Part II

To read Part I go here.

After Greg and Marley's Mountain Adventure, we laid low on the Sunday. Greg had a Flex Day on the Monday so after Kindergarten we took the girls downtown to soak up the atmosphere. We drove into Vancouver and parked near Oakridge Mall where we caught the sky train into Yaletown. After wandering through Italy House (hmmm ... all I can say is I'm glad I didn't stand in a line up) and seeing the huge line up for Live City Yaletown, we started wandering towards The Bay as I wanted to try to get into the Olympic Store. Hamilton Street was closed to traffic and had various booths/kiosks set up. Along the way we came across the Yahoo storefront so we went in to check things out. They were offering free hot chocolate which is an instant hit with our kids so we stuck around. While the girls drank their hot chocolate, Greg stood in line to get our picture taken. They had 3 "studios" set up and lots of Winter props to use. Once your picture was printed you could pin it to these giant letters Y-O-U they had set up. Maybe the pictures will explain it better ...

Greg and the girls heading down Hamilton Street.

Yummy Hot Chocolate Goodness!!

Hamming it up!

Always the poser - this is (obviously) the O from YOU but I did not get a picture of the whole word. Our picture is tacked up just to the right of Marley's foot.

Here's a close up of it ...

Funny story about this picture ... Paige WAS being quite cooperative in the "I'll allow you to take my picture today" department but for whatever reason decided that she did NOT want to have her picture taken by Yahoo. She also did NOT want to wait over to the side while the rest of us got our picture taken so she tucked herself in beside me and hid behind the flag that I was holding up. The young man taking our picture was quite concerned that she was hidden but we reassured him that was what she wanted and to go ahead. So he took a shot and when he said he was going to take a second one I decided that enough was enough and Paige really needed to be in the picture too so when he got to 3, I lowered my side of the flag and ... Voila! A Family Photo!! Sneaky of me, eh? Sometimes you've just got to out think the 3 year olds in life!!

Once we left there we continued on towards The Bay - and we found a sneaky way to get around the hour and a half line up to get into the Olympic Store. Here it is ... head into the store with your child in your stroller (this will ONLY work if you have a stroller and kid - or a wheel chair) and head upstairs to any other floor. We went to the 5th floor where the International Olympic gear is sold (I was tempted to buy something GB!) Then when you have finished shopping/browsing, find the elevators and tell the operator you need to get off on the Main Floor. He made some sort of comment like "I'm only doing this because you have a stroller" which puzzled us until the doors opened on the main floor and we realized we were suddenly (and totally by accident) INSIDE the Olympic Store. Oops! Shucks Darn!! But then Karma did her thing to me and Paige desperately needed to go to the bathroom which of course meant LEAVING the barricaded area and subsequently fighting with the security Guard to be allowed back in to join up with Marley, Greg and LC. That basically killed any shopping bug I had and we made a quick exit into the fresh air!

A reviving walk down Granville street stopping to let the girls climb and be photographed in the following shapes helped restore equilibrium.

I just love Marley's reaction in the background, don't you?! And this last one ... well, apparantly I needed to "commit to it". Let's just say that perching precariously on two milk crates while total strangers hold up your daughters makes it a bit hard to "commit to it"!

We took in a street entertainer and then wandered to Robson Square. The line for the Zip Line (which looked AWESOME) was insane so we just "checked things out". Greg found a play area and we let the girls run wild for a bit, then we went down to the rink before heading back to the skytrain and home.

Here are some pictures of their fun.

A nice shot of Greg and LC.

Even LC got into the rink (once it had emptied out a bit!)

Greg taking a picture of LC in the rink ...

... and the picture he took!

It was a fun afternoon capped off by enormous portions of Sushi thanks to Samurai Sushi on Cambie. What could be better?

That's all for this installment. Sorry for such a long post but I really wanted to post lots of pictures for family out of town or overseas. If you are reading this please feel free to leave comments - I'd love to know you've been by!

Stay tuned for Part III, coming soon ...