:: Whistler-Prelude to the Olympics ::

:: Back when the Olympics were about to start, we were heading up to Whistler. Paul's sister and hubby own a place up there and since they were attending the opening ceremonies they couldn't open up the house for the renters...so we headed up there to do it for them. It was a great excuse to get away for a few days and to see all that Whistler had done to prepare for the Winter Olympics ::

:: Here we are in Earls for lunch, this is where we heard about the luge accident earlier that morning - it was just awful! ::

:: We went looking for some souvenirs for the boys, and Mr. L found this cute little hockey beaver in Please Mum..what's that saying? "Once a kid always a kid"? ::

:: We saw the sights - this is one of the snowboarding teams bike, it was very cool! ::

:: The night of the opening ceremonies we were in Whistler Village, this was a shot of one of the big screens in the village. The village was pretty quiet as almost all of the athletes were still down in Vancouver ::

:: We headed back to Earls to enjoy dinner and warm up. We were lucky enough to be close to the t.v.'s in Earls so heard all that was going on down in the opening ceremonies ::

:: Here is the view of the restaurant from my seat ::

:: On our way back into town we headed through an estate at the top of Vancouver to see the sites, we saw the rings on the water, the flags of the conference center and the recently lit flame (lower right by the tall green/blue beam of light) ::

:: Here we are heading across the Lions Gate bridge into Vancouver ::

:: We quickly drove past the cauldron so we could see it in person, it truly was pretty spectacular! ::

:: We're so blessed that we were asked to go to Whistler, it was a great time away and so fun to be part of the festivities! Thanks M&J for the opportunity & thanks to Mom & Dad for taking the boys for us! ::