Saturday, September 13, 2008

The Village, Water Cube and Night Views

Sorry to have disappointed my fans with my lack of blogging, but we have been on the go so much that I have been completely exhausted. I was so tired yesterday that I wanted to just sit in the corner and cry, instead I slept for nearly 12 hours last night and then took a nap this afternoon. I am feeling MUCH better now and so we can get back to the regular scheduled programming of blogging my adventures.

Yesterday Erik competed in the 200m semi-finals. He once again had a good race, but these guys here are crazy fast so he didn't quite make it to the finals. There is a Chinese guy here that nobody has seen before, but has broken the World Record in every event that he has raced in. He is absolutely amazing! Erik seemed pretty bummed, but is focusing his attention on his upcoming 100m and 4x400m relay.



After the races we headed over to check out the Paralympic Village. We had quite the adventure in the taxi trying to find the correct entrance to the village. Nobody understood where we were wanting to go and with the language barrier it can get pretty frustrating. Luckily we had a taxi driver that was patient with us and we were all cracking up laughing. After getting Aunt Sunny on the phone multiple times to speak to the driver and police and after asking many volunteers we FINALLY found it and we had a wonderful time.




Here is where the athletes stay in the village. After the Paralympics are over they will be converted into apartments and be sold off.







After visiting the Village, we were heading over to the Water Cube to watch some swimming. When we walked out we were trying to get a taxi when Collin (below in red) told us that it was only a 5 maybe a 10 minute walk to the cube so we decided to walk. Over 1 HOUR and a few blisters later we finally made it to the Water Cube. It was worth the walk because the Cube was amazing inside. We watched a little swimming and then walked around to get some beautiful night pictures.








After coming out of the Water Cube we were leisurely walking and enjoying the beautiful surroundings when, with no warning at all, water started coming out of the ground. Luckily I was able to move and not get my camera wet, but Troy was not so lucky. After he got wet he decided to just have fun with it and wheel through the water. Yep, Troy and a ton of little 5 year-olds played in the water. It made me miss my kids even more because they would have had a ton of fun with Troy.





I am headed home in the morning. I will be sad to leave Beijing, but I can't wait to see my kids. I miss them like crazy. I am ready to sit and cuddle with for sure. 10 days is too long to be away from them. I will get updates from Troy on Erik's upcoming races since he is staying for a few more days so I will let you all know how he does! Thanks for keeping up with my adventures in Beijing!

3 comments:

Jerlyn said...

So glad you had so much fun! We are excited to see you, especially your kiddos. We missed you!

starr said...

thank you for keeping us updated on everything going on... one of brooklyn's favorite things to do at night was, wait for you call on the computer ....so she could see you guys.....and looking at all your pictures on your blog....you guys are blessed eith wonderful kids...they both were so great this week, and brooklyn was alot of help....but they both keep asking for mama and daddy...(as briggie would say) when ever he would do something we thought was cute or cool he would say, "show mama" or, "show daddy".....and i always had to break it to him...you guys would be home soon... they are so excited today, because brooklyn took her last link off... She said, " Mommy is going to COME HOME TODAY" with a big huge smile on her face.... thank you for letting me have the oppertunity of watching your kiddos and bonding with them... i have to admit i was a bit nervious at first.... but they were wonderful...a few melt downs, but over all wonderful.... we love you and miss you... thanks for shareing your kiddos with me.... we look forward to seeing you....hope you had a blast, actualy we know u did....

starr said...

p.s the comment was by me... Debbie.... didnt know it was sighned on to moms name...