So... how'd we do?

Now that the CanDI Bashers and their mums are back from their trip of a lifetime to the global finals of Destination Imagination at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, one of the most common questions is: "How did your girls do?"

If you're asking if they won a medal, placed in the top 10, or even the top 50 percent, we have to answer "no."

If you're asking if they rose to the challenge of travelling a long way from home, having a ton of new experiences, performing on several occasions in front of crowds of strangers, marching in a giant opening parade, working as a team to solve problems (both in formal competitions and ones that popped up every day), meeting new people, and functioning as a cohesive group 24 hours a day, we can emphatically answer "yes."

If you're a sponsor wondering if your investment in these girls was worth it, the smiles on the girls' faces, the many adventures they can describe, the people they met from all over the world, and the personal growth experiences they had will tell you that it was.

Some things that capture the spirit of the experience for us:

• Teenage boys breaking into sea chantys during bus rides
• The "challenge master" dancing with Cheryl during the girls' pre-performance warm up
• Pin trading, pin trading, and more pin trading!
• Squeezing ourselves into less-than-optimal accommodation and remaining friends
• Five mums and five girls running several blocks when we realized we were at the wrong bus stop for Dollywood
• Spontaneous public dancing
• Four flavours of brewed iced tea (including unsweetened -- hooray) on tap
• Being called "honey", "baby", "darlin'", and "y'all" by the locals
• Cheering B.C.! D.I.! B.C.! Canada as we marched to the opening ceremonies
• Getting called the Providence of Ontario at those same ceremonies
• The spirit of adventure that all the girls rose to during the whole week.

Thanks to everyone who supported us as we undertook this journey.


Emma, Carlee, Danielle, Lauren, and Susan (and their mums!).

Home at last!

After an 18-hour journey, three airports, two time changes, and a U.S. geography lesson from the sky, we are home!

We rose at 6 am on Sunday (3 am Chilliwack time), bussed 2.5 hours to Nashville, flew 3.5 hours to Phoenix (going from rolling green hills, flying over prairie farm country, and into desert), then another 2.5 hours to Seattle (over the Grand Canyon) and then drove the 2.5 hours home! Arrived around 9:30 pm.

Apart from its marathon nature, the trip was rather uneventful, and the girls were happy to be able to sit with their mums and friends on the planes this time.

Will update with a final trip summary later tonight.

CanDI Bashers rock at their challenge and in Dollywood!

Hi everyone (returning to Canadian accent in preparation for eventual homecoming),

I'm going to go backwards in time with this post and start with today before recounting yesterday.

It's 1 pm here and the rest of the group is off watching other teams do their challenges after performing flawlessly and fabulously at 8:30 this morning (5:30 your time).

We were up at 6:15 ensuring that we were fed and on time for the girls' event. Anne, Cheryl, and Verna watched a couple of other American teams perform before the CanDI Bashers came on. With more than 1,000 teams participating in the various challenges this is more like a festival than a competition, because very few will "win" but all enjoy sharing the products of their imagination and creativity with others.

It's interesting to see how other teams will take exactly the same challenge -- which in D'Ive Got A Secret includes incorporating a secret, a masquerade character, an optical illusion, and three set pieces that come together to make something new -- and do entirely different interpretations on it.

In addition to our girls' trip to Candyland, we've seen pirates seeking treasure, condiments banding together to fight off a bad guy (yes, ketchup, mustard, salt, and pepper were the superheroes), trees coming to life, fashion models stepping off the pages of a magazine, talking and dancing pineapples, and circus acrobats -- all stemming from the "secret" theme.

So, us mums were a little nervous that with all the travel and festivities and excitement, the girls might forget that one of the main reasons they came here was to perform their challenge, but they rose to the occasion beautifully. No mistakes, no awkward pauses, no prop malfunctions, no stagefright, and no friction! Lots of relaxed fun, humour, smiles, and loud voices. The judges were very impressed with the skipping routine the girls included in their show.

The rest of today is being spent taking in other challenges for enjoyment and inspiration, eating, then going to the closing ceremonies and a big outdoor dance party.

Sunday will be a looooong travel day -- two hours bus to Nashville, several hours in airport, flight to Phoenix, connector to Seattle, then drive two hours plus home, where we will be happy to see y'all!

But I can't sign off without telling you a little bit about Dollywood, which is a theme park in the Tennessee hills (they call them mountains but we can't manage to, what with the mountains we live beside!). We did this as a self-funded side-trip treat.

Full props to Cheryl, who as Veteran Theme Park Visitor Mum looked at the map and figured out a strategy for us to get the most out of our day.

We started off on a giant rafting waterslide ride that took four people, but those people had to weigh between 450 and 550 pounds between them, and we all had to hop on a big scale together, with people jumping on and off to get the right combo. Once Tara and I (Anne) switched places we "made weight" fine for our boat!

Then another exciting water ride with steep drop offs, and Fire in the Hole, a mini indoor roller coaster. The bravest of us -- Nicole, Tara, Cheryl, Carlee, and Danielle -- did the big triple loop-de-loop coaster (some of us just weren't into going completely upside down) and loved it. (Cheryl wisely advised that they should do this before lunch.) Then Verna and Anne got brave after lunch and did the traditional giant wooden roller coaster (Anne's first time ever) with Danielle, Tara, and Nicole.

The girls then enjoyed the afternoon in a traditional country fair part of the park with tamer but still fun rides, under the care of Cheryl, Nicole, and Verna, while Anne and Tara did a little shopping. (And nobody went home without a thing or two in their shopping bag! Lots of shop stops along the way.)

We had a friendly tour bus leader on the trip back to the campus who filled us in on local history, Dolly Parton's generosity in her hometown, wildlife in the Great Smoky Mountains national park, and the Scotch-Irish influence on the region. I had been wondering about this because the local accent bears strong similarity to that of my Northern Irish relatives and friends (aahhrr for hour, taaarrrhed for tired), and it turns out that most of the early European settlers were from the Irish province of Ulster!

Last night was more outdoor swimming, fun, and pin trading.

Well, it certainly has been a full, fun, festive, and educational week for us all. I marvel at the organizational skills of those who put this huge event on and have enjoyed being immersed in a huge and historically rich university campus. Will post a summary and photos when I get home.

Thanks to our families and supporters, and see you soon!

Love,
Anne, Emma, Nicole, Lauren, Tara, Danielle, Verna, Susan, Cheryl, and Carlee.

Emma and Lauren at the opening ceremony parade!

Talked to Daryl (Emma's dad) tonight and he informed me that Emma and Lauren can be viewed leading the team in last night's opening ceremonies on this page:

www.globalfinals.org/albums/parade1/Webpages/gallery-01.html

I have pasted in the image above! That's the two of them left and centre in front of the flag!

We had more fun tonight. The girls presented a little rap at an outdoor improv cabaret and danced the macarena once again (it may be possible to dance the macarena too many times but we haven't hit the wall yet).

Oh, and the Director of Worrying has also taken on part-time Director of Fun duties, and the Director of Fun has taken on part-time Director of Worrying duties, and the Director of Uptight is also now the Director of Music and Dancing (see below for earlier details).

An Olympic-like experience

Hi y'all,

Do you know what the plural of y'all is? A woman from the midwest told us today that it's "all y'all"!

It's mid-day Thurs now and the girls are off to the first part of their competition -- the instant challenge. This is the one about which they have no prior knowledge or information. They're taken into a room, given half an hour to prepare and some basic materials to work with, and have to present to the judges right after that. Parents aren't allowed to watch and there are no other audience members.

Well, Emma and Lauren can now cross "carrying the flag for their team in an international event opening ceremony" off their life-list. The opening ceremonies were held in a large indoor stadium last night (kind of like GM Place) and while the rest of us sat in the stands, these two went off with representatives from each BC team to march the BC flag in. As we were part of the international contingent, they marched in second, after Brazil, and before the many American states. They carried the BC flag, and the Ontario team came in after us carrying the Canadian flag. Because of a mixup, our team was introduced as the Providence of Ontario and Ontario was introduced as Canada, with some reference to BC thrown in. Oh well. It was still quite a sight to see our little girls marching through the stadium floor.

The whole place was full and once all the American teams were in the floor was packed with DI teams. There were some dry speeches but also lots of excitement and fireworks and a laser show at the end. Lauren and Emma wish to record that they got to sit in the second row on the floor for the whole event and had a great view of the teams coming in.

We all marched from our dorm to the stadium together with the BC team and all the kids were given crazy red and white Canadian hats to wear. It was quite exciting and we got a "B.C.! D.I.! B.C.! Canada!" cheer going, and then some teenage kids from (I think) Tennessee made up a little tribute cheer about us that they marched beside us and did.

The pin-trading frenzy continues. We try to divert the girls to other things, such as watching actual Destination Imagination challenges (which we did this morning) but everywhere you go kids are sitting on the ground with their blankets stuck with all sorts of pins displayed, or kids come up to our girls and ask them to trade. Tara is definitely the most pin-crazy of the mums and can often be found on the trading floor.

Speaking of us mums, we are settling into our roles. Tara is the coach, and I am the team trip recorder/timekeeper/meal reminder, but the other three have all been given titles too. Can you guess who the Director of Worrying, the Director of Fun, and the Director of Uptight are? (I guess if I had another title it would be Director of Messy! And yes, we have all approved of our own titles.)

We are also getting to be known as a crazy Canadian team because us mums aren't afraid of dancing at the constant music parties and the girls even join in a bit! Yesterday the girls also got to do lots of fun carnival-type things like big sumo suit wrestling (Danielle took Emma out in one move) and giant twister and giant slip and slide (Verna got in on this too -- that's a hint for those of you trying to identify the Director of Fun)!

Tonight the girls are doing some sort of improvised song out in the plaza as part of an extra event. Today we had an authentic Southern barbecue lunch with pulled pork sandwiches, chicken, beans, and cole slaw.

All the girls and mums wish to send their love home, and to let you know that pin trading rocks and this whole experience is lots of fun! And they invite all the other East Chilliwack kids to join DI next year to find out what all the fuss is about.

Tomorrow -- Dollywood! (Who knew that Dolly Parton had her own theme park?)

Saturday -- the girls do their main challenge.

Sunday -- a long journey home.

I probably won't blog on Fri, so this is it for now!

Mid-day Wednesday on a giant university campus

Hi y'all!

Don't know how often I'll be able to get to this blog because computer access is not all that handy. Last night I was able to sign in at the dorm but that was only because a kindly student helper used her student ID to sign us in, and that's apparently against the rules.

Today I doggedly sought out the library (and had a beautiful walk through a campus founded in 1790-something) to gain access to this computer. We're having a quiet and fun day on campus.

We all played beach volleyball together this morning and then the girls continued to be caught up in the extravaganza of pin trading with teams from around the U.S. and other countries.

Being the only one wearing a watch, I have taken on the role of timekeeper, reminding all when it's about time to line up for a meal so we beat the long lines and don't end up out of time, and out of food. Some girls are saying "but I'm not hungry yet," but we're teaching them that they are part of a 10-headed organism (our team) trying to survive amongst 1,000 other teams.

They're all at the pool for the afternoon now, so I'm going to join them, but first I'll share a "different takes on the English language" story. Everyone here that's from Tennessee certainly does have a southern accent, and when Verna's Dutch accent collides with their twangs, it makes for some interesting interchanges. At the Waffle House, she went to the counter and said, "I like to pay," and they said, "Well ma'am, the washroom is just down the hall!"

Here's something you'll have to ask one of our mums about when she gets home: the "freshman willies" upon seeing the dorm conditions for the first time. (We'll leave it to you to guess who.)

And each girl gets one free "cry" credit. Susan is the only one to not have used it so far.

Tonight the girls march in the opening ceremonies, with Emma and (I think) Lauren holding the flag for BC, and the rest of the girls carrying the East Chilliwack banner.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to post photos until I get home, so you'll just have to let my thousand words a day paint a picture for you!

Having lots of fun....

Anne, Verna, Tara, Nicole, Cheryl, Carlee, Danielle, Susan, Lauren, and Emma.