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!