Stars on Ice - United States

I don't think is likely that my excitement from the Olympics will die down any time soon. As I mentioned in my last post about Sears Stars on Ice in Canada, I was hoping to convince Mr. V to go with me to Smucker's Stars on Ice, which is the American version of the show. Its actually the exact same show. Its produced by the same people, group numbers are choreographed exactly the same, etc.... The only differences are the people who perform in the show (and since they do their own routines, that's obviously different too). Mr. V appeased me by agreeing to let me buy tickets to the show and since he could care less about ice skating we balanced out the weekend by spending one night in Seattle and touring the city before going to the show. In the 2 years since we've lived here, that was actually his first visit to Seattle (excluding the airport) so he enjoyed seeing the sights there, and I enjoyed my skating show. All in all it balanced out quite nicely and we both had a great time.

So this time around I got to see Meryl Davis and Charlie White (Silver Medalists in ice danicng - They also train with, and share the same coach as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Gold Medalists and my favorites!), Evan Lysacek (Gold Medalist in men's figure skating and 2nd place in this season's Dancing With the Stars) and Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao (Gold Medalist's in pairs skating), and a handful of other world champions and Olympic medalists from years past.

As expected, everyone was amazing and it was another great show!

The Canadian version of the show was awesome because of the fact that there was a free autograph signing session the day before the show. Not only was it a free event, but we were also all given fairly large posters to have autographed, for free. The American version worked a little differently. Instead of having free autograph sessions, you have to join the fan club and apply for a Meet and Greet pass. There is really no benefit to the fan club, other than the fact that you're guaranteed at least one meet and greet pass a year. So since I'm a starstruck person obsessed with the Olympics this year, I shelled out $30 and joined the fan club. The other difference is that you aren't guaranteed to meet the entire cast. You're only promised that you'll meet one skater and you won't know who that person is until the meet and greet actually takes place. I definitely prefer the Canadian version of meet and greets better. The show's website has a message board that I had been following because people were writing about their meet and greet experiences in cities around the country. Some people met several skaters, while others met just one. The last post that I read before heading to Seattle was from someone who got to meet one skater, and it wasn't someone super exciting. So I was hoping for a good meet and greet, but I figured I'd most likely be meeting one of the random people in the show that I didn't even really know of.

After the show, people with meet and greet passes met in one section of the arena, where we were prepped for how it was going to work. Everyone there was shocked and thrilled when the lady in charge told us that it would be Evan Lysacek that we would be meeting! I have to honestly say that I wasn't expecting that! He's definitely the most famous and most well known of the cast, so having prepared myself for meeting someone uninteresting, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I'd be meeting the best person there!

So....here's my picture with Olympic Gold Medalist Evan Lysacek!

Stars on Ice-Canada

After going to the Olympics back in February, I found a new love of ice skating. I always watched figure skating when I was younger and was always fascinated by it, but somewhere along the way, I lost interest and stopped watching. The 2010 Olympics is what jump started my love of it again. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the compulsory dance portion of the ice dancing competition and my friend and I had a blast!

When I found out that the Sears Stars on Ice show was going to be coming to Vancouver, and it had Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (gold medalists in ice dancing) and Joannie Rochette (bronze medal in figure skating), along with a handful of other really talented skaters, including Kurt Browning (who I remember watching when I was in elementary school!), I had to get tickets :-). Mr. V wasn't lucky enough to go to the Olympics with me. He had to work that day so he had passed his ticket along to a friend of mine. I had hoped that he would be able to come to the Stars on Ice show with me, but of course the Navy had other plans. He's in San Diego for an exercise right now, so his ticket again got passed along to my friend. I was a little disappointed that he couldn't go, but to be honest, I really don't think that he cared so it ended up working out perfectly. My friend who came to the Olympics also came with me to Stars on Ice, but she almost didn't. She was supposed to be gone over the weekend too, but her plans changed, so we got wrapped up in Olympics excitement again and headed off to Vancouver!

The day before the show, I found out that the skaters would be at the Sears in Vancouver signing autographs. I had nothing to do that day, so another friend of mine (Mrs. M) and I headed off to Vancouver for Day 1 of ice skating fun.

My mom used to take me to autograph signings when I was younger, and she's the one who always waited outside of Broadway theatre stage doors with me. Plus, working in my high school's television production program gave me the opportunity to meet and work with some pretty famous people - actors and athletes. So based on those past experiences, I can say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the way these skaters acted.

I have honestly never seen people who seemed so genuinely happy to meet and talk with their fans. Obviously, I didn't expect them to be mean, especially at a planned autograph signing. But I truly got the impression that they enjoyed being there, that they wanted to be there and that they actually appreciated their fans. I went there expecting nothing more than an autograph and hopefully a picture, so when it was obvious that they were really there to have fun with their fans it made the whole thing so much nicer. I feel like that kind of appreciation is really rare in most cases, especially by athletes who can be successful without even having any fans. I mean you may not be famous if no one comes to see your movies, but you can still win a gold medal even if the world hates you, you know?

I'm glad that I went to the autograph signing because I already really liked most of these people (I have to be honest and admit that I didn't know who they all were at first), but I like them even more and have so much more respect for them, now that I've had the chance to meet them and see how they interact with the people who support them. To me, it made the show the next night even better. I guess I'm just a person who has more respect for people who actually respect others and appreciate their fans.

So the autograph signing was great, and the show the next night was fantastic. I like watching competition skating, but the show was interesting because it wasn't a competition, and it definitely seemed more like entertainment rather than work. It was definitely full of energy and we definitely left the show full of energy. I'm already looking forward to going to the show again next year! (plus the American Stars on Ice is coming to Seattle in 2 weeks, so I'm hoping I can convince Mr. V to go with me to that show. A handful of the American medal winners will be in that show.)

Here are some pictures from the autograph signing. My friend has a great camera, so she has some amazing pictures from the show itself that I don't have at the moment to post here. So for now here are the autograph signing pictures, and when I get copies of the other pictures from my friend I'll post those too.

(with Cynthia Phaneuf and Kurt Browning)

(Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon)

(Shawn Sawyer and Jeffrey Buttle)

(Scott Moir - I love this picture)

(with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir - gold medalists in ice dancing)

(with Joannie Rochette - bronze medalist in figure skating, and Adam Rippon)

(another one with Kurt Browning - he hung around for a while after the others left)

I'm in love...

Well maybe not in love. Its more like a new obsession. After being fortunate enough to go to the Olympics I am now obsessed (i.e. fascinated and impressed) with ice dancing and specifically Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Canadian ice dancing pair who won the gold medal in the Vancouver Olympics.

I have always loved watching ice skating, but until this year, I never paid much attention to ice dancing. In fact, I was actually upset that I had to get tickets to the ice dancing because I really wanted to go see the normal pairs skating. However, I was in New Jersey when that was going on, so I settled for ice dancing tickets instead. I wanted to see some type of Olympic event. The ice dancing tickets were affordable, plus I like "normal" figure skating, so it was a good compromise.

The result is my new love of ice dancing. My friend and I had an AMAZING time at the Olympics. Just being there, being able to say we were there, seeing all the Canadians decked out in maple leaf hats, flags, Canada tattoos, etc was exciting in itself. But then we got to the actual event. It was a lot of fun, but I can honestly tell you that I had almost no idea who was skating. The only ice dancers I had ever heard of were the Russian couple (and I can't even tell you their names offhand) who won the bronze medal. They were pretty controversial in the weeks leading up to the Olympics so since I didn't know anything else about the sport, I was simply excited to see them. (If you have no idea who I'm talking about, just google "Russian Aboriginal Ice Dance" and you will find out exactly who they are!)

The very last couple to skate in the event were Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and the crowds went CRAZY for them. Canada has a lot of national pride which was very obvious, and there were a few other Canadian ice dancing pairs, but Virtue and Moir got the most insane, enthusiastic reception of them all. The stadium literally erupted into screams and cheers and all you could see was a sea of red as all of the Canadians in the place waved their flags for them. As soon as the insane cheers broke out, my friend and I just looked at each other and said "Wow...these guys must really be good." And they were. They finished second in the compulsory dance (right behind the first place controversial Russians), which was the event we were at, and after 2 more events on 2 other days, they finished with the gold medal (the Russians took the bronze).

So fast forward to a few days later. I was home. I was bored. So I googled these guys and looked them up on YouTube and spent a few hours watching their old performances. They are absolutely captivating on the ice and they have a chemistry that I've never seen another ice skating pair have. I'm not imagining that either. Just google them and you'll find pages and pages of fans obsessing over whether or not they are dating (they're not), if they should get married or if they should just remain friends. I mean there are full blown discussions about this topic all over the internet. The consensus seems to be that they have a chemistry together that no other couple has ever had, so aside from their amazing skating, that chemistry adds to their performance. They have also been skating together for 13 years, which is apparently unusual in the ice skating world. They were paired up when they were 7 and 9 (they are 20 and 22 now) and have never skated with another partner and have no intentions of ever skating with another partner. I'm sure that adds to their amazing chemistry and talent too.

So after watching hours of their videos, I declared myself a full blown fan and decided to see if they would be performing anywhere where I can see them again. It turns out they are doing a tour across Canada - Sears Stars on Ice - and I have every intention of going to see them when the show comes to Vancouver in May.

If you haven't seen their Olympic performances, you really should! The videos keep getting pulled from YouTube, but you can see them here.

In the meantime, enjoy their pictures. The pictures don't do their performances any justice, but I still think they are amazing to look at. And check out the videos on YouTube. The Olympics videos keep getting pulled, but there are pages and pages of their older performances. I can't figure out how to get a video on here, but I'm capable of posting a link. So here you go - this is my favorite non-Vancouver 2010 performance. Its just fun, and you don't really see a lot of that in figure skating. Granted its not a competition, its for a gala, but still, they're just different from what I am used to seeing. So trust me, its a fun, amazing performance :-).
Jack and Diane - World Expo 2009

I have to admit that now "normal" pairs skating is pretty boring in comparison to what these 2 can pull off in the ice dancing world.

And yes I am aware that I should be all for Team USA, but honestly, I'm thrilled that the Canadians won the gold medal because they are just THAT good. In my defense, the Americans took the silver medal and both the gold medal Canadian team and the silver medal American team actually train together in Michigan and they have the exact same coach. So based on the medals, their coach obviously knows what she is doing! But if they train together, in the United States, then that's kind of like cheering for the USA right? :-)

Vancouver 2010

There are SOME perks to living in Washington state! I always loved watching the Olympics when I was a kid. For the summer Olympics I was fascinated with gymnastics and for the winter games I loved watching ice skating. Something about the fact that I will never in my life be able to do anything remotely close to what these athletes do seems to catch my attention. I can barely ice skate in a straight line and I've never been able to master a cartwheel, so I get my joy from watching others do the things I only wish I could do!

Since Vancouver is practically in my backyard (I live closer to Vancouver than I do to Seattle), I decided that when the Olympics arrived here I would have to find a way to go see them.

I managed to get tickets to the first round of ice dancing and I was thrilled! I wanted to go to the Olympics and I would have taken any tickets that I could get, but since ice skating was always my favorite thing to watch I was thrilled to end up with tickets to see this event live!

So on Friday, February 19, I headed off to Vancouver. Mr. V had to work, and while I know he wanted to check out the Olympics in general, I don't think he was too upset to miss ice dancing. Since he had to work, he passed his ticket along to a friend of mine and the 2 of us went off to have some fun. After a fairly easy border crossing (the easiest one I have experienced, which was odd since I would think that during the Olympics security would be tighter), we stopped at the British Columbia visitor's center to get some maps and information. This was probably the smartest move we made because Vancouver wasn't letting people drive and park downtown. We had to park in the town of Surrey and take the Skytrain into Vancouver. Since I didn't even know that the town of Surrey existed, the visitor's center was definitely a smart move.

The first thing we did was head off to the waterfront to see the Olympic torch (which is being called a cauldron for some reason). Amazingly, Vancouver has this entire thing under control. The crowds in the city were insane, but I am completely amazed at how well they have the crowds managed. I never felt like I was in a huge unruly crowd, and volunteers in blue jackets were set up everywhere to direct people around to keep traffic moving. I guess I was expecting pure bedlam, but we got the exact opposite.

After the torch, we had to head to the Pacific Coliseum to see the ice dancing. We had an amazing time! We got to meet some of the ice dancers and get their autographs and we got a big kick out of the excitement that the Canadians were radiating off of them. At one point I had to say "Wow I've never seen so many Canadians!" I know, I know. We were in Canada, so obviously there were Canadians everywhere, but what I meant was that everywhere we looked we saw red. It seemed like every single person was dressed in something red, something that had a maple leaf on it, or something that said Canada. The fact that it was all red is what I think stood out the most. We could look down a street and just see a sea of red everywhere and when the Canadian ice dancers preformed, the crowds watching went insane!

By the time the event was over we had to head back to Washington. However, we realized that there was still a lot of stuff in the city that we had wanted to see, so we made plans to come back on Sunday. So on the 21st, my friend and I collected our husbands and the 4 of us went back to check out more of the sights. We definitely had fun and for once I'm happy to be living out here because I'm not sure that I would have ever experienced this if I was living anywhere else!

I posted my pictures from the weekend on Facebook, and I'm going to try to post them here. I've never tried to use the public link to pictures on Facebook before, so I'm not completely sure this will work, but instead of creating a whole new album for the sake of this blog, I'm going to try it. If you find yourself clicking on the link and its not working, please let me know!

I just have a simple point and click camera, but my friend has an amazing professional type camera so her pictures turned out much better than mine. I didn't even bother trying to take pictures of the ice dancers because I knew they would come out small and blurry with my camera. She took tons of pictures though so I'm going to try to get the public link to her Facebook album (which she has to give me access to - I can't just get it myself) and then I'll post her pictures too. For now though, here are my pictures.

Olympics - Vancouver 2010

February

February is going to be a good month. I'm judging that by the fact that today is the first day of the month and its the first day in almost 2 months where I've had absolutely NOTHING to do! Its a fantastic feeling, especially since I have been so stressed and overwhelmed lately.

As for other good things during the shortest month of the year:

~In less than 2 weeks I'm on my way home to New Jersey. I'm excited because the last time I went home was in October, and that was for my Grandma's funeral, so it wasn't exactly a happy vacation. This time its to visit my other set of Grandparents who are turning 80 (Grandma in February and Grandpa in March). My grandparents have been pretty bummed for the past few years because I have been moving around and not living anywhere close to NJ and my mom moved to Georgia a few years ago. Couple that with the fact that my aunt lives in Vermont, and they have no family nearby anymore. Its sad to me because the few times that I have seen my grandparents, my grandfather always cries and tells me how much he misses me. I've always been really close to this set of grandparents so its so hard for me to see him like that. Anyway, my mom is planning a surprise 80th birthday party for them. They know that my mom will be coming into town and taking them out to dinner. They don't know that I'll also be in town and thats the surprise :-). My mom wants to keep it a secret that I am coming out there for a few days so I'm getting excited. I know they are going to be thrilled to see me and I'm thrilled that I am going to see them! The only downside is that Mr. V can't come with me so I'll miss Valentine's Day. I guess we can always celebrate earlier or later though.

~Less than a week after getting back from New Jersey I'm off to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I figured that since I live closer to Canada than to Seattle, then I might as well try to get tickets to the winter games. I've loved watching figure skating in the Olympics since I was a little kid, so I hunted out some tickets for ice dancing and will be headed that way on the 19th. Mr. V is less than thrilled about going to see figure skating, but since he wasn't nearly as excited as I was about the Olympics being so close, he just went along with it. He's not sure if he'll be able to get off of work to go with me (and he won't know until the night before...grrr), but thankfully I have a friend who will be my "backup" if he can't make it. I doubt he'll be too upset if he misses figure skating though :-).

~And finally, about a week ago Mr. V passed his PPC board (Patrol Plane Commander). For P3's this is the farthest he can advance job wise in the actual plane (its not a rank promotion). This means that I will hopefully be able to see a little more of him this month. Each advancement requires hours upon hours of studying so I feel like I actually talked to him more when he was in Iraq, than I have since he's been home. So thankfully, while I'm sure he'll still be overworked, at least he won't have to hide away in a room on base to study anymore. Maybe I'll really have my husband back now :-).

And that's February for me! Hopefully it will continue to be a happy month!