Olympic Dreamer

Tessie's pre-school held another Olympics-inspired fundraising event today, just as they did two years ago. Tessie donned her "50% American, 50% Canadian, 100% CUTE" t-shirt, and strove to represent both of her countries to the best of her ability. Since NBC wasn't there, we got to see it all!

The Opening Ceremonies went off without a hitch, mostly because nothing needed to rise up out of the floor; toilet paper-roll faux torches don't have a lot of moving parts to break down.

The four events were based - very loosely - on events from the recently-completed Vancouver Games. The first was "Speed Skating," but since this was being contested in southern California, there was no ice. Without ice, skates were deemed superfluous. So what we really had was a sprint.

The Travels with Tessie media pool assembled alongside the course...

... while Tessie lined up at the start and waved to the crowd...

... and got off to a great start...

... and won her heat!

And then it was off to the "Luge." Again, no ice, and this competition more closely resembled skeleton, anyway, as the competitors navigated the course while riding wheeled boards on their bellies. They pulled themselves along with their arms, and Tessie rocketed around the track several times.

The "Downhill" was next, and it was contested in a giant bouncer slide. With no ski lift to the top, the kids had to climb up under their own power before letting gravity take them back down. So much more challenging than the "real" Olympics!

The day's final event was the "Giant Slalom," a bouncer obstacle course. There were tunnels to climb through, barriers to scale, bollards, hoops and a big slide at the end. Tessie loved it, even after she went down the slide head first and belly-flopped - hard - on the finish mat.

Lastly, the medal ceremony. It was the culmination of a lifelong dream Tessie's had for almost a month as she received her shiny "gold" medal.

She beamed, and so did we.