Pictures: Our hotel room Christmas tree, San Diego Zoo, Monster Jam, Go Canada!

Go Canada

Watching the Winter Olympics in California is a completely different experience from watching them in Canada.

• First, I'm sure many people are curious as to why we have a big Canadian flag hanging from our orange tree. There are a lot of Americans who don't watch the Olympics at all. That's hard to believe especially for those of us whose lives stop when the Olympics are on. (Kidding Brent, we're still working.)
• Second, Canadian coverage is blocked in the US and NBC coverage has been disappointing. Vancouver is in the same time zone as California yet for some reason they delay the coverage by three hours. That makes for very late nights if we want to actually see who won the medals.
• Third, American media broadly announced how Canada was confident they would 'own the podium' and even used this to motivate their own athletes. And now our Canadian Olympians aren't doing as well as they cockily said they would and we feel like the few Americans who are watching the Olympics are looking at us and snickering behind our backs.

Even though the Canadians aren't doing well, we remain proud of our athletes and the Vancouver games. We loved the opening ceremonies. I love how Cam summed up the Canadian vs American athlete so well: "When an American underdog is in a race you know they'll find a way to win. When a Canadian favourite is in a race you know they'll find a way to lose." Keep going Canada, we're behind you all the way. At least we're better at laughing at our shortcomings than boasting about our victories.

So, friends... we just told someone recently that we don't have a social life but we do have TV and on that TV is HBO. Thank goodness for that. But seriously, we have had two families over for dinner (that's right, 2 in 5 months) and yes, I'd call them our friends. One family might be more "our neighbours" and the other family might be more "our French tutor" but we're going to call them our friends.

I have made one truly close friend. In fact she's become an extension of my body. Yes in fact Sally is nearly the most important thing in my life right now. Sally is my blackberry. It's amazing how Cam and I used to put our blackberries away in the evening and enjoy family time. Now in our world without a lot of social interaction we both set our 'friends' beside us in the evening and watch for the green light to turn red, telling us we have a message from a real live person. They no longer feel like an intrusion, they feel more like a lifeline or connection to a variety of friends back home. All that is to say - keep sending messages.

Aside from the Olympics, here's a quick list of what's been going on:

• When we drove to LA and San Diego over the Christmas holidays, our original plan was to go to Disney on Christmas Day. Cam said there would be no one there. We checked online only to find it's the busiest day of the year. So instead we went Christmas Eve Day and there were no crowds. The weather was perfect. It was great.
• I enjoyed a get away to San Antonio, Texas with my friend Marianne Hiff.
• Gabbi and Reuben are progressing nicely with French and piano.
• Reuben still loves biking, doing jumps on the driveway, tearing around the BMX track and accompanying Cam on long runs.
• Really, the short winter here has been a little unpleasant. We went six weeks in January and February without seeing the sun, no day above 55 degrees and got 13 inches of rain. Last week felt like a glimpse of spring with 70 degree weather and sunshine. Now we're back to rain and cooler weather for a couple more weeks.
• We became rednecks for a day as we attended a Monster Jam truck show in Sacramento.
• All is quiet on the rat front! (Gnaw on wood.)
• It's been a quiet three months on our own and we're looking forward to visitors coming in March and April.