Victory Ceremonies/ Paul Brandt

This morning, my mom got last minute tickets for the Victory Ceremonies. We knew that Maelle Ricker had won the gold medal (the second gold medal overall) for a Snowboarder Cross Event that day, and the medal would be given out that night at BC Place. My mom's a volunteer at the Olympic Village so she has "special" access to leftover tickets. This was exciting! We showed up at 6:30pm and had the most amazing seats! Third row to the front of the stage; we could have practically touched the athletes as they came on the stage. I took no photos from this point, unfortunately. Soon after we sat down, we were approached by some "official" person who offered us floor/stage seats to switch the Gold Medalists mother! How could we possibly say no to that? We watched the majority of the show back about 20 rows which were Maelle's mother's seats originally (still awesome seats) and then went up to the stage area to watch Paul Brandt perform. Back in my country-listening-days, I used to really love him, so it was a blast from the past and he played a few songs that I recognized.

The crowd was filled with so much red, it was amazing!  Even after we traded seats you can see how close up we still were. Last-minute tickets, worth every penny. I heard some people saying they paid 50-$100 for their tickets. Thanks Mom, for hooking us up!

The view was quite remarkable, and definitely an experience I will never forget. My mom had an interesting first today, too. She'd never been this close to a live-band in her life in a stadium this large. (we were very close!) So, she was quite taken aback by all of it. It was really cute watching her wave her flag back and forth as Paul Brandt sang. I was very happy to experience this evening with my two favorite people in the world. Love you guys!

Yay to experiencing new things! The olympics have been amazing thus far, and it's only been a week, one more week of firsts to go!

Here's a little video of the evening: