last days in long beach

proud of our NORCECA silver medalists!

Wow... what a week! Our trip to Long Beach was great, but ultimately it missed just the one thing - a berth to the Olympics. :( But the guys played so so well and really left it all out there on the floor, beating Puerto Rico in five sets in the semi-final on Friday night and giving the USA a real run for their money - at least in the first set - before taking home the silver. Sadly, because Canada (ranked 18th) trails Cuba (5th) and Puerto Rico (17th) in the world rankings, there will be no second chance to qualify for the London games; both the aforementioned teams - even though they finished behind Canada in the tourney - already have a spot. Sooooooo yeah, that's it. The good thing is that their run this time through was much more solid than the last Olympic qualifier in 2008; hopefully we'll see Team Canada in Rio in 2016...

Staying on the beach was great, and we enjoyed walks down to the water and playing in the sand, making and destroying sand castles, climbing giant sand piles and more more. Some pics:

tearing down buppa's castle with glee!

feet in the water - he looooved it!

climbing the giant sand pile with grandma

relaxing in someone else's garden... no big deal! love how much he loved the sand and sun :)

at the park on saturday morning - he was at this wheel for 80% of the time we were there - the kid loves driving!

And I don't know if it's because he's been around more English speakers in the past few weeks but Hendrik's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. He's repeating so much, and manages to string together two words on a regular basis ("red light" (!!) "yellow car" "coffee, hot") and even threw three words together on our way home on Sunday - lady, drive, van. For real! And on that note I have to say that our travels home weren't soooo bad, even with the four of us snug and cozy in three small airplane seats. Steve flew back to Ottawa with the team, and after a morning workout joined us this afternoon in Bowmanville for a few nights - yaaaaaaay. They have World League games this weekend in Toronto - vs. Finland on Friday, Brazil on Saturday, and Poland on Sunday. Saturday's game will be broadcast live on CBC, so try to catch it if you're around. Apparently it's almost (or completely?) sold-out, so that alone will be a pretty decent show - seeing 7, 000 + Canadians cheering for volleyball. Before signing off - some vids!  

He's discovered hide-and-seek, but doesn't get that by talking he's telling us where he is... it's adorable!!