August 4-5th, 2014

The start of my trip to U.K.! 7:30am I left for the airport and checked my bags through to Dublin.  Mom and I were so happy to be on board the plane.  Little did we know it would not be able to stop in Toronto due to storms, that we would land in Montreal for 2 hours for refueling then return to Toronto, having missed all of our connections! Enter Super Dad who booked completely new tickets for us to Europe out of Toronto!  We did a mad scramble to get our bags off loaded from one plane and onto a second. Finally, at 11pm we boarded a KLM flight to Amsterdam where we would connect to Birmingham, England.  

stretching at the airport

the ocean!

waiting for the last leg of the 30 hour journey

It was  very long for sure, with a 4 hour wait in Amsterdam, but we were so very happy to see Sir Ed Van Hoof at the gate waiting for us in Birmingham Airport at 5:30pm. To finally meet in person was so exciting. Sir Ed was super efficient getting us home to his and Carol-Angela’s home…the drive flew by! Carol-Angela was right there waiting for us.  YAY!

After a quick rest and visit with the geese on the lake, we walked to an amazing restaurant beside their lake.  Ribs never tasted so good.  After 30 hours on only snacks and little sleep, I was ready for a good meal and bed. Mike Weinstock, the Chef de Mission for English Gymnastics at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014, joined us.  He was so funny. Even half asleep I laughed at his jokes. We talked about the excellent British results at Glasgow, the format of those Games (5 days in a row the boys competed!) and the future.

Sir Ed and I feeding the geese

Every detail of our arrival was perfect.   Even my bed had Olympic sheets! C-A made sure I was 100 percent comfortable.  I did stretches and rolling then straight to bed.