How We Got Here To Begin With...

Once upon a time, it was my dream to be a writer. Not necessarily a best-selling writer, or even a journalist, but a writer of stories that people would read and enjoy. Now, by becoming one of Petro-Canada’s Family Correspondents, I think my dream has come true, at least in part. This blog is a venue to tell stories – the stories of those families whose children/relatives are realizing their own dreams: to compete at the Olympic Games.

So I guess the first story I have to tell is our own or How We Got Here To Begin With. I have to credit my husband Denis with getting it all rolling. Dreaming of attending the Olympics in some fashion, he got very excited when he found the Facebook contest for the Petro-Canada Family Correspondents. The objective was to make use of social media and become correspondents to their Family Program. We needed to create a 30-second video and upload it to enter. It was the middle of December, about a week before we left Ontario for a Christmas vacation in Newfoundland. The contest was closing just after Christmas so the pressure was on to get a video done as soon as possible.

With our video camera and lots of creative enthusiasm away we went! We had lots of winter sport footage already from our own home videos, there was snow on the ground and the Olympic torch was due to arrive in our hometown of Aurora in a few days. We wrote a script and shot video in the front yard of our house, proclaiming to Canada who we were and how excited we were about being the correspondents. We shot video of Denis at the torch relay (how exciting to be able to see that!) and the finishing touch was me saying “we have family from coast to coast” with my hair going horizontal in the wind on top of Signal Hill in St. John’s.

It was fun getting this video together and it brought back a lot of great memories: going to a natural luge course in central Ontario, where, incidentally we did our first Olympic family interview with the Family of Clay Ives (Doubles Luge Bronze in 2002); skating in downtown Toronto with friends and family; skiing at Devil’s Glen in Ontario where we were shooting Denis in a Santa costume for a movie his daughter was making. I think the best part of that day was when the little kids ran up to him to ask if he was the “real Santa”. We have a lot of fun in the winter… :)

Once we had all the shots, Denis put it together on his laptop, finishing while we were in Newfoundland. Do you know how long it takes to make a 30 second video? Probably about 30 hours. I kid you not. With all the things we wanted to say and show, it was hard to edit it down. But he did a great job of saying in 30 seconds what it is taking me a long time to say on the keyboard: We are Denis and Anne-Marie. We have family from coast to coast and we love Canada and winter sports. We will bring you the stories of the families of the Olympians. And now that we’ve been selected, I can end here by saying it will be our privilege and our honour to do so. Stay tuned…