Vancouver here I come!

One of the questions in our yearly personal reviews at 9News is: "What would you like your next assignment to be?" For the last 5 years, I've answered that with one response: "Covering the next Olympics." When I was filling out my 2009 review a few weeks ago, I had to find a different answer.

It has been my dream to be assigned to the Olympics since I started at 9News and it has finally come to fruition! I’m thrilled beyond belief, but not for reasons you may think.

When I tell people I’m going to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics, they think it’s a cushy, glamorous job where I get to hang out with Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White for a couple weeks. It’s not really like that. In fact, we are gone for 25 days (without our families), we don’t have time to attend many events and we’ll be lucky to sleep more than 3-4 hours a night. Sounds fun huh? Oh it will be!

In my profession, these are the events we live for: the action is everywhere and everybody wants to know more about it. We have countless Colorado athletes involved, most of whom we’ve already interviewed and I can’t wait to report on not only their success, but also the success of Team USA as a whole.

The Olympics are unlike any other sporting event. The games bring together the worlds’ most talented athletes on a stage that can cause us to toss aside political and religious views. Instead, our hearts feel the sweat and tears every athlete puts forth as each one represent his or her country and shows unparalleled pride in the process.

Pride in country.

Those words have been the underlying theme every time I’ve asked one of our Colorado athletes what it means to be an Olympian. As proud as they are to represent our great country, I will be just as proud to report on their accomplishments.

My dream assignment does come with one negative: leaving my family. I will miss my husband and two kids like crazy. My son turns 10 on February 13th and the guilt of not being home for that milestone bums me out more than him. I have never missed a school party; my kids and their classmates have come to expect my chocolate chip cookies, but those will be absent on Valentine’s Day. My 7 year old daughter likes the fact she will be the “Mom” while I’m gone, but other times I find her in tears because she doesn’t want to be the only girl at home.

Thankfully my mother-in-law is coming in from Florida for two weeks to help my husband and my family will be helping out as well. My guess is that my son will have a bigger and better birthday with me gone!

So, while there is guilt, I feel good about leaving my comfort zone and crossing north of the border for the first time on February 6th. I will keep you up to date from now until my return on March 2nd as to what we are working on, who we’ve talked to and any other fun stories we come across while we are there.

In the meantime, still lots of work to do before we go so I’d best get back to it ‘eh?