I'm a pretty lucky chick!

Sorry once again about the lack of updates, but I'll catch you all up now! Starting with our trip to Austria!

The trip was absolutely amazing. We had good, sunny, weather most of the time and with the Scherenbergs help, were able to navigate Kitzbuhel as if we were locals! We have constantly said since the trip how different it would have been without them. From recomendations from Bea and Oli before we left to Bärbel and Volker helping us navigate the slopes and find the best restaurants, we were able to have a really great vacation. We ended up purchasing a 4-day slope pass and made the most of it! I struggled a bit on the slopes but thanks to patience from Bärbel (a former ski instructor!) and Kev, I was able to make it down each run. I took the last day off to relax and let Kev run around with Shannon and John for some adventures.

The 4 of us with the Scherenbergs

One of my favorite parts of the ski vacay was heading to the apres ski pub, the Londoner. This pub is literally meant for right after the slopes, as people come in with their ski boots on and get wild for a couple of hours. There is a live band until about 7:00 or 7:30 and after that, the pub clears pretty quick. We couldn't pass up on the opportunity to drink out of the 2 Liter "Das Boot" our first night there!

We also dove right in to the Austrian food and enjoyed every bit of it. From the schnitzel and cordon bleu to the dumplings and different soups, we were once again thankful for the Scherenberg's recommendations of food choices! Yum!!

My "Tris": spinach dumpling, cheese dumpling, and a big noodle with filling

Downtown Kitzbuhel

We stayed on the 2nd floor!

 We had a tentative plan to head back to Hamburg on Friday, but decided to instead take advantage of the fact that we were in Austria and went to Salzburg for a night. We enjoyed some more awesome food, a spectacular view from the top of the Festung Hohensalzburg, and had a pretty wild night bar hopping our way around. We didn't expect to be on the road by 8 a.m. Saturday (especially after a bit of a late night!) but after getting woken up by the fire alarms at 7 a.m. we hit the road and were happy to get back to Hamburg in the late afternoon!

Mozart lived here once



Festung Hohensalzburg

View from Festung Hohensalzburg

She went to the bigger size next, promise

slightly drunk and really pumped about potato salad

We've been pretty busy since being back from the trip as well! The Alster downtown froze solid enough for people to skate on it, so Kev had a couple promotions down there. After a 3-on-3 promotion, we stayed to skate a bit and take in Hamburgs view from the Alster. It was pretty insane down there, as they expected over a million people to come skate during the 3 day time.

so many people walking/skating on the Alster!

Kev has also since had his Birthday. He had a game on his Birthday so we and the Curry's had a little dinner for him here on Wednesday. He got a couple cards and small gifts from some fans, which was pretty neat. And as part of his gift, when we get back to Markham, we'll be renting a Corvette or 1 of a few other "exotic imports" for a day. I think I may be more excited about that one than he is!

Kev's Birthday "cake"

Last weekend, we had a bridal shower/bachelorette party for one of the girls (Christina) on the team that is getting married this summer. It is always great to get all the chicks together outside of games and it was a blast. Christina has 3 friends from home in town also, so it was awesome that they could be a part of it! We learned a German bachelorette party tradition which involved taking shots so we were happy to participate.

Christina's throne, wishing well, and panty basket

Yesterday was a pretty scary day at work! While at the zoo, Hans was running, tripped and hit his mouth pretty hard on a rock. The poor little guy ended up having to get surgery last night on the upper part of his teeth/mouth and a few stiches in both lips. It was pretty scary, but thankfully it is overall pretty minor and since he's so young, not with any permanent teeth! I haven't seen him since he left the zoo headed to the hospital, but I'm sure he will look pretty cute without those 2 front teeth.

As for hockey, the Freezers won the last two games! Hopefully this slump is over. Kev has a game in Koln tonight and leaves again Thursday for a 5 day/3 game road trip. Bring on some W's guys.

Personally, I had been in a bit of a lazy funk lately (hence no blog posts!). I had been sort of just going through the motions, lazy with workouts, and just a bit of a complainer! After getting out for a nice long run today, I was able to come to a pretty awesome realization. By the time we go home, I'll have lived in Germany (and took the step of moving in with Kevin!), learned some German, been to Paris, met some amazing chicks from the team, been to 3 different concerts (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Toby Keith, and as of tomorrow, 3 Doors Down), been to Austria and skied in a world known resort, and met one of the most unbelieveable families I ever have (the Scherenbergs). And thats only been in 6 months, we have 2 left! Not to mention next year! So as the title of this post says, today I realized... I'm a pretty lucky chick!! Tschüss!