Making of Pre-game Show

Early on into my blogging, I posted a video of the introduction to each Freezer home game. Well, on the team's Facebook Page today, I came across a video that shows how they made the pre-game show. Although the narration is all in German, I'm sure you will all get the gist! If anything, you'll see it at a better angle than in my video! Kevin is sending me to tonight's playoff game with the playbook to record some more action. The guys are down 2-1 in the series so be rooting for them today! Tschüss!

Kevin: 0, The Stove: 1

I have been wanting Kev to cook for me for quite a while now. And by cook I meant something other than skillet frying up some chicken and putting it together with some Uncle Ben's Microwave minute rice. Not that I have anything against Uncle Ben's! I've been vocalizing this desire more and more ever since the Scherenbergs gave him Esquire's "Eat Like a Man" cookbook for his birthday last month.

Well, he brought music to my ears when he picked me up from the train station today and said we had to go to the store and get Bourbon for a recipe from his book. Bourbon and brown sugar salmon. Sounds amazing! And seeing as the directions say to cook it in a skillet, he's picked a great first recipe, simple and not venturing too far from the chicken he's so familiar with. And he only has to start with a main entree as I would make our sides.

Love seeing him look through this book!

He put his skillet on the stovetop, seasoned his salmon, waited a bit too long, added the butter and brown sugar, and the next thing you know... smoke everywhere and the fire alarm is going off. The salmon never made it to the skillet. It didn't help that we were in a hurry to get downtown for his chiropractor appointment so there was a bit of pressure on him. We didn't have time to cook up the salmon at all, so we took our zucchini and sweet potato fries on the road with us. At least it made for a funny story and can't wait for him to try Round 2 in the kitchen! Tschüss!

Friday, the Freezers clinched 5th place and a spot in the playoffs!

According to the teams facebook page, The guys already know that they will be playing the 4th place team, Mannheim. The first game of this quarterfinal round begins March 21st!

Hans is better!!

Since I last wrote and told you about the fall Hans had, there has been another long hospital trip for the little guy. He was able to come home Tuesday after his surgery Monday night. But after the surgery, he was hurting pretty bad and had a hard time eating and drinking, so went back to the hospital on Wednesday from being so dehydrated. After being in the hospital since Wednesday getting infusions for food and drink, he started eating and drinking on his own Friday and was able to come home today! His Oma (or Bärbel as you might know from the Austria post) came into town for the end of the week to be able to spend time with him in the hospital. This meant a couple of long days there for me with Ida, but I was happy to help out! I can't imagine how scary it was for them to have their 3 year old in the hospital! And Ida and I got to know each other even better in the mean time and now she eats for me with no problems. We did a little victory dance together when Hans and Bea pulled into the driveway this afternoon. He was definitely back to his normal, cheerful self!

Kev and I went to another concert on Wednesday night! 3 Doors Down was playing with Seether and a band we had never heard of, Prime Circle. We were super impressed with Prime Circle and 3 Doors Down, but not so much with Seether.

And big news! Kev has finally scored his first goal in the DEL! He had a goal during Friday night's game. It was a little bittersweet since it came with a team loss, but still exciting! The guys won today against Straubing, and have one more game on Tuesday before they come home from this long roadtrip. It is really crazy that there are only FIVE games left in the regular season. They are currently tied for 6th place, so hopefully they can finish out these last few games strong, and secure a spot in the playoffs! (top 8 make playoffs)

I just got home from a "potluck" at one of the girl's places. It really is great to get everyone together and hopefully we can get a few more of these gatherings in before the season is over! It is just flying by! Happy Sunday, Tschüss!

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!