Los Angeles

It was a long day full of fun and adventures. 

Before the park:

1. Nice employee at the car rental offers to change our car pickup location from downtown LA (which is where Kayak reserved it) to LAX (for a small fee of course). 
2. Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain we walk right on to the rides. 
3. As we eat dinner at the Plaza Inn with in full view of the castle, the Main Street Electrical parade starts. 

After the park:

1. Complimentary breakfast featuring passion orange guava (pog) juice at our free night stay at Marriott from rewards points.
2. Hockey: The first game is cancelled due to the biggest storm of the season rain fall that caused a leaky roof in the 50-year-old rink which caused there to be holes in the ice. Before driving the hour back to the hotel, team called to reschedule game at rink in Anaheim (aka meat locker). 1-1/2 hour drive in afore mentioned rain storm. LA Kings win 1-0. Hot tub to thaw out our toes! Next morning the game is a the Toyota Center rink which is literally next door to our hotel. (Hmm, wonder why they didn't just reschedule that game here?) 
3. Play continues in the same fashion - scores vary a little: 2-5, 0-8, 1-4. Stories a plenty of how the team is all '03's and will get stronger and faster by next year. It's not everyday you get to learn everything you would ever want to know about hockey. Of note: the closest game (1-4) was versus the Eagles, who went on to win the championship game for the Bantam AA division (and when we were down to 9 players due to injuries). 

First Impressions:

1.  Creative driving: over the white lines, tailgating and lane-changing like players in a GTA video game. Road markers mean squat. Organized chaos? There is graffiti over everything but the dogs in the streets, and that wouldn't surprise me either.
2. T-r-a-f-f-i-c: The idea of traffic is different here. When we look on maps for the distance it's 3 miles but time to arrival: 43 minutes. Time to In-n-Out: 53 minutes. Time to Newport Beach: 52 minutes. Time to Huntington Beach: 57 minutes. All within a few miles. 
3. Feel me: Rap/Hip hop music is really, really popular here. What the ef'?

BARN

Grassy hills rolled into the blue winter afternoon. We drove up to the barn in Park City. I spied a few cats near the barn who politely ignored me as I walked through the mud caked parking lot. I had just circled back from the partially snow-covered pasture where the dairy cows grazed. Inside the ice rink, an electric light ran across the beams overhead. We watched a dozen kids, sauce, and snipe. Sweet warm laughter filled the air. I secretly hoped we could stay for lunch and into dinner.

Make Some Noise

For these mom's and their boys!!! 

After a long day at work today it was fun to go out with the Regulator team to watch the Grizz win vs the Thunder. 

T.E.A.M.

First game for the Eagles tonight- I thought they played well considering who they were playing, however Max had some other opinions. He asked me on the way home how come the Grizzlies are always so good, and how do they pass so well? Do they practice that way or do they just know to do it? I didn't have any answers for him I mostly just listened and added a few of my own questions like what he liked best about the game and what he thought he could do better? He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I guess I liked that I was just playing hockey the best." He said he thought he could get better at talking to his teammates and working together as a TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More. 

Final: 9-0. 

Hockey Is Back

Max and Markus both participated in the Grizz Cup this weekend. With a total of nine games in 96 hours I would say hockey is back!