Back In Everett!!

Ok lets play a little catch up...
Sunday morning... after a nice "Champagne Brunch" @ the Eagle Waters Resort Restraunt. We headed out to the pond hockey championships. Even though most of the teams left town, there was still a pretty decent crowd to watch the last few games. You would think, being a championship, there would be major hype. None at all. Wisconsin was also under a winter storm watch & it was snowing like crazy. From when the teams scraped off the ice to a few minutes in, inches of snow was piling on the rinks, making it hard to skate & pass. None of the teams the Icelagers or Monkeys were in the finals. But it was a close game. A team called Collateral Damage, won the championship in the novice division ( our division ). While watching, I kept finding pucks in the snowbanks. Whatever pucks came off the playing surface, we'd TRY to find so we could bring home souveniers. We hung around for the championship game of the gold division & that was a heated contest. After that, we pretty much went back to our lodge, kept a eye on the news & packed up our stuff. The news kept saying that the winter storm would bring another 3 inches to the 5 feet that was already on the ground for the past few days. We made sure our flights were on time & went to bed ready to wake up extra early in the morning. It was a little hard to get to bed knowing it was going to be our last night there. Aaron & I spent some of it laughing at some of the memories we had of the weekend.

Monday... Travel Day!! We got up @ 5:30 a.m. & made the drive to Rhinelander. We were the first plane out that day @ 7:35 a.m. We boarded early & got to witness a little deicing. We had the most anal steward. He really made sure you were in your correct seat before take off. Of course I was at the back of the plane, the only on in the last row. Aaron sat with me so we could bullshit, & "John" our steward, made a announcement, then came back & made sure Aaron got into his correct seat. We seriously sat there for a few minutes because people were trying to change seats & he didnt want that. Once we were settled, we taxied on fresh snow out to the runway. You could feel the plane slide a little getting up to speed for take off. We had a brief stop in Eau Claire, before heading up to Minneapolis. I was really impressed at these pilots being able to land in the snow. We had a few hour layover in Minneapolis, so there was a little shopping in the airport/mall. We grabbed a quick bite to eat & Aaron got us a "duck fart" before boarding the plane home. We had the same flight as the Icelagers, who drove to Minneapolis to catch the Minnesota Wild game the night before. That would have been a blast, but we were also glad to be resting in our nice warm cabin, watching the game on tv.

I spent the rest of Monday, & most of today, resting... It was a fun trip & I definitely recommend it to anyone that loves to play the game. It was a amazing experience & I'm saving up for next year. Someone at the tournament said that they had to turn away 50 other teams. Apparently they werent ready to have a 200 teams there, but they might be next year. Registration for next year is going to start this summer. Thanks to everyone that helped me make this trip, I truly appreciate it. I'll remember this one forever, & even if I make it a annual thing, its never going to beat out our first year. I'm back to work tomorrow!! GO MONKEYS!!