Classes are back in!

Happy New Year!! I know, I’m a couple weeks late, but better late than never. Hopefully everyone had a fantastic New Years, I know that we sure did. But, before I get into that, I have to tell you about our Bus Trip to Evansville, Indiana to watch the Cyclones play, and what a fun trip it was. As I previously had mentioned, we went with Josh and Vaughn, and of course met some really nice people on the bus. We arrived in Evansville at the hotel around supper time and had a couple hours before the hockey game. We dropped our things off in our rooms and then went and checked out the casino and grabbed a burger at Max and Erma’s before having to get on the bus that would take us over to the Ford Centre. The game was one of the most interesting games I have seen in a really long time. By the end of the first period it was 2-1 for Evansville, then in the second they scored 2 more goals and at that point I was ready to leave the arena. I actually said to Aaron “if they score again I am walking back to the hotel.” Before you know it, the Cyclones scored 4 goals, ending the period with a lead of 5-4. Evansville then got a head in the 3^rd period, 6-5, and with not much time left in the period the Cyclones scored to tie the game at 6. Then just 34 seconds into the overtime period, Josh McFadden scored the winning goal for the Cyclones. Fantastic win for our boys! After the game we went back to the hotel and were trying to find good places to go and party at, but everywhere was either too far away or suggested places to kind of stay away from. So, we ended up at this Sports bar and had a couple drinks before we decided to call it a night. The next morning we had our free breakfast buffet at the hotel and boarded the bus to head to Nashville. We got to Nashville around 2pm, and had about 5 hours to tour around and do whatever we wanted. The four of us hit up Honky Tonk Central and Layla’s for a drink, then we spent the last couple of hours at Paradise Park Trailer Resort, which is half a restaurant and half bar. If you ever get a chance to go to Nashville you most definitely want to check this place out. They have amazing hamburgers, and I don’t eat a lot of burgers, but Aaron had ordered one this summer when we were there and I had a bite to try it, and needless to say I ate almost half of his burger. The buffalo chicken tenders are really good too! Our next stop was Bridgestone Arena to watch the Predators play the LA Kings. At this point we were all pretty hungry, so it was a good thing that our tickets included all you can eat hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, and soda.  Aaron and Josh had disappeared about half way through the first period, and at the end of the period I found them, and they had discovered that for only $15 each you could get unlimited beer. They each bought these wrist bands and were so excited about this option. Nearing the end of the 3^rd period there were 16 draft beers cluttering up a counter that we had been surrounding to watch the whole game. It was quite comical and a tad crazy. We got separated from Josh and Vaughn walking out of the arena, but all knew where to meet up to catch the bus home. Trying to get Aaron out of the arena was interesting, he was taking his time, mean while I was worried we’d miss the bus. He was talking to all the workers, and nearing the doors out one of them told him he couldn’t take his beer outside (which he knew) and so he started to jokingly challenge these older ladies about running away. They said that they could catch him and he wouldn’t get away. They had some fun teasing him. It was raining pretty good when we left the arena, and we had a 4 hour drive home ahead of us. Surprisingly it was a pretty quiet ride home. I think all the partying finally caught up to everyone and everyone pretty much slept. We made it back to Northern Kentucky shortly after 3am, and Aaron’s dad picked us and took us to Vaughn’s. By the time Aaron and I got home and to bed it was almost 4:30am, and we had to be up at 8:30am to get ready and work the Bengals game.

Bengals game was not a very good one for me. If you hadn’t heard or seen, I got a pretty nasty steam burn from cooking hot dogs. I opened the door to the steamer and put my hand up to the tray to pull the hot dogs out and never let the steam escape before doing so, so ended up with a nice burn on my wrist. Shortly after it happened I went down to first aid where they ran it under water for a few seconds, put solarcane on it and wrapped it up. They told me to come back after half time if I felt I needed to, and I did, as just after the half time rush I peeked under the wrap and I saw the massive blister on my wrist. They weren’t any help when I got there, they didn’t look at it and just directed me to go to my doctor the next day. I explained to the guy I didn’t have a doctor as I was a Canadian student going to school down here and then he directed me just to go to Urgent Care. Personally I thought that was pretty rude of him, he didn’t even look at the burn. This was a different guy then who had helped me when I first got down there, and you could see that guy had wanted to say something, but never did. Good thing I have a couple friends who are nurses, as they both instructed that I go to the ER. I called my insurance to get all the details on what I needed to do, and then off to the ER I went. We were in and out in just under an hour, something you wouldn’t have happen at home. The waiting room wasn’t as busy as some of the hospitals I have been at home, but I’m sure I would have waited for hours there for something like this. The doctor cut off the blisters and had the nurse clean my wrist and bandage me up and gave me some pain meds. Now just over 2 weeks later it is starting to look not too bad. Definitely learned my lesson, and didn’t make the same mistake at the next game on January 5^th.

New Years was a lot of fun for us. We went to the Madison Event Center for their New Years Bash again, which is what we did last year. We had so much fun last year and met a really great couple, Hollie and Bill. Unfortunately they weren’t able to attend this year, so we ended up meeting a few other couples, but didn’t connect with any of them like we did with Hollie and Bill. The food was really good, the music and live band were excellent, and they had a photo booth to take fun pictures. They changed things up a bit this year and actually made the VIP section on a different floor which opened up another 100-150 seats. Last year it was a lot more intimate, such a smaller setting, less than 100 people. This year our floor was packed with over 200 people. There are 3 floors at the Madison and 2 of them are for general admission and 1 was VIP, those who have VIP admission have access to go to all 3 floors. Last year we were pretty much the last 2 to leave the floor at closing time. This year we left shortly after midnight, wanted to beat the rush out. We decided that we’d take a couple years off from doing that again, one, mainly because it is so expensive to do. Is it sad that we are already trying to plan out the next New Years already?

The rest of the week was filled with going to the gym, cleaning up and organizing at the house, working the playoff Bengals game, and going to the Cyclones throwback night where they wore old school jerseys and had a teddy bear toss for the Cincinnati Police Department. There was record attendance at the game that night, over 13,000 people, the most people I have ever seen in that arena. Cyclones scored their first goal 24 seconds into the first period and thousands of teddy bears ended up on the ice.

Last week of my break was fairly laid back, finished cleaning up the house, sorted things out for my classes, and waited for mom and Ken to arrive. They had left Manitoba on Sunday and were to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday, but had some truck problems and didn’t make it here until later in the afternoon on Thursday. Which is probably a good thing, as we had super cold temperatures late Sunday all the way into Wednesday morning. Nothing nearly as cold as the weather they had just left, but the normal cold we Canadians would have all winter, -17C to -20C, and a feels like –29C with the wind. I actually had to pull out my winter jacket for those couple of days. Thursday by the time they got here it was about 4C and overcast.

Aaron and I decided on Buono Vita Pizzeria for supper that night, as it was walking distance from the house, and mom and Ken could just come back and relax for the rest of the night while we went to see Book of Mormon, which was fantastic!! One of the best musicals I have seen! (besides The Grinch, which is hard to compare to Book of Mormon). Friday I took them to Bellevue Bistro for brunch and then we went and explored the area and went to Target and Sam’s club. We were home a few hours later and got ready to go to a wine tasting at US Bank arena which was taking place before the Cyclones game. It was so much fun. We got to sample 8 different wines and 3 different appetizers, and got a nice commemorative glass to take home. We were up near all the box seats, so had a great view of the ice for the first period. The rest of the game we watched from our seats, and got another win for the Cyclones, 5-3. The excitement came when the Cyclones scored their 5^th goal, as every time they score 5 goals in a game you get to take your game ticket to a nearby Hot Head Burrito for a free burrito. They have had quite a few home games in the last few weeks where they have reached or surpassed the 5 goals, Hot Head might go out of business, lol.

Saturday morning Aaron and I had a double header broomball game, which was awful! It had rained all night, so the ice was covered in water. You’d think they would have tried pushing the water off the ice, but no, they didn’t. And since none of us have ever really played broomball before or any sport on ice, everyone was falling and it wasn’t a pretty sight (not just our team, the others too). Our friend Craig has played hockey for years and obviously I have been on the ice before, either from playing ringette for a few years, or the many years of outdoor hockey at Rosser rink, even a couple of broomball games in high school. But, as I said, the ice conditions were awful, and I can’t believe they continued with play. We lost both games 9-0, and I am sure we will be the talk of the league, but whatever, we joined to have fun, at least that’s why I joined. Aaron and I did invest in some broomball shoes, hopefully those arrive before this weekend so that we can use them on Saturday. After our games we went home and picked mom and Ken and went out for breakfast to Cracker Barrel. Then mom and Ken wanted to go to Verizon to get their US phone activated, turns out they couldn’t as they didn’t have social security numbers, which must be a new process for phones down here. Our evening was low-key, played card games and dominoes. We were up until 3am! Ended up cancelling our brunch buffet reservation for Sunday morning at Crave as none of us were really feeling it, and mom and Ken wanted to get on the road up to Indiana for a couple of days. They arrived back last night while I was at school, and they were playing dominoes with Aaron when I got home. They left this morning, which was sad for me, as I wasn’t ready for them to leave yet. Hopefully I will get to see them in the spring when the have to come back down around here.

Classes started on Monday and I wasn’t quite ready for them to start. I’m taking 4 classes right now, Environmental Science (with a lab), World Civilization II, Calculus, and Death & Dying as my Philosophy course. I have that this afternoon, and I am looking forward to it, should be fairly interesting. My 5^th class starts in the middle of March, another Philosophy class, Social and Political Philosophy, and my 6^th class is my trip to Nicaragua in May. A lot more work this semester, hopefully I don’t get too stressed out. I’m already worried about all the homework and quizzes for Environmental Science and Calculus each week. I don’t even know what Calculus is, so it should be interesting to see how I do. I’m going to go to the tutor centre tomorrow to see if I can get some help, don’t want to get behind in the class.

 
Time for me to head to class, but I’ll try and get another post in this weekend, and post some pictures. Aaron’s leaving after our broomball game to go hunting for a couple of days, so I’ll be hanging out at home trying to get homework done, along with some baking.