There are days I miss Norway more than others and today was one of them. Another manic Monday on the roads of South Florida was enough to drive me batty. I don’t know what it is about S. Florida that people here think the rules and laws apply to everyone but them. Sometimes I feel like the Transporter as I mentally prepare to drive in South Florida.
While waiting to make a right hand turn on McNab today (always a logjam) I watched someone drive down the right, grassy shoulder to move through traffic more quickly. This illustrious person, who shouldn’t be allowed to drive, felt their time was more important than the people’s property they drove over. They were a total douche canoe.
Twenty minutes later, I watched in disbelief as another driver drove up the shoulder on the turnpike lest they wait in traffic. This poor woman may have been late for her bridge game had she waited with the rest of us peons. I truly do not understand what it is about South Florida that makes it so magnetic to the world’s worst drivers. According to SmartAsset.com, Florida’s drivers are the worst in the nation. They’re not wrong.
So what does this have to do with Norway? Not one Norwegian honked at us during our trip. Even when we mistakenly drove down a pedestrian area (whoops) or were driving a little slow to find a stride, nobody honked at us. Norwegians drove as if the law applied to everyone. Imagine that! Nobody drove like they were above the law. That and the fact Norwegians keep their country very clean. They pick up after themselves and even public bathrooms on top of mountains are clean.
One of my favorite commercials, is the Snicker commercial featuring the Brady Bunch’s Marcia Brady. Marcia is so hangry that she’s morphed into a big, mean biker dude. As soon as she takes a bite of her Snickers bar, however, she turns back into the sweet all American girl we know and love. I’d be lying if I said I was any different. I would also be lying if I said that food makes me happier than coffee. I run on Dunkin.
As cranky as I can get when I’m hungry, my younger boys can be absolute curmudgeons. They’re like an 80 year old man going through puberty. Quite frankly, it’s ugly. Like the sour patch in the commercial, he goes from sugary sweet to dastardly sour.
When we were hiking on the Vindhellavegen section of the Kongsvegen, the Mayor had become hungry. As we hiked the Sverre hjornevik, one of the most picturesque parts of the trail, the Mayor’s hangriness started to peak. One problem… The trail was wide enough, but was gravelly in places. If one were to fall of the side of the road, one would fall into a rocky gorge. It wouldn’t be a good outcome.
The Mayor felt the entire mountainside from Borgund to Husom should know of his discontent. He was not quiet in sharing his displeasure. Jake and I trekked to the bottom to see Husom and take pictures, while the Mayor, Goalielocks and the Hubby waited on some benches up the hill.
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We finally made our way back up the trail, which was much steeper on the way up than it had been on the descent. The Mayor whose hangriness has reached a new level of ludicrousness was beside himself. His antics were annoying Goalielocks and Jake, leading Goalielocks to ask the Mayor if he could be any louder. This wasn’t not a good question to ask. The Mayor started to scream, shout and clap as he did a jig a la GOB from Arrested Development. Out of breath, I had to stop hiking because I was laughing too hard.
While the Mayor was attempting to annoy his brothers, the rest of us ended up in hysterics because it was truly the funniest thing we’d ever seen. This, of course, only made it worse. It wasn’t until he saw my iphone recording that he started walking normally. As soon as we got back to the Borgund Stave church and museum, we got him some food. We couldn’t unfurl the wrapper off the muffin quick enough. Once the food was on board, my sweet angelic Mayor was back.
It’s my first Friday back at work since heading overseas on vacation. Wishing everyone a wonderfully productive Friday followed by a carefree and fun weekend!
The trouble with travel is hockey is trying to maintain healthy eating habits when the majority of your weeknights are spent at the rink and your weekends are spent driving across the state to other rinks. Hockey season doesn’t have to be a diet killer if you’re well prepared. Just like you would take the time to prep our meals for the work week, you have to take the time to prep your snacks and meals for the road.
After hundreds of miles on the road, the ease and quickness of fast food is alluring. If, however, you’ve planned ahead and prepped your snacks and meals for the road, it is easy to drive by or skip out on the fast food. Removing the temptation and not wanting to waste food will go a long way to keeping you on the diet wagon.
Here are some great ideas for healthy snacks and easy meals for the road.
Almonds
Peanuts
Stringed Cheese
Apples or apple slices
Peanut butter or almond butter
Oranges – clementine’s are perfect for road trips as they are very easy to peel
Berries
Grapes
Popcorn
Baby carrots
Protein Shakes
Protein bars
Granola bars
Yogurt
Hard boiled eggs
Celery sticks
If you carpool with other families, be sure your snacks align with any food allergies that may be present in your carpool group.
These snacks are easy, convenient, healthy and relatively inexpensive especially when compared to the cost of eating at a restaurant every trip. For tips on how to indulge in an adult beverage or two without calling your waistline, see my tasty, but light on calories recommendations here.
The hardest of part of travelling out of state for hockey tournaments is trying to fit all of the luggage and all of the players into the trunk. It’s a bit of a game as you fight with the hockey bags, maneuver the suitcase and ultimately decided you can live with the sticks in the passenger compartment. Success comes with a true sense of accomplishment once you finally get it all to fit. Once we got the luggage jigsaw puzzle figured out in the trunk, we headed to my parent’s house in the Northern suburbs. The ride home was filled with the boys laughter and excited energy. They were excited to finally make it to our destination, and we were too, but we were exhausted and they were wired.
Michelle vs. the Trunk
Can she do it? Will she do it?
Victory is in hand!
Once at my mom’s house, Michelle and Andrew got acclimated and felt at home – like most people do at my parents- in short order. My mom was ready for us with plenty of fresh cookies to go around. My dad, two weeks post hip surgery, was surprisingly agile and mobile compared to what I had expected. My parents and my niece and nephew were thrilled to see us and our friends. Thankfully my parents were able to help us convince the boys they should take a nap before we headed to the Wild game. They fought taking a nap, but were soon asleep.
After a nice, lengthy nap we got ready and headed down to St. Paul to see the Minnesota Wild take on the Chicago Blackhawks in game 4 of round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was a must win game for the Wild, so the Mayor and I were hoping our squad would show up. While I’ve been to several Wild games in Minnesota and Michelle had been to several Chicago home games, our boys had only been to Florida Panthers games. This was going to be a completely different experience for them.
We got to the game with plenty to spare having hit much less traffic than I had anticipated. Since we had the kids, we couldn’t really pre-game at McGovern’s or Tom Reid’s so we headed into the Excel Energy Center after buying some nice souvenirs. The kids were quick to notice that unlike at the Panther’s games, a lot of the crowd starting to file in was already drunk. Fortunately, neither the Mayor nor Andrew were shy about sharing their observations with others. They were a magnet for trouble and for the second night in a row, Michelle and I were convinced we were going to get shot or beat up on account of their mouths.
The pre-game started and their mouths were agape. The game experience in the Excel Energy Center is second to none as is the energy in the crowd. Having only been to Panthers games previously, the boys’ mouths were agape. They had never seen a building alive with that much energy. For them, the experience was incredible and one they still talk about to this day. As the festivities continued, the fans continued to file in and the boys continued to comment on how they were so drunk they had already spilled beer down the front of their pants.
Unfortunately for the Wild, the most dynamic part of their game was the pre-game and the introductions. They were flat the entirety of the game. The few chances they did have, they did their best to make Crawford look like a god of goal tending. While the Wild’s play was lackluster, the entertainment from the crowd around us was not. A couple comprised of a Wild and a Rangers fan, got into a huge fight and at the behest of the surrounding crowd and his other friends, he ditched her. There was drunk goal to the right of us that managed to fall down two rows barely spilling her beer and not hurting herself.
Perhaps the best moment of the game, was when Andrew started talking smack to the two fans sitting behind him and the Mayor. They were both drinking and one was spitting some chew. Andrew felt compelled to tell him that he was going to call his mother and let her know that her son is a drunk that chews. Thank god they had a sense of humor and thought that the boys were hilarious.
By the skin of our teeth, Michelle and I survived another adventurous night with our crazy boys. The Wild lost and the Blackhawks went on to become Stanley Cup champions that year. Two years later, the Mayor still talks about how incredible it was to be in the Excel Energy Center that night and be a part of the experience. Making new memories and sharing great experiences with my boys, their friends, and my friends is one of the best parts of having our kids participate in a travel sport.
Part 1 and part 2 of the story can be found below:
For the first time in my travelling life, I would need to use the baggage claim at ATL. Usually, my trips to Atlanta include hurried runs with the family from terminal to terminal to ensure we don’t miss our connecting flight. It felt a bit foreign not feeling rushed upon landing in Atlanta. Fortunately, the rushed feeling was replaced by the mortification and embarrassment of our continued run-ins with the boys’ favorite fellow passenger and her nipples. Had they not announced it every time they had a visual on her, it probably wouldn’t have been so embarrassing.
We collected our baggage, as the boys continued to stare at the beautiful women and her see through shirt, and headed out to the shuttles. It was after midnight and the shuttle lines were crowded. Storms across the Eastern seaboard left several passengers stranded in Atlanta for the night. Michelle, the boys and I muscled our way onto a shuttle with three older travelers after the shuttle driver assured us he could take us to a hotel that would take our vouchers.
We drove for what had to be 20-30 minutes before pulling into a seedy looking motel with funky colored lighting up the side of the hotel. We had taken the backseat, so we were the last ones into the hotel lobby. The shuttle driver followed us in and was given cash by the clerk in the hotel lobby. The lobby of this Choice Hotel was dingy, dusty and gross. A breakfast nook off to the side beckoned the boys, who by this time of night had become hungry again. The heavily tatted hotel clerk was unwilling to let the boys have any of the cereal to eat.
The Mayor and Andrew in 2015The Mayor and Andrew 2032
There was a couch off to the opposite side, so we sat the boys down and waited our turn to check in. Our fellow travelers had been trying to check in with their vouchers, but the hotel clerk was refusing to take them. He was trying to charge us over $110 for the night in his seedy, roach infested hotel. As they argued with the clerk, we tried to keep the kids occupied and relatively quiet.
This became increasing difficult as a few hotel guests started to file in. These guests, clearly prostitutes with their johns, were dressed in clothes that would make even Tara Reid blush. Our boys’ eyes were wide with wonder and hysteria at the veritable shit show that had started to walk through the hotel door. Now Michelle and I were starting to get worried one of their comments might get us shot. Needless to say, we were not comfortable staying in that hotel.
Our knight in shining armor, was a fellow traveler, a beautiful woman from Milwaukee that is a merger and acquisition specialist (something tells me that Choice Hotel isn’t her normal hotel of choice.) She arranged for two ubers to pick us up and booked us each a hotel room in a hotel close to the airport. She truly saved our bacon. Finally after the longest night of travel and fearing for our physical safety, we made it up to our hotel room at 2:00 am.
That morning we headed back to the airport bright and early to head to Minneapolis. The weather was beautiful and sunny as we hopped the shuttle to ATL. Security was kind to us rushing us to the front since we had the young hockey players and all of their gear. Finally after an adventurous evening starting at PBI and a circus of a night in Atlanta, we made it to Minny.
In a world dominated by social media and social media influencers, the use of filters and the crafting of a careful social media presence exists far from the glare of the Hollywood lights. We use Instagram to perpetuate an image of our lives that we want the world to accept regardless if it is accurate or not. It has a created a society that looks towards almost unattainable and unsustainable happiness based on the false pretense of everyday life the social media has created.
Think about it. When you select your Insta or Facebook profile picture, you’re going to pick the most flattering picture. You may even select one with one of those ridiculous and fun Snapchat filters. We certainly don’t select a picture where we look horrible that’s for damn sure. The picture where we’ve clearly drank too much and are making the most ridiculous face that are friend tagged us in on Facebook? We instantaneously remove the tag.
The thing is we can’t pretend like this didn’t exist before the socials did. It’s not like people picked their crappiest photos and worst moments to highlight on their Christmas cards. Just like the photos we post to our profiles now, the photos selected and the moments shared always crafted a good picture. Was it always accurate? Probably not.
The problem with socials is that they exacerbate the perception that many of our friends are living lives that are the totalparagon of perfection. Meanwhile, their life may be a complete disaster or completely normal. As I looked through pictures from graduation last month, I found myself laughing at the outtakes. We had some great pictures, but there were some completely disastrous photos, which are pretty accurate of how life sometimes feels in a house of all boys.
For today’s blog post, I’ve interspersed some of my favorite photos of the boys and the numerous outtakes. You’ll notice one Christmas (2007) the Mayor decided he didn’t want to cooperate at all. At the end of the day, social media can be a great tool to keep in touch with family and friends across the globe, but we can balance putting our best foot forward with the creation of a completing fake and narcissistic social media persona.
