I'm Still Here!

I know, I know, I know! I haven't blogged in about....forever, but I've been busy! I had grades to focus of for my Report Card, school itself, and my family went on vacation, but I'm back and I'm going to try to blog more, I promise! So here are the last 2 months or so of my blogging absences....

xo

Austria

About two weeks ago my family and I went on a Ski trip to Ebbs (Kufstein) Austria with my friend, Emily, and her family! I had never been on a ski trip before, living 20 minutes away from wonderful ski resorts all my life in Utah, we never found them necessary.

We rode the train there, which is always fun and very relaxing, and you could notice right after we crossed the German/Austria border how much the architecture changed. From rooftops to wood trimmings, it was all different and very cute! When we got the the Ebbs train station, while we were still surprised with the small size of it, we couldn't help but focus on the beautiful, yet small, town surrounding us! Every detail on the churches and stores made the place look like a village out of a snow globe, with the mountains in the background, it was picturesque.

We spent the whole week skiing down the slopes and had a blast at a resort named SkiWelt, the biggest in Austria! (containing 91 chairlifts and 70 places to eat!) My dad and I were nearly in heaven, for we had always dreamed about skiing on the Alps, and were loving every minute of it! Before we moved to Germany my dad and I were up skiing almost every weekend, I have skied all my life and had been on a ski team for 5 years, so skiing in Austria really brought back great memories along with making us very homesick!

We had a great time skiing in Austria, the weather was great, and dreams came true!

My Mom and Dad on the train to Ebbs

Dad in Munich Train Station

My mom and Lars in the Gondola ready to hit the slopes!

My friend Emily and her mom

Chairlift, I thought the ramp to get down was interesting...

8 person chairlift, looks like a couch...

I thought this was really cool! I have never seen or heard of a double chairlift like this!

Chairlift with heated seats and bubble!

Dad on awesome heated chairlift

Lars in heated chairlift

On the bus up to the mountain

Emily, Me, and Lars on the Bus!

Emily and I

Mom, Dad, and I!

Yaks! We were just skiing along and randomly there was a farm with Yaks, just watching the people ski along!

(Picture dedicated to Jordan and Ginny!)

Ski Bunnies!

Mom and Me!

Our cute little Hotel!

Kids dancing the traditional Tirolean Dance!

Looks like Hop-Scotch to me!

More of our Hotel Entertainment! :)

Museum/Castle/Fortress of Kufstein!

This was the weather the day and the day before we left, snowed so much that it just piled right up on the swing set!

View from the top of a Gondola on a super nice day!

There's a German way for everything....

The other day as my class started 'Sport' I was reminded by my friend that we were starting Volleyball! I was happy to hear this news, I had actually played Volleyball before on a team and wasn't that bad at it, finally a sport I could play! As the Gym, or 'Sport', class started I realized that the kind of Volleyball the people around me were playing was definatly not the kind that I was used to! I kept noticing how they would let the ball bounce on the ground once before they hit the ball themselves, while I was thinking to myself "What are they doing? Isn't the whole point of the game not to let the ball touch the floor?"...

As the drills and practice continued I was still trying to get the the hang of this bounce then hit process, never knowing if I should let the ball bounce or just hit it! We finally began a game, while I was still trying to mold this knew way of Volleyball into my head! Wondering if they just got the rules wrong, or if the German's had a different way of playing the game..?

The game had been going well, after a little while I began to get used to my team letting the ball bounce before they hit it, getting used to the new rythm and planning for when the ball was to come to me...Well, the ball finally did come to me! And while it was falling from the sky, getting closer and closer, my mind was racing and all I could think about was whether to let it bounce or hit it right away! Of course my team members were absolutly no help at all, all the while I had a ball flying at me some were screaming 'Hit It!" while others were saying "Leave it, Let it bounce!", which really did not help the tramatic situation I was already in with this new method.

Well, what goes up must come down, and when the ball finally did make its way down to me it didn't end up happening like I had played over in my head just moments before. My team for sure didn't appreciate or really understand my confussion, for this was the way they had always played it said my friend!

....

The next week I wasn't looking forward to Gym as much as I had been the week before. Now knowing what I was in for, scolds from team members, confusion while the ball was falling above me, how excited could I really get?

But, this week ended up differently... Before we began the game my Gym teacher asked if we wanted the game 'with bounce' or 'without bounce'! I realized that this wasn't the way that they really thought you played Volleyball, where the week before I figured that the German's had changed the sport a little to their liking, but it was really just a way to get used to the flow of the game! They had been playing the 'easy' way the whole time, well, easy for them that is! So, when my Gym teacher asked what way we wanted to use, I was the only one that yelled out 'With out bounce!' while the rest of the class screamed 'With!' ,and sadly won with glory, while I tried to focus on 'bounce and hit, bounce and hit!'