Our First Skates
Last week was Mrs. Kraus’ 25th birthday, so I threw her a surprise party. She had a test that evening and was due home about 7:30pm, so I had the perfect opportunity to load the apartment with friends and family after dinner. People started showing up around 6:45. We had fun playing Wii Fit and Mario Kart and chatting until about 7:15 when Mrs. Kraus called to let me know she was on her way home. I went down to the parking lot and hid so I could see when her car drove into the lot. When it did, I bolted back inside and upstairs. I shouted, “She’s here! She’s here!” and we turned all the lights off and hid in the dark living room.
We heard her key in the door and she came in without turning the lights on (perfect!), hung her coat up, and started to come down the hall. One of the guests hit the lights, and we all jumped out from different areas of the room, and shouted “SURPRISE!”. She let out a very high-pitched scream, and then shortly after a big smile lit up on her face as she saw some of her friends. We ate cake and snacks, played more Wii Fit, and chatted until about 9:30pm. Mrs. Kraus and I had a great time. Thank you SO much to everyone who came over! Pics of the party are up on Facebook.
For her birthday, I got her a pair of figure skates- her first pair ever in fact. She was really surprised about that too. She had mentioned she wished she had skates a couple months earlier, but had no idea she’d get them because it’s not something she specifically asked for when her birthday was getting closer.
After she opened them, Mrs. decided that it would be more fun for her to go skating if I could go with her. Well, of course I wasn’t going to buy dude’s figure skates so the next day I got hockey skates (so my birthday present is covered now too). Also my first pair of ice skates. We’ve been to the pond in the park a couple times now, and have been having a lot of fun. Poor Mrs. though- apparantly figure skates are more painful to break in than hockey skates. But they’ll be great after 5 to 10 skates!
Tonight we went to the pond and there were a couple guys there just shooting around at the nets. One of them was a middle-aged man who asked me if I had a stick. With a grin, I told him I just finally got my first pair of skates last week and haven’t gotten that far yet. He said he’d go grab me an extra stick and puck from his truck. It was really fun, I had a blast! The Mrs. skated around me, weaving in and out next to the puck saying, “It’s mine! It’s mine!”. I practiced my puck-handling and shooting. I really liked skating as fast as I could from one end of the ice to the other, keeping the puck moving and then shooting it into the net.
So this weekend I just might have to pickup a pair of sticks and a puck, if they aren’t too spendy. Then the Mrs. and I can pass the puck back and forth and shoot around. She thinks that sounds fun- she’ll be that girl who plays hockey in figure skates.
Hey you guys who live nearby and read this blog, you should consider getting some skates and a stick too! We could really have a lot of fun in the winter.
Speaking of hockey, Mrs. and I went to our first Minnesota Wild game last Sunday with our friend Aaron and his wife. Wow, that is a great time! I’d put a Wild game right up there with any pro sporting event I’ve been to. What a great game too. The Wild won 3-2. The game was tied 2-2 after the 3rd period, then it was a scoreless OT, followed by a shootout! Backstrom stopped all 4 attempts, and Mikko Koivu scored the winning goal. I put pics and a little video on Facebook.