Thanksgiving / Europa Cup

The first World Cup of the 2011-2012 season was in Igls, Austria. Admittedly, I didn't take a lot of photos there because I've posted about it a few times now, have a lot of photos, and you've seen the whole place by now!

But the preparation....and Thanksgiving...

Brad left first, for the Europa Cup tour. His first race was the week of Thanksgiving, and I didn't leave for Europe until just after Thanksgiving. Packing, Jean Luc really REALLY didn't want us to go. He tried to get us to pack him.



Then he tried to stall us by laying on Brad's clothes.



When that failed, he and I took Brad to the airport, sad! But we could watch his progress online. :)



And once he got there, use Facetime on our iPhones to talk, almost as good as in person!


(Ok, not nearly as good, but better than just voices.)

And so Thanksgiving came and went. Brad had some version of turkey in Germany, (Königssee, our favorite place) at his hotel, and I was one my own for dinner in the USA.

With him gone, my family in Alaska, and his family in Germany visiting friends, I went to two Thanksgiving dinners with friends! First time in the USA for the holiday in years....

So I cooked a lot...which I love...and while I remembered to take photos of the process, I forgot to take photos of the finished products! Oops.

Cornbread with real corn:



A little pan of candied yams - make that a little yams with my candied, oops:



And of course green bean casserole. With almonds:



Two dishes of each, one for each dinner. So fun!

One of the dinners involved deep fried turkey - my first experience with it.



Very cool.



Even cooler was the redneck wine glass my friend had.



After Thanksgiving I cleaned the house from my cooking mess, packed up, dropped Jean Luc off at doggy daycare - he didn't even notice when I left, and made my own guilt free way to Europe.

While I was checking in at the airport, I got a text message from Königssee. A single word: "Third." Brad's first medal, and on a German track to boot. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I was so excited that I wanted to scream and shout and jump up and down....but seeing as I was at the airport, I didn't want to get tackled by security. Instead I cheered under my breath, did a few fist pumps, and continued through security. :)

Here he is in Königssee after the award ceremony. So awesome! Our favorite place and even better now!


The awesome part of my own trip was Munich. After we landed, I left my luggage with the team and hopped a train from the airport to the city, and spent the day with Brad! And got to see his parents, since they were traveling in Germany and had met up with him too (as shown in the above picture).





All too soon it was time to take another train to Innsbruck, Austria.



Waved and kissed goodbye to Brad through the window and it was off to the first world cup of the season in Igls, Austria!