Skiing St. Anton...

We spent the past Saturday skiing at St. Anton in Austria with some friends. What a fun day it turned out to be! The weather was gorgeous, the runs were awesome, and the views from the slopes were absolutely amazing! All in all, it was a great day of skiing! :) Here's a few pics from our day... Enjoy!

A gorgeous day to be on the slopes! :)

Heading up the lift...

Brian, Dominik, and I getting ready to hit the slopes...

Maciej and Eva on the way up...

Eva was ready to take on the red slopes! :)

As for me... Not so much!

For our second run of the day (mind you, I was skiing with pretty advanced skiers!), we took the gondola up to the very top of the mountain so that we could ski down a red slope (That's considered an intermediate level here... However, coming from Michigan, it's quite similar to our black diamond slopes... Yikes! I did attempt to get out of skiing this slope, but to no avail... Grrr!)... Needless to say, I was pretty much terrified to go down the slope!

See how this sign is red and indicating that it is an intermediate level... Normally, I ski down the slopes that have blue signs (easy level)! This was quite an experience to say the least! But, I can say that I made it down, without falling, and I was quite proud of my accomplishment! :) And, for the rest of the day, I pretty much stuck to the blue runs! :)

Eva heading down the red run...

Dominik on his snowboard...

Maciej makes it look so easy... :)

Dominik decided to take a break in the snow! :)

Look at that look of concentration! :)

Gorgeous views!

Lunch break!! :)

I love how they served me my lunch! :) My brezel wrapped around my Almdudler (A very traditional Austrian drink... It kind of reminds me of lemonade in a way... Quite tasty! :))

Cool picture of the view through Brian's goggles! :)

Eva and Dominik goofing around! :)

And it's time to hit the slopes again! :)

At this point in the day, I was pretty much wiped out. The weather was so warm, and it was causing the snow to turn slushy. In turn, being that there were so many skiers, moguls were being created virtually everywhere on the slopes, irregardless of the level of the slope. So, the end of the day required ALOT of concentration trying to maneuver between what felt like fields of moguls! Craziness!

Taking off our skis for the day...

Before we headed home, we decided to stop at Mooserwirt. This is an extremely popular Apres Ski (after ski) place in St. Anton... Apres Ski is very common in Europe. Basically, after skiing all day, you stop for a drink or two (or many more for some!) at these restaurant/bars that are located directly off of the slopes... They start getting busy around the time the lifts stop running (4:30ish) and then they basically escalate into a party as the night goes on. From what we heard, this one can turn into quite a party later on in the evening, and it's considered one of the most popular Apres Ski places in Austria. We, however, stopped in for a quick look and a warm drink, and then headed back home for the day. :)

I loved the sign! :) Too cute!

Hanging out at Mooserwirt...

Eva and I enjoying our warm drinks before heading home! :)

Sunday was pretty low-key for us...

We walked into town and met some friends for breakfast. And then we strolled along the lake on the way back home... The mountains were in full view on Sunday, so we slowly walked home while soaking up as much of the view as possible! :)

Stunning!! :)

Travel Plans...

I have been on a roll lately... On a roll of booking vacations, that is! :) Being that we only have a few more months of living in Europe before we move back to the U.S., Brian and I are determined to check as many places off of our "list" of European destinations as we possibly can... So, I've been quite the busy bee trying to find good deals on airline tickets and hotels in each of these destinations... And, I've been quite successful to say the least! :) I'm quite happy to say that I have managed to find us some great deals on airlines and hotels to a number of destinations!! So, thanks to my savvy finds, here's what our calendar is looking like for the months of April and May...

Our first stop is in Barcelona, Spain from April 1st - 4th...

I finally convinced Brian to go to Ireland (I've only wanted to visit Ireland since I was about 3 years of age!!)... Woohoo!! :)

We'll be in Ireland from April 13th - 17th...

We are flying into and staying in Dublin during our time there, so I'm super excited to explore the city for a couple of days!

After spending a few days in the city of Dublin, we plan to spend a couple of days exploring some of Ireland's countryside... I can't wait to see the Wicklow mountains and surrounding areas! :)

We'll be heading back to one of our favorite destinations (Lago di Garda, Italy) over Easter weekend... Yay! :) We love this area for the gorgeous scenery, hiking and rock climbing areas, and the delicious Italian coffee! :)

Shortly thereafter, we'll be exploring Mallorca, Spain from May 12th - 15th... Woohoo! :)

I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to travel to all of these different places! I never dreamed that I'd be fortunate enough to be able to see so many beautiful places... I feel so completely grateful that we are able to have these experiences!! My only wish is that we were able to bring all of our family and friends along to experience everything with us!

A Fun, Festive February...

This is starting to feel like a trend... Posting the events from the previous weekend on Friday! :) This past weekend was spent like many of our previous weekends... Skiing on Saturday and going to a Fasnet parade on Sunday... I'm really enjoying this time of year! :)

We were quite excited about skiing on Saturday! We woke up bright and early to the news that it was going to be perfect weather for skiing, and the ski area had gotten 11 cm of new snow overnight... Woohoo! :) So, we spent Saturday skiing in fresh powder snow, while soaking up the sunshine, and enjoying ourselves immensely!! It was such a fun day of skiing!

On Sunday, we headed to Feldkirch, Austria to check out their Fasnet parade. It was actually our first time in Feldkirch, and after seeing a small portion of the city, we decided that we'd like to go back to visit again at some point, so that we can see a little more of it... It was such a cute Austrian town! :)

The parade was pretty good, but Brian and I agreed that we like the German Fasnet parades a little better. :) This one was extremely long and the crowd was quite obnoxious (i.e. there were tons of drunken teenagers walking around!! Grrrr!! In case you didn't know, the drinking age is 16 here, so they can drink at an extremely young age. I understand the concept behind the younger drinking age, but I still can't get over the fact that they're so drunk at such a young age, which usually results in VERY obnoxious behavior!)... But, we didn't let that spoil our fun... We still enjoyed ourselves while loudly chanting the slogans for each group, snapping lots of pictures, and trying to catch the candy that was being thrown into the crowd... Fun times! :)

This weekend is actually the final weekend of Fasnet for the year, so we've got lots of parades and fun Fasnet related activities in store for us! We're very much looking forward to it! :) So, be prepared for a Fasnet themed blog post in the near future! :) Have a great weekend!

The guys getting ready for a day of skiing...

The girls... :)

Ready to hit the slopes! :)

Maciej showing off some moves...

... Nice! :)

Maike on her way down...

Here comes Eva! :)

And then it was my turn to show off my skills...

Wait for it... :)

(Notice that things don't look like they're going so well right here?? :))

And there she goes! :)

Those were my impressive skills of the day!

Jealous, aren't you? :)

A perfect ski day...

Since Brian is typically the photographer, he doesn't get many action shots of himself... So, here I made him at least pose for a picture so that he can have proof that he is actually there skiing! :)

And here's another shot where I actually look like I know what I'm doing! :)

We took a short break (with pretty much every other skier that day) to sit in the sun and have a snack...

While Brian and Maciej skied back to the car, I opted to take the cable car back down (some of the runs on the way down the mountain are a much higher level than I ski at... And you all saw how "well" I do at skiing! So, it's in everyone's best interest that I don't even attempt those slopes! :))... This was the view I got to see on the way down... Wow!!

One of the hexen in the parade in Feldkirch...

Some of the costumes and groups were new to us, such as this one...

Clowning around... :)

This was new to us as well... These people were zipping around on scooters! :)

This lady was loving her scooter... In fact, she almost took out some spectators, she was having so much fun! :)

This festival is almost like their version of Halloween here. Everyone dresses up, and instead of "trick-or-treating", the kids bring bags to the parades, and the characters give them candy! :)

This was a new one to us... I wasn't a big fan...

This was also a costume we hadn't seen before... Very creepy!!

This character grabbed this girl with his chain and dragged her down the street with him... Although, she really didn't seem to mind. :)

Here's what I meant about obnoxious kids... Throughout the parade, drunk teenagers would climb under the rope barricades and dance in the streets or mess with the characters walking in the parade... I found myself wanting to go into "teacher mode" and tell the kids that they were not making wise choices! :)

The Hugeloh costume...

This musical group was very bright and cheery! :)