Happy Place

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

Our prompt for the month of August was "Happy Place".

What a shame that August chose to be a record hot and humid month, and generally, any place that came with an A/C was my happy place. That's basically only public buildings and new, fancy residential/office buildings, both of which I neither live nor work in. Switzerland, and that's probably true for most European countries, A - has a lot of old buildings, and B - is very environmentally conscious and claims it's only hot for a few days a year, we don't need these evil, energy consuming systems. Well, I don't agree, but I also don't have a say, so I crankily suffer. The picture above is not, I repeat, is not part of this challenge because it clearly does not depict a happy place of mine. Just so we're clear. 36° Celsius converts to 96.8° Fahrenheit, feels like 44°, resp. 111.2. Enough said? 

So on one of the less sticky nights I enjoyed myself at the lake. It was one of the first nights Coli and his team were back practicing on the ice. More about that later. A good sunset at the lake never gets old.

Sooner or later, however, a girl gets hungry. That's when I venture back to my home away from home during C's training. My beloved former utility meter factory (for which organization I used to work a good 25 years ago) that was repurposed into a multi-purpose facility with lots of food booths and seating areas. Among my favourites are the Taco place and the Poké bowl one. I thought I took this picture stealthily, but look at the guy, he totally caught me!

This is what my dinner looks like. Riceberry, salmon, avocado, mango and pineapple. So yummy! Now this is a bonus picture!

August 19 was Colin's team's first exhibition game. People arrived in top tanks, shorts and flip flops, and it was so hot outside that they just entered the arena without wearing any additional clothing, and they thought it was perfect. I said to myself I'd love to do that, too, but it's probably gonna bite my in the butt, so I put on a sweater, long pants and real shoes. Nobody needs a summer cold!

They won, btw. And the week after, they did it again, which was even more amazing because they only had 13 field players, and the opponent had 16 or 17, and most of them were really big guys! 

Our team lagged 0:2, and I thought it was only gonna get worse as they get more tired and discouraged. The opposite was true. They ended up catching up and winning! So proud of these guys!

Here's the video I made. Oh, and btw, by the time this second game took place, temps dropped, and we got some much needed rain. Wonderful! 

With fall almost here, I have been thinking about the upcoming Elf on the Shelf season. We started the tradition in 2012, same as this blog, btw, and back then I didn't know what I was doing. 

The statement is true for both activities, because I just started something I thought was cool, but I had no idea where it was going to take me, and for how long I was supposed to keep it up. Well, looks like I'm still at it.

Whereas blog fodder is endless in one way or another, the ways one can place an elf on the shelf are somewhat limited. I mean, how many shelves are there ;-)

Contrary to what I say every year - "I have run out of ideas" - this year I have some pretty awesome plans, If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see me posting, starting on Thanksgiving. 

I took this random picture because I had to show someone who's helping me with something that required handicrafts skills, the size of an elf - comparable to the more commonly known Barbie. 

Speaking of, we recently went to the movies to watch the Barbie film. I was not impressed. I mean it had some cool scenes, but in my opinion it lacked a bottom line moral of the story. I did like that the audience was full of women, young and old-ish, dressed in pink, sporting girly purses or sparkling shoes. Very cool! 

What happened to my Barbie's right foot, you ask? I honestly don't know. I noticed a while ago that she must have had an accident I wasn't aware of. Does anybody know a good doll surgeon? Let me know. Speaking of surgeon, Biscuit, our other (green) elf underwent a limb wiring procedure and will be released from the hospital tomorrow. You see, the elves that are sold to us, are not naturally bendable. They are lumpy. Unless you insert wires into their arms and legs, which Cookie (our red elf above) had done a few years ago, they can't sit on their own. 

PS: What's an elf, a TP roll, a bottle of Coke Zero and a Barbie got to do with this post's topic "happy place"? It has literally everything to do!! These things make me happy, especially to hatch secret plans for elf scenarios. 

These were my five, now head over to A 'lil HooHaa's blog and check out what my fellow bloggers came up with.