Exploration

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

Our prompt for the month of February was "Explorationt", which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. 

Here goes.

Sports vacations are intended for families to go on skiing vacations or for schoolchildren to go to ski camp. Colin never really found out whether his new school even offered camps and if yes, whether it's open to freshmen since typically spots are limited. So he spent his time off doing what teenagers do best: Sleeping in, raiding the fridge, playing video games and watching football. Mind you, we're always six to nine hours ahead of Eastern and Pacific time, so that makes for a completely different sleep pattern.

Anyway, one morning he committed to getting up before lunch, and we went to the mall for some sushi. Since I've posted pictures of sushi so many times, I won't do it today. It hardly qualifies as explorative anyway, right?

Instead I'll give you the Wailing Wall of the Mall, and look it rhymes! It's located in the room of silence. I've seen it on my way to the bathroom, but I never actually went in, and I can't tell you why I did this time.

The sign invites you to write your wish on a colorful piece of paper, roll it up and stick it in a cavity in the wall. 

I made one wish for the world, and one for my family. I hope both will come true! 

Without going into too much detail, one of my wishes was for health. I had found out in the last few weeks that my blood pressure has apparently been too high for quite a while, which is why I bought a measuring device and took regular measurements. One fine evening, the reading was so high that I ended up in the emergency room. Of course, a better result was then measured on site. They took my blood and did an ECG, both of which seemed normal, and I was discharged with the words "ambulatory hypertensive derailment" and the recommendation to buy a measuring device with an upper arm cuff, since my current device, which is attached to the wrist, is supposedly not reliable, I was told. Although, my husband and son used it that evening and, unlike me, had normal readings. 

So much for conventional medicine. For my part, I consulted - explored - the Internet, and it gave me a list of foods that are supposed to help lower blood pressure naturally. Not all of them sounded very appealing to me: Beetroot, Swiss chard, oats, flax seed... Not a fan. At all. 

I had read about hibiscus tea, though. It’s supposed to lower blood pressure. That must be better than some of the things above, right? I was on a mission. Googled, drove to the supermarket, purchased a box of “Karma organic sweet Hibiscus Tea”. YAY!!! 

After I got home and took a closer look at the back of the packaging, I noticed that the main ingredients of the tea were listed as follows: Licorice 43%, Hibiscus 39%, Peppermint, Ginger, Pepper, Cardamom and Cinnamon. In addition, the packaging explicitly warned against consumption if you have high blood pressure due to the licorice. Are they kidding me???

The picture shows home made pineapple, blackberry, ginger smoothies. Ginger is also supposed to lower blood pressure, since I had to return the tea.

Remember the bird at the lake from last month's post? Colin had a game at this town again, and this time around, the weather was much nicer. Look at that blue sky! We explored the local park and soaked up the sun.

Boda Burg has locations in the U.S., Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. It's sort of a collection of more than 30 adventure rooms within one building. Every quest involves several hurdles, and if you fail at one, back to square one you go. This one is called the Mummy, and once you get to the last step you literally have to step into a casket. Fun. Talk about exploring!

We went there with a friend of Colin's and his Mom. 

So Colin is exploring friendships with females. Three of them actually made their way to an away game! He told us they were coming just as we dropped him off, we had no chance of asking who and why. During intermission I crossed them and said "Hello, you look like you're here for our son" (one was wearing his home jersey he handed her in the picture below).

A few weeks later I had another opportunity to meet her. Colin was meeting her for coffee at the town they attend college, and he had planned what train he needed to take in order to be back home in time to go to his game. When he called I thought this could only be because he missed his train, and I was a little tense already at the beginning of the phone call. 

It got worse. He said all trains had been canceled. I had to race there and pick them up. In the meantime the husband had to race home from the office, load Colin's hockey bag, sticks and snacks into his car and wait for us. Of course C and his friend were not where we agreed they would be waiting for me to pull up since I couldn't stop and idle there. Also he didn't answer his phone. 

So. Much. Tension. 

I could only guess how high my blood pressure was.

We ended up dropping him off at the arena ten minutes late. He was lucky not to get benched for the first period. 

It was the last game of the regular season, and the coaches had literally put everybody on the lineup so they got to play one last time in case they were not allowed to play the playoffs. Long story for another day. Actually for another post. 

What better way than to end this with a bonus picture of a jetty at the lake. I was meeting a friend in the city, and the weather was getting unexpectedly nice. I had a half hour to spare so I went to where I knew I was gonna be able to take deep breaths.

That was it from me. Hope you had fun with my five six. Don't forget to visit my fellow blogger's posts.