A wonderful day

As a tribute to my American (and Canadian) friends, I will write this post in english, and hopefully my spelling won't be that bad.
This day has been really amazing in so many ways, and I'll try to explain to you why here.
First off, I recieved a text message from my wife this morning. Tax returns are due soon, and we just recieved a letter with last years taxes and the preliminary amount we get back. I didn't get anything back last year, so I was really surprised this year. Being a family man, all I can think of is ways to spend time with my family while doing something fun for all of us. That means all my spare time is used for finding good holiday options. I won't write what I have in mind though, since I know my wife is reading my blog. ;-)

Then our instructor/trainer/teacher gave us a free lunch at Romanos Macaroni Grill, a great italian restaurant just five minutes from the hotel. We've been there a few times before, but never for lunch. The food is great, but they use too much spinach. But I can just take that out, so it's not that big deal. I got the waiter to take a picture of us all.
(in the picture, from the left: Kris (Canada), Philip (DK), William, William (instructor), Keith (lead instructor), Paul, Ki, me, Aaron)
Lunch break was long but very nice. Me and some of my colleagues were talking about salt water aquarium, which me and my wife has been talking a lot about. If we move to a house next year, we might actually go for it and buy one. Having an aquarium is quite a lot of work, but it's fun as well. I had a fresh water aquarium some 8 years ago, so I know a little about it. I know salt water is different, but starting from scrach would probably not be a good idea. At least I know some of the basics. If I aim for next year I will have some time to read up on the subject.

To top it all of, two of our colleagues invited me and Philip to a hockey game in Newark. And that was crazy!!!
I've watched a few games back home, but going to a NHL game is a totally different experience! First of all, it's a lot bigger! The arena was enormous, seating more than 17000 hockey fans! I don't know how many poeple there really were, but I'm guessing something like 80% of the seats were filled. The state of the art arena (Prudential Center) was completed in 2007, costing nearly 400 million dollars!
The seats we got was in the upper corner oposite of the tv team. But there was a lot of other characters so we didn't make it on the screen. The view was quite ok, we got a good view of the ice and still close enough to see what was happening.
The game started slowly with only one goal for the New Jersey team. During the second period, it all exploded. The Columbus team stood no chance against a team on fire. I guess the fights was a sign of despair, but they lost those as well.
Third period was a little slower and it ended New Jersey 6 - 3 Columbus.

For some unknown reason some wise person in Newark thought this might be a good day for road work, so getting out of Newark was a bit tedious. But we finally got home.
I had an amazing day, but now I'll try to catch some sleep,
Tomorrow it's wednesday, and that means there's only three more days before I return home to my beloved family. Have a great day my friends!