Baptism Week---Woche 34

Aaaahhhh!!!  It feels good to sit down.  Just when you think you have things under control, life moves into warp speed.  Dan is going through so many changes at work.  It is all stressful for him and not necessarily working out the way he'd like it to.  He spent Monday and Tuesday in Belgium trying to sort things out, and Wednesday and Thursday in Turkey, trying to resolve problems, and Friday, he was scheduled to go to Poland to have more meetings, but ended up spending all day working through the details of the final changes for his current employees and trying to decide how to organize his new ones.  It seems like every couple of months the company has a new surprise for us.  That certainly keeps Dan busy. 

The kids had a normal week in school.  Hockey sure keeps them busy.  We got to hang out at a friends house for dinner one night that Dan was gone.  Also, they had Friday off of school.  They started their German private lessons.  The first one went well.  So, we are well on our way to finally learning how to speak.  We hope that soon we will be conversing in German for a few hours at a time.  Okay, there might be several words in English, but we're working on it.  Dane also had a birthday party on Friday.  He got to play Laser Tag and was excited that he won.  He told us of a move he did straight out of the movies.  He snuck up on a group of enemies (a group of 7, huddled together).  He shot two of them, dropped to one knee, shot two more, then rolled over on the ground and shot the rest.  They didn't stand a chance against him.  They only got one or two shots off before the whole group was down.

They have walls and walls of buttons

This is what it looks like to
 shop there

Danyon and I had a very busy week.  We spent all our days preparing for Dyllan's baptism.  We went to our favorite new store, Textil Muller, on a couple of occasions.  This "store" is about 20 minutes north of us.  It is 2 villages away from Vienna.  It is a nice drive out to it in the village of Kritzendorf.  This store has fabric--all sorts of different kinds!  They also have ribbon and buttons and trim.  I was in heaven.  They don't have all the stuff that a JoAnns would have, but it's a start.  They have all kinds of other things too.  Best of all it is also very, very, cheap for Vienna standards.  The only catch is, is that it is a flea market style of store.  You never know what they will have, or when.  You have to have lots of time to go because you have to look through things to find what you want.  It has two stories, so it is rather large, but everything is dirty and it smells weird (probably because it was under water this spring during our floods).  When you buy fabric, you take it to the cash register.  One guy holds the fabric and roughly measures it, then the other guy hacks off the piece you want at about the right spot.  No straight line cuts, no nice, neat cutting table.  The stuff you buy has to be washed before you use it.  There is no quilting fabric, just regular other types of fabric and knits. We found cute decorations to set up the gym for Dyllan's baptism though.  Then we went grocery shopping, baked desserts, and we cooked soups.  We put a baptism program together and we put finishing touches on her baptism video.  Finally we sewed a scripture case for Dyllan and made her a bracelet to remind her of her special day.

In the midst of all this Danyon and I did take a few moments out to play.  Danyon found a hockey stick on the ground in the house and carried it with him until he found a ball.  He tried to hit the ball with the stick.  Apparently, he's a lefty and he's ready to go!  Why wait until he's walking to get him started??  He's ready now!  He did get very upset when he hit the ball through the table legs, couldn't reach it, and couldn't figure out how to get through all the chairs while crawling, with the stick in his hands.

As a side note, my long loved sewing machine broke down last week.  We've been together for a long, long time--over 15 years.  Dan tried to operate, but was unable to revive it.  It was stressful looking for a replacement.  I wasn't sure if I just wanted a cheap one to get me by for a couple of years here, or to buy a really nice one while I am here and have the chance to get a Pfaff.  After agonizing for several days, I decided to just stay with middle ground.  My purchase arrived on Thursday (I ordered it on the Friday before--that is the fastest shipping we've had yet!)  I felt like I was cheating on my old machine, as it sat on the window ledge watching the whole time, but I have to admit that so far, 1 week in, I love my new machine.  It is so much fun!  I want to spend all my time sewing and have had to control my crafty urges for a few days so that I could prepare for the baptism.

These were the centerpieces

These are rusted metal leaves that we
 hung from the ceiling.  They were so cute!!

We started dance class back up again this week.  We started with the waltz.  Although I've had several couples (5 or 6) say that they were interested in doing the class, we only had 1 couple show up.  It was a fun night anyway, and the others say they will be there the next time.  We shall see.  Afterwards we decorated the gym and I have to admit, that with only 15 euro, we did a fantastic job at decorating the gym.  It looked very cute.  The only problem is that the baptism day was so busy, that I did not get a single picture of it. 

The font is beautiful with a mosaic rock wall behind

The baptism day was wonderful!!  Okay, the morning was stressful trying to get everything ready.  We did not know how many people to expect, so planning a meal for them all proved to be very challenging.  We ended up planning for 70.  We had about 40-45 show up, so we weren't too far off.  The baptism was wonderful.  There were good talks and you could really feel the spirit.  One of Dyllan's friends from school was able to attend.  Dyllan was excited to get to share her day with some friends.  For her meal, we served White Chili, Taco Soup, and Corn Potato Chowder.  We also had a salad and of course, buns.  We had a fruit cocktail/pistachio pudding salad, and for dessert, we served lemon tart, rolo cheesecake squares, and a friend brought chocolate cupcakes.  We served what was left of the leftovers at the Linger Longer (potluck) on Sunday after church.

We are so proud of Dyllan for choosing to be baptized.  It was a good meeting and the meal afterwards was a lot of fun.  We had enough food and lots of help to clean up.  It was a fun and special day that I hope Dyllan never forgets.

It finally happened . . .-Woche 33

This was a week that I did not take a single picture.  There is not much new that happened this week.  Here are the highlights:

We are planning Dyllan's baptism.  It will be this Saturday at noon.  We are all very excited.

We had to pay for some work in the house.  A guy came to fix the shower door (the squeegee type thing on the bottom had fallen off a few months ago.  He was here 20 minutes, and asked for 110 Euros for the trip.  I asked him for a receipt and he told me that for the receipt, he would need another 22 Euros--he had to add the tax if I got a receipt.  I paid him for it, then he told  me the company would send it in the mail.  Seemed pretty shady to me.  We can also expect to get a bill in the mail for an electrician who had to make an emergency visit to the house because something was shorting out the breakers on the entire main floor.  It ended up being from the outside lights getting wet because the light globes were broken from the kids' soccer ball.  We're not really looking forward to getting that bill.

Dan had another tough and stressful week at work.  He did learn that his whole job will be changing.  It is not official yet, so I can't let you know what he will be doing.  He is pleased with the outcome though.  We will get to stay in Vienna, at least until the end of the school year.  Probably longer.

I spent most of my week at the hockey rink.  One day, Dyllan and Deagan forgot their water bottles in the car.  I was hurrying out to the car to get them, when I looked over at the other side of the street.  There was a parking sign that I had seen earlier in the week.  I couldn't understand it, but I was concentrating intensely on what the words on the sign might mean.  All of a sudden, thwap!  A light bulb came to my head.  Okay, not really a light bulb, but it was a light post.  I smashed right into it with my left temple.  I was seeing stars, my whole body felt jarred, and I heard my neck crack in at least 2 places.  The good news was, that there was only 1 person driving down the road who got to witness it all.  He swerved down the road in laughter.  I managed to get the water bottles to the kids, despite the goose egg by my eye.  It has been sore all week, but it didn't ever bruise (yet), or give me a black eye.  It's nice to be able to hide your stupidity!

Danyon took two steps this week, but still very much prefers to crawl.  Teeth are still continuing to come in.  We are starting to wean him off bottles, as he can drink from sippy cups now--especially the ones with straws.  He is starting to notice things around him more.  He notices every time anyone is eating something and he is not.  If it is a treat, he screams and screams until he gets some.

The other kids are doing well.  School is going well, hockey is fun, and life is very tiring.  We could use more time to sleep around here.  Speaking of which, it is after 11:00pm and we get up tomorrow and start it all over again. 

Old news-Woche 32

Well, just when we had everything figured out, Dane's hockey coach asked him to join a different team.  This messed up the whole scheduling thing, and we were back to square one.  It took a few tries to get things worked out.  The new team practices earlier, and that would mean that I would be picking the kids up from school 4 days a week and taking them to the ice rink.  That didn't sound reasonable to me considering that we have already paid for the school bus home.  So, after working things out with the coach, we have found a schedule that only means picking up the kids from school twice per week, and they can take the bus the other 3 days.  Also, the new schedule allows for Dane to practice 2 per week on the same day as Dyllan and Deagan.  That's much nicer, but it still means that we are at the ice rink 4 days a week to get everyone to 3 practices per week.  Ah, such is the life of a taxi driver.

Dan had fun this week.  The younger kids' hockey coach asked Dan to help out with the practices.  Dan replied that he would come when he could.  One night, Dan was able to make it.  The coach told the kids.  We'll split up into 3 groups.  Then he turned to Dan and said, "Du bist coach, gruppe 2".  Dan was a little nervous to be coaching when he doesn't speak a whole lot of the language yet.  He was also a little surprised by the fact that he was running a group, when he didn't have any notice to prepare a practice plan.  It didn't matter, he did just fine.  Then after practice, the coach told Dan that he wouldn't be at Saturday's 2 hour practice.  He said again to Dan, "Du bist coach".  Dan was more prepared for Saturday's practice.  He enjoys being on the ice. 

Just checking to see if she'd like to be shot
 from a cannon

Not much new happened for the kids at school this week.  We had back to school night (2 different nights; 1 for elementary, and 1 for middle school).  Dan got to go to the middle school night.  It is quite a marathon evening, as he was there for three hours.  The good news is that all of Dane's teachers seem very good and Dan was impressed with the majority of them.  It will be a harder year for Dane, but manageable if he keeps on top of things.  I got to go to the elementary school night.  I was lucky as we had hockey and Dan's schedule was such that I couldn't leave until later.  I missed the first two hours of the evening.  I was there for the last hour when we met the teachers and got a feel for the classrooms.  I missed the pricipals speech and two hours of the "elective" teachers speeches.  I missed art, German, PE, etc., but I did get to meet both Dyllan's and Deagan's teachers.  They both seemed very nice and I think that things will go well this year.  Dyllan is loving her teacher as he is very fun and has fun science experiments for them to do.  Deagan thinks that his teacher is nice.  And he loves not having homework.

One of the couples that we hang around with a lot moved this week.  We had a going away party for them on Friday night.  We were sad to see them go, as we haven't made a ton of friends yet here and we really liked them, but we're excited for them to go on their new adventures in Saudi Arabia.

Saturday we went to the Army Museum here in Vienna with some friends.  The building was very cool.  All of the marble and murals on the ceiling were very cool.  The stuff inside the museum was kinda cool too.  We got to see different uniforms and weapons used from early Austria moving toward present day.  Some of the guns were so big and heavy, it's amazing that they could lift them.  The armor and chain male didn't seem very light either.  We got to see a cool part of history there though.  They had the car and uniform of Franz Ferdinand, a nephew of Franz Joseph, who was assassinated with his wife, the event that started World War 1. 

Afterwards, we went to a new ice cream place.  It is Tichy (pronounced tee-hee).  They are a family owned ice cream shop that is very well known and popular in Vienna.  The owner of the store is the inventor of the Marillen knodel.  It is an apricot half covered in ice cream shaped into a ball (not vanilla, just cream flavored ice cream).  There is a topping put around the ice cream.  They sell them everywhere here, but originally found in Tichy.  They also serve variations of the knodel.  Our favorite was the schneeballe (snowball).  It had the fruit, ice cream, but the topping was a meringue.  I planned to get a picture of all our ice cream creations, but we ate them too fast.  So I had to settle for a picture of the schneeballes in the to-go freezer.  The kids were getting over-tired, so we headed home. 

We had friends over for dinner on Sunday.  The kids really enjoy having friends over.  Last week, Dane asked three families over for dinner--none of them could make it.  One, however, invited us over to their house, so we still got to hang out with friends.  It's almost becoming tradition again to have people over for Sunday dinner.

Establishing Routines--Woche 31

It seemed like we cleaned, then left for hockey, did laundry, then left for hockey, played, then left for hockey, cooked, then left for hockey. . . The good news is, that we are finally starting to get our schedules figured out!!  Things did not seem as stressful this week.  We're finally getting the hang of things.

I took the opportunity to start to teach Danyon how to clean.  He took to vacuuming the best.  He is a natural!  We played, read books, and he spent a lot of time napping this week.  He has so many teeth coming in all at the same time (4 molars and 1 canine all in the same week), I think it's easier to handle it all while asleep.

Deagan and Dyllan are continuing to like school.  Dyllan has math and reading homework every night.  Deagan hasn't had homework yet, but I think that reading homework is coming soon.  They are both progressing in hockey.  They both scored some goals in their scrimmages at practice on Saturday. 

Dane is stressed about school.  He has a fair bit of homework and getting it done seems to be challenging.  He is learning, though, as we can already see a difference in his German.  He will have math, reading, writing, German, and science homework on a regular basis.  He is liking the saxophone.  He seems to be able to play with some good tones.  Although, only one song. 

He started hockey this week.  He had 3 practices, and getting to know a new coach, coaching style, and team was difficult, but he did well.  We're still trying to work out the best schedule for him.  We feel like this next week, we should have things pretty much figured out--just in time to get a new schedule next month!

Dan had a very busy schedule at work this week.  The kids thought he was on a business trip because he left before the kids got up and came home after his late dinner meetings.  He was hoping to make it to some of the kids hockey practices, but usually didn't make it.  Saturday, though, Deagan and Dyllan had a 2 hour practice.  He was able to get out on the ice with them.  They really enjoyed having their Dad out there.  Dan enjoyed it too.  He feels like this will help him to learn German faster.  We already have learned a couple of hockey vocabulary words. 

The kids normally get home from school at 3:50.  Well, on Friday, we had to have Dane at the hockey rink at 4:20.  There was enough time to get them home from the bus, grab a quick snack, then head to the rink.  Well, I got the car all loaded.  Then I waited anxiously for them to get home.  I waited until 4:00.  Then I went outside and pulled the car out of the garage, buckled Danyon in, and got it all ready to just head out, the second the kids came home.  Well, 4:00pm passed.  Then 4:10.  By 4:15, I started to get a little worried.  I thought that maybe the kids were waiting at the school for me to pick them up.  I called the school secretary.  No one answered.  Then I checked the school website to see if the bus was running late.  There was nothing posted.  Next I called Dan to see if he had heard from the school.  I started wondering if something happened at the school.  Then I wondered if the bus was in an accident.  4:20 passed.  Then 4:30.  By then, I was really getting worried and almost panicked.  Still no answer at the school.  Still nothing.  I heard sirens down the street and wondered if one of them could have been hit by a car during the 2 block walk home.  All these thoughts entered my mind.  At 4:32, I decided to take Danyon down to the bus stop to see if we could find them.  Just as I unloaded Danyon from the car, and headed out the gate, I saw the kids running down the street.  I was relieved to see that they were all safe.  Of course, after I hugged them all, the first thing I asked was, "What happened???"  The answer, very underwhelmingly was, "Oh, it was just Friday afternoon traffic."  I was a little unimpressed that the bus would drop off kids 50 minutes late and there was no communication from the bus company or the school.  Thus, on Saturday, we bought the kids a phone.  Dane will now carry it in his backpack and I hope to avoid all kinds of problems in the future.  I'll save a lot of time from worrying.  It's a good idea to have them carry one anyway, since they walk home from the bus stop on their own now.  If there is ever any problem, I'm just a phone call away.

We also had a school BBQ on Saturday.  The kids had fun playing on the playground with friends while we ate hamburgers and chicken wings.  They had face painting and a bouncy house for them as well.  I tried to stand in line for the face paint, but they didn't take me seriously.

We had a neat find this week.  After our last ice cream outing for summer (ha, ha, ha--we've had several "last ice cream outings"), we decided to walk to a pizza parlor for dinner.  We found Penguinos Pizza.  (Yes, a penguin).  It smelled good as we walked by, so we went in.  We ordered a large pizza, to go.  The guy made it for us, and put it in a huge box.  The family size pizza filled the box and was overlapping the sides.  We haven't seen a pizza that big before.  It was fun to try to get it home in one piece.  We did manage it however, (although we had a close call with a dog).  When we got it home, we measured it.  It was just over 57 cm in diameter (that's 22.5 inches!)  We ate one piece each and it was enough.  For under twenty bucks, the one pizza fed our entire family for 2 complete meals.  We will be stopping there a lot more often.  It's fun to find new things in our city.

The walk home with a huge box, helped to spark ideas for Halloween costumes.  Normally this time of year, I am spending lots of time at the sewing machine creating costumes.  This year, with not having a fabric store readily accessible, I was worried that Halloween would have to suffer.  I was even beginning to think, "Austria doesn't celebrate it anyway.  Costumes are not needed."  Well, I have given in to that way of thinking for us adults, but the kids will still have a Halloween party at their school, so costumes are back on for them!  You'll have to wait and see what cool things we came up with.  I can get started on them next week!

Woche 30 Amendment

As I published the blog without my editors consent, here are the corrections:

1.  The highlight of the trip (which failed to make my blog entry) were the many trout-like fish that inhabited the streams all around Bled. They even call one a marbled trout.  As Dan has been ripped from his fly fishing hobby since we left Colorado, he was salivating at the thought that there were catchable fish in the stream.  He is definitely planning a trip back.  He mentioned something about staying for a  month next summer.

2.  Dane didn't actually get to go to the Bone church on his field trip.  Instead he saw a guys burial spot with a shrine above it.  This guy had a weird last will request that included being exhumed, put in a boat, taken across the lake to the castle, and then returned.  Repeat every 50 years.

3. Nothing else matters except the fish.


One of the cooler locks we found attached to the bridge.

Field Trips, Weekend Trips, and Hockey, Hockey, Hockey--Woche 30

This week seems like a blur.  I was pretty organized, and still was running from one thing to another.  Dyllan and Deagan had hockey camp all week.  It starts at 3:50 and doesn't end until 6:40.  They had both ice time and dry land training.  School doesn't get out until 3:15, so getting to the rink by 3:30 was not an option.  If the kids ride the bus home, they don't get home until 4:00.  Dan let me have the car this week, and I picked the kids up from school everyday.  The first day, the roads were closed (due to the Kirtag Festival), and it took me an hour to get to the school (normally a 15 minute drive).  Once at the school, the GPS took me to the downtown to get to the ice rink.  Downtown at that time of day is a mess.  We were in stop and go traffic for another hour and a half (normally a 20 minute drive) to get to the rink.  It was crazy!  I wasn't looking forward to doing it all week.  I programmed the GPS to go a different route the next day, and we were only 20 minutes late for hockey.  It seems that most of their practices will be at this time, so I will be picking them up from school regularly, and they will be notoriously late every practice.  This is not an issue for local kids as they get out of school by 1:00 or 2:00 everyday.  Deagan made some progress during the camp.  They have the 5-8 year olds practicing together.  He was able to move up to the middle group (out of three skill levels).  Dyllan is showing much improvement.  She did better than I expected for someone who hasn't been on skates very much.  She will get caught up in just a few months, I think.

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Dane had a school field trip this week.  The school used to take year-end trips, but found that if they do them at the beginning of the year, the kids get to know each other faster and they meld together quicker.  So, Dane left on Wednesday morning.  He went to Hallstadt and got to do all kinds of fun things there like a salt mine, an ice cave, the bone church, swimming in a hot springs pool, etc.  It sounded like he had a good time.  I think it does make for a better year.  He seemed to have more friends and know about more people after the trip.

Danyon and I tried to hold things down at the fort.  We cleaned, did laundry and cooked meals during the day, so that when we returned from hockey, we would have a nice dinner waiting for us.  This was also a daunting task as we had the missionaries over for dinner on Monday.  They were able to teach Dyllan about baptism and make sure that she was ready.  They were very kind and we appreciated the time they spent in preparing Dyllan.  Thursday, we again had some friends over for dinner.  They are on their way out (moving back to the states), and didn't have any furniture or means to cook a meal, so we fed them.  Although the meals were later than normal, they all turned out just fine.  I tried some new crock pot recipes.

Friday, we had another weekend trip planned.  Dane was to return to the school by 7:00, and he ended up being delayed in traffic and didn't get back until 8:00.  We had a 3 1/2 hour drive ahead of us, so we were not thrilled.  We picked him up and got on our way.  We went down to Slovenia (another first visit to a country for me), to a resort town called Bled.  It is a lake town and it is beautiful.  People from all over Europe come here to vacation.  The town is small and quiet.  The people speak English (as well as a whole bunch of other languages), and it was a lot of fun.  We didn't arrive the first night until about 12:30 in the evening.  It seemed that everything that could go wrong, did.  The kids needed to stop for a potty break, the traffic wasn't as good as we expected, the car GPS did not even have Slovenia in it, my phone that we were using for a GPS, blew a fuse in the car charger, and died, we had to stop to buy a map, we had to stop to pay a toll for a really, really long tunnel, and we had to stop to pay for a vignette (these are toll stickers that you need in all the European countries in order to drive on the freeways).  But we finally made it.  We were meeting friends, and we felt bad that they had to wait up for us.

The whole group



Marketing is everything!

We tried to sleep in, but at 6:25, we heard a kid yelling, "Get off of my half of the BED!!  You crossed the line!!!, etc."  Needless to say, everyone was awake by 6:30 (even the poor people in the surrounding apartments).  We weren't meeting our friends until 10:00, so we had some time to eat a leisurely breakfast.  I am fast getting into the habit of letting Dan find the bakery, buy breakfast, and bring it back to the apartment.  He didn't fail us again this time, we tried all sorts of yummy doughnuts filled with marmalade.  We met up with our friends and went on a hike in a gorge.  The river running through the gorge was beautiful.  The water is so clear.  It was very nice.  We probably hiked a few miles.  It was amazing to see all the beautiful things. 

Next we went on an Alpine bobsled run.  This was the kids favorite part of the day.  Dane and Dyllan got to ride in their very own and got to control the speed themselves.  They loved it.  The view from the top of the mountain was great.  It is so nice and quiet and beautiful there.  Deagan got to ride with Dan first, then with me the second time.  About half way down the run, Deagan said, "This isn't as much fun as with Dad, Mom.  Pick up the speed!"  At the speed we were going, Deagan was bobbing all over the sled, and I was worried that with one corner, he could throw his head back and knock out all my teeth.  I sped it up though, and the best part of the ride was at the bottom.  We both lost our stomachs there on the last hill.  Deagan took a third ride (of course, he chose Dan), and he told Dan afterwards, "I thought I was going to puke on the last hill--Could we do it again???"  Dane had a great time.  In all the pictures that I got of him, his mouth is wide open--screaming in glee, all the way down. 

Dane got a little crazy with the paddleboard

After that, we headed to the lake.  We found a spot on the lawn and had a picnic lunch.  It was so nice to just sit and look at the lake.  Eventually, it called to us and we got in.  We had fun playing in the water.  We rented a paddle board and the kids had fun with that.  Our friends rented some kayaks and we each took a turn in them.  Dan and I paddled around the island in the lake and back.  Danyon had the most fun in the water.  He squealed with delight, and although it was a bit chilly, he stayed in the water, crying when I tried to take him out.  He loved picking up the rocks at the bottom.  He tried to eat a few, and when he bent over to pick them up, his face would go in the water and he drank his share of the lake.  He didn't like that part, but it didn't stop him.  After the lake, we went back to the apartment to clean up.  We headed out for a late dinner.  We went to a fun restaurant and had some good food.  The kids were very tired by this point.  They were grumpy and Danyon and Deagan both fell asleep while we ate.  It was a good meal and a great time with friends (although the kids had had enough).

The next morning, we got up and started the morning right.  The area is known for the Crem Schnitten (a puff pastry with vanilla custard and whipping cream on it.  It's about 5" high and cut into large pieces).  We ate one for breakfast, along with a meringue something (about the same size as the schnitten, but all meringue and thin crust) and a 6" high cream puff.  It was a delicious breakfast.  Danyon was enjoying it all very much, but we found that he had an allergic reaction to something that he ate.  His face turned red, and had small white welts on it.  He started to itch all over.  It might be the eggs, or maybe something else.  We don't know yet.  It took about an hour to completely fade. 

Really cool door to a
church

We drove to another beautiful lake and spent some time relaxing by the waters edge.  The water in the lake was so clear.  It was very pretty.  Next we drove to the capital city of Slovenia.  It is a long name that I can't spell or pronounce.  We walked around the down town area.  It has cool architecture with hints of medieval elements.  We ate our picnic lunch.  We saw "Three Bridges" (3 bridges in one bridge), and we walked along the dragon bridge.  One thing that is interesting about the bridges in Europe is the fact that people will put locks all over them.  There was a book written where two lovers put a lock on a bridge in some European city and it symbolized their undying love.  Now people all over Europe are placing locks on several bridges.  Salzburg had so many on one of its bridges that the extra weight of all the locks was causing structural damage.  So now, most cities go and cut most of the locks off on occasion, but it doesn't stop people from doing it.

Lovers Locks

After the walking tour, it was getting late.  It was after 5:00pm.  The kids were not only being grumpy, but rude and bratty as well.  That was our cue that our little vacation had come to an end.  We loaded up the car and headed home.  We made much better time getting home.  We were in the house by 8:30, and that included a stop for gas.  We fed the kids dinner, and we sent them to bed.  It's going to be another long week full of hockey, homework, and late-nights.