Hip Hip Hooray!!--Woche 51

This week was an exciting week.  Not much out of the ordinary happened, until the weekend.  Both Deagan and Dyllan were invited to play in a mixed age hockey tournament this weekend (one line of 9 yr. olds, l line of 8 yr. olds, and 1 line of under 7 year olds, on each team).  Our youth hockey association put in two teams, so they ended up playing on different teams in the same tournament. 

Dyllan was the first to play.  Her dad had a serious talk with her about leaving the nice girl in the dressing room and finding the tough girl on the ice.  It worked!  Dan was so proud of her.  She must have turned the puck over, because of her forechecking, at least a dozen times during the tournament.  She had several shots on goal and some great passes, after the turnovers she caused, to teammates in front of the opposition's net.  It was awesome to watch her use her strength to fight for the puck and one time she even took on 3 players from the opposing team, in the corner, and still came out with the puck on her stick.  Dan knows that you're supposed to appreciate princess things with little girls, but finally seeing the hockey player coming out with a little aggression, did his heart good.  We will save the princess for home.  Hopefully, we have a new girl on the ice.

Deagan played really well in his first game, as well.  He got to play on the second line of his team, which actually put him on a line with players 1-2 years older than him.  He held his ground well, however, he even  claims he scored a goal, but Dan can't verify it, as he was watching one of Dyllan's games at the time.  The bad news:  the tournament was outdoors and it was REALLY cold (the high for the day was not above freezing and the wind was howling across the ice).  There were a couple of times when Dan said he had to close his eyes because the wind gusts were throwing ice chips up off the ice and creating momentary ground blizzards.  So, about half way through game 2, Mr. 3 percent body fat, a.k.a. Deagan, succumbed to the cold and started thinking more about survival than playing hockey.  Dan had to take him back to the locker room, but he finally returned to the ice just in time for the final championship game complete with a t-shirt, long underwear top, topped in hockey equipment covered in a pullover sweater and then his jersey.  The toes were a lost cause though, and never really warmed up. 

Speaking of championship games, however, Dyllan's team came out on top in the A group, and Deagan's team came out on top in the B group.  So we had Vienna Tigers vs. Vienna Tigers (Baker vs. Baker) final to finish up the night under the lights.  It was a very close game and both teams played really well.  But, in the end, there had to be one winner.  Dyllan's team won the game 2 to 1.  It was exciting for everyone and great to have our kids take 1st and 2nd place in the tournament with a total of 6 teams from across Austria to play.  Both Dyllan and Deagan ended up playing 3 games each.  They both received medals and they got a big trophy to display at the rink.

Because it was so cold, we didn't feel like the baby should be exposed to the elements for 6 hours, so Allynn, Dane, and Danyon, all missed the games.  We had hot chocolate and cream of garlic soup (one of our Austrian favorites) at home, waiting for the champions to arrive.  One thing that we got a kick out of from the day, was the Austrian version of a quick energy snack between games.  We are used to granola bars and oranges, coming from North America.  But clearly, they know how to do it better here.  Every kid got a pair of frankfurters with their choice of mustard or ketchup, and a white roll while they cleaned the ice half way through the afternoon.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful week.  Dan was able to stay in town all week.  It was nice to be able to see him so much.  With the weather cooling down, we spent a couple of evenings watching movies at the house.  We got the house decorated for Valentines.  It is not an easy task here, as it is not such a big holiday, but we went down to the craft store and were able to figure out some stuff to make it more festive around here.

One observation this week.  A couple of weeks ago, we found costumes (very much like our Halloween costumes), in stock at the grocery store.  After looking around town, the toy stores also have a large selection of costumes displayed.  We are finding them more and more places.  We are not exactly sure what the kids will be dressing up for, we'll have to have more on that later.  But, there is no need to clearance out Halloween costumes in the states.  We should just send them over here to Austria, where they'll be just in time, for something.  If we had to guess, we would guess that it has something to do with Ball Season. 

Ball Season is January-February here in Vienna.  There are a total of over 450 balls that happen in these two months.  There is a ball for just about everything.  The proceeds from the balls are generally used to raise funds for different causes or charities.  This last weekend, there was a very controversial ball.  The Akadamiker Ball is attended by many of the far right political leaders throughout Europe.  With all of the economic distress in Europe, the far right political parties that tend to hold facist points of views, have gained popularity and are winning more and more political contests throughout Europe.  The local movements in Austria on the political left, had originally planned destructive protests in downtown Vienna on Friday night, while the ball was taking place at the Hofburg Palace, but at the last minute, most of them agreed to refrain from violence.  However, several bus loads of protestors, particularly from Germany, converged on downtown (total of 6,000 people) and did cause some damage, but nothing of major significance. 


Dan and I have chosen a less controversial ball that suites our tastes much better, and other than anti-obesity activists, don't expect any protests associated with our ball of choice.  We chose to attend the Bonbon Ball.  It will be at the end of February.  It is the sweetest ball in Vienna.  I have read info that it rains confectionary on the guests.  What could be better than that?  There is a Mister and Miss Bonbon crowned during the ball, and the total of their weight in confectionary is sent to a charity.  We will be going with friends of ours.  Dan went to purchase the tickets this week.  Inspite of how grand these events are, the ticket sales tend to be handled through local businesses that volunteer to collect the cash and distribute the tickets.  We didn't realize this, so when Dan went to pick up our tickets on Friday, he was surprised that the address led him to a downtown apartment building, and not a ticket office.  Luckily he had written down the name of the company where he was supposed to pick up the tickets, otherwise he would have had no idea which apartment to buzz.  It is fairly typical here for doctors, lawyers, and other small businesses, to have converted residential apartments into offices and to be completely mixed throughout a residential building.  So when Dan rang the buzzer and let them know he was here for tickets, they directed him to a first floor apartment.  When he arrived, he told them he was Herr Baker and they acted like they had been waiting for him all day.  The small office staff all greeted him and one of them delivered his tickets complete with sweets from Manner, the leading sponsor of the Bonbon ball.  Then everyone in the office shook his hand as he left, and instead of saying goodbye, they said, until we see you again.  Needless to say, it will be a sweet experience.  We can't wait to eat our weight in bonbons, while dancing the night away!!

A Surprise for Dan--Woche 50

This week things were pretty much back to normal.  The kids were all completely back into the swing of things, taking tests and finishing up projects to finish up the 2nd quarter.  We started back up with German lessons for the kids.  Danyon and I stayed home and did endless amounts of laundry and house cleaning. 

Dyllan and Deagan were invited to play in their first real hockey games this week.  They both played well.  Dyllan played on the third line of her team and won both of her games.  Deagan played on the first line of his team, and his team tied the first game and won the second.  Every player got to take a penalty shot on the goalie at the end of the game.  Deagan was the only one on his team to get his in the goal. 

Dan had to travel for work the whole week.  He was in Marrakech, Morocco. This was Dan's first trip to Northern Africa, and he found Morocco to be a very interesting country.  From the beautiful Atlas mountains, to the Moroccan desert, to the extreme poverty within the city.  It was definitely a land of extremes.  Like much of north Africa, the local population speaks both French and Arabic.  You can see the strong Arab influences throughout the architecture and customs.  It was interesting to observe their traditional homes, with no exterior windows.  They typically were made up of three stories with a generation living on each.  Grandma and Grandpa on the first floor, the children and their families living on the second and the grandchildren on the top floor.  Although there are no exterior windows, the interiors open onto a courtyard with balconies overlooking it.  This way, the women could go about their daily routines without having to be completely covered, as they are protected from the eyes of outside men.  The food in Morocco was really good, with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.  The particular highlight was the mandarin oranges that were picked straight off the tree that day.  Dan had to speak at several meetings throughout the week, but did get a few hours on Wednesday afternoon to escape the conference and go explore the desert.  He was able to learn how to pitch a Berber tent, rode a camel through the desert for a couple of kilometers (complete with saddle sore!), and finished his afternoon riding 4 wheelers in the sand and rocks.  Even after he showered, he was still pulling sand off his neck and face with his towel at the hotel.  He left at 5:00am Monday morning and didn't get back until midnight on Friday, so it was a long week and he was glad to be done.

We all missed Dan this week, so we decided to surprise him when he got home.  Dane made chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing.  On Saturday, we took Dan to a new restaurant that we found.  It is called Ebi.  It is the first "all you can eat" restaurant that we have seen in Austria.  Dan was excited because it was a Japanese restaurant complete with a lot of different kinds of sushi.  My favorite was an avocado roll with hazelnuts in it.  It was all you can eat, but al la carte.  Which meant that you could pick anything on the menu, write the tally mark on your card at your table, and then the wait staff would pick up the card, then bring you your fresh order.  You could pick as many items on the list as you wanted, as many times as you wanted.  It all came out hot and fresh.  Dane's favorite were the imported straight from Japan, made a month ago, monkey poo doughnuts.  Yum!  I think Dan enjoyed it, as we all thoroughly stuffed ourselves. 

Dane and Dyllan were in need of new shoes.  We headed to the mall.  We lucked out and found a shoe store here that had a great sale of buy 2 pairs of clearance shoes, then get the third one for free.  We were able to get 3 pairs of shoes for around 30 Euro.  We were so excited to find such a great deal!

This week was Danyon's first week in nursery.  Dan had to take him, as I was in Primary.  For being such a leech kid, he did remarkably well.  It was a good twenty minutes before he realized that he'd been left.  I think that once he gets to know his teachers, he will have an easier time.  Of course, snack time made things much better!!

Happy New Year! And Where did December go?--Woche 45-49

Well, here we are again, at the start of a new year.  I can't believe how fast the past few months have gone.  Ask Dan--I still complain about not knowing where the summer went, and here we are, already past Christmas and even New Years.  We've had quite a few adventures in the past little while.  I will try to highlight the major ones.

We had some good friends come and stay with us for a week.  We had a fabulous time with them.  We loved getting to show them our city a little bit.  Our favorite is getting to sample all the foods with our guests.  We did a lot of touristy stuff.  We took them downtown, ate Kaise Krainers, ice cream, and walked downtown with the huge lit red balls, and the street lit with giant chandeliers made out of Christmas lights. 

We took them to Christmas markets (they were so busy that we could hardly move in some of them).  We drank the kinder punch (left the Gluckwein alone).  They serve these at every Christmas market (along with Langos--yum!)  When you buy a cup, they serve them in real ceramic mugs.  You pay a deposit on the mug as well as for the drink.  Then when you are finished, you can return the mug and they will give you your deposit back.  If you don't, you are welcome to use the mug as a souvenir.  I didn't pay too much attention to the dishwasher set up in the completely outdoor settings of the stands, but no one got sick.  The one drawback was that our friend, Scott, was allergic to both our cats and the horses from the Spanish Riding School.  We just had one trip to the ER on Sunday afternoon during church--then all was better.  The highlight of the touristy rounds for Dan, was getting to see Elizabeth again.  We love that musical!

While they were here, our friends bought us a very traditional Austrian Christmas decoration that I had been searching for, but had not yet found it.  It is called a Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas pyramid).  They are wooden nativities that are usually on 4 levels that have candles around them.  The heat from the candles, cause the wooden fan at the top to spin, thus bringing your nativity to life.  They are really cool, and you can get all kinds of them.  Even single leveled ones.  Other traditional Christmas decorations are the smoking men.  They are wooden men that you put incense inside and the smoke comes out their mouths, like they are smoking a pipe.  They have tons of different variations on the two different decorations.  Our friends also picked up a small metal tree that you light a tea light under and the heat causes the tree to spin around.  All of these are very cool.

 

 

The kids wrapped up their school work and last little Christmas exchanges and we packed our bags!  We left for our flight to Canada very early Friday morning.  The flights were better than I had expected.  Danyon didn't get antsy until the last hour of the flight into Calgary.  We were home in time for dinner Friday night.  We loved seeing and spending time with family.  It was so nice to be able to go to a Walmart, eat real pizza, and completely understand conversations going on around us!  We were all very exhausted and had a hard time with jet lag and the time change.  We were all up at 3:00am for several nights.  Danyon took it the hardest, though.  Dan got the stomach flu and was pretty miserable for Christmas Eve and uneasy for a few days after that.  We spent a lot of time getting some much needed rest.

I don't care what day it is . . .
Do you know what time it is
where I'm from?

Maybe it's not so bad after all

The kids loved having everyone at Grandma's house for Christmas.  All of Dan's siblings and us were stuffed into Grandma's house and it made for a fun time for all the cousins.  It was the best part of the whole year for Dane.  Santa was able to find us at Grandma's house and Christmas was pretty much a huge success.

A few days later, we were on another flight to Denver.  We were excited to see all of my family and to spend New Years with them.  We had a great time with my family, too.  Our kids got to spend time with most of their cousins on my side.  We really enjoyed spending time with everyone, and enjoyed running all our errands and shopping at yet even more Walmarts, and other stores that we do not have in Austria.



Casa Bonita--go for the atmosphere, not the food

All the kids were able to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve (except Deagan, who fell asleep on the couch an hour early and Danyon who was sent to bed without a choice in the matter.)  It was quite the New Year's Party with Grandma playing charades.  If you know her, ask her about it.  (It's not the first time she's pulled "off" something like this at a family party!--She might deny it, but the rest of us can't stop blushing!) 

That's right, mom showed
 us all up!

We got to drive up to Fort Collins to see our old stomping grounds, but more importantly, to see some old friends.  We loved staying with our friends and hanging out.  Unfortunately, the rest of the family all got sick that week, so that made it pretty fun.  Nothing worse than having the best Mexican restaurant food in front of you, but not being able to eat it.  Dane didn't get sick until we got home, but suffice to say, we all got it.  Dan and I got a chance to go to a movie together and to spend some time shopping.  Time was again flying at warp speed, and before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head back home.



Danyon climbing for coconuts

The flight home wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.  Danyon traveled much better in that direction.  Maybe we were a little less excited and hyper, too.  We were able to make our tight connection, even with over an hour delay in take-off on the first flight.  We returned home Monday evening.  We were able to get everything unpacked and ready for the week.  Dan had to go work the next day, and the kids were to start school first thing Tuesday morning.

I woke the kids up on Tuesday morning, and all I got was rude comments and crying.  I figured that it wasn't worth it, and decided to let the kids sleep in a little.  I finally woke them all up at 10:30 and then took them to school--all except Dane, who was sick that morning).  Danyon, Dane, and I did a couple of things around the house, but really couldn't focus on much, so we felt bad for Dan and the other kids, while we sat on the couch and watched movies for the rest of the day.  Everyone was back into school and work on Wednesday.  Dane even had his saxophone lesson.  Thursday, we added hockey for Dane.  Friday, we had appointments to renew our residency cards.  The kids got another break from the morning school.  They really needed the sleep in time.  We bought a couple of new movies from the store and had a chicken wing/movie night.  Interesting tid bit:  In the movie section of the store, you can find all the different movie types.  There were comedies, family movies, horror, action, etc.  You'll never guess what I found, just to the left of the Westerns.  There was subtitle for Easterns.  I thought that was pretty funny.  They had all kinds of kung-fu and Jackie Chan type movies in that section.  Also, for those wondering, the Special Interest grouping of movies here in Austria contained one or two exercise videos, a couple dance videos, and the rest made me blush so much that I couldn't even take a picture of it.  Just thought it was especially interesting.

Much to everyone's horror, we spent Saturday taking down and cleaning up all the Christmas stuff.  We blasted the Christmas music one last time, and then we cried as we cleaned.  Dan and I decided to go on a date Saturday night.  He took me to our first Austrian Mexican restaurant.  I know that it was nothing compared to the one in Colorado, but it wasn't bad, for here.  We got to go to the Wiener Konzert Haus for "Der Nacht der Musicals" (Night of the Musicals).  We loved the show.  It was so much fun.  They had highlights from all kinds of musicals that we love, and a couple that we didn't know. 

We still don't feel entirely back to normal yet, but we are well on our way.  If you can judge how much of a good time you had, by the amount of weight gained, then, we had the time of our lives--even with everyone getting sick.  So, this next week, will have a lot of new beginnings.  Back to school, back to work, back to cleaning the house, laundry, hockey, music, diet, and unfortunately, exercise.  We'll see how it goes.

These are Marzipan creations.  The Austrians have several good luck charms that they bring
 out at New Years:  a pig, a mushroom, a horse shoe, a cat, a guy with a ladder, etc.  You can find
them all in marzipan, on cards, on pictures, whatever.