Happy, Happy Birthday--Woche 23

We celebrated and celebrated and then partied! 

Of course, we watched the world cup soccer finals and were pleased with the outcome.  We were very glad that the game didn't result in the shoot out.  It started at 9:00pm.  I might have dozed through some of it, but I was awake for the goal. It is interesting to see the Austrian's reaction to Germany.  I would say that about half of them cheered for Germany (just because they are a neighboring country that also speak the same language).  The other half would have cheered for anyone but Germany.  There are a good number of Austrians who have a chip on their shoulder about Germans.  I think it started in war time, but it has continued through to today.  They just don't like the way Germans act or their attitudes.  In contrast, Dan had two German colleagues in town this week.  The feeling must be mutual as they didn't have anything nice to say about the Austrians either.

Vienna is a really cool city that has all kinds of activities going on all the time.  Almost every night in the summer, they play movies at the Rathaus.  We haven't ever been to one, and when we found out that Fantasia was playing, we decided that this one we could probably understand, since there are no words in the movie.  We loaded everyone up after Family Home Evening, and headed downtown.  We made it to the movie and actually got the kids to sit through some of it.  They lasted until Mickey Mouse and the brooms.  After that, Danyon had had enough and wasn't afraid to let us know.  So we packed it all up and headed for home.  But, we can now say that we have experienced the Vienna Film Festival. 

Then we continued with Danyon's birthday.  Even amidst all the laundry we had piled up, we still found some time to celebrate with Danyon.  It was easier said than done, as Dan and Dane had a young men's activity that night and Dan had to practice with the men's choir.  We also had German lessons that afternoon.  But we managed to finish everything up around 9:00pm  and could eat one of Danyon's favorites:  pizza.  It's a good thing that it's summer and the kids are used to staying up late.  We ate dinner, then we opened presents and then ate cake.  Danyon wanted aliens for his cake.  That too, was easier said than done.  The picture looked really cute and the directions seemed pretty straightforward and easy.  But, the icing didn't turn out thick enough and the aliens didn't make it through the earth's atmosphere without some melting.  There were problems with the food coloring as well (I guess they just lost some of their vibrancy as they were hurled through orbit.)  We ate them anyway!  Danyon didn't have any trouble with the way they looked.  Even though it was late, we still had a good time.  His favorite toy was his new cars.  He didn't know quite what to do with the presents as we handed them to him.  Dane had to teach him how to open them.  Once he understood, he thought it was pretty fun.  He is also very proud to be another year older and when you ask him how old he is, he will promptly tell you "2"!

The next day, we had to get going on another cake.  After much deliberation, it was decided that Dyllan wanted another Barbie cake.  I baked it on Thursday, so that decorating on Friday might be much easier than it had been Wednesday.  I still ran into problems with the food coloring (it doesn't work here), and I didn't have a lot of tools to work with, but her cake did look like Barbie!  It was even complete with a magic wand to grant wishes.  Dyllan invited the Bishop and his family over to swim and BBQ with us.  We had a fun afternoon.  We ended it with cake, ice cream, and then a movie.  Dyllan was excited to be turning 9!

Since we weren't done celebrating, we decided to go to Zotter.  No trip to Austria would be complete without going there, so we had to take Dakota.  We paced ourselves this time and didn't get sick.  It was still a good time had by all.  That afternoon, we headed to Loipersdorf to go to the hot springs pool.  We spent the afternoon swimming, going down the slides, jumping off the 3.83m high spring board, and warming up in the hot pool.  Danyon had a great time in the kiddie pool.  Dakota thought it was fun until she slipped on the stairs leaving the waterslides and fell.  Everything was in slow motion as she felt like a cartoon character who just couldn't get her feet to grip on the floor.  She landed on her ankle, hip and elbow.  She was sore and pretty much done for the day.  I got a chunk eaten out of the bottom of my big toe somewhere in the bottom pool of the slides (I don't know what was in the water).  I was pretty useless after that until I could get the bleeding to stop.  Other than our casualties, it was a really fun day!

But we weren't done yet!  We decided to BBQ for our dinner.  We pulled into a sparse part of the parking lot and lit our portable BBQ.  We tried to block the view from any onlookers by using the stroller and bodies to screen.  Dan is pretty sure that lighting a fire in the parking lot was against the law.  We didn't know how to find a picnic area and haven't seen one here in Austria.  I'm sure that they must exist, we just haven't seen one yet.  But, there we were in the parking lot, cooking our hot dogs and eating our picnic.  The hot dogs tasted even better knowing that they were contraband.  We had a great dinner and then we finally headed home.  Everyone was completely beat and went straight to bed.  We have to rest up before we can celebrate Deagan's birthday.