Superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch!--Wochen 49-50

Well, we learned a few new things from Mary Poppins.  Superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch  (pronounced super-cala-fra-gill-iss-tick-ex-pee-ala-gay-tish) is not what we are used to.  Apparently in German, she is just as prim and proper, but she has a whole new vocabulary.  It just doesn't seem to slip off the tongue as easily as the original, but it is certainly what she says here.  Dan decided last minute, that he wanted to go to the play.  We bought tickets and took Dyllan out for a night out.  Dane and Deagan didn't want to go.  The play was very entertaining and told more of the story than the movie.  It also helped that Dan and I had seen "Saving Mr. Banks" a couple weeks ago.  We enjoy our trips to the theater and are looking forward to a few more before it's time to go home.

Dyllan and Deagan started their after school activities.  Dyllan loves her gymnastics class.  It was a lot of fun, right up until a girl stepped on her foot.  I don't know who this girl was, or how she stepped on Dyllan, but Dyllan has been sore, swollen, and black and blue for several days.  We think that maybe an elephant snuck into gymnastics class.  We took public transportation to the play last night and had to walk home from the subway station because we missed the bus by about 10 seconds.  Dyllan couldn't make it all the way home.  Dan had to carry her part of the way.  The rest she limped.  She limps everywhere she goes.  Her other class is choir, where she will have a lot of fun too.  The music teacher at the school is fantastic and I'm excited that Dyllan wanted to sing in her choir. 

Deagan is loving his Ball Sports class and his Taekwondo.  He is practicing a bit too much on his brothers and sister.  Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make him a weapon.  Danyon loves to practice with him and has gotten into the habit of whipping off his shirt and starting to swing his arms every time he "goes in the ring".  Come to think of it, Danyon spends a lot of time without a shirt on.  I think the islander in  him is showing through.  Bad time of year to express it though.

Dan and I have been officially on our diet for a week.  We started the Shaun T's T25 Focus program this week.  The program was less intense physically than Insanity, but with the fast track diet, it turned out to be challenging.  Pretty much the fast track program is just a diet consisting of 1100 calories per day.  Dan and I nailed it, and both stayed on track the whole week.  We lost 7 and 6 lbs. the first week, respectively.  It was a great start.  We both put 3 or 4 pounds back on Saturday, but it was a great free day!!  We're both looking forward to next week when we get 1600 calories for the day.  That will seem like a feast!

Dan found a new friend in our garage.  This spider might look pretty small in the body, but Dan figures that with his leg span, he was at least 8-10 inches across.  That was one big spider!  If he put all his weight on his finger tips, I think he would look a lot like the spider toy in Toy Story.

We found some frozen guacamole in the store this week.  Avocados are really expensive here, so we were excited to find a cheaper way to have guacamole.  We got it home and opened it up, to find frozen "Hershey's Kisses" of avocado sludge.  No worries though, when it defrosted, we stirred it up, and it tasted great!

We got some more snow!  We woke up this morning to about 4 inches of snow on the ground.  The kids were very excited about it.  Last year we didn't get any, and this year, we've already gotten a few storms.  We're happy with the snow we get around here.  Then it at least brightens up the grayness of the city!

Dan saw this perfect example
 of the gracious parking
allowances the Viennese give
 at the church.
 (Try getting 4 kids out of that car!)

Back to Life--Woche 48

We celebrated the 3 Kings holiday here this week (Ascension Day).  This is a really nice holiday, but mainly because it extends the normal Christmas break by a day or two.  This holiday is spent by the Austrians singing door to door (receiving a gift), and then asking for donations for the church (giving a gift).  So far, no one has knocked on  our door and no one has asked for a donation, as of yet.

Dyllan has been asking to get her hair cut for all of the Christmas break, so we finally went to a salon and got her hair cut.  She loves her new hair and the new length.  She brushed it about 2,000 times that day, and can't keep her fingers out of it.  I really like the new length as well, and her excitement rubbed off on me.  I have been pestering Dan to cut my hair all week, and he finally did on Saturday.

Dane has been dazzling us all break with his astounding magic tricks.  Some of them are not so great.  Others, I haven't been able to figure out yet.  But this one was pretty cool.  He actually got Deagan to grow several feet.  Other than that, he has been learning to master the Rubik's cube.  We picked one up in Hungary, and he has been working on it ever since.  So far, his record time is 2 minutes and 21 seconds.  He was pretty motivated to learn after he heard of a flight attendant who could do it in 30 seconds with her eyes closed.  He has a ways to go, but he is getting better.  I have the really hard job of mixing up the Rubik's cube.  I don't think he understands that it is actually me who has the hard job.  He at least has patterns to look for and follow.  I have to do everything just by sight and feel--with no easy math algorithms to use.

The time came around that the kids had to go back to school and Dan had to go back to work.  We were really starting to like our schedule of staying up really late, and then waking up at 8 or 9.  That ended abruptly, and we were back into somewhat of a routine. 

We had to say "good-bye" to grandma.  We were all very sad--that is, all of us except grandma!  Poor Danyon was asleep when grandma left, and he has been asking for her ever since she left.  (Like every 10 minutes or so--not even kidding).  It is nice to know that she has already booked her return flight--especially since getting home was such a fiasco for her.  I don't think she would book a trip back, if we hadn't done it before she left.

I started up my German tutoring again.  I've had one lesson so far, and it's going really well.  I've studied every day since, and been doing much better at that.  It seems like I've found my motivation somewhere.  It could have come from Dan telling me that I wasn't allowed to go back to the States until I learned German.  I hope it goes better the second time around.

Dan and I stopped all of our normal daily business in order to participate in the exciting game of After School Activities Roulette.  Sign-ups started at noon on Thursday.  This is very reminiscent of signing up for college courses.  Some of the activities are full within 5 minutes of start time.  We both had to plan our days around this one event.  Dyllan and Deagan were interested in a couple of activities that they offer.  So, after much deliberation and planning, Dan and I were successful in getting Dyllan into gymnastics and choir, and Deagan into ballsports and Tae Kwon Do.  They go on the same days, so I will only have to pick them up from school on Wednesdays and Thursdays and they have both promised to be happy as clams every day!

We met up with one of Deagan's friend's family this weekend and went bowling.  We had a great time snacking, bowling and enjoying the company.  Everyone bowled a strike (including Danyon)!  But I must mention that some of us were playing with gutter guards.  Dan was not, however, and he bowled quite well, considering that we haven't been bowling in a year or more.  I bowled 2 or 3 strikes and a spare or two--even with my tennis elbow (but my highest score was 132, so not as great as it sounds).  Dan got a 158!  He felt a little pressure from the other mom, who started off with a turkey.  The kids (and Dan) found the claw machine at the bowling alley.  Deagan begged to try (and Dan is a total sucker for the claw machine--many of you might remember the piles of stuffed animals I had to donate before moving here) so, Deagan tried to get a watch out of the machine.  He got it right on the first try!  He is now the proud owner of a new red (dollar store) watch.  Of course, Dyllan had to try and then Dane.  On Dyllan's turn, she got so excited that she pushed the button before she even moved the claw.  She had to try again.  She was elated when the claw landed perfectly around the pink watch.  Then, it lifted it up, started to move towards the dispenser, and then dropped the watch.  Dyllan was in a bad mood, and didn't think that it was fair that it would drop her watch after she had already gotten it.  Thus, she had to try again.  Same thing happened.  She was bound and determined that the machine was cheating.  When all was said and done, Dan spent 12 Euros on 3 really cheap watches, good life lessons (claw machines are the providers of wonderful gifts), and priceless memories.

But, the most exciting news of all for the week, is that Danyon has graduated from his crib to a real big boy bed.  He is so excited!  He also moved from the boys room into Dyllan's room.  Everyone feels better about the whole thing.  I fear that he is now done napping though, because despite the fact that he was very tired, he spent time in his new bed, in his new room, but never slept.  Dyllan reported that during his first night, he went to bed easily, stayed in bed, except for the one time he fell out (Dyllan did help him back in), and seemed to do well.  I found him sitting next to his bed playing with a dragon this morning.  However, all the lights in the room were on, all the lights in the hallway were on, and all the lights down to the main floor were on.  I don't think anyone could have slept through that.  Dyllan says that she did not turn on the lights, and when she woke up, Danyon was in her bed with her.  It is Sunday at 2:49pm.  Danyon has yet to go up for a nap.  We'll see . . .

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!--Wochen 46-47

The few days before Christmas were spent trying to relax and have fun.  Ha, ha.  The kids were so wired and excited, they could hardly function.  We went to a movie.  (Dad and Dane went to the last Hobbit movie and the rest of us went to the Penguins movie.  Grandma stayed home with Danyon so that the rest of us could all enjoy the movie with no interruptions.)  We played games and the kids loved sleeping by the tree.  Our new pajamas glow in the dark which was a big hit during our sleep by the tree party.  Grandma lasted by the tree until about midnight, then headed up to her bed.  Dan and I made it the whole night!

Our Christmas Eve was spent putting together a huge gift basket for a friend from church.  The dad has been struggling with cancer for a few months and just three days before Christmas took a turn for the worse.  So to lift the families' spirits, we got together with a few families from church and put a gift basket together for them.  We spent time in the kitchen trying to make and bake another batch of Christmas for another family, all in one day.  Grandma was a trooper in the dish pan, and the rest of us were just trying to keep her as busy as we could.  It made for a hectic Christmas Eve, but we found that we wouldn't have rather done anything else. 

Christmas morning was a big hit, as always.  Santa found his way to our house and the kids were excited with their gifts.  Dyllan loves her scooter, Dane his Lego, Deagan his Playmobil, and Danyon his Strider bike.  Luckily, we had pretty good weather that Dyllan and Danyon could ride around the yard whooping and hollering.  Dan loves his new bike.  Grandma thinks she likes her new noise canceling headphones--she has yet to try them out.  I loved all my gifts that I was spoiled with.

We started a new tradition of not having a huge Christmas dinner on Christmas.  I loved not having to worry about another dinner.  We just enjoyed our day.  We spent time visiting with family, playing with new toys, and sleeping.  Danyon for sure didn't want to have his nap, but finally succumbed after I promised him that his toys would still be here when he woke up.  A good time was had by all.  We did do a Christmas dinner on boxing day.  We invited the missionaries and Papa J.  We had a good dinner and everything turned out great. I think from now on, I will just skip Christmas dinner and do Boxing Day dinner.  It seemed to work out really well.

We got an email from our cousins in Hungary, that their daughter was getting baptized on Sunday.  We decided to head to Gyor, Hungary, for the baptism.  The baptism turned out to be full of surprises.  Dyllan was asked to sing a song, with a group as part of the program, and two of the talks were in English, so we could understand some of it.  It was nice to see our cousins again.  We decided to stay the night in Gyor, and then head to a hot springs pool on Monday.  We spent Monday walking around Gyor, a quaint little town, but very cold.  After chiseling the icicles off of our noses, we headed to the hot springs.  We spent the afternoon swimming and sliding.  The pools were full of minerals, so we should be healed of any ailments we had!  However, they were not hot enough to melt off all the extra fat we picked up during the holidays.

Speaking of cold, we finally got some snow!  We had enough to make some snowballs and a snowman.  We've now had more snow here in Vienna than we did all last winter.  The only bad part was that Dan couldn't go out on his bike and Dyllan and Danyon were also out of luck with their scooter and bike.

We decided to take it easy on New Years Eve.  We were advised not to head downtown because the crowds usually got pretty wild.  People throw glass from apartments (I think that smashing plates is a tradition), and the downtown is covered with a few inches of broken glass.  Also, people are not very considerate of others.  We had a friend who got hit with a firework rocket in the back and his coat started on fire.  I didn't think that was an appropriate atmosphere to take the kids into.  But, we got invited to a friends house for a small dinner party.  Our friends told us of some Austrian New Year's traditions.  First off, they have these small metal figures that you can buy in train stations and other random stores around Vienna.  You melt these figures in a spoon over a candle.  When you get it down to liquid, you then pour it into cold water.  From the new shape of the metal, you can predict your future for the year.  Also, the Austrians jump into the new year, by jumping off of furniture at the stroke of midnight.  Then they promptly begin to dance a waltz.  You waltz and kiss for the first moments of the new year.  Of course, alcohol is heavily involved in most celebrations (grocery carts had more liquor in them than groceries for the entire month of December), but we left it out of ours.  Fireworks are everywhere.  We had one of the best fireworks views, as we were driving through the downtown just shortly before midnight.  The fireworks over the Danube were beautiful!  It sounded like a war zone here in Vienna.  Fireworks were everywhere with booms echoing off all the buildings.  It was definitely something to experience!

Happy New Year!!!!