The Results Are In!--Wochen 12-13

Last weekend, Dane was invited to go to a track meet in Budapest.  Since this meet was the one closest to home, we decided to pack everyone up and head up there with him.  The day was about perfect.  The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, the AIS Budapest campus was beautiful.  We had packed some blankets to sit on, just in case.  We were glad we did.  Having never been to a track meet before, I wasn't sure what to expect.  The day was fun.  There were races going on all day long.  Dane was only running in two of them--the 1500m and the 3000m.  I can see why the track and field people get to be such good friends.  You spend the entire day hanging around these people and you only have to do your event for 10-15 minutes.  The rest of the day, you just hang out and wait.  Dan and Dyllan headed to the store and bought us stuff to have a picnic.  They arrived in time to see Dane's first race.  Dane ran very well.  He won the race!  We were so proud of him.  He also shaved 11 seconds off his last time for the 1500m--all in one week.  We ate our lunch and hung out together.  The other kids played on the playground for a good part of the day.  They loved the fresh air and being outside in general.  Dane's second race was at the end of the day.  Again, he ran it and won.  We were so excited.  He had a better time for the 3000m last week, but he still came out with the win!  He was several yards in front of everyone else.  I think if he had had more competition, he might have been pushed to get a better time, but if you are way in front, you don't really have any motivation to go too much faster.  As a result of his performance in Budapest, he has received an invitation to represent his school at the European International Schools Track and Field Championships in Warsaw, Poland.  He is busy now preparing for that.



We heard this week, that Allynn is an award winning photographer.  I won first prize in the contest.  I was very excited for my first competition to be a win, let alone, the first place win!!  So, I now have an official certificate and the first place prize was a 10 Euro gift card to Dunkin' Donuts.  Apparently, they have one here.  We haven't been to it yet, but we are told that there are usually really long lines to get donuts.  We'll check it out soon.  Dan was able to pull off an honorable mention for his photo submission.

As Dan's birthday is nearing, I seem to be going through my mid-life crisis.  I decided that I wanted to lighten up my hair.  I've never been blonde and I thought that it might make it easier to hide the gray for longer if I were to be blonde.  So, after reading much online, I decided to take the plunge into blonde hair.  Most of the sites said to go to a salon, but I don't feel comfortable talking on the phone in German yet, so I didn't know how to make an appointment.  So, I decided to just go for it.  I knew that I had to find a hair dye that would bleach out the dark color on my hair.  They don't sell bleach here over the counter at the Spar.  So, I went with a platinum blonde shade.  Then after bleaching the color out, I figured I would then just dye it the color I wanted.  So, I also bought a shade that I liked to go for a toffee blonde look.  As you can see from the pictures, the platinum blonde color worked really well on my roots, and was able to strip some of the color out, but had an atrocious outcome.  So, then Dan took the other dye and dyed over the Elvin princess root blonde maiden with the other color.  The result was a strawberry blonde.  I have to admit, the color is a bit more strawberry than I would have liked, but I only have to wait 4-6 weeks before I can change it again.  In retrospect, I should have used a cooler color as the second color, to take some of the red from the bleach out.  But at any rate, I am now a blonde--and Dan said that it didn't take long for me to start acting like one either.


The kids had a holiday this week.  Dan found out that International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships were in Prague this last weekend.  He tried to get tickets to the Canada vs. Latvia game, but by the time we secured a hotel room and Dan got out of his meetings, they were all sold out.  So, we canceled our hotel as well.  It would have been a great weekend in Prague, but we missed out.

We found this car downtown.  Dane was in love.  The hotel doorman brought the car, revved it up, and parked it out front of the hotel for his guest.  He got a standing ovation for his parking job from all the people who stopped to take pictures.

Instead, we took the kids to a few sites in Vienna that we hadn't been to before.  We walked around downtown, and we finally saw the Mozart statue in the park.  We feel like we are fulfilled tourists now.  We spent the entire day out and about in the city and we never stopped for ice cream.  I think that is a first for us.  We stopped at IKEA and found an interesting sign on the toilets in the show room.  They had stickers and signs that read, please do not use.  You know that there must have been a reason to have to put those signs on.  I'm glad I'm not an IKEA employee. 

Dan and I did take advantage of Spargel zeit.  It is once again asparagus season, so we went out to a heurige for dinner.  I ordered the spargel, Dan ordered the spare ribs.  It was a great evening out, but the spargel was way overcooked and I had to slurp it up.  I think with hollandaise sauce anything will taste good, as I cleaned my entire plate.  The chicken and the spare ribs were delicious.