Here we go again--woche 12

Well, we're back to normal.  Back to cooking for ourselves.  Back to doing dishes.  Back to washing our own towels and sheets.  Back to having to make our own beds.  And back to having to get up and go to school/work.

It was pretty rough, getting back to normal.  I'm not going to lie and say that I'm ready for the rest of the school year.  As it is, I really wish we were on summer break already.  But, the good news is . . . we still have Grandma and Danette here.

Last Sunday, we were planning on decorating eggs.  I had bought some eggs before we left.  On Sunday evening, I boiled them so that the kids could dye them.  I left them on the cupboard to dry, laying on a kitchen towel.  Dan was making popcorn on the stove and was frantically asking for someone to grab him a towel to protect his arms from the oil popping and burning him.  Danette grabbed the closest towel she could find, but unfortunately, it was the one that had all the eggs on it.  All the eggs went crashing to the floor.  Danette managed to save only four of them!  So, on Monday, Dan and I headed to the store to pick up eggs and more groceries for dinner.  We decided to do a big Easter Dinner that night too, since we missed that on Sunday as well.  It was difficult to find a store open on Monday, as Easter Monday is a holiday here.  We finally found one, but could only find brown eggs.  The kids ended up dying them anyway.  Some of the dyes worked really well, but for the first year, we also ended up with 3 black eggs.  We've been eating a lot of hard boiled eggs, as we had double to eat.  We had a delicious Easter dinner of ham, potato casserole, asparagus, corn, salad, bread, and strawberry pie and lemon tart for dessert.  We invited the next door neighbors to eat with us.  We enjoyed getting to know them better.  They are from South Africa and have 1 boy just a year younger than Deagan.  She is working for the South African Embassy and has her mom staying with her to help out until school is over. 


After that, the week wasn't that exciting.  Grandma and Danette did a ton of laundry.  It took them 4 days to get all our clothes washed and dried from the vacation.  I tried to get the house back to normal.  We've been battling ants again this year.  They moved in last year for about 3 weeks.  This year, they are a little more persistent.  I have learned however, that with a mixture of dish soap and water, you can create a mass killing in seconds. (Note we are getting rid of the ants, not to be confused with the aunts.)

We had some good friends from Fishers come for a visit this week.  It was great to see Cynde and Les Auger.  They took a whirlwind tour of Europe and stayed with us for a couple of nights.  I gave them some tips on what to see, eat, and buy and handed them a map.  Then I let them roam as they pleased!  We were happy to see them and hope they enjoyed their time in Vienna.  Dan didn't get to spend much time with them, as he had to travel again last week.  He left on Tuesday and came home on Friday.  He was in Antwerp again, so there wasn't much new going on there.

The weather here has been good this week.  We spent a couple of afternoons out on the back porch, sitting in the sun and relaxing and visiting.  We took a trip to the grocery store and went out to lunch, and took another trip to the mall, where we stopped for ice cream and lunch--Mom wanted to eat at an Austrian McDonalds.  We've taken the kids to soccer and all their other activities.  We even had a scheduling conflict and had to send Dane on public transport, by himself, for the first time.  He made it all the way to the church and back--a trip that takes about 45 minutes one way and requires a bus, the subway, a trolley and finishes with a 4 block walk.  He was a little nervous, but I think he liked having some independence.

For the weekend, we decided to show Mom and Danette a little bit of Vienna.  We took them downtown, where we walked along the main streets.  We went to Figlmuller and had Wiener Schnitzel and Kartoffel salat.  We saw the Stephensdom, and stopped at the Manner store.  We walked along the Graben, stopped in at Demel, and then continued on to the Hofburg.  We took a trolley back to Swedenplatz, where we stopped for more ice cream, and hurried off to the mall to get Dyllan some new shoes.  After the long afternoon out, we were ready to head back home to relax some more.

Spring Break!!!!--Woche 10-11

Getting ready for Grandma and Danette to arrive took a lot of our time.  We spent the whole week doing laundry, cleaning, and more cleaning!  After the cleaning, we did soccer, soccer, and more soccer.  School is going okay for the kids.  They had a harder time concentrating knowing that Grandma and Auntie Danette were coming this week.  They finally arrived on Thursday morning.  We just took it easy for the first couple of days.  You never know how you're going to react to the jet lag.  We did get to go shopping (or tried to go shopping).  Danyon is going through his terrible twos now.  He is really wanting to show his independence.  If he doesn't want to do something, he lets you know--really loudly.  That made shopping not so much fun--twice.  But, we won't let that stop us!

We showed Grandma and Danette a fun night on the town in Vienna.  We went to a concert that Csaba (Dane's saxophone teacher and friend)was playing in.  We had a great dinner and then listened to some great music.  We loved hearing the band.  With the jet lag, we only made it through the first set.  We headed for home, but somehow got stopped at the ice cream store.  No night on the town is complete without ice cream!

Saturday, we took Grandma and Danette to a couple of Easter Markets.  We went to one that was just down the street from our house and we also took the crew to the Schonbrunn.  We didn't buy the entire stock of items, but we did enjoy buying some food.  We found baked pretzels, spatzle, and kaiseschwarm.  It's fun to try new stuff in a new country. 

Since the kids had a week off for Spring Break, we packed up and headed back to Turkey.  We were so excited to get a week away.  We arrived on Sunday afternoon.  We were able to explore the resort.  We tried the buffet.  The weather was a little cool, but better than in Vienna.  On Monday, we decided that we would like to experience another Turkish Bath.  We even decided to let the kids try it to see if they liked the cool bubble bath.  Dane and Deagan weren't too sure about it.  Danyon definitely hated it--until they rubbed his head.  Dyllan absolutely loved it!  She asked if she could go to the spa everyday!  Since I had thrown my neck out the week before from sneezing (yes, really from sneezing), we decided that we would get massages too.  It was just what my neck needed.  I was just like Dyllan, begging Dan to let me go back to the spa every day.

Fresh sqeezed orange and
 pommegrante juice are
 abundant here

On Tuesday, we took a very crowded bus into town and shopped at the Bazaar.  Some things we paid good prices for, and other things we paid too much.  Dan's favorite part of our trips is the shopping and bargaining for good deals.  Turkey is the perfect place for really good, high quality, genuine fakes.  We took a tour with our guide from last year, Aykut.  He took us to another local Bazaar.  We bargained for more stuff!  We also got to go to Perge again.  It is really cool to see all the ruins.  Then we ate our authentic, homemade lunch made by a Turkish grandma.  We all loved our fresh squeezed pomegranate juice.  We wandered around and saw Roman aqueduct ruins.  We smelled the orange groves in full bloom.  We also saw one of the bridges that the romans would have built.  We really enjoyed our day.  Then it was off to the buffet, again!

Spending more money in Turkey

You can't really beat spending an entire gorgeous day on the beach.  The kids built castles, they played in the water, Danyon slept, and the adults just visited and relaxed.  I loved that day.  That night everyone was very sun burned.  We had one day of rain.  It was pouring, actually.  It really cooled things off. 

By the afternoon, the rain had burned off and Grandma, Dan, and I decided to head back to the Bazaar to pick up all the items we regretted not getting before.  But, it turns out that the Bazaar was not open that day, possibly because of rain.  We kind of struck out, as the store owners are not as willing to bargain as much as the flea market people.  We ended up coming home with just one bag of stuff.  Auntie Danette stayed at the resort with the kids and they had a great time swimming in the pool.  The water was cold, but that didn't stop the kids.  After about 10 minutes, Deagan's lips turned blue.  Dane lasted about 20 minutes.  Good old Dyllie lasted 4 hours.  That girl is like a fish!




Danyon picked up a shoe
fetish.  Any shoe will do!

After a morning of shopping!

Dancin' up a storm!

A dressing room at the Bazaar

We found another Bazaar and decided that the adults would head to that while Dane babysat the other kids at the room.  We had tons of fun shopping again.  We finally returned home and then we spent the rest of the day watching the kids swim.  We tried to go to the beach again, but it was too cold and the waves were very rough.  We spent the afternoon at the pool, watching the kids swim, and slide down the water slides.  We enjoyed sipping our drinks poolside. 




We decided to try the Italian al la carte restaurant on Friday night.  We found the food there to be the best in the resort.  We enjoyed everything from the starters to the dessert.  Dan even got to try the squid ravioli.  It was a fun and delicious 6 course dinner.  We rolled out of there feeling fuller than after Thanksgiving dinner.  The kids had a hard time staying awake for the dinner.  Danyon fell asleep and Deagan was not far behind.

Are my lips kissable?

Even in paradise things aren't always as they seem.  Because of the language barrier, we had some trouble at the resort.  They had European customer service.  We were disappointed that we were only allowed to eat at one of the 5 al la carte restaurants.  We were also disappointed that they only served 3 non alcoholic drinks.  The same 3 drinks get a little tiring after a week--especially when the alcoholic choices were 3 pages long.  We couldn't get any of those drinks minus the alcohol though.  We also had a problem that they didn't stock our fridge every day as promised.  With a family of 6 in one room, we go through a lot of water bottles.  When I went in to complain about the "service" (or lack thereof), I had a very hard time communicating with the manager.  After spending 20 minutes trying to state my case, I decided to just give up.  However, to make amends, the manager offered us a dinner reservation in the main restaurant (buffet), served with cake.  When we got to the dining room, our table was very nicely decorated with flower petals.  We ate our dinner, and then the staff came and served us a cake.  It was a nice gesture, however, it was the exact same cake that we had been eating all week, and could have gotten all we could eat at the buffet.  But, the waiter thought we were celebrating a birthday for Danyon.  He got a cake and got to blow out the candles.  We drew the line at singing.  We were sharing the table with some people and they thought we were weird for not singing "Happy Birthday".  We didn't tell them that the cake was our consolation prize for not getting the service that we were promised.

But Sunday came and it was time to pack up.  We were all ready to be back home, but were very sad to be leaving paradise.  The sun was shining and we thought we could handle more vacation time.  We had extra time at the airport and they had lots of activities for kids.  They had an arcade, a train, a ball house and a rock climbing wall, all at the airport for those waiting to depart.  Dan took the kids down to the climbing wall.  They had a good time getting to the top.  Dan decided to give it a try, too.  He made it just fine, but he said that he would feel it tomorrow.  We arrived home safely and the kids even found that the Easter bunny had been to visit!  We had a family stay at our house as part of a house swap.  They fed our cats for us while we were away, and they got to stay at our house for free.  It worked out really well.  They left our house immaculately clean.  They also left us a beautiful hydrangea plant, chocolates, and soap from Paris.  We have never met these people, but heard about them through friends from church.  We were glad to swap with them!  We hope to visit them and finally meet them in June--at their house in Paris.

Not time for many pictures--Woche 8-9

The last couple of weeks, have been spent doing monotonous tasks.  I decided that I needed to get some Spring cleaning done.  I have picked a couple rooms a week for the last month and have cleaned everything out.  It feels good to get everything that clean.  However, it saddens me to note that you can not see a difference in our house.  It seems that the kids are much too fast for me.  They can destroy everything I have worked on in a matter of 40 seconds.


I gave each of the boys haircuts.  It is getting slightly easier and I am getting slightly faster.  Dane notes though, that he will not be paying me.  Apparently, I took too long, squished his ear, and didn't buzz him bald.  Danyon didn't complain much, as he fell asleep in his high chair, watching all the hair cuts.  When it was his turn, he didn't even stir at the sound of the clippers.  I had Dane hold his head and move it where I needed it.  Danyon slept through the entire thing!


We started soccer last week.  The kids are finding it to be a fun change.  They are all enjoying it.  Between all three kids, we were at the soccer field for at least 2 hours every night this week.  It is interesting that the sport clubs here are different than what we have seen in the US.  Life here seems to be closer to what I would call the "Asian Approach".  That is where parents decide for their children at a very young age, what they are going to do in life.  If you are going to be a hockey player, you start at age 2 or 3 and you do hockey--live, eat, sleep, and breathe hockey.  There doesn't seem to be any push to diversify the kids here.  The soccer club is the same.  These kids have all been playing soccer 2-3 times a week, pretty intensive practices, for several years, year round.  We are having a hard time adjusting to this mentality, as we don't feel like we want our kids to have to chose what they will do for the rest of their life at such a young age.  Also, we don't feel like one sport is good.  Developing other skills and muscle groups definitely has benefits, in our opinion.  However, this puts our kids at a disadvantage compared to the other kids here.  But, instead of seeing it as a completely bad thing, were choosing to go with the "our kids have a huge opportunity to improve while they are here" outlook.

April Fool's Day came and went without much ado here at our house.  The only prank the kids pulled was that they colored some letter E's with a brown marker, and put them in a Tupperware.  At school, they each gave their teachers a Tupperware full of brownies!

Dan spent the entire week in the US.  He didn't get much sleep, but he had a lot of fun--even without Grandma's feather bed.  He had lots of work meetings, lots of shopping, and even time to fix the kitchen sink--literally.  We found out from our renters that the kitchen sink was leaking and all of the plumbing underneath was completely corroded out.  Other good news:  since the weather has been so crazy in Fishers this winter, with lots of wind storms, we have missing shingles on the house as well.  We have to get someone to go and take a look at that too. 

All in all, we were so excited to see Dan and his packages this morning.  The kids could hardly stand it.  Dane came into my room this morning not being able to sleep, and not knowing how to pass the time until Dan got home.  Every time Dan goes home, it feels a lot like Christmas when he gets back.  This time, in the spirit of Easter, I was tempted to hide all of their fun little things and make them search all over the house for them.  We were too tired to make that happen, so they just got to get their pile of treats on the bed.