It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas--Woche 44

What a week! It seemed to fly by, again.  We had some snow flurries, and the weather turned really cold, with a really cold wind.  We, of course, had the everyday stuff going on.  The kids were busy with school and hockey, music and such.  I kept myself busy working on Christmas gifts.  Dan traveled again to Antwerp this week.  But, we added some exciting things into the schedule!

Dane was invited to play in his first real hockey game (not just the house league).  He played well, and they won.  It was a good start.  We don't know if he'll get asked to play again or not, but it was fun to be able to watch him play on the whole ice again. 

We had our ward Christmas party on Friday.  They had a dinner and small program.  Dane played the saxophone with his teacher in 3 more small duets.  He did okay.  Dan and I did a waltz.  We were only together for just a couple hours at the beginning of the week, and then a couple more on Friday night.  We had to choreograph the whole dance and practice it all in those 4 hours.  We got it done, and it didn't turn out too badly. We were pleased.

In Austria, there are two visitors that come to the children in December.  One is St. Nicolas and the other is Krampus.  Krampus is a very scary looking devil type creature.  They have decorations and candy that depict both people.  St. Nicolas is a guy kind of like our Santa Claus, but he wears different clothing.  He comes to houses and fills nice children's shoes with oranges, nuts, or candy.  He comes on the 6th of December.  However, these Austrians sure have it figured out.  Instead of threatening with coal, they threaten with Krampus.  On the 5th of December, Krampus goes out into the night and carries off all the naughty children.  He then takes them to hell, where they are turned into more Krampus' or else get eaten by Krampus.  After hearing the story of how things work around here, and seeing pictures of Krampus on Facebook, Deagan has decided that it might be better for him, if we moved back to Indiana.  He has asked several questions about Krampus, what he does, how he does it, and what becomes of the naughty children.  He is not so sure that he will make the cut, and is more than just a little nervous.  These Krampus' really do go around town at festivals scaring little children into being good.  As we were driving by our little mall where I do my grocery shopping on Friday evening, we saw  a group of them with St. Nicolas at the little festival.  They carry chains and big bells to rattle at all the children.

We found a store that carried Kinder Tracht (kids traditional clothing).  We were able to outfit the kids.  I heard Dane in the dressing room, "These lederhosen are the most comfortable pants I have ever worn."  (This coming from a kid, who a couple of months ago, said he would never be caught dead in them).  Dyllan wore her dress to church, and Dane was so upset that he couldn't wear his lederhosen, he humphed all the way to the church.  When we got home, he promptly changed into his stuff--"just to break it in".  We're excited that all the kids like their new outfits.  We decided to make them their Christmas outfits for this year.  We decided to buy them the traditional clothing sooner rather than later, so that we would have places that we could wear them to, but I think that Dane is hooked and will wear them back in Indiana as well.  We might have to buy a few more pairs in the next sizes up, just to keep him stocked up after we move. 




We had a little Christmas get-together on Sunday afternoon.  In previous years, we have always done a caroling party, or a Christmas dinner party at our house.  We decided last minute on Saturday to do a snack, wassail, and friends party. With such late notice, we only had 2 families that could make it, but we had a great time anyway.  There was good food, good friends, and we played Christmas and other games.  A good time for all.  I'm not able to keep up with all the traditions that we would have done at home, but we are still trying to hit the major ones.  It is working.  The kids still feel like it is Christmas, but we're not competing with homework and hockey time. 

So far, so good.  No Krampus, . . .  yet!

Is It Christmas Yet??--Wochen 42-43

Our Tree

The last couple of weeks have been filled with holiday cheer!  We decorated the entire house, including putting the tree up, a week before Thanksgiving!  That is a Baker record.  Normally, we wouldn't get the stuff out until after Thanksgiving dinner.  We felt justified in doing so because Dan doesn't get any time off work for Thanksgiving, and because we are leaving for home a few days before Christmas, and wanted to make sure we got to enjoy our decorations.


Dan went on a trip to Indiana.  He spent an entire week there, shopping for items to bring home to us!  I think he went to a couple of meetings, too.  Well, actually, he went to a lot of meetings, and had to do all the shopping late at night.  Thank goodness for 24 hour Walmarts.  The night crew was getting used to seeing him at 4:00am when he couldn't sleep.  He was able to work out some of the details of his new job, and is now in the middle of finalizing the funding for his new organization.  Unfortunately, that is requiring more travel than any of us would like, including multiple trips to Antwerp with more to come before the end of the year.

Dan eating some chesnuts. 
Not roasted by an open fire,
but roasted none the less.

After Dan got home, he and I went shopping to a Christmas Market at the Rathaus.  We had fun wandering through the different stalls of Christmas wares.  We ate some Langosh followed by roasted chesnuts, and chased that down with garlic soup served in a bread bowl.  The market itself, was very Christmasy.  People were bundled up and drinking Gluhwein (spiced wine) and Kinder Punsch (kid punch).  Interesting to note, that people are drinking these out of real ceramic mugs.  There are very few disposable dishes here--they are very green.  So, you put a deposit down on the mug.  You may then choose to keep it, or you can return it and get your deposit back.  There are several different markets going on all during the month of December.  Some only last for 1 weekend, others continue through the whole month.  There are 10-15 (that we know about) Christmas Markets in Vienna alone.  They each have their own different feel.  Some have petting zoos, others are entirely for Austrian artists, one is International, and another is medieval, and so on.

The Rathaus is Vienna's city hall.  All of this will be turned into an outdoor skating rink shortly after Christmas. 
They haul away the huts and store them somewhere until next year.

Dyllan and Deagan have hockey practice at a new venue.  They still practice at the old one, but they have added practices in an outdoor arena.  The outdoor ice rink, is mainly for public skating, but off to the side, they have another sheet of ice that the hockey kids can have their practice.  It makes for a cold evening to sit and wait for them for a couple of hours.  The public skate part has always been packed with people.  They keep it open all day and most of the evening, everyday.  They don't close it down to Zamboni it.  Instead, they just drive out the Zamboni, flanked by 4 employees wearing special vests.  The employees blow a whistle if anyone gets too close to the machine.  However, people follow the Zamboni on its laps through the rink.  No one leaves the ice.  This was a weird concept for someone coming from the states, where no one is allowed on the ice with the Zamboni.  Here, if you are dumb enough to get in front of the Zamboni, you probably deserved it.  No one will get sued.

We have continued our dance class.  We are teaching Salsa.  We still only have 2 couples who come, but it is a lot of fun.  We still enjoy dancing as much as we can. 


Christmas decorations on Swedenplatz.
  The balls must be 8 feet across, at least.  Huge! 
They line the entire street for several blocks.

Dyllan got to go to her best friend Chiara's birthday party.  It was at a bowling alley.  Apparently, bowling is much the same here as it was at home.  Dyllan had a great time, and with the bumpers in, scored a fairly high score!  We'll have to try out bowling as a family sometime.

I spent a lot of time online trying to get Christmas presents bought.  It seems that I have spent hours and hours online.  I thought it was supposed to be easier to buy online, but this year, it didn't seem to be.  I had trouble trying to order from the US, while in Austria, to be sent to Canada.  The computer didn't like it much.  The good news:  I think that I have gotten most of the shopping done for the year, earlier than in previous years.  We are all done, except for a few minor things to pick up when we get home.

Dan thought this was a great potty
break in the hotel.

Dan had a trip to Antwerp this week.  When in Belgium, eat like the Belgians.  His work group went out for dinner to a place that specializes in horse meat.  Dan said they even had the stuffed rear ends of horses hanging on the walls.  I guess it would be harder to eat horse if you had to look them in the eyes.  Dan was surprised to find out that the texture was very similar to beef and the flavor was good (so he said), just a little sweeter than beef.  He has not made a believer out of me yet.  I will stick to cow, pig, chicken, and turkey. 


Speaking of turkey, Thanksgiving turned out to be a lot of fun.  We were invited to a friends house.  She had a group of 25 coming to dinner.  It was nice to not have to cook the entire dinner, but it was also sad not to be hosting it.  Dan and I have hosted Thanksgiving for a lot of years, and I missed it this year.  It didn't really feel like Thanksgiving, since Dan had to work.  Rest assured that it sure did taste like Thanksgiving!!  It was a great meal and a great time with friends.  The kids had so much fun with their friends too.  Dan was able to take 1/2 the day off.  And everything turned out great.  The only sad part was:  No Friday Shopping!!  It was, however, the best night's sleep I've had on Thanksgiving night for probably 17 or more years.  And we still got to buy a couple of deals online as part of the Black Friday madness.  So, not all bad.  Also please note, that I'm glad that we are friends with people who can go to the commissary and shop for American products at American prices.  Can you see the price of the turkey that I found at our grocery store?  Yep, 56 Euros for one 19 lb turkey.  I don't even want to do the conversion to dollars.


Dan and I took Dyllan and her friend, Juliana to Naturlich Blonde.  It is the musical of Legally Blonde.  It was in German, but did have English subtitles.  I wouldn't have understood the whole thing without, but I could tell in some parts that the translation was not as good as what was actually being said.  I felt good that I could understand at least a few things.  The play was cute and had some very funny parts, but Dyllan liked Elisabeth much better, because she didn't appreciate some of the language and vulgarity in Naturlich Blonde. 

Dan and I had another shopping date to pick up some Christmas items.  We finally purchased our traditional Austrian outfits.  It is the recommended dress code for Dan's work Christmas party.  We finally had an excuse to not wait any longer.  We still need to purchase some for the kids, but at least Dan and I have ours.  We're excited to fit in a little more here.  The shop we went to had very good customer service.  Customer service is very hard to find here, so it was very refreshing to go to a store where they actually cared about their customers.  It made shopping so much more fun!  Let's face it, what's not fun about Lederhosen?  After we get the kids stuff, we promise to post pictures of the true Vonbakers.

Celebrate Good Times--Woche 41

 

Enjoying some marshmallow treats

It has started already!  We are listening to Christmas music almost full-time now.  We are really getting into the holiday mood around here.  Thanksgiving is not celebrated here.  They do have a day of the Goose--it happened last week, but no other holiday until Christmas.  The day of the Goose goes back to some guy who was chosen to be Bishop.  He didn't want the position and ran to hide in the barn.  The geese gaggled so loudly that the people were able to find him.  So now they celebrate this day by eating goose.--That'll teach 'em to gaggle so loudly.  It seems weird, but we are going to break out the Christmas decorations this next week.  It will be the first time in Baker history that we will have our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving.  We are getting so excited!!!!  The malls and streets have started their decorating.  We can't wait until our city turns into a winter wonderland!  We drove by one building that had a tree on it in lights already.  It was really cool because the dark part of the building had lights that flashed on and off that made it look like it was snowing.  I got a picture of it, but it was from the motorway, and the car was moving pretty fast, so it didn't turn out as cool as it was.  The Christmas Markets started this last weekend, or will start next weekend.



 

 

The boys all sitting on the
steps before school

We are also very excited to announce this week that Danyon is walking!!!!  We have been waiting for this day for three months.  Dyllan taught him how to walk.  She put jammies on him, and left his feet out.  She took the feet of the jammies, and held them out behind him.  That was just enough support to trick him into walking across the entire living room all by himself, with Dyllan behind him.  Dyllan ran to get Dan to come and watch.  Dan came in, and he walked clear across the room again.  Luckily, Grandma was still here.  It was her last night.  Dyllan ran to get Grandma to come see him.  This time, Danyon walked all by himself across the room.  We couldn't believe how lucky we were that everyone was here to see it.  He tries walking a lot more often now.  He prefers it to crawling, unless he is in a hurry.



Grandma loved dodging all
 the slugs in the yard

We were very sad to see Grandma leave and go back home.  We felt very lucky to be able to spend the month with her.  We had such a good time visiting with her and taking her places.  It gave me an excuse to go to the craft store a few times while she was here.  The kids had gotten used to having her around and were all very sad that she was not here to make them French toast every morning.  It was not as sad this time though, because we knew we would see her again in just a few short weeks.  Grandma, fire up your French toast griddle, and make sure you're ice machine is working properly.  You've created little syrupy ice lovers!!
We are also celebrating Dane's saxophone debut.  We had a church Fall Festival.  It was a dinner and program.  As part of the program, Dane was asked to play three short saxophone duets with his teacher.  Dane did an excellent job and we are pleased that he is liking it so much.  Deagan did some video of it for me.  Hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

Dan had the opportunity to head back to the States for some meetings this week.  He has a very scheduled week, but he was hoping to see a few friends while he is there.  I sent him with a rather long list of needed supplies.  I just got word that his luggage did not make it from Chicago to Indianapolis.  They have been unable to locate it yet, and they are expecting severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes all along the corridor from Chicago to Indianapolis.  Maybe he'll never see his luggage again.  The really bad news:  There were several large chocolate bars for friends in the lost luggage--no wonder it got "lost"!

Another Highlight of Vienna--Woche 40

Planning things to do can be fun.  Mom had been here for two full weeks, and she still hadn't seen any of downtown Vienna.  Monday we spent the day cleaning and getting things ready so that we could play for the rest of the week.  We started the laundry, and even today, there is still one load still sitting in the dryer.  We had the laundry folded and put into piles on the dining room table, and a friend asked, "Why do you have all these piles of clothes everywhere?  Are you sorting through closets?"  Well, that was just one week of laundry for us--even minus the load still in the dryer.

I took mom down to the Hofburg Palace.  We were able to go see the Imperial silver collection, the Sisi museum, and the Imperial apartments.  It was a tour that I had done before, but I still learned new things.  After that, we found the stables to the Lippizaner Stallions.  We weren't able to attend a show, although mom would really like to go see them.  They don't allow children under the age of 6 into any of the shows or practices, so Danyon and I couldn't get in.  Mom opted not to go until next time she visits.  We did see the horses in the stables, however.  We completed the day with a stop to Demel.  We ate our pastries while watching the other bakers at work.

Mom and I visited the Beethoven house next door.  We were very, very disappointed.  The museum only had 1 lock, to something, 1 lock of Beethoven's hair, a copy of a letter that Beethoven composed to his brother, but never sent, a copy of a death mask, a copy of a bust, and some recorded Beethoven music.  There was a sign that read that Beethoven might not even have lived in this particular house.  Talk about disappointing!!  Here we thought that we were Beethoven's next door neighbors, and we probably aren't.  Not to worry though, he did spend much of his time living in our area.  I think that there are three or four Beethoven houses in Vienna, and one just down the street.  I don't know if I will pay the money to visit any others, as I was so disappointed in the first one.  I couldn't believe that they didn't have any information in the museum.  There were also a few pictures, but they were of other random people, and there were no signs explaining how they were affiliated with Beethoven, so you didn't know why the pictures were even there.

We also went to a production of the Vienna Boys Choir.  I have to admit, I was very disappointed again.  This was not just a straight concert.  This was a production of The Boy and the Sea.  There were parts of it that were good, but for the most part, the staging was poor and the boys did not seem to have any discipline on the stage.  The background boys were very distracting to the story line.  I found it interesting that the main character had a microphone, but the choir did not have a mic and the soloists were not miced as well.  This made it very difficult to hear them.  I have to admit, there were some talented kids in the choir.  One kid played the piano for the entire play from memory.  The only song he didn't play, was the song when he went on stage to sing his solo.  He was very good.  And at the end of the play, the choir just stood in a line and sang a couple of songs for the encore.  When they just stood and sang, Wow.  That was very good. 

We took Grandma to St. Stephen's church.  We, of course, stopped at the Manner store.  We took her to a couple of Heurigens.  We also took her to dinner in the downtown.  We had dessert at the Zanoni and Zanoni.

We even found a carriage to take us to the Ball.

Since Grandma is here, and we feel comfortable leaving the kids with her, Dan and I went to our first Austrian Ball on Friday night.  We drove down to the hotel with another couple from our ward.  It was a fun evening.  We enjoyed dancing, spending time together, and spending time with friends. 

Saturday, we took Grandma to the Brunnenmarkt.  We bought fruit, vegetables, fresh baked breads, and of course, lunch.  Grandma got to experience everything, including the smell of the cheese stand on the street.  When our bags were full, we headed home.  After that, we had tickets to go to the matinee of Elisabeth.  Dan and I have been looking forward to going to this, since we got here.  Elisabeth is the most successful German musical of all time.  It is about the Empress Sisi.  It has been playing in Vienna, on and off for the last 10 years.  They decided to finally end the run in January, so time was running out.  We are so glad that we went.  The music is beautiful and the staging was incredible.  We really loved it.  You can look it up on Youtube and find one with English translations to get the story line, but it is a really cool play.  Both Grandma and Dan said it is one of the highlights of the trip here.

It Zotter be Good!-Woche 39

Whoa.  Getting back to school is harder than it looks.  We sent the kids off to school, while mom and I stayed home to do laundry.  Four days later we were still doing laundry--and our trip was only 9 days.  We again had to start up with school and hockey.  Dan left to go back to Rome for business.  Mom and I held down the fort here.  We were able to visit the craft store--I needed to get some supplies for Halloween costumes.  Since trick-or-treating is not done here, I decided to just do costumes for Dyllan and Deagan.  They had a party during the day at school and a carnival that night.  Tuesday we had German lessons and Saxophone for Dane.  Wednesday night Dane had a hockey game, then we had to rush over to the doctor to get physicals (in order for the kids to be eligible to play a sport).  Then mom and I madly sewed costumes.  It is quite a different experience creating a costume in one night and not having the normal resources.  Without a glue gun, the stapler took over as my best friend.


Dyllan conceived the idea for her costume from start to finish.  She found a box and instantly started to work.  She cut holes for her arms and head.  Then she taped white paper all over it.  Then she drew dots all over it.  She wanted to be a die (dice).  I helped her staple the pink sparkly dots all over it, so she was set.  Deagan wanted to be a s'more (okay, I wanted him to be a s'more, and he is still complaining about it).  I found some perfect fabric at the craft store to create the perfect toasted marshmallow look.  We used boxes for the crackers, and more fabric for the chocolate.  They turned out pretty good.  Not my best work, but they were dressed up. 

For the carnival that night, I signed up to volunteer to help with the trunk-or-treat.  I was instructed to decorate the trunk and show up at the school.  They would provide the candy to hand out.  That seemed like a pretty easy assignment to me!  I found some freaky fabric in my Halloween box.  I collected some orange stars at the craft store.  Mom made a tombstone to set in the trunk.  We had carved pumpkins and lanterns.  We also had a strobe light.  We put some good Halloween tunes on the ipod and then, I had an idea.  If you lay one side of the seats in the back row down, there is space underneath that the seat back covers.  I thought that maybe I could dress Dane up as a vampire, put a pillow in the open half of the back and cover the entire thing with white fabric.  Then put in Dane, add a little make-up, contort his body so that all of his legs were underneath the covered part.  The only thing showing was from his waist up.  He looked just a vampire in a coffin.  He "x-ed" his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.  The lighting in the trunk was perfect to make him look very freakishly scary.  It was perfect.  Dane loved "coming alive" and screaming at unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.  We heard several comments about how kids were going to "skip that car because it was too scary".  It made Dane's Halloween.  He measured the success of the evening by how many people he made scream, cry, or wet their pants--in total, countless screamers, 2 criers, and an undisclosed number of wet pants--a true success.  Not even his friends recognized him!  It was also interesting to me to see that several adults were also impressed by scene.  We had more pictures taken of our car than any other car.  We also had a few parents get their kids and make them come back to the car, just to take a second look.  It's funny that being scared on Halloween is a new experience for even some adults here.  The only sad thing is, that my camera decided not to work on Halloween night (must be a haunted camera, whose ghost was out partying on Halloween, as it worked just fine the day before, and the day after) and I have no pictures of the scene.  I was able to get some shots of the costumes the next day, but none on Halloween.

The kids and Dan had Friday off of school.  Two major holidays are on November 1 and 2:  All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  On the Saints Day, all of the cemeteries are packed with people.  They leave several candles on each grave.  They light them, and at night, the cemeteries are all a-glow.  It is actually really cool to see.  I tried to get a picture of it, but people were still packed in the cemetery, even later in the evening, and I felt like just taking pictures might have been a little disrespectful.  I got one, but it is not great.  It is hard to show just how cool everything looked.

Since the kids had the day off of school, we decided to head down into southern Austria to Styria.  We stopped at a Therme (hot springs).  Some of these are very adult oriented for relaxation and de-stressing.  However, I was able to find one that catered to children and had several pools and some slides, a lazy river, and a wave pool.  We had a great time.  Danyon loved being in the water.  He wasn't allowed to go swimming on the cruise, so this was a much better deal for him.  Looking at the Austrian countryside was very cool in the Fall.  Everything looked so pretty.  That night, we found a quaint little hotel just across the boarder in Hungary.  We were one of 4 guests at the hotel that night.  It was a pretty little place and it was very inexpensive compared to Vienna.  We ordered dinner in the restaurant.  We ordered 4 full meals, 2 orders of fries, 2 salads, one more side order of steak fries for Dane, and drinks.  We ended up paying only 35 Euro for the entire dinner.  The three ladies who were ironing the sheets and towels in one back room (yes, towels too), moved to the kitchen after we had ordered our dinner.  We knew the food was fresh!  It was delicious food in a very cute little setting.  We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and our free breakfast buffet the next morning. 

The next morning we drove to Zotter Chocolate Factory.  I know that I have blogged about it before, but it had changed slightly since our last visit.  It was even better.  There were more samples, and I have to admit that 3 of the 7 of us were sick to our stomachs at the end--how lucky were are!  We drove around the beautiful countryside and found a family run orchard and farm.  We bought fresh apples and a case of homegrown grape juice.  We also found pumpkin seed oil and peach nectar.  It was delicious.  We had a nice drive home, then we went back to work.  Lisa and Laslo, our cousins from Hungary, were coming for dinner.  We cleaned the house, unpacked the car and bags, and got to work making soups.  We had a very enjoyable evening visiting with them.

The weather here has turned a little cold.  It is definitely Fall.  The leaves are falling, the rain is coming, and the wind has started.  We fought back by putting a fire in the fireplace for the first time.  It's pretty fun to have our own fire.  What a relaxing way to start, yet another, very busy week.

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle--Woche 35-38

Dane's first hockey game

When you plan a vacation, you have a distinct picture in your mind of how things are going to work out.  It makes it even more fun when things turn out better than planned.

The kids had a much needed Fall break.  School and hockey have filled our days lately, and not much else has happened.  Dan's work changes have proven to be a real challenge as well.  Trying to keep up with it all was proving to be too stressful.  So, we decided to go on another cruising vacation.  Grandma Baker arrived on Monday night, then we pulled the kids out of school, a day early, and flew to Rome.  We were very excited to spend two short days there, before heading to the cruise port in Civitavecchia, Italy.  The day we arrived in Rome, it just so happened that all of the public transport people were on strike.  There were no busses, trams, or metros running for most of the day.  That made getting to our apartment and sight-seeing a little more difficult than we had expected. 

St. Peter's Cathedral in the background

Pizza, pasta, and gelato are
 the food groups in Italy

Menu at our restaurant

We decided to walk around town to see what we could find.  We lucked out, because we found a great Gelato place (Old Bridge) and were certainly not disappointed (any of the three times we visited it)!!!  We walked and walked and walked and walked.  Took a few wrong turns, and walked some more, until we found a fun place to have dinner.  It was pretty good pasta!  However, we had walked far enough and it was late enough that the kids would not make it back to the apartment (we figured it was about 4 miles away at that point).  Good thing that public transport had started back up by then and we were able to catch a bus to a stop within a few blocks of our apartment.  We made it back and were slightly bummed that we had "wasted" our day walking.  The next day, however, we made up for it.  We went to the Vatican and toured the museums there.  They had an excellent audio guide for the kids that kept them entertained through all the highlights.  We were also able to see a lot of cool things.  I thought that the highlight for me would be the Sistine chapel, but with so many other people packed in the room, it was really not very enjoyable and it didn't seem as grandiose as I had pictured it in my mind.  Maybe if I had been able to stop and actually look at it, it would have made a better impression on me.  As it was, we were just herded through.  Dan even got yelled at by a security guard for blocking the pathway with the baby stroller. 

My Gladiators

Coliseum

Of course afterwards, we stopped for more gelato.  Then we headed to the Coliseum. It is pretty cool to see.  It just sits right in the middle of bustling city life.  We hit a few other touristy places and more gelato.  The next morning, we headed for the shore. 




"When do we eat?"

Life on a cruise ship is awesome: There's tons to do, tons of people to meet, tons of stewards waiting on you hand and foot, and tons of food.  A family from our ward, the Rhees, had booked the same cruise.  It was fun to share the week touring with them.  They have a daughter close to Dyllan's age and the two of them had a great time together. 


Our dining room

During our cruise, we were able to go rock climbing, play miniature golf, in-line skate, ice skate, dance, watch movies, swim, hot tub, and even do family origami.  Dyllan hula hooped herself into a gold medal.  Dane was awarded an octopus for joining the sneezy club.  Deagan got a black eye from running around like crazy and running into a brass pole.  The days were fun, by night time, we were exhausted from all the fun things of the day.





Pretty tasty cannoli

I got to celebrate my birthday on the boat.  It was a really fun day!  It was our first day in port.  We were on the island of Sicily.  We hired a taxi to take us to a quaint little town called Tauromina.  It was fun to walk the streets and see all the fun stuff they had.  People selling their wares lined the streets and we had fun bargaining with them for good prices.  We ate cannoli and strolled along the streets.  Then the taxi driver picked us up and drove us to the beach.  The kids had a great time playing in the water.  Dan found a masseuse on the beach that gave he and mom a foot massage (10 Euro for 30 minutes, what a deal).  True relaxation.  But alas, time ran out, and we were headed back to the boat.





Sicily

However, there was time for one more stop at a gelato store before getting back on the boat.  After dinner, our dining staff sang happy birthday to me and presented me with a cake.  We had them deliver it back to our room to eat later.  We didn't want to miss the regularly planned dessert that night!  It was a perfect birthday.

We were also able to see shadows of the ancient world.  We stopped in Athens and went to the Acropolis.  While there, we found a Russian Orthodox priest.  Dan chatted with him briefly in Russian, and the priest motioned all the kids over so that we could get a picture with him.  He left us with blessings.  We went to Corinth and saw the ruins of the building actually mentioned in Acts, that Paul was on trial in.  We walked by the place that Paul would have taught from.  It is amazing to me that they have excavated so much from these sights.  Of course, no visit to Greece would be complete without eating some olives.  We had a perfect lunch with sea-side view. 

We continued on to Turkey to see Ephesus.  The ruins in Ephesus are pretty cool.  They had roman baths, public toilets, amazing mosaic floors, columns and statues abound, and my favorite, a really cool library.  The theater there is very well preserved, and we were even able to dance on the stage.  We were able to visit the supposed house that Mary (mother of Jesus) lived in until her death.  And we were able to add our wishes to the wishing wall nearby.  The kids loved going to the carpet factory where they could see how rugs were made.  They got to lay on all kinds of different rugs made from cotton, wool and even silk.  They got to see how they get the silk from the silk worms.  We went to a pottery factory and got to see how pottery is made.  Each of the kids got to try their hand at the pottery wheel.  We finished the day with more bargain shopping (Allynn is now the proud owner of a genuine, fake Prada bag) and Turkish Delight.

Our last port of call, was in Crete.  We only had a half day there.  We decided to head back to the beach.  We spent all morning lying on the Golden Beach relaxing.  More foot massages were had by all.  The kids spent all their time in the surf and sand.  They had a great time.  The beach was sandy, the water was clean and very turquoise blue.  It reminded us of our great times spent in the Caribbean in the past, but with kids involved this time.  A perfect way to end.



We had a few hours in Rome before we had to head back to the airport for our flight.  We decided to go see the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain.  We had heard of both of these and seen them in movies, but when you share them with 1,000 other tourists, they kind of lose their luster.  We stopped for a quick lunch, that turned into a long lunch, which made us have to literally run to catch our flight.  We almost got stranded in Rome.  We made it just in time, and we arrived back home safely--even with Grandma still in tow (for a Grannie, she's still a bit of a track star).

We are all exhausted and ready to sleep and relax for a week.  But, back to school, hockey, laundry, and house cleaning.  We feel so blessed that we are able to be seeing so much of the world.  It feels so surreal to have been to all these places.  We have been bit by the travel bug---or maybe just the vacation bug.  Dan has already spent time planning our next trip.  I can't wait.  "The greatest adventure is what lies ahead!"

Other interesting updates:
So, we have mentioned a few times over the past few weeks that Dan's job is changing.  Things are finally official so we thought we would share the details.  Dan's company completely reorganized their global structure and the area that he was working in was dissolved.  It would have been nice to know that this was coming when we moved here a few months ago.  So this led to all the senior leaders in his area needing to take on new responsibilities.  Some got smaller pieces of the area, that was split up and some got asked to move.  Luckily, out of respect for our family and the kids stability in school, etc... we were not asked to move from Vienna.  We are pretty sure that we will be here in Vienna for at least another year.  Dan's new role is as the Director of Value Added Services for an area the company now calls the EMEA hub (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)  Now his responsibilities will range into south and sub-Saharan Africa and all of Europe in addition to the area he already was responsible for.  The organization he will be leading does not really exist yet and he has only inherited two employees.  So he is now in the process of creating a new org structure, selling it to management and recruiting the new team.  Lots of work ahead, but a good challenge and we don't have to move!