And We're Baaaack!--The first month

Our last week in Vienna went by really fast.  We were able to get ice cream and lunch with friends for the last time, and get everything out of the apartment, and get everything left packed up.  We went out to Athene, our favorite Greek restaurant, one last time before we left.  We dropped Josh off at our friend Api's house so that he could enjoy his last two weeks in Vienna.  It was sad to go, but everyone had an air of excitement about them for a new beginning.

The flights and return home went off without a hitch.  The kids did really well on all our flights.  The rental cars were ready for us.  We made the drive to our house without getting lost.  We did realize at the airport though, that we had lost a lot of our American social graces.  We were so used to Viennese culture of not making eye contact or talking to anyone, that we must have come off as rude on more than one occasion.  It will take some getting used to, but I think we will fit back in soon.  When we arrived home, our neighbors had a bonfire for us and despite being very tired, we hung out at the fire pit, kickin' back with the neighbors and getting munched by mosquitos.  The most surreal moment for us was when I opened the oven.  I couldn't believe how big it was!  I stood there with my mouth open wide for several moments.  Dyllan and Deagan both thought it was huge, too. 

We have been welcomed home by several friends and neighbors.  We have had several lunch and dinner invitations and four cookie deliveries.  It has been so fun reacquainting with old friends.  Everyone has been very patient with our stress level and the fact that we were like zombies for the first week and a half. 

Our cats arrived home on the same evening as we did.  They got a better flight and better connection than we did, but they were still harried when they got home.  We sent them straight to the basement with their food and litter box to hang out for the evening.  I wasn't about to have them pee on my carpet in our house, just because they were mad.  The next day, they were remembering things that I didn't even remember.  They both kept meowing and heading for the laundry room.  They both wanted to be fed in there.  I thought that I had only fed them in the laundry room when Marco broke his leg.  But, I guess that I did put their food in there full time, because they both remembered that, that is where I fed them.  I think they are happy to be home.  They made themselves at home right away, and so far . . . no pee except for in the box!!!

The first several days were so stressful.  We had to buy school supplies, get carpet ordered, find painters, get kids ready for school, buy two cars, etc.  We were staying in a hotel at night but spending time at the house during the day. 

We have been working on several house projects.  We got new carpet.  We love the new carpet!  It is so much softer than the old one and the color is so much better.  It is a brown color, but not too dark.  It really changes the look of the house and makes it seem so much warmer than the white carpet did.  I did the touch up paint on all the walls.  We had a crew come in and do all the paint of the trim and doors.  The crew also painted the entire exterior of the house.  I restained the outside deck.  Dan has spent several hours fixing the hot tub.  Although we drained it and blew out the lines before we left, while we were gone, condensation filled the tub up part way and then it froze in the lines causing them to burst two manifolds and along the main hard plumbed pipes.  It has been a mess to fix and several hours, but right now, we have a hot tub that holds water!!  It should be ready for use tomorrow!  We have gone through all of the stuff that we left in the storage room here and organized it all. 

The kids started at each of their respective schools.  We have three kids in school and three schools that they are attending, with three different start times.  That was tricky to handle while living at the hotel.  It was a big stress.  The kids were tired and scatter brained.  They sometimes left everything at the house that they needed at the hotel, or left everything at the hotel that they needed for school.  Both Dane and Dyllan are required to have ipads at school and remembering to charge them everyday was a bit difficult.  We couldn't find any of our American plugs to charge them with.

We finally got our sea shipment on Friday the 28th of August.  Having our stuff here and being able to live in the house has made a huge difference.  We have been working every hour of every day trying to take care of the mess that the movers left.  They unpacked our boxes and just dumped everything in a pile.  We had piles up to our thighs in every room.  We are not looking forward to doing it all again with our permanent storage stuff.  We are very much looking forward to having a washing machine and dryer again though.  We have used the laundry mat and used the kindness of our neighbors to borrow theirs, but we would really like to have all of our stuff here.

Dan has been under a ton of stress with his new job.  He has been trying to make his family happy (and be there for all of the important stuff) as well as learn and start a whole new job at work.  He has already traveled to Kansas City, Chicago, South Bend, and Dallas.  He is worn thin, but has kept a happy face--even if we do fall asleep by 10:00pm every night.  He researched and bought two new cars for us.  I got a Toyota Sienna.  He got a Volkswagon Passat.  One night, I went to pick up Dan at the airport.  We decided to stop by the house before heading to the hotel because we had some painters there when I left.  We just wanted to lock up the house.  When we arrived, it was 11:30pm and the painters were still there.  They had another hour of work to do that night.  (They were trying to get everything done according to our schedule of when we were getting the new carpet in).  Since we had some time to kill, we decided to take Dan's new car out for a spin.  I had never been in it.  So, off we went.  We drove a few blocks and noticed a car behind us.  We didn't take much notice until we got to a roundabout and headed straight back the way we came.  On the roundabout, we realized that the car behind us was a police car.  Dan was headed back home.  The police car tailed us all the way to the neighborhood.  When Dan turned on his signal light to turn into the neighborhood, the police car turned on his lights and pulled Dan over.  Dan realized that the police car had called in for backup, as there were at least two patrol cars and maybe three.  When the police officer came to my window, he informed us that we had been pulled over because Dan had failed to signal for 200 feet before changing lanes.  Needless to say, he had nothing on us, but wanted to see what we were up to.  We explained that we were just out test driving our new car and he let us go--without a ticket.  I guess it is nice to know that the police are working so hard in our neighborhoods!  Rhonda says I need to be more careful about who I hang out with that late at night!

Just months before we were asked to leave for Austria in 2012, we were excited to learn that the church that we belong to, had decided to build a temple in Indianapolis.  When we lived here before, we used to have to drive 3 hours to Louisville, Kentucky, just to go to the temple every month.  While we were in Austria, our closest temple was in Frankfurt, Germany--an 8 hour drive.  The location that they chose for the Indianapolis temple was less than a thirty minute drive from our house.  The temple is not a place that we go to every Sunday, but a sacred place that adult members go for more learning and understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  So, we were really excited to find out, as we were preparing to move back, that our temple in Indiana had been completed and was scheduled for dedication the week after we returned.

Dane has been thrown right into things.  He got to be a part of the cultural celebration that was put on by the youth of the church here, in conjunction with the dedication of the Indianapolis temple.  It was neat for him to get to dance in it, and it was neat for us to be able to watch it!  He did a swing dance for the program which focused on the history of Indianapolis and "Gathering to the Light".  It was a nice program and cool to have President Eyring and Elder Ballard here from the quorum of the twelve apostles.  Everyone except for Danyon was able to go to a session of the dedication of the temple.  What an exciting time to just be getting back to Indy!  It has been a spiritual experience for us. 


Dane is in three excellerated classes at school.  He is also on the cross country team.  They practice 5 days a week and have already had their first meet.  Dane didn't do as well as we had hoped, but we will just chalk it up to getting used to the humidity.  Dane has also started taking Saxophone lessons from a teacher at the school.  Those, so far, are going well.  It was a rough first couple of weeks of school, trying to get organized and into a routine, but I think that we are there.  He will just have to keep plugging away at it. 

Dyllan has started off really well in school.  I think that her teachers are perfect for her.  She has already come home with two tests of 100 percent.  Way to go, Dyllan!  She is starting piano lessons and swimming next week.  She would like to try out for the show choir.  We will see how that goes.  I hope that she can keep up the good work.  She has been such a big help around the house, as well.  Dan and I decided to reward her for all of her hard work.  I took her to Disney on Ice--Frozen.  It was a fun date night for just she and I.  We enjoyed the show and had a great time with friends.

Deagan is doing well.  He gets an extra hour of sleep every morning than everyone else.  That seems to help him a lot.  He has been doing much better at home.  His school work is coming along.  He has to work hard in school.  He has told me that he has missed recess about three times to work on assignments that he did not get done.  I think that focusing on his work will be a challenge for him, but easier as we get into a routine.  He will start cub scouts, piano lessons, and hockey very soon.  He is excited to be back.  His teacher is new to the school and we haven't heard anything from her, so I guess things are going well.

Danyon has spent the last little while trying to get rid of his afternoon nap.  He has been very chill with me at the house.  He hung out with me with nothing in the house for two weeks.  He was excited to get some furniture.  He didn't care about his bed, as he rarely sleeps in it anyway.  He is loving the soft carpet.  Without his naps, he is ready for bed at about 7:30 or 8:00.  We have new couches and he loves to spend the afternoon snuggling in a chair reading books.  It hasn't happened as often as I'd like, but I think that once we get all settled with all our stuff, it will be easier to get back into our routines as well. 

Everyone seems to be making the adjustment quite well.  It helps so much to be able to speak the language, know where grocery and hardware stores are, have parking lots, and lived in the exact same house before.  I'd like to say that, that has helped the transition go much smoother, but it hasn't been as fast as I thought.  We have been through every room in the house organizing, hanging pictures and curtains, and cleaning.  I'm frustrated that we will have to do it all again once our permanent storage gets here.  We have already been at it non stop for a week.  But, it will eventually all get here and organized. Then I can start to focus on getting ready for the holidays and returning all the favors that people have done for us.  They say that it is not good to always be looking at things with the attitude of, "I will be happy once . . . "  It seems that we have all had that outlook on life all summer.  We're just waiting for everything to finally be done.  Then we can sit back, relax, take a deep breath, and focus on life again.   We are taking time to enjoy the fun parts of life while we wait, and we are not so naïve to think that everything will be perfect once our storage gets here, but it will be a good feeling knowing that we are all done with the move and we are fully settled and back in Indiana.

The Final Countdown

Boo, hoo, hoo!  Today was our last day at our church here in Vienna.  It was a sad day.  We have been in denial for quite some time, and we are so excited for the move, that we haven't had time to really think about leaving everyone here and the friends we have made.  Today made it seem oh, so real, but we made it through it, and are on to our final week in Vienna.

Our last two weeks have been just getting organized and ready for the move.  We sold a lot of our stuff that we left behind.  It is surprising how much work it is to sell stuff--even after it is listed.  We wrote a master listing of all the stuff we had left.  Then we sent emails out to anyone who might be interested in any of it.  The emails and phone calls started coming in and we were blessed to be able to sell a lot of it.  But to get all the stuff into piles for people, getting it all cleaned up and presentable for sale, remembering how much we listed everything at, etc., takes a lot of time and work.  As of right now, we have 80 percent of the stuff gone.  We still have about 10 percent left at the house that will be gone by Wednesday.  We have 3 items that we haven't sold yet:  the couch, the treadmill, and the washing machine.  Luckily, that means I can do one more load of laundry before we leave.

Dan and I were able to head (alone) down to Venice for the weekend.  Josh and the kids had a great time at home.  They were happy to not have jobs to do during the day.  Dan and I left Thursday afternoon.  We drove the 6 hours to Padova (Padua).  We checked in to our hotel and had a nice dinner at the restaurant there.  Friday morning we woke up early.  We had to walk half a block to the bus station.  We took the bus into downtown Venice.  It only took 30 minutes and was stress free.  It only cost us 4 Euro to get there and parking at the hotel was free.  We would highly recommend anyone headed there to do the same.  The hotel in Padova was also half the price of Venice!  Venice was wonderful, again.  We walked around and found all kinds of neat shops and sights.  We ate the best street food in Venice.  Dan had fried calamari and shrimp with fried polenta.  I had fried/battered vegetables over a polenta (grits style).  It was really yummy.  We ate all kinds of Italian food and thoroughly enjoyed the entire day.  We picked up little souvenirs that we wished we had bought on our earlier trip.  That night, after getting back to Padova, I found raised welts and a red rash all over my legs.  It happened to me the last time we were in Venice.  So, I think that my days in Venice are over.  I am allergic to something there.  After taking an allergy pill, Dan and I headed into downtown Padova.  We found another street vendor with food to die for (according to Dan).  It was all seafood.  Dan bought a huge octopus.  They sliced it up, put on their special sauce, and served it bread.  He said it was sooooooo good!  I had a sandwich that was horrible--you can't win them all.  We had gelato, of course, and it was sooooo good, so that made up for it. 

The next day, we decided to stay out of Venice.  Dan found a church that we needed to go see.  We finally found our way into this church.  They only let 25 people in at a time.  You sit and watch a video while the air pressure in the church is equalized.  Then they let you go see the chapel.  The church was painted by Giotto between 1303 and 1305.  It is amazingly preserved considering all that has happened in the world since.  The paintings are really good for his time.  He could paint in 3 dimensions using only color.  It was really cool to see. 




The rest of the day we just wandered around more of downtown Padova.  Just before lunch we headed home.  And in perfect Italian-ness, the freeway was closed and they made us travel several hundred kilometers out of our way and pay more tolls than we should have.  But, we eventually made it home.  Dan and I loved our time away.  It was so nice to be able to talk and sort through a lot of different things that we hadn't had a chance to talk about before with all the stress from the move.  It was perfect to get away from it all, when we couldn't be distracted by anything at the house or from work. 

Dan went to the U.S. for one last time before we land back home.  He tried to get everything at the house ready for us to move back in.  He got cell phones for us so that we are ready to hit the ground running on Monday.  Dan was excited to find a cell phone company that offered unlimited minutes, text, and tons of data on 4 phones to the US, Canada, and Mexico.  We are excited to be able to keep in better touch with all family in the US and Canada, as well as keep in slight touch when we are on our vacations.  The kids are all signed up for school.  Dane just has to take one math test before he can be put into a class.  He gets one more day off school than the other kids.  I made up for it though, by scheduling a sports physical for him on Monday.  Dan talked to multiple carpet companies, multiple painters, changed toilet seats, finalized the last days with the renters, and still managed to put in full days of work with all day meetings during the day.

The kids, Josh, and I worked on smaller projects at home here.  We got rooms cleaned out, we got the oven cleaned, the fridge defrosted and cleaned, more stuff sold, laundry done, swimming, swimming, German lessons, and more swimming.

The best news of the two weeks was that we had a baptism this week!!!  Deagan turned 8 years old on Saturday.  He decided to get baptized in Vienna.  Dane and Josh got to speak at his baptism.  Dyllan and Danyon were able to say prayers.  Dan was able to do the baptism and confirmation.  I led the music and made the video.  It was a neat baptism and Nelly, the German tutor, was able to come.  It was a nice afternoon.

That evening, Deagan wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner.  We stopped and got some food for a picnic.  We had a picnic in our backyard by the pool.  We swam for a while.  In the middle of the party, we had some friends come over and pick up some of our stuff.  Once we got them taken care of, we were able to open presents.  Deagan loves his new Nintendo DS.  We will definitely have to limit use once school starts.  Then we ate cupcakes.  Deagan got to choose his cupcakes that we just doubled up to make treats for the baptism as well.  We made 60 cupcakes and took most to the baptism.  When Dan told me to stock the fridge one last time, I don't think he meant with cupcakes, but that is what happened.  Deagan didn't have a huge choice on the cupcakes, as I don't have any of my decorating stuff, but considering what we did have, I think they turned out well.  Everyone ate them.  Most people ate two!  There was even enough for everyone to have one for breakfast on Sunday morning.  Having 60 cupcakes sitting around the house for two days was really hard for the three year old in the house.  He was always asking for cupcakes.  We were finally at the baptism and I told him that he could finally eat one after the meeting was over.  I helped Danyon say the closing prayer, asking for a blessing on the refreshments.  As soon as he said, "Amen", he quickly added, "cupcakes!" and ran for the door.  It was pretty funny, especially since he didn't even eat the cake.  He only licked the frosting off the top.

Wrapping Up--Die letzte wochen

Boy, did Dyllan have a great birthday!  She wanted to have a swimming party with some friends from church.  We decided to combine Dyllan and Danyon's birthdays.  We invited everyone over on Danyon's birthday and we swam all afternoon/evening.  We fed everyone hot dogs, chips, and watermelon.  We had 6 families over and we had a great time. We counted 15 kids and 2 adults in the pool at the peak of the action.  I made Dyllan a pink crocodile cake.  Danyon asked for ice cream, so we had ice cream sundaes for him.  

It wasn't all play this week though.  We spent all our days going through rooms, making sure that everything in them was something that we wanted to take back with us.  This is a huge job.  I'm so glad that Dan was here to help.  I wouldn't have gotten it all done otherwise.  Also, having Josh here was a huge help.  He started working on the floors and then helped to sort through the toy room and the whole upstairs.  So far, this is turning out to be a much smoother move than the last one.  The stress level is still high, but manageable.

Danyon found the cinnamon
 shaker and spilled its contents.
 Then he tried the good
 smelling cinnamon.
 Oh how it burned.

 On Thursday, we were told that the movers would be coming on Monday.  Panic set in, and we were really worried because we had a birthday party, and we also had a weekend trip to Prague scheduled.  We couldn't cancel the reservation at that point.  We worked really hard, and we got everything that we could done. 

Then, off to Prague we went.  It ended up being a great thing.  We were out of the stress of the house and couldn't worry or do anything about it.  We enjoyed Prague.  The kids most favorite thing was to go to the Mexican restaurant.  It was sooo good, that we went for dinner on Friday, and again for lunch on Saturday.  They were happy to see us for the second time, too.  Deagan and I loved the cactus nachos.  We walked the streets and hit the major sites for Josh to see.  We were able to find some fun souvenirs.  We found a hockey player marionette, some amber cuff links, a team Canada hockey matroshka (Russian stacking dolls) and a garnet ring.  The kids had a great time at the salon.  They all wanted to try the fish tank.  This is where you put your feet in the fish tank, and then the fish nibble all of the bad skin off your feet.  They all sat there for 25 minutes getting munched on.  Apparently, it tickles, but it is worth it.  Josh had the most delicious feet of the whole crew.  The fish were on him like a fat kid on chocolate. 

We just wandered around the whole city again on Saturday.  We loved it.  The whole city feels like a fairy tale city.  The architecture of the buildings and the painting on the buildings make the whole town feel neat.  Finally, our time had come to an end, and we headed home.  We ended up packing our suitcases on Sunday.  The company had decided to bring the movers so early because it will take about 7-9 weeks, just to get our stuff across the Atlantic and back to Indiana.  They thought that it would be better to have no furniture here for a few weeks, so that we could get our furniture back into our house earlier in Indiana and we wouldn't have to spend too long in a hotel on that side.

Monday morning, the movers showed up at 8:30am, ready to go.  They stayed each day until about 4:00.  It took them 3 days to get the house all packed up.  Dan answered all the questions, and I had the harder job of keeping the kids busy and out of the way.  We watched movies, went swimming, and the kids had a German lesson.  Josh even got Danyon to go into the pool.  The temperature here has been very hot.  Having the doors open all day and the air conditioner off was not pleasant--and I wasn't the one working and packing.  The movers had to pack a few boxes, load up a smaller truck, then take all the boxes to their warehouse.  Then they came back to pack more boxes.  A big truck won't fit on our street, so they had to do it all in installments.  By Wednesday, our house was empty.  It was back to echoes and stark white walls.  We decided to leave our couch here, as it is very big and looking a little beat up. We will get a new couch in Indiana.  So, we had one couch to sit on and sleep on for that night.  Thursday, we had rental furniture coming, so we weren't out of beds for too long. 

With the rental furniture, life here is very bearable and even enjoyable.  It does seem a little empty, but Dan is really enjoying the simplified life.  I'll have to go through everything in our U.S. storage and get rid of a lot more stuff.  I figure that if you can live without it for 3 years, you can probably survive without it all together.  Dan did miss his tools, but I'll have to see what else we put in storage, and see if we really need it!

Josh and I have been working on the floors.  There are still more floors to clean, the walls to touch up, and the windows to wash.  There will be other minor cleaning and a few more trips to the dump, but I think that things are pretty well under control.  I think that by the end of this week, we should be able to slow down and enjoy the last two weeks of summer.

Dan has been trying to get everything ready for us in the house in Indiana.  I've tried calling and emailing the school.  I still haven't heard back from them.  We've switched all the utilities over and are doing all the little projects to get things ready to go.  I can't believe how fast all of this is happening.  We are getting very excited to get back and to get on with life.  I am looking forward to having a routine again.  We are the most excited to get back in more regular touch with friends and family.  Having a closer time zone will help immensely. 

After getting all the moving taken care of, we were too late to book a trip for the weekend.  We decided to celebrate by going to downtown Vienna.  We ate schnitzel at Figlmuller for the last time.  We walked downtown and had ice cream at Zanoni and Zanoni for maybe, the last time.  We tried to enjoy all we could.


  Then on Saturday, we headed down south of Vienna for a hike that Dan's colleague, Ferdinand, had recommended.  We hiked in beautiful woods for awhile, then found the climbing playground for the Viennese.  There were several great climbing routes and we got to boulder around a bit.  We wished we had found it earlier.  After that, we headed to Baden--Vienna's elite playground.  We had lunch at a good Italian place that Dan had been to before and loved.  Then we headed to the Liechtenstein castle, just outside of Vienna.  This is the original family castle of the Liechtenstein clan.  They still own the castle here, but choose to live in their castle in their country.  We took the tour, and it was pretty cool.  This is the castle where The 3 Musketeers and Robin Hood was filmed.  It made me want to watch the movies again, just to see if I could recognize the castle.  After that long day, everyone had had enough.  We were all ready to head back home.

Schools out for summer! – Wochen 18-19 and then several more wochen

Schools over!  Woohoo! Today Dane is writing the blog. School finished on Friday with a half day! But I know you guys probably don’t care so let’s go back to two weeks ago. On Monday dad left for Barcelona for work. So he was gone the whole week. While he was gone I had a concert for band.  My favorite song was “The Pink Panther”.   Not much else happened that week except for on Friday.

On Friday, Grandma Baker got here.  On her first day here, she was holding Danyon on her lap.  When Danyon looked up, she looked down at the same time.  Danyon's head collided with her eye.  Yep, Danyon gave grandma a shiner on her first day here.  While Grandma was catching up on much needed sleep, we were finishing up our last full Friday of school.  Dad came back on Saturday,  but then left again for Brussels.  Then last Tuesday,  I had a poetry reading and a sports banquet.  We didn’t know what to expect for the sports banquet.  Mom thought that a nice dinner would be served as per the name “banquet”.  However, when we got there, they had bleachers set up and a couple of tables lined with slices of pizza on napkins and juice.  Although this was different from what we had anticipated, we were happy to be fed anyway.  At  the sports banquet,  I got 2 medals for participating in soccer and track and field.  I also got the medal for MIP ( Most Improved Player) in track and field.  This was quite an honor for me, as the coach had a healthy team with over  25 players to choose from.  At the Poetry nigh,t all the 7^th graders had to share a poem.  It wasn’t my favorite thing to do on a Tuesday.  I almost started my poem off with a family favorite, “I love Uranus”, but at the last minute decided to do an original.   Dyllan and Deagan both had picnics at the school.  Dyllan’s picnic included a hike and lots of free time.  Mom went with grandma and they brought the stroller, but they had to push it over the river and through the woods, if you know what I mean.  All the way to grandmother’s house.  Oh wait, apparently just around in a circle.  And to top off the great hike, mom somehow lost the hardware to one of the stroller wheels.  It’s a miracle that the wheel didn’t come off and they would have had to wait for road side assistance.  Danyon was unwilling to walk.   Deagan’s picnic included playing all day.  Nothing much happened until Friday with the last Friday of school.  It was a half day and all we did was party. That night mom and dad and grandma went to a restaurant called Plachute. It was very good, and it is very famous. That was our week!



Danyon's thoughts on Raclette

It is amazing how one little phone call can change your life.  We were just getting used to our surroundings.  The thought of staying in Vienna excited us.  And I guess, with those thoughts, our chances of getting to do just that, diminished.  Just before leaving on our vacation, Dan received a phone call asking him to return back to Indiana.  When the CEO calls and tells you he needs you back in the U.S. now, you don’t have much choice or bargaining power.  So all of our thoughts came tumbling down, and we have spent the past few weeks trying to get over the shock and excitement and have spent a couple of weeks still reeling from the news, and the rest, trying to build a new picture of a future for our family.

 

We still got to go on our Family Summer Vacation.  It was a bitter/sweet vacation.  We were sad that it was our last family European trip, but excited to be at new places and especially excited that we got to spend time with Grandma.

 

We flew to London.  We decided to spend a couple days here, because Grandma had never been.  We started her out with the Tower of London.  And since our family had already been to the Tower of London, our family went on an amphibious car tour of the city.  It was cool to see everything again, but the highlight was definitely driving right into the river Thames and not sinking.  Our vehicle was one of the original amphibious vehicles that was used to storm the beaches of France in the second World War.  They put a roof on them to keep the sun off and added more comfortable seats for the tourists, but we all thought it was cool to ride in a piece of history.  

From there, we headed to Deptford.  This is where the White Swan pub/hotel  is located.  The White Swan was either owned or run by Dan’s Great Great Grandfather.  He has a picture of him in front of the pub with his wife and Dan’s great grandmother hanging out of the window of the hotel.  Dan’s great great grandfather needed to leave London because of his health.  He was told to go where the air quality was better—the U.S. or Australia.  He chose the U.S. and was upset that he didn’t get on the very luxurious liner, The Titanic.  He instead got on a sister ship that sailed at approximately the same time.  Their ship also hit an iceberg and was unable to assist the Titanic calling for help.  As it was, they crippled into the nearest port—Halifax.  Thus, Dan’s family became Canadian, instead of American.  –To which Dan exclaims, “Yahoo, eh”.  At any rate, we were excited to find this piece of family history.  Some of the outside is very much the same.  Some has been changed through time.  The current owners are in the process of renovating it, so it was in construction mess when we got there.   After we had worn out our welcome (kids were in the middle of a still functioning bar—but one regular, drunk as a skunk, at 11:00am, thought it was great and told the kids to step right up and order a drink.  He even went to the store next door and bought each of the kids a bag of cheese puffs) we decided to head back into the downtown.  Of course, we ate fish and chips (by we, I mean Grandma and Dan) and I’m sure that was great.  (I know my burger was.)   The pub was called “Hung, Drawn, and Quartered” which we felt was aptly named after we received our bill of 150 Euros for 7 people to each lunch.  Grandma had offered to buy lunch.  Lucky her.

I offered to stay at the apartment with Danyon while Dan, Grandma and the kids went to “Wicked” in the West End as part of Dan’s Father’s Day gift.  I caught up on laundry and hung out with Danyon, enjoying English T.V.  I think that Dan and the kids had a great time.  They were all pretty exhausted when they got home.

 

The next day, Dan took his mom out seeing the rest of the important sights of the city.  They saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the changing of the guard.  The kids and I slept in and enjoyed a relaxing morning.  On the way back to the apartment, Dan was walking on the sidewalk and suddenly, something hit him from behind.  He turned to see what it was, and discovered that he had just been hit by a bus—literally.  He managed to stay on his feet and didn’t make a big scene of it, because we had a big surprise for the kids planned for the afternoon, but he was really, really sore, bruised, and wanting attention for several days.  I guess I can’t blame him.  I would have reacted the same way, if I was hit by a bus. 

 

So instead of a huge settlement, we headed to Northwest greater London.  We took the kids to the Harry Potter film studios.  It was so cool to see the actual sets that they used for the films.  We entered the Great Hall (although, it doesn’t seem as big as it did in the movies).  We played with wands and saw people riding on broomsticks.  Dane and Dyllan were so excited that they kept getting further and further ahead of us.  We eventually lost them, and spent a lot of time just trying to find them again.  We did manage to see the Hogwarts Express, meet Dobby and Buckbeak.  We walked along the street of Diagon Alley.  Everything seemed smaller than what it looked in the movie—except for the creatures.  We rode on Hagrid’s motorcycle.  We enjoyed a cup of butterbeer.  The final room was the big reveal of Hogwarts.  It was really cool to see it.  The funniest quote of the day was from Dyllan:  “Don’t bother taking pictures of this one mom.  It’s not the real one.  This one is much too small for the people to fit in.”  I told Dyllan that this was, indeed, the real Hogwarts.  They just filmed it on the green screen to make it look bigger.  She was still unconvinced and would not believe me.  I think that in the end, she finally understood how the filming process was done, but she still has a hard time believing that those actors were shrunken and put into the castle.

 

The next day, we made our way, by bus to Southampton.  We boarded our boat, Explorer of the Seas.  We were so excited to get to more of our vacation.  We had a day and a half at sea.  We played mini golf, went surfing, body boarding, ice skating, and ate and ate and ate.  Dan went to an art auction.  I went to a card making class.  Dyllan and Deagan enjoyed the kids club.  Grandma enjoyed watching the kids do their activities and sneaking ice cream from deck 11.   Life on the boat was fun.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Our first port was Vigo, Spain.  We decided to go to the beach that day.  We walked to the beach.  We had no chairs, just towels.  We sat down and let the kids play in the surf and sand.  Danyon didn’t want to have anything to do with the water.  I walked him down to the water, and he cried and cried.  He wouldn’t go in.  So we just left him to play in the sand.  He was very content there.  The other kids had a great time all day.  We headed back to the ship fully sunned and sanded.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  We had another day at sea before getting to our next stop.

 

We landed in Agadir, Morocco.  The kids loved Morocco so much last year, that we decided to go again.  We went to a different city and went on a ship run excursion.  We got to see the city, acrobats, horse racers, a snake charmer, a local market the beach and other assorted scenery.  This city seemed fairly new, as it had been completely destroyed in 1960.  It was a pleasant day.

Next we went to Lanzarote, Canary Islands.  This island was very volcanic and desolate.  We rented a car and headed out to the Mountains of Fire National Park.  We rode on a bus all around the area seeing all kinds of volcanoes and lava rock.  This island was where Planet of the Apes was filmed.  We also saw the guide put some weeds in a hole in the ground and within seconds it was a flame with the heat from the ground.  I imagine there are probably several hot spots, and that is why you take a bus around the area, not just free hiking.  They also have some holes that they pour water down them and they shoot up like geysers.  It is pretty cool to see.  If you hang around long enough, you can even eat food that is cooked by the heat of the earth.  We didn’t have the time.  Instead we went down the road, and found a camel train.  We decided to ride the camels.  The camels had a wooden saddle that had a seat on either side of its hump.  Two people could ride the camel.  It was really cool to be riding a camel through the desert, but I don’t think I would have lasted very long or even across the desert.  Good thing that I wasn’t one of the Wise Men.  I wouldn’t have ever made it.  We found a grocery store, the beach and some cool stores to explore.  It was a great day!

On to Las Palmas, Grand Canaria.  We heard that the beaches here were the best.  We just headed straight there—riding in style.  Grandma paid for us to ride in a horse carriage all the way to the ocean.  We rented some beach chairs and an umbrella and we set up our spot.  The kids played all day.  Danyon, again, would not go in the water.  I guess I have little chance that Danyon will drown, unless, he never learns to swim.  When we were sufficiently fried, we headed back to the boat, but not before Dan had a chance to get his hair cut at the local salon.  Dan also had to work on some details of our relocation this day, so he was a little more stressed then the rest of us.

The next day, brought another Canary Island, Tenerife.  We hired a taxi to take us to the famous Loro Parque.  This park is very much like Sea World.  The grounds were beautiful and miraculously, we managed to make it to every one of the shows.  The kids loved the dolphin show.  They were amazed that they could jump so high.  Next was the Orca show.  They don’t have Shamu, but they do have some pretty cool whales.  By the time we got there, the only seats left for us to sit was in the Splash Zone.  Everyone was up for getting a little wet.  When the whale came by and flapped his fins in the water at us, all of us were completely drenched, camera included.  We were even holding up beach towels, but still managed to get soaked.  Danyon did not like it.  He screamed so much that we had to move down the row to the very edge so that we didn’t get wet again.  We dried out a bit while watching the sea lion show and even made it to the bird show before we had to leave to meet the taxi driver.  We loved it.  We still had time to walk around the downtown to do some souvenir shopping. 

The next day we were in Madera, Portugal.  This island has no beaches.  It sounds weird, but the rocky formations are such that there are not any beaches around the entire island.  This is the birthplace of Ronaldo, arguably the best soccer player in the world.  We walked around town, took pictures with the Ronaldo statue, shopped, and found a place that served the local food.  The tradition on Madera is to use garlic and more garlic.  We tried the tomato soup.  It had tomatos, onions, and yes, garlic.  It was very tasty.  Dan and Grandma tried the Esperada—and ugly black fish with garlic.  I tried the Espertada—beef cooked on a bay skewer with lots of garlic.  The food was great!  We had a great time.  We were pretty tired because we had so many port days all in a row.  We were ready to slow things down again.  Luckily, the next day was a day at sea. 

Our final port was La Coruna, Spain.  We went to the beach for one last day.  This beach was rocky and hard on the feet.  Dan and I left Grandma and headed into town to do a little more shopping.  By the time we got back, everyone was pretty much ready just to head back to the boat.  We are getting to be a very spoiled bunch.  That beach was just too rocky and we didn’t have any lounge chairs.  We had one final day of fun, food, and relaxation back on board the ship before reality set back in.  Before we knew it, we were headed back to the airport and then to Vienna. 

 

Our dryer broke the night before we left and we were hoping that the people house sitting would be able to get the repairman here to fix it before we got back.  We had no such luck, and we were doing load after load of laundry all while having to dry it on the rack.  It just seemed to take forever.  In fact, I just yesterday, finally got caught up on all the laundry we had. 

 

We had to say good-bye to Grandma.  It was hard to do, because it was the last time she would be in Vienna.  She got off alright, but in her haste to get everything she had left on previous trips, she managed to leave behind all of her treats that she had bought for everyone back home.  I’m sure she was very sad when she found out.  Well, at least, some of her grandkids got to enjoy them!

 

We weren’t too sad for too long because we had more visitors coming.  Dan left for Russia the same day Grandma left.  He had a good trip, but again it was sad, because it was his last trip to Russia, for a long time, we assume.  Just as his brain had switched to Russian, he was on another plane back to Vienna.  He speaks great Grussian.  On the way to the airport to get to Russia, he spoke German the entire time to his taxi driver.  On the way home, he had the same taxi driver, but couldn’t seem to put a full German sentence together.  I’m sure the driver  thought he was drunk or otherwise incapacitated. 

 

While he was away, oh how the mice did play!  My sister Lisa, and my nephew, Josh, arrived in Vienna.  We picked them up and brought them back home.  We visited and had a great time.  It was so good to see Lisa.  Because of the time difference and work schedules, we haven’t really talked for a couple of years.  We had a lot of catching up to do!  The next day, we packed up and headed to Salzburg.  We wanted to show Lisa and Josh as much of Austria as we could.  We went to the Marionette theater and saw “The Sound of Music”.  It was great!  The next day, we went on “The Sound of Music” bike tour.  We enjoyed the bike tour so much before, that we decided to do it again.  We had no rain this time, so no mud in the mouth for Deagan.  Deagan and I were on the tandem bike.  Dan had Danyon in the trailer.  They also added a canal swim to the tour.  We got to jump into the canal—which had freezing water in it.  The guide failed to mention that the cold would take our breath away.  But we all managed to jump in fully clothed, as we were not wearing swimming suits to go on the bike ride—except for Danyon who opted to stay in his trailer.  The refreshing canal was great, but it did take a long time to finally dry off.

 

From there, we headed to St. Wolfgang See.  We love this little town.  We wandered around all the little shops.  We bought some souvenirs.  We stopped and sat along the banks of the lake.  The kids all jumped in and had a swim.  It is so pretty in this little town. 

 

On we went to find our hotel in Obertraun.  We got up the next morning and headed straight for the Salt mine.  Danyon was not able to go on the tour, so I stayed back and had to be stuck wandering the streets of Hallstadt while we waited for the rest of the crew to get back from the salt mine.  It was a terrible view, but I guess, someone had to do it.  The salt mine was very salty, so they said.  They came back with salty souvenirs.  Then we walked the streets of Hallstadt and stopped at the Bone House.  We wandered back to our car and headed back to Obertraun.  We headed up the mountain by cable car to go to the Ice Cave.  This ice cave was hard to get to.  It was very hot outside, and we had to hike up to the cave opening.  Dan had Danyon in the backpack on his back, and he was really having trouble.  We were not prepared with enough water.  But, we made it.  We cooled off in the cave.  It was cool to see, but the other one we had been to a year ago was a little cooler.  Then we headed further up the mountain by cable car and had to hike again to the Five Fingers Overlook.  The view was amazing and it was pretty cool to be standing that high up with just plexi-glass under our feet.  They also had a diving board that extended out past the railing, but, don’t worry, they had a sign posted that said, don’t go out on the diving board.  We tried to tell Josh, but he insisted on going out there.  We told the paragliders to catch him if he fell.  We headed back down the mountain via cable car, not via jumping, and we were safely back to the car and headed home.

Just to make the vacation complete, Danyon puked all over himself and his car seat on the way home.  Luckily, Josh and Lisa were the ones who had to share the row of seats with him.  Monday, we headed down to the Zotter Chocolate Factory one more time before leaving.  Lisa and Josh were kind of wusses, as they couldn’t hold their chocolate.  The rest of us, however, are well seasoned and we could handle all the chocolate without any trouble at all.  After rolling out of the factory, we decided to burn some calories by walking around the farm.  All the kids insisted on going down the slide (Dan warned all of them that it was too hot and they would all get burned).  Not one of them listened to Dan, and all of them did, indeed, get burned.  Maybe Dad does know what he’s talking about sometimes.  For a refreshing finish to the day, we went to Loipersdorf and to the hot springs.  We swam and went on the slides and the wave pool.  We even went to the hot tub and then to the cold pool.  It was all a lot of fun, but was too hot to try the saunas there.  So, Lisa and Josh did not fully get the cultural experience of textile frei saunas.

 

The next day, I took Lisa and Josh on the walking tour of Vienna.  We stopped for ice cream, saw the Manner store, the Stephel, walked on the Graben, had a lemon tart from Demel, and up to Michaeler Platz.  We saw the Lippizaner horses.  We saw more churches and then saw Sisi in the People’s garden.  We walked by the Rathaus and then headed for home.  We were very tired and hot.  That night we drove up through the Vienna Woods to Kahlenberg and saw the view of the city by night.

 

Wednesday was Lisa’s last day before heading home, so we took her to several stores to do some souvenir shopping.  It has been a long time since I have shopped all day and literally shopped till I dropped.  It was fun and we had a great time.

 

Thursday, we sent Lisa on her way home.  She had a good 24+ hour journey home.  We were glad we were sending her and not going ourselves.  On the way home from the airport, we had an exciting experience.  We were stopped at a traffic light in Vienna.  All of a sudden, a car drove to the curb on our right to park his car.  Three teenage boys jumped out.  Meanwhile, another car pulled up in front of the first car, blocking him in at the curb.  Then two guys got out with guns pulled and aimed at the people in the car and the boys.  The driver of the second car got out and aimed his gun at the driver of the first car and was yelling something at him.  The passenger in the second car had his gun out and was running after the teenage boys.  He caught one and brought him back to the car and laid him out on the hood and had his gun pointed at him.  All of it happened so fast, and once I saw the first gun, my eyes stayed glued on the first gun, just to make sure that it wasn’t pointed in my direction.  It never was, but if it had been, I would have been dead before I knew it.  We didn’t know if these people were gang members or unmarked, plain clothes police officers.  After reflecting on it, and combining what I saw, with what Dan and Josh saw, we highly suspect that these were police officers—by the way that the second guy was pushed onto the hood of the car.  Also, Dan noticed that the guns were out, pointed at people, but the trigger finger was never on the trigger.  Anyway, it was enough to get the adrenaline going and both Dan and I were shaking for several blocks.  Nothing like this has ever happened to us in Vienna.  It felt weird and scary.  Hopefully next time, I will duck first when I see a gun—especially if I’m not driving!

 

We put all that adrenaline to good use.  We got home and started to do a thorough clean of the house.  It had been a long time since the cleaning had been done.  It took us most of the day, but the kids were still able to enjoy the pool and to have some free time. 

 

We have been working on things for the move every day.  We have taken the cats into the vet, so they are ready to travel.  We have called the school to get the proper discharge papers for the school here.  I have also called the new school but got them on their off hours.  I will try again next week.  Every day, we are working on all the little projects and things that have to be organized.  We also cleaned out the basement and storage room.  It is organized and ready to go.  It is much easier doing this knowing what to expect.  It also is a huge help to have Dan’s help.  I’m glad that he didn’t leave me to do all of this on my own this time.  It’s making it much more enjoyable—even if it can’t be much less stressful.