Training

A friend recently advised me to get more cardiovascular exercise as 45 minutes of CV 5 times a week is the best thing for brain health. That sounded to me like training for a marathon, so I signed up for the Vienna Marathon in December and got to work.

I did my longest run of the training plan on Saturday and now begins the "taper," the three-week period that my body recovers from all the training I've done. The marathon is on April 14. This is my 3rd marathon, but the one I have most prepared for.

Feeling better both physically and emotionally has been a huge blessing. Another benefit to the training is seeing so much of Vienna. Here's a few pictures from my runs:

Schönbrunn palace grounds

Schönbrunn

Schönbrunn palace grounds

Christmas Eve service at the Franciscan Church

Russian Orthodox church in the 3rd district

WW2 Anti-aircraft towers in the 3rd district

Prater

Riesenrad

View of Leopoldberg from Donauinsel

Donauinsel

Heavy snows on Prater Hauptallee

Gasometer

Hubertuswarte, Lainzer Tiergarten

St Stephens, Christmas Eve

Learning to Ski

We live in Austria so it would be totally remiss of us not to take the opportunity to teach the kiddos how to ski.  And every kid here knows how to ski - not an overstatement.  Kids here are zooming down the hills here as soon as they can walk.  Truly.  Since we still have a baby in the house - we had two options...
1) I could strap the baby in the baby carrier and we could ski together as a family
2) Dan and Worthy could go on their own.
Since I haven't skied since shortly after college, we opted for Option #2. Seriously, when I was last skiing helmets weren't even readily available.  And for the sanity of all involved, we opted for Dan to take the long term approach and teach only one kid each year.

Worthy did GREAT!  

He was so brave, adventurous and no complaining involved.

They capped off the time with some well-deserved hot cocoa.

Easter Markets

Ok - so they do Christmas and Easter really well here in Vienna.  It's easy to get a grumbly heart over silly cultural differences that seem to make life difficult here.  So, I try to take extra delight in the things that Vienna really excels in.  One of these is the Easter Market.  For you non-residents, get ready to ooh & aah and be jealous.  It really is more amazing than the pictures can capture and much more massive as well.  Then when jealousy takes hold, just remember that you got to have a bag boy at the grocery store and you didn't have to carry your groceries home 2 blocks :).

Every Easter I pick up an Easter Egg for each of our kids.  I didn't go last year due to an imminent birth, so maybe I shouldn't say "every".  These are traditionally hung on willow branches in your home.  

Wish you could have been there with me!

Look-a-Likes ??

I hear a lot that the boys look like each other.  I'm terrible at seeing physical details in people, but even I can tell they're brothers.  Growing up, my mom always had to ask if I liked her haircut... I'm just terrible, terrible at details like that. Anyways, here are pictures of each of them at 9 or 10 months.  I'm curious if you can tell who is who.  I'm really curious to find out if Dan can....

Answers to follow in a week or so...

Sweet Favorites

It's true - I have favorite baby clothes.

As Christian grows out of some of these, I find myself nostalgic, wistful and shocked at how quickly he's grown.  One of my favorites were these playful socks.  They were given to us as a gift when Worthy was born and for the life of me I wish I could remember who they were from! 

Hopefully you can relate to receiving a sweet gift (usually at a shower of some sort) where the gift frenzy just turns into a blur. 

 It's a confusing wonderful Blur.

Anyway, these were one such gift.
These sweet, precious, little socks. 

Too little for my little one's feet.

I tried to prolong the inevitable and he began having stretch marks around his sweet chubby ankles.

Worthy at 2 weeks old.

So long sweet socks. I've enjoyed you immensely!

A Ray of Sunshine

Yep - last week it happened.  We had a sliver or sunshine peek out.  Even more than that we had about about 2-3 days of really delightful weather.  Turn off the heaters.  Get the bike seats adjusted.  Put on fleece instead of down jackets.  Find the bike helmets.  Go to the playground.

Vienna has a lot of great playgrounds.  This isn't one of them.  However, this one is right around the corner from our house so that makes is super easy and accessible.  It's also great for a quick 30 minute playground romp. 

And because we're in Vienna... it snowed four days later.

Little Chompers

Christian has teeth and they're finally visible in a photograph.  His upper front teeth are just coming in now too, but have yet to make an appearance... except to occasionally wake him up at night.

Watch Out National Geographic

For Christmas Worthy received a camera.  I got around to downloading the pictures today and some of them just cracked me up.  It's like a brief glimpse into the mind of an 8-year old boy.

And some actual good pics...

 

It's fun to see a glimpse of what he sees

8 years later

Different Carpet

Different House

Different TV

Different Country

Different Sweet Face

Same TV Stand... with a few more scuffs and dings