I had been looking forward to taking Worthy camping for the first time, and also dreading it; whenever I've mentioned camping to him, the response was unwaveringly delivered in that post-toddler loud-and-high-pitched whine, "but III doooon't WWAAAANNNNTTT to gooooo caaammmpppiiinngggg!!!" Nevertheless, the day had to come to transition from Beilboyhood to Beilmanhood, and this lengthy Easter break provided the opportunity. Unfotunately, because I was so focused on one particular date (last night), I failed to check the weather forecast until 30 minutes before we were to leave. Rain! All night and the following day. Surely this would be 24 hours of misery!

Worthy enjoyed every minute of it! He never complained; on the contrary, he often remarked how good of a time we were having. And he loved sleeping in a sleeping bag.

We camped at Donaupark Camping Tulln, a short walk from the Danube and a short walk from the Danube, a short train ride away from Vienna.

Easter Markets

So the Christmas Markets here were pretty cool. I think the Easter ones blow them away. We really enjoyed checking out the Easter eggs on view. These are real eggs, with the yolks blown out and hand painted. They're amazing. I did not have kids with me and think they will not be allowed to go until the age of 16 or so.

Cute kids pics

Just some recent cute pics of our crazy boys...

This is Worthy's first lost tooth.

He's recently lost his 2nd bottom tooth as well.

Will - love this kid!

Calvin - peeking through the dump truck

Happy baby squeals.

Our First Visitor

This month, we had our first visitor! It was Miriam Storm, a delightful woman we've known since she was a teenager. We were thrilled to see her. We hit some sites with her - she was ever so patient with our kids (and us!). We've held off on doing much Sight Seeing around here. We figured we'd get visitors occasionally and it might be fun to experience some of those things with them. With Miriam we got to tackle two great ones. The first was Schonbrunn Gardens.

We walked the grounds, got everyone tired and finished it off with some ice cream.

The second place we visited was the Belvedere which has an amazing art collection. (No pictures... sorry)

It also houses the infamous painting by Gustav Klimt "The Kiss". The painting was much grander and beautiful than I anticipated. It definitely wasn't a disappointment like The Mona Lisa... Miriam is getting her Masters in Art History at St. Andrews (in Scotland) - so we had a very insightful "tour guide".

Random-Lite Return

OK, OK - it's been a long, long time. I'll save all the excuses and just get down to business. Here are some random pictures that I "discovered" as of late. There are many stories, updates that aren't attached to pictures, but I'll save those for later posts (they will come). Pictures help me to not be too verbose and today I'm tired and consequently not feeling so chatty :)

This is William with our downstairs neighbors. And yes... this was a couple months ago - hence the box pile behind them. Said pile is now gone :) Although we have plenty of boxes still not unpacked.

For Christmas I bought Dan tickets to the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) to see La Boheme. It was amazing.

This was during intermission, so it doesn't look packed, but it was sold out - and rightfully so. The opera was in Italian, but the libretto was on a small screen in front of us (everyone could choose their native language) so you could understand what they were singing... for us non-Opera experts.

And lastly, this is just a picture of William after dessert recently.

Ice cream bars - can't go wrong there.

Boy Oh Boy

Yesterday was beautiful! We joined our teammates at the playground near our apartments for some Fun in the Sun... yes, the Sun was out! Everyone enjoyed themselves tremendously. Stacey took these pics of the kids. She's amazing!

This is Calvin in his Stroller Cocoon which we all covet. It is so warm and cuddly and puts the Snuggi to shame.

Ice Skating lessons

So all those years of watching Figure Skating have finally come in handy. I became Worthy's ice skating teacher. We headed down to the Rathaus where they've set up an amazing Ice Skating rink. Just Worthy & Mamma - together for a little adventure.

Adjacent to this, there is a smaller rink set up where kids can learn to skate. It's a rink made of plexiglass (I think) which allows the kids to skate and the adults (in your shoes instead of skates) to assist them as they learn. They also had these great little plastic penguins that the kids could hang onto for stabilizing as they learn.

Worthy was SO brave and did a fantastic job! He took a few tough spills, but stuck it out. He was determined to get it. Midway through, we took a much-needed Kinderpunch break (Gluwein for me...).

By the end of our time he was skating around the rink (without holding onto the walls) and by the end of the day it was me who fell down and couldn't get up again.