Easter Holiday

Easter is a huge holiday in Austria. The kids get 7 days off of school! That's right, not one, but 7! With all of the time off of school, it was a great time to have a visit from my parents. They got here last Saturday and left yesterday. We got to do some traveling while they were here, which was a lot of fun. We started the trip with a 5 hour car ride to Rijeka, Croatia. Rijeka is on the coast of Croatia and our hotel was right on the water, so it was very beautiful. The kids loved running around the beach of the hotel.

The next day, we went to a castle. Carli pretended that she was a Princess and her brothers were Princes. I guess that makes Josh and I the King and Queen. We enjoyed hot chocolate and coffee in a little shop at the castle, which was much needed on a cold, rainy day.

We then got back in the car and drove another 5 hours to Budapest, Hungary. We were so excited to see a Pizza Hut on every street corner (although we never actually ate any). Budapest was a beautiful city with lots of great shopping! We went to two different malls- one with over 400 stores! We went to an authentic Hungarian restaurant that served some pretty unusual food and my mom and Josh and I actually took a bite of a goose liver! (Only so we wouldn't offend our Hungarian host)! The evening was very fun and it was good to have a taste of another culture.
Then we drove another 3 hours back to Vienna. On Friday, we wanted my parents to meet our Austrian friends, so we met them at Schoenbrunn Palace. We wanted to go to the zoo, but it was a little too cold, so we went to a desert zoo that was much smaller, but very warm. The kids loved seeing the lizards and running around the gardens. We then went to an Easter market that was right in front of the palace. There were tons of beautiful hand-painted eggs and decorations. It was a lot of fun.

We had a great Easter holiday with my parents. We are blessed in so many ways, and so thankful for all that God continues to provide.

Happy Easter!

We have had a fun Easter. The kids woke up and searched the house for a giant egg that had their name on it and it was full of sweets. We had rabbit-shaped pancakes for breakfast and then we went to church at Inzersdorf. We enjoyed lunch with the Lockwoods and Rushers and the kids enjoyed the Easter egg hunt (although Zaden is still a little too young to be excited about eggs). We hope you had a great Easter too!

Forgetful Tooth Fairy

Carli lost her 4th tooth the other day. She can no longer eat full apples or pears anymore. We cut up a lot of food for her right now, although she is really enjoying slurping up the spaghetti between the gap.

When I lost a tooth growing up, I would always put it under my pillow at night. The next morning I would immediatley look under my pillow to find that the tooth fairy had come in the night and taken my tooth and replaced it with money. I don't ever remember a time where there was not money under my pillow the next morning. That would have been horrible- right?

Well, I guess the tooth fairies in Colorado were more on top of things then the tooth fairies in Vienna. This tooth fairy forgot!

Instead of Carli putting her tooth under her pillow, she has a cute little box that she puts it in and then lets out a little sign that lets the tooth fairy know that there is a tooth in the box. Well, Carli did her part, but the next morning she woke up to find no money in her box. She came downstairs to our room, in tears saying that the tooth fairy took the tooth, but didn't leave any money. My heart sank.

Then I got to thinking... Did she just say that the tooth was gone? Well, who took the tooth?

She said that she was going to go downstairs and look around for the tooth (like maybe she somehow forgot to put it in the box) so I took that opportunity to sprint up the stairs to her room and place a Euro underneath the box! (Sneaky, huh?) I ran back downstairs and jumped back into bed. She came back into our room and said that she didn't find the tooth downstairs. I told her to go back up and look around the box (knowing that she would find the money under the box and everything would be ok). She went to her room and in no time at all, she was running back to our room saying "I know what happened!!" (I smiled my sly "tooth fairy" smile). "Before I went to sleep last night, I took my tooth out of the box and was trying to see if I could get it to stick back into my gums where it fell out! I forgot to put it back in the box and I set it on the windowsill, so the tooth fairy didn't know that she was supposed to come! See, I have the tooth right here!"

My smile quickly faded. "Oh... I see" I said. Well, maybe she will come tonight. She went in to the bathroom and I jumped back out of bed, ran up the stairs again, took the coin away from under the box, ran back down the stairs and jumped back into bed before she came out of the bathroom. She then went and put her tooth back in the box, let out the little sign again, in hopes that the next morning, the tooth will be gone and money will be in its place.

And the next morning, there was, in fact, a shiny Euro in the box.

Pirate Party

We have had a great day with lots of little pirates running around! Thanks to a great package from my family, Caleb's friends said that "this was the coolest party ever!!" We dressed all of the kids up as pirates and then gave them a treasure map that had pictures of different places in the house. At each station, they all had to complete a task in order to move on to the next place on the map. They had to shoot darts at a target on the window, shoot baskets in the basketball hoop, throw rings over a pirate ship, and complete an obstacle course in the basement. After each task, they got a piece to a puzzle that led them to where the "treasure" was hidden. They all had a blast hitting each other with their swords and playing all of the games. I think that it is safe to say that Caleb had a great "First Vienna Birthday"!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Today is Caleb's 5th birthday! It is so hard to believe that he is already 5 years old! We have had a fun day, letting Caleb decide what he wanted to do. He got his favorite breakfast before school, he went on a nature walk field trip with his school, had a fun afternoon playing with new birthday presents, and we finished the day with a McDonalds picnic on Carli's bedroom floor while we watched Ratatouille! We are having a pirate birthday party with 4 of his friends from his Kindergarten on Friday, so I'm sure we will have lots of pictures to post then.