My little girl

I'm sitting in the basement by myself feeling a little lonely and sad. Jason is off on a business trip until Friday night (grumble, grumble) and so I have to be super Mom and do everything for everyone the next couple of days. This is really hard for me. I depend a lot on Jason. I love lunch time when he can help feed people and clean up the mess. I really look forward to five o'clock and handing the kids over to him so I can make dinner in peace, or just run to my bed for 5 minutes of alone time. I miss him!! I'm feeling sad tonight because all of the sudden my baby Paisley is going to school! What happened? Tomorrow is her first day of preschool. I got lucky and her birthday missed the date to start Kindergarten. I'm not ready for Kindergarten, although she might be. Yesterday we had a preschool meeting and she got to play while I listened to them talk about the school and the schedule. She loved it. When I went to pick her up her response was "why did you come back?" I was glad to hear that. Glad that she is well adjusted and can function without her Mom, but still I thought she was my baby. I'm sad that I forgot to have Jason give her a father's blessing at the beginning of the school year. It will just be a week late, so it will be ok, I just need her to have strength for her first day, and I probably need more than her. I've been brave this whole time, but tonight when I tucked her in bed and closed the door I really had to choke back tears. It was like I was putting my baby to bed and tomorrow I'll get my grown up girl from her room and drive her off to school. I know this is a little dramatic, but hey, I'm lonely so crazy thoughts can float through my head right now. Tomorrow I'll be sure to post pictures of my big 4 year old going off to preschool!! She is so excited I bet she won't be falling asleep for a long time! :)

The Final Days

Since my neicev requested the ending to our trip here it is. The final days were slow compared to the rest of the trip. They included meeting spiderman!

Going to IKEA on the bus. It was our first time going to IKEA and the place is INCREDIBLE!

More subway rides and buss rides!

Playing with toys in our hotel room!

Our last taste of the delicious Tichy Gelato! Yum yumm!!

A HUGE rain storm that soak us through! We had to run from the bus stop down a block into the hotel and we were soaked by the time we got to the lobby!

And finally great seats on the plane home that let us use this great baby seat for when Jarom was sleeping! The trip was so long, but equally amazing!

An A-MAZING Weekend

Thursday was filled with more palaces that look similar to what we have already posted. We also went to a couple museums that were fantastic. We visited Mozart's apartment and took an audio tour. Walking through some of the streets you run into street performers. These two were very impressive. Paisley put some coins in their cup and they came to life and took a picture with her. It was pretty cute.

Friday Jason had a half day. We met up with him after a tasty lunch at subway. It was nice to eat something familiar.

Then we went to a music museum that was pretty fantastic. Paisley loved the interactive exhibits. After the museum it was recommended that we hit the amusement park. It was free to walk around, you just pay for rides. It was fun to see all the things they had there. Paisley drove this jeep.

Jason came across a type of ride he has always wanted to ride so we went for it. It was kind of expensive, but well worth it. You lay flat in the cars like your flying. It was fun, and a little scary.

Saturday after getting the rental (which was an adventure in itself) we were off to Italy!! We all crammed into a "7 passenger" car and headed for Mestre, Italy.
We parked in Mestre and took a train into Venice. Venice was AMAZING! We were there for 22 hours. It took a total of 11 hours round trip driving to get there, but completely worth all the effort. This beautiful bride was the bridge over a canal to our hotel.
Standing in front of the Grand Canal.
The famous Rialto Bridge. Disappointed with the graffiti but it is still beautiful.
This is the beautiful canal in front of our hotel.
Standing on the Academia bridge.
We ate incredible lasagna at a cafe on the Grand Canal. It was beautiful and amazing.
Jason in his handsome Italian hat.
Once again the pretty canal in front of the hotel.
We took water buses around to the island of Murano to get some famous Murano glass.
In front of the grand Canal down the walkway from our hotel.
One last shot before we got back on the train to Mestre.

Goodbye Venice. Wish we didn't have to drive 5 hours back to Vienna now!!

Venice was incredible. I'm having a hard time convincing myself it wasn't all a dream. It was so beautiful. Completely worth the extra effort, time and money involved in going. I'm so happy we did it. It was a little scary to get a car and drive that long through two foreign countries, but it was fantastic. Marvelous! It really is a grand place.

Fun Activities

(Something happened while posting picture so the order is reversed, pictures are Wednesday-Monday)
We travel every where by taking a bus to the subway station, once the subway hits our right stop we walk to where we want to be. We are now regulars on the trains!

Eating more gelato. This is a daily occurrence, on good days more than once.

Tonight we met my parents' friend's cousin who lives here. She has helped us with a few things. We met her in a big plaza and had Chinese food. It was really good!!

For lunch we stopped at a street cafe. We thought it was so fun having lunch on the streets of Vienna.

This is the Hofburg. The same people lived here that lived in Schobrunn Palace that I posted before. We all agree they had way too much money to build two extravagant homes.

This is the parliament building. The buildings here are just beautiful!!

More gelato, surprise, surprise! Luckily we are walking enough to burn the calories!!

Our original hotel had a pool. It was freezing, but fun. On Tuesday we moved from that hotel to a Holiday Inn. It was fun to have an authentic experience, but we are glad to be in the Holiday Inn where we now enoy air conditioning and a more American breakfast. Jason's colleague really hated our first hotel and since he wanted to move we also needed to move so all the company people stayed together. It was a good change.

Paisley has been having a hard time with the Austrian food, so to have a little more normal experience we went to McDonald's. The best part was the balloons!

More gelato!

The gardens at Shonbrunn Palace.

Waiting for our tour time to come up at the Schonbrunn Palace.

On the bus!

Things are still going great. It is seeming more normal to be here. We don't use maps anymore when using the bus, subway, or street car system. We have also started calling elevators lifts like the locals and use a word or German here or there to help people understand us. It's fun! there is still lots to see, and lots of time to see it in. Until next time... guten nacht.

The First Few Days!

Wednesday was a very long day of traveling. Everyone started out happy on the plane.This is our second flight. British Airways gave us a package that included this sleeping mask. Paisley has been using it ever since. We are so happy to be on that plane because we only made it there by minutes!

This picture was taken in the London Heathrow airport. We were definitely starting to wilt at this point. Jarom's face is how we really feel.

Finally on the last flight!!

Airhead time!! We had gone through all of Jarom's snack options and he wasn't having any of them so desperate times call for sugary snacks! He liked showing off his green tongue after the airhead.

We hung out at the hotel waiting for Mom and Dad to arrive. One of their planes was a couple hours late and we didn't know when they would show up, so we walked around outside. This pretty courtyard is in the front of our hotel.

Breakfast time! European breakfast is gross! Who wants meat, cheese, warm juice and milk and other non-breakfasty things for breakfast? Not this group! We now have some cereal and our own COLD milk so we are surviving.

On a bridge over the Danube River.

Riding in a streetcar.

Dinner this second night was an adventure. We haven't had luck finding people that speak english. The menu was also in German and our phrase books didn't help us translate it, so we decided to just go for it. The cordon bleu was in English so we shared that, the hamburger was in English so Dad got that, but Jason was brave and ordered something in German. He ended up getting 5 grilled sausage links with fries. Mmmmm! (not so much)

Getting on the train heading to Budapest! 3 Hours later we'd be in Hungary.

On the train.

When we got to Budapest we took a bus tour all throughout the city. While driving we would listen to a narration about buildings and facts about Budapest. We could get on and off at any stop we wanted to. This is after a couple stops. The narration wasn't enough to keep her awake!

Part of our tour included a boat ride on the Danube river. It was lots of fun!

The train ride home from Budapest.

We have been loving having gelato everyday! It is sooo good! Ice cream will never be the same for me.

Schonbrunn Palace. They have huge grounds. Today we went to the zoo, later we will go in the palace and some of the other buildings on the grounds.

The hat girls!

Jarom loved that girafee, he must have gotten that from MB!

Jarom was happy to be going back to the hotel after a hot day at the zoo.

So far so good. I can't believe all we have packed into the 5 days we have been gone. I also can't believe we have 12 more to go!! It is super late here so guten nacht!