Some more reasons why not to have children

The last few weeks with the kids have involved the usual craziness. Last week, I worked quite a few more hours than normal but although I was scheduled to work on a Saturday night, Jana and Christian decided to stay home so I ended up with the night off. About a week or two ago, I was in charge of taking Jaime to the doctor. He had stitches in one of his fingers because that weekend he had cut it on a mixing blade. Probably trying to lick off whatever was being mixed. I am just glad that he did not do it when I was there because I get very nauseous around too much blood. Anyways, my job was to take him to the doctor for the removal of the stitches. I have to admit I was a little nervous because, as I said, I get have been known to get pretty sick when it comes to things like that. I was really hoping I wouldn't faint in front of the three kids while watching the stitches being pulled out and I'm happy to say that I did not.
However, the whole situation leading up to the actual arrival at the doctor's office was enough to make me feel sick. As usual, the kids and I finished lunch and I had to get them all ready to go. Sanja was taking forever to put on her jacket and shoes so I was helping her when Nick asked me for the key to unlock the car. I gave it to him and finished up with Sanja. Upon approaching the car however, Nick let me know that he dropped the key somewhere on the ground right outside the door of the van. Ok, well shouldn't be that hard to find then, right? WRONG! The kids and I searched under the car, around the car, in the car, all around the house and driveway, and no key to be found. I asked Nick if he was sure that he had dropped the key right around here. He assured me that he dropped it right outside the door and showed me the spot. Well, no key was to be found. By this time we were ten minutes behind. I started freaking out a little because this was the only key I had to the car and Jaime had to get to his appointment. I was just about to give up and make the call of shame to Jana, when I picked up Nick's hat that was lying on the seat of the car. And what do you know? Out fell the stupid key. Eventually we made it to the doctor's office just a few minutes late.

Last week, I returned from Vienna with some presents my mom had sent with Abbi for my kids. This included these 3D puzzles for each of them, a Muppets movie, and a princess tiara and chapstick for Sanja. They were super excited and Sanja and Jaime wanted to do their puzzles right away. Hers was a butterfly and his was a tiger. I have a picture of Sanja with her completed butterfly below. There is also a picture of Jaime with his completed Tiger above. And me wearing Sanja's princess crown while holding her butterfly (not my idea).






Last week, I had a sort of reviewal of things here with Jana and Christian. There have been some issues lately between mostly Jana and me. I think that these are largely due to the very different personalities we have. I'm hoping that the talk will prove to be productive.

Birthdays and Viennese schnitzel

Time for more travel adventures updates.
This last weekend I was in Vienna, Austria for my 23rd birthday. Heidi and I left Zurich around 22:45 on a night train bound for Vienna. This was a whole new experience in and of itself for the two of us. Although we consider ourselves pros on taking public transportation anywhere, the night train was a first for both of us. We didn't know what to expect. We boarded our train and found our compartment that we shared with four other people...all guys. Since the compartments are so small and one can do nothing but lay in one's bed, it was a little awkward for six people. Luckily, Heidi and I were in the middle bunks (they were stacked three high on each side of the compartment) and right across from each other. We didn't do much except for go to bed shortly after the train started moving. The two guys below us had been eating kebabs in the compartment so it smelled a little of kebab. A few compartments down, there was an older man, probably in his fifties, with long scraggly hair, who was standing out in the hall wearing a muscle shirt, drinking out of a flask. Needless to say, Heidi and I considered ourselves lucky that we were not sharing a compartment with him. And the compartment next to us was a four person one, however, there was a lady with a toddler and a little baby all sharing one tiny bed. Again, we were satisfied enough with our compartment.

The next morning we were woken up around 6:30 am to a breakfast of coffee, two rolls each, and some butter and jam. This was nice but next to impossible to consume since all you could do was lay in your bed. I returned from the bathroom to a chorus of Happy Birthday being sung by the guys in my compartment and Heidi. She had told them if was my birthday and asked if they would all sing for me. One of the guys brought out a box of chocolates (the really fancy and expensive Sprungli brand even!) and gave it to me! I thought this was very thoughtful and nice since we did not even know each others' names! He was Swiss and the othe two guys were from Brazil living and studying in Bern, Switzerland. All were probably in their twenties. Heidi and I enjoyed talking to them the last leg of our journey.

We arrived in Vienna around 8 am and had several hours to kill before meeting up with my sister. Heidi and I decided to visit the Schoenbrunn which is a big imperial palace not too far from where we were. This was pretty cool. I enjoyed the half hour tour and learned quite a bit. It was so cool to see things that were used by kings and queens and princes/sses so long ago. The inside was beautiful and the outside as well, however, the gardens were snowed over and it was freezing cold outside so we did not linger in the gardens too long. We then decided to go to a coffeehouse for some coffee and something to eat so we travelled back into the center of the city. After a bite to eat, we headed to the church where we were to meet Abbi and her group. Heidi and I found the church with relative ease, and basically walked right into Abbi and her group. That was fortunate since we didn't have any ways of contacting each other. After meeting up, Abbi and her friend Emily and Heidi and I went to find a restaurant we were to meet the family that Abbi is au pairing for in the summer. We found them eventually and they were wonderful people! The two girls spoke English very well and the parents were very generous. They took us to a cafe where we ordered whatever we wanted and they paid for all of us! Then they took us on a tour of the city. The dad especially had a lot of historical information to share with us, and it was so great to have an insider's knowledge of the place. The family showed us to the apartment they let us borrow for the night. It was a cute small place not far away from the main part of Vienna. The parents also paid for the four of us girls' transportation tickets for the weekend! They really were such enjoyable people and I look forward to seeing them again.



We were then left to ourselves. Christian had told me about a restaurant in Vienna called Figlmuller that supposedly had large schnitzel. We found the restaurant and decided to eat my birthday dinner there that Saturday night. The schnitzel was soooo amazing! And it was huge! It was roughly the size of a small pizza. Heidi and I were unaware of how huge it actually was and ordered one each. We could have easily gotten away with sharing one, which is what Emily and Abbi did. After dinner, we stopped at a bar/pizzeria for a drink. It wasn't a very happening place so we didn't stay too long. Since the weather was so cold outside, we decided to just head back to the apartment to hang out for the rest of the night.





The next day, Abbi and Emily left early to get a train back to their school. Heidi and I had the whole day since our flight didn't leave until that evening. We figured we would do some more sightseeing so we went to Belvedere Palace which was very close to our apartment. This place houses many of Gustav Klimt's paintings, most famously, "The Kiss". It was neat to see the painting but this place was overpriced for what it had to offer. It took us about 20 minutes to go through the whole gallery and the other gallery was closed. We walked up the hill to the upper castle and were disappointed when we found out we had to pay another 9.50 euro to tour this part. Eventually we decided to head back to the apartment and start getting ready to fly home. It took us awhile to find the right train stop for the specific train that was to take us to the airport but eventually we found it...after we nearly froze to death walking around for an hour. The flight was nothing special and we were home about 22:30 Sunday night.

Florence, Milan, Lugano in December

Although a few weeks late, I thought I should write about my holiday adventures. After the Christmas party on the 25th, Heidi, Amanda, Cody, and I got up early early early on the 27th to fly down to Florence, Italy. After reaching Italy unscathed, we walked to our hostel which was a few blocks away from the train station. Well, after finding where the hostel was, we searched all over for the reception desk to check in. It was about 10 a.m. and we had read on the website that we could check in at all hours. Unfortunately, the reception desk was nowhere to be found. We called and called the hostel many times within the next two hours while trying to find someone who knew of this hostel and could tell us something about what the heck was going on. Several hours later, someone finally answered the phone and informed us that the check-in desk was on the other side of the street and down a ways from where we were told to go. Naturally, we were pretty annoyed that we had to walk around for several hours with all of our stuff and in freeeeeeeeeezing weather just because someone was not answering their phone and the directions to the check in were incorrect. We politely made our frustrations clear to the hostel worker and we ended up with an free upgrade! The upgrade was really nice because the room was basically an apartment with kitchen and bathroom and sitting room. So in the end, it was worth waiting around for a few hours. We were in Florence for two nights. We had lots of pizza and ravioli and wine! The 28th was Heidi's birthday so after celebrating at a restaurant we ended up going back to our apartment. It was so cold so it was really uncomfortable to stay out and there weren't a lot of places to hang out at anyways. But during the days, we walked all over the city. We found some amazing views of Florence that were really gorgeous. We walked over the Golden Bridge, and visited the Duomo and several other beautiful old churches. We actually went to mass in the Duomo that night and ended up being asked to do the collection. This was funny since Heidi is not even Catholic but she was a sport and helped, too. The priest who asked us was older and did not really speak English but he was quite a character. The next day, Amanda and Heidi went to the serial killer museum while Cody and I walked around the city some more. It was a little nicer weather that day and we looked at all the fancy Italian shops. A few hours later we were on a plane to Zurich where we hopped on a train to Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano is basically on the border of CH and Italy and is set next to a beautiful lake and mountains. It was one of the prettiest places in Switzerland I've seen so far and that's saying a lot! We got into Lugano really late at night and had to take a taxi to our hotel, which was just on the other side of the border of CH and Italy. We walked across the border the next day which was fun. Although Lugano was gorgeous, we took a train the next day to Milan, Italy. In Milan, we walked around the city a bit and visited the Duomo there. I actually thought the Milan Duomo was prettier than Florence's. I think that I liked Milan better in general, but it was pretty touristy. After a night in Milan we headed back up to Zurich on the train. Since the train was full, we ended up having to buy first-class tickets, or else we wouldn't get back into Zurich until really late that night, and since it was New Year's we wanted to be there. First-class on trains by the way is a rip-off. It's almost the exact same as 2nd class but more expensive. Anyways, after the train ride which was about 3 or 4 hours long, Cody and I went back to my house. Cody really liked playing with the kids and the kids were enthralled with Cody. They told me often to go to Korea and Cody could stay here with them.
We had dinner with the Bergers and Christian's parents. Cody was able to speak to them in German a little and so it was fun to interact a little more extensively with the grandparents than what I'm usually capable of. The kids had a couple of "tisch boms" which are "table bombs". Basically, one lights the fuse at the end of a cylindrical shape (about a foot long and half a foot in diameter) and out flies random little party favors and toys and streamers. The kids had lots of fun with these. About 11 p.m. Cody and I decide to go into Zurich to meet Heidi and Amanda. Apparently Zurich's main street has a bunch of outside bars and tents set up all over and there is a huge fireworks display over the lake after midnight. It started snowing like crazy a few hours before midnight so the walk to the bus stop was really pretty. However, we ended up sitting at the bus stop for over half an hour waiting for our bus that never came. That's right, we were in a little plastic bus stop at the New Year. Apparently there were lots of transportation problems that night because of the snow and lack of people to clear the roads. But it was still pretty nice because the church bells were ringing for half an hour or so and there were lots of fireworks going up around the lake by my house.
The next day, Cody and I just hung out around the house relaxing after our long trips and playing with the kids. The day after that though, I had to work. Cody helped me out a lot, the boys really listen to him. And then the next day was the last day for Cody in Switzerland. I took him to the airport around 14:00 because he said his flight left at 4 o'clock. Well, Cody misinterpreted the time since it is always in military time here and he is not used to it.... the flight didn't leave til after 18:00! So we were four hours early at the airport. Ah well. It had been a great week so I couldn't complain too much.
Below are another slideshow of our trip! Click on them to enlarge the pictures....

The Real Christmas

I thought I would write about my Christmas day this year.
It began with waking up at my house in Maur with Heidi. After collecting all the peanut butter balls that I had made with the kids a few days pior, Heidi and I walked to the edge of the lake behind my house to take the boat to the other side. The other side of the lake is Uster which is about 15 minutes from where Heidi lives. Taking the boat across is a much faster route than taking the bus and trains into Zurich and then into Uster. Unfortunately, the boat does not run very often. But anyways, this was the first time I had done this and it was really fun! It's only about a five minute boat ride but the lake was so pretty that morning! It was cold but it was a clear day and it all looked so beautiful. I have a couple of pictures below.
Once we got to Heidi's family's house (they were all away so they said it was ok if we used their house to cook our Christmas meal and celebrate), Amanda arrived shortly after. We set about putting up the few decorations we had and setting out our presents that we got for each other while listening to Christmas music. A few hours later we all put on our Christmas outfits and I had to go to the airport to meet Cody! He was arriving late in the afternoon and since the buses and trains were on holiday time, there weren't as many as usual running as many routes so it took me longer than I would have liked to make it to the airport in Zurich. But he arrived safe and sound, and not a little tired, and the two of us returned to the house. Amanda and Heidi had been putting together our Christmas meal while we were gone. This consisted of schnitzel, green beans, mashed potatoes, and bread and cheese. We also had lots of delicious cookies that Heidi made (called spitzbuben) and my chocolate peanut butter balls. Dinner was great, thanks to Amanda's schnitzel cooking skills.
After dinner, we had some of Heidi's neighbor's kids come over and sing us Christmas carols! This was really cute and fun. The three girls came with their father, who is British, and sang us three or four songs.
We then decided it was present time! The three of us girls decided to get each of the others something small so that we would all have presents to open. They were mostly funny presents and so this was quite entertaining.
After this, we pretty much called it a night. We watched a little bit of German television for awhile and called it a fairly successful Christmas abroad.
I have attached another slide show of the Christmas pictures I took that day! (if you click on it, they will pop up in another page and be larger)

Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas)

Christmas Eve with the Bergers! In Switzerland, Christmas - or Weihnachten as it's called - is celebrated on the 24th. I decided to spend this time with the family since I was having real Christmas the next day with my friends. Heidi came over to celebrate with us since her family was spending time at their mountain cabin. The night started with Christian, the three kids, Heidi, and I attending church just down the road. This church must be some kind of Protestant because Christian called it the German word which sounded something like Reform. It was only about 45 minutes long and there were lots of kids there. All the kid had their candles which were lit at the end of the service. The service mostly just consisted of singing and what seemed to me to be the story of Christ's birth with a projector showing somewhat random paintings/pictures. Jaime of course didn't do so well during the 45 minutes of sitting still but the other 2 were fine. After the service, we went back to the house where Jana had set out all the presents for the kids under the tree. The family's friend, Phillip, also joined us. Dinner was wonderful as usual. We had turkey which was a huge deal since people do not have turkey meat here. A few days earlier, Christian had told me we would be having turkey and asked me several questions about cooking it since they hadn't done it before. Since it is in Christian's area of expertise, the dinner was fancy and very nicely laid. The salad before the main meal was so good and looked really pretty. After dinner, it was time to open presents! The kids opened the ones my parents sent and they actually really enjoyed them. Especially Sanja, who has worn her pink sparkly Princess sweatshirt almost every day since. The kids had quite a few presents to open. The big presents from the parents were as follows: Nick = dirt bike.....crazy I know, Jaime = Heelys Roller Shoes (the shoes with skates on the bottom), and Sanja = a pink sled. The kids were all super excited with their new toys. They also received these kid laptops (mostly educational) from their grandparents which was one of their favorite presents. I had gotten the kids each a present as well: for Sanja, a Diddlina coloring book and markers, and the boys each got an airplane they had to construct themselves. It was a fun night with the family but I was very anxious for the next day which was when Cody came! Below I have some pictures from Christmas Eve if you would like to see some visuals of the night.