Vienna, Austria
December 29-30, 2007


Heather and I decided to spend the weekend ALONE in Vienna. Niki came over to watch the girls and we spent Saturday and Sunday in COLD Vienna. We got there early afternoon, checked into our hotel, then made our way over to the Museums Quarter on the ring. We spent a little while at the Kunst Historische Museum (the Art History Museum) and enjoyed that with peace and quiet. We obviously don't get to enjoy many of the museums of Europe because of the girls, but this was the perfect time to visit (not to mention is was SO cold outside, being inside the museum was even more enjoyable than we had predicted!).
We went to dinner at Cafe Diglas, the place we visited in Christmas 2000. It was nice to sit their and remember that trip. We also managed to walk the block from the Cafe to Zanoni's.
We then went to a musical at the Raimund Theater. "Rebbeca" is a German musical based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier. Alfred Hitchcock also did a movie based on the book. The scenery/staging was incredible, beautiful sets of the different settings of the book. The music is pretty good, although we were not familiar with it prior to seeing the show.
We woke up Sunday morning and went to church at the Vienna International Ward. It is the ward that I attended 10 years ago while I was living in Vienna. I didn't recocognize anybody from that period of time, but even then it was a relatively transient ward of embassy and expats, so I didn't anticipate anything different.
We left church and stopped at the Hundertwasser house, an apartment building designed by the Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Unlike most of the attractions in Vienna, this one was created just 20 years ago. It is, in my opinion, terribly gaudy, but interestingly enough the architect took no payment for the design declaring "it was worth it, to prevent something ugly from going up in its place"!

We planned on going to tour the Hofburg apartments but the line was surprisingly long to get in, so we visited the famous coffess house, Cafe Demel (right of Stephansplatz), walked through the Hofburg and the Volksgarten (which is absolutely wonderful in the Sping), and then drove back home.

The borders are now OPEN (like they have been for years in Western Europe) and it was SO nice to just drive right across without having to stop or to roll the dice whether their would be a long line at the border or not. We are very happy about this!
We had a great time but we missed the girls too much. We plan on going to Dublin in March and I debated buying tickets for the girls and bringing them with us, but even though it is more complicated to travel with them, it is much more fun overall than traveling without them. This was the perfect amount of time to spend time just Heather and I but then get back to the girls quickly.

Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning
December 24-25, 2007

For Christmas Eve dinner we invited President Gosser, the Hungary, Budapest mission president, his wife, and their visiting son, daughter in-law, and granddaughter and three elders serving in our ward. Heather made our traditional Beef Wellington, cooked a turkey, and a lot of other food. After dinner we had a Birth of Jesus themed family home evening with our guests. It was nice to have visitors on Christmas Eve.Before going to bed we let the girls open their one present on Christmas eve, which, surprise, was pajamas.This is our first Christmas where we are completely on our own without visiting family or having any family visiting.

This morning Katie woke us up not particularly early (~7:30) asking to go downstairs and see if Santa had shown up. We made our way down to the family room where, as usual, too many presents littered the floor under the Christmas tree. We spent the next little while opening presents. Katie and Ashley both got American Girl Dolls (Kit and Samantha). When we were in Chicago in October we took them to the American Girl Store and let them "tell Santa which ones they wanted". Fortunately for us they bought our deception that we were going to buy them and Santa would pick them up for Christmas delivery.After opening presents we ate the traditional Eggs Benedict and Pecan Rolls. Last night, as the missionaries were leaving, there was a light snowfall happening, so this morning it was beautiful outside with the blanket of fresh snow. It's been a great year and we are tremendously blessed.

The Nutcracker at the Hungarian State Opera House
December 22, 2007

We got tickets to the Nutcracker ballet at the opera house for Katie. We left Ashley with Vrhiddi and made our way downtown. We were fortunate to find a parking space IMMEDIATELY across from the Opera House, so it was all very convenient. We found our seats and enjoyed the 3 act ballet. I was surprised Katie lasted the entire time (it is ~2:45 minutes with 2 intermissions) and actually enjoyed it. I was not sure what to expect since I think she was expecting something close to the Barbie and the Nutcracker versus the ballet, but the costumes, set, and dancing were spectacular enough to keep her (and me!) engaged throughout. Right before the ballet began Katie turned to Heather and asked, "Mom, is this going to be in English?". Heather had been excited for years to take Katie, since her mom had taken her a number of times while she was growing up. It was fun to spend a few hours with just Katie, enjoying her sweet personality and ever maturing conversation.

Hamburg/Bremen
December 16-18, 2007

We decided to go to Northern Germany this year and visit the Christmas Markets up there, plus I was interested to visit back where I lived the Summer of 1996 when I worked at the Haarmeyer Bakery in Hamburg. We were planning on driving but once I found out that Ryanair was now flying to Bremen (about an hour by train from Hamburg) from Budapest, we decided that it would be better to go the cheap airfare route than try to drive 12 hours. We flew into Bremen early Sunday morning and immediately got train tickets to Hamburg. We were in Hamburg around 11:00. Although I had booked our hotel room, I didn't manage to get directions to it, thinking we would just figure it out once we arrived at the train station. We started walking from the main train station to where the Christmas markets were around the Town Hall and the banks of the Alster lake which sits in the center of the city, basically. I knew our hotel was right on the Alster, so we just started walking. It turned out we missed it and ended up walking entirely around the inner Alster, which isn't too terribly long walk, but we would have preferred to have dropped our stuff off at the hotel prior to making this journey. We did however pass by the famous Hotel VierJahresZeit on the Alster near Jungfernstieg. We finally did get checked in and returned to the main market. It was not too terribly cold so it the girls managed pretty well. The markets were so crowded that we just walked literally around them instead of through and headed back to our hotel and went swimming and stayed in for the night.
The next morning we woke up leisurely, put the girls in their snowsuits and boots and got on the subway to go up to the bakery that I used to work out. I have kept in off and on contact with Holger Haarmeyer over the years, the bakery owner, and knew that a few years ago he had sold the bakery. The main one that I worked out still existed as a bakery but had a new name. I called Holger the day before our trip once I finally found his contact information, but it was too late to try to plan any type of get together. I am sure the next time we are in the area we'll have to plan it better in advance.
From the bakery we went back to the Christmas market, which for a Monday morning was much less crowded, but still was entertaining many people, but certainly more manageable than the day before. Our goal was to get a nativity, nutcracker, and a German pyramid with the candles. I had not anticipated it costing as much as it did to achieve this goal, but we were pleased with what we were able to find.
We made our way back to the main train station, found dinner at a Chinese restaurant (we had eaten our fill of Bratwursts at this point) along the way, and got back on the train back to Bremen.
By the time we arrived back to Bremen and found a very suitable hotel (thanks to my dad who was able to provide us a few phone numbers) Ashley was a mess. We walked through the Bremen Christmas Market without really stopping. Once we were checked in I went back to take a look and by that time it had already closed. Once I returned back to the hotel the girls were fast asleep and we went to bed. We had to get up at 4:30 for a 6:00 flight back to Budapest. We arrived home on time and without incident. I took a taxi back to work and Heather and the girls drove home. I love that area of Germany, as it obviously has a nostalgia value for me and was glad to spend a couple more days there with Heather and the girls.

Ashley's Visit to Mikulas (Hungarian Santa Claus)
December 15, 2007

While Katie was at a birthday party we decided to take Ashley down to the square in front of Parliament and visit Mikulas' house and get her picture taken with him. This is obviously the Hungarian version of Santa Claus. Probably the most interesting aspect of the visit for me was being met at the door not by Santa's elves, but rather by Mikulas' Devil ladies (ladies in tights with devils horns...you got me.).

Katie and Ashley's School Christmas Programs/Parties
December 17, 2007

Ashley's 3rd Birthday Party
December 1, 2007
Ashley turned three today, which is CRAZY. We can't believe that she is this old (it was already TWO years ago that we celebrated her birthday a day late so we could go to the Depeche Mode concert in Toronto with Mark and Kristen Voorhies and Kim Rollins. We felt bad, but figured a one year old wouldn't care and the concert was worth it!...see bottom of post for video of that event...I know a tangent but we didn't have this blog back then, so here's my opportunity to post some old cool stuff!).
Heather planned a Dora party for Ashley. It was great and included a Dora cake (laboriously made by hand with the help of a friend, but HOURS of work to get it right). Katie was the first to point out, though, that Dora's shorts are ORANGE, not RED, but who would have guessed that anyone would notice (even though the directions said to use red)! We served a number of different Mexican dishes (enchiladas, 7 Layer, other mexican dips, etc.). After everyone was finished eating we beat (pulled strings from) a pinata. Everyone loved this except for Katie who suddenly felt overrun by three year olds as she just stood there looking around trying to figure out which candy to go after. After realizing she took too long to decide, she burst into tears. Fortunately, a number of unselfish guests came over and filled her bag up with candy from their bags.
It turned out great. We had 25 little toddlers/pre-schoolers and their parents running around the house, but everyone seemed to have a great time and Ashley especially. She maintained a grin from ear to ear throughout the party.

The next Monday Heather brought cupcakes to Ashley's pre-school class, which they obviosuly enjoyed very much.