Manchester/Liverpool, United Kingdom
January 27-30, 2008

After making the drive back to Budapest, I was home for a 1/2 hour before taking a taxi to the airport and flying to Liverpool for a couple of days. I had some more meetings in Manchester, just 30 minutes from Liverpool. I took the time to find Morrissey's (singer and former lead singer of The Smiths, one of my favorite bands growing up) house that he grew up in, located in a tiny suburb just 15 minutes outside of Manchester. Assuming I got the correct house, it is a relatively unassuming duplex, in a quiet little mid/lower class neighborhood. I wonder how many people stop by to take pictures (probably not many).
I also was surprised to learn that the Liverpool airport is named after John Lennon. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that this area of Britain would place that much importance on a music icon, but who am I to judge (I took time out to go find Morrissey's house!).

Heidelberg/Kronberg, Germany
January 26-27. 2008

After I picked up the girls at the Richards we made a quick drive over to Heiderlberg to visit the Heidelberg castle. Built in different stages from the late 13th century to the 17th century, it has "survived" weather (on at least two different occassions lightning caused significant damage to the upper part of the castle), wars, and basic neglect at times. Martin Luther stayed here some time in the 1500s, while later the 30 Years War (to oversimplify, Protestants vs. Catholics) would be triggered when Frederick V accepted the crown from Protestants rebelling against the Holy Roman Empire. During this war Heidelberg Castle would see its first impact from a war. We found one area of the castle where the Donjon or Keep had completely fallen off, leaving the inner part of the castle exposed.
After spending a little time at the caste, we then drove up to Frankfurt where we met the Davis' for dinner and spent the night at their house in Kronberg. It was great to catch up with our friends from Toronto and we are happy that they have moved closer to allow for more frequent visits! All our other friends, from Toronto, or wherever, feel free to move closer and we promise to find time and opportunity to visit!
We had to leave the Davis' relatively early on Sunday morning to get back to Budapest in time for me to make my flight to the UK. We basically arrived back in Budapest and 1/2 hour later I was in a taxi to the airport, although this time, unfortunately, I had to leave Heather and the girls behind.

Boppard/Koblenz, Germany
January 25-26, 2008

After meeting up with Heather and the girls in Vienna (we left a car at a hotel off the highway) we drove together to the Richards' house near Ramstein Airforce Base in Germany. I dropped them off and then drove to Boppard, Germany, a touristic city situated right on the Rhein. I had a couple of days of meetings after which our team spent Saturday morning at a medievel castle where we had the opportunity to participate in a medievel carnival of sorts. We competed in archery, axe throwing, spear throwing, and nail driving, among other things. It was quite fascinating and a very fun atmosphere.Spending it with 40 other Germans made it particularly interesting, as a minute didn't go by without somebody yelling out something in German that made the entire group roar with hearty German laughter. Admittedly, I didn't understand half of the jokes, but I still found each one to be humourous if only because of the reaction from everyone else.
We finished with the castle events and I drove back to the Richards (about an 1 1/2 hours) and picked up Heather and the girls (who had a great time with their friends!).

Bohinj, Slovenia
January 22-24, 2008

I had some meetings for a few days in Bohinj, Slovenia, just a few miles from Lake Bled, a FANTASTICALLY beautiful area of Northern Slovenia. We had visited the area last year in the Spring, and it is equally amazing in the Winter. Unfortunately I had to go on my own, but I still provided myself an hour to ski before driving back. Actually, I drove from Slovenia to Vienna, where I met Heather and the girls and from there we drove to Germany, where I had some more meetings near Koblenz, on the Rhein.

Donovaly, Slovakia Skiing
January 19, 2008

We took off Saturday morning early to make the 3 1/2 hour drive up to Slovakia where we were planning to spend the day skiing (at least Katie, Ashley, and I). Donovaly ski resort is located in the Low Tatras mountain range in central Slovakia. Admittedly, this is not really comparable to its Alpine neighbors, but we thought it would be an easy day trip (and cheap) and opportunity for the girls to get a day of ski school in before our February trip to the Austrian Alps.
We made it there OK, but unfortunately could not find the ski school that we had signed the girls up for, so I just had them join another one that I saw. We got our tickets and made our way to the school, which was unfortunately at the bottom of a hill. Basically, the girls needed to know how to ski to GET to the school! Utterly ridiculous. We spent an hour trying to find/get to the ski school, taking the girls down little by little. By the time we made it there they were not too excited! But Katie did a pretty good job (see videos attached) but still did not last long. Ashley lasted even less! I did a couple of runs is all, and by that time the girls had had enough, so we SLOWLY made our way back to the car (well, I made my way back to the car while Heather and the girls waited at a nearby parking lot that was easier to walk to than trying to get the girls (and 5 months pregnant Heather) back up the hill!
It was fun to be together as a family, but certainly 7 hours of driving for an hour of skiing didn't seem too efficient!

Still a boy!

January 11, 2007

Here's another ultrasound picture (I think he is sucking his thumb). All looks great. We are going to call him Ryan but are debating which sounds better: Joseph Ryan Stucki or Ryan Joseph Stucki. Feel free to vote in the poll that we have posted since as of today it is split 50/50 (I won't say who wants what in case there is some bias towards Heather's choice)!

First Snowfall of 2008

January 6, 2008

The first snowfall of the New Year! We spent a few minutes outside playing in the snow. This one included a small ice storm, so we were stuck inside for the day, unable to get out of our driveway. It was quite pleasant!

It's a Boy!
January 1, 2008

We found out a couple of weeks ago that we are having a boy. We never posted that Heather miscarried last July (hence no baby talk since our communication in a previous post when we told the girls), but fortunately things are good right now and Heather is now 19 weeks and everything seems to be OK this time. We are excited to have a boy, although Heather is concerned she won't know what to do with him (ie princesses, fairies, American Girl dolls, etc). I've also included the 4D ultrasound from 16 weeks.

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.