Direct light and snow!

We were quite excited on Thursday when we returned home to find no more scaffolding and plastic outside our living room windows! We have a yellow building, can see the street again, and have direct sunlight streaming in through the windows! What a concept!
This event was highlighted by a day of snowfall in the city - everything has a beautiful white covering of snow. Today we have a layer of snow and blue skies - something unheard during the Viennese winters!

All Saints Day

Nov. 1 is All Saints Day. A holiday for the Catholics, and a tradition for most Viennese. Each Nov. 1 families visit the cemeteries and the grave sites of their loved ones. It is the time each year for fresh flowers, large wreaths, and new decoration in general. The decorations are large and quite noticeable. The cemeteries are busy for the whole day. A flower shop had set up a stand outside the cemetery gates to sell wreathes and flowers for the visitors, as the shops are closed on Sundays.

Kurbis Festival

We went to a pumpkin festival!
Here are some pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35924&id=1064838518&l=4e95e027dc

Happy Birthday Meredith

The boys celebrated just for you!
Aren't they thoughtful?

Sigh...

Birthday Dessert

For my birthday we visited a cafe that serves nothing but elegant desserts. It was a hard decision, but I ended up with creme brule. Yum. A good find by David!

Mom and Dad's Visit

Here's a link to the album!

Graduated

Plymouth Univ.

Final iImage

My final draft of an image that was to represent an educational topic in a compelling way... I chose literacy.

(click to enlarge... I think... )

Meme

Meme: element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, that are transmitted from one mind to another

Quickfire Challenge: 20 minutes to use a random title, 4 words from a random quote, and a random photo to create an album cover for 'my band'. Using Wikipedia, QuotationsPage, and Flickr, I used to assembled it all at Photoshop.com. The final project is a little dark, but alas, I was a bit limited. It was a great challenge and was fun to see what everyone created.

Riverford Organic Farms

The MAET program took a field trip to an organic farm, just 30 minutes from Plymouth. We toured the farm, did a little taste-testing, and learned about their functioning philosophy as an organic farm. They have even started making the lunches for the local grade school. It is becoming popular in the UK to order 'boxes' from these organic farms. Each week you get a new box of fresh veggies and fruits delivered from the farm.
The trip culminated with a delicious lunch from all organic foods - great salads, grilled veggies, and I hear the salmon was great. My favorite was the dessert - shocking!

School's Out For Summer!

Today was the last day of school for the kids! Much like ZMS, all the teachers go to the bus lot to wave the kids good-bye. I had a great group this year and will miss them ... after a little while. It was a nice, relaxing day for them and me, and we are all happy for a good, long break!
Chris and I are off to Ghana for Jeff's wedding. It'll be great and I am sure the painful immunizations I've received will be worth it. :-) We will be busy and owe Jeff and Tamara for giving up their time to entertain with us!
Getting back, we meet Chris's mom at the airport and head home. I'll have about 12 hours to wash, repack, and sleep before heading back to the airport to head to London. Chris will be busy showing his mom the sights around town. It's my last summer at grad school and hopefully, come July, I'll have a Masters Degree! Fingers crossed! :-) It'll be great to learn new things and see old friends, but it'll also be good to have my summers back!
Faye and Dick will head out to Plymouth for graduation and return to Vienna for some sightseeing, and ... maybe some wedding planning!

Spargel Season!

It's asparagus season and restaurants have whole menus dedicated to the asparagus - green and white. Spargel season is here!

Life Ball

In short terms, it's a huge, themed costume party to raise millions of dollars for AIDS. Wow. Our friend David went, and Holly did his make-up! What a crazy night - after he went into the ball, we stood outside and watched all of the happenings...

Before:



During:



After:

New Toy

Chris splurged and bought a projector for our family room wall. That's one way to fill up a large white wall!
So now we get movies (and tv shows), in full movie size!
Hello McDreamy!! 0:-)

Charlie and Leo

Meet the newest members of our family!

Thanks Mere!

Thanks to Meredith for my finished and beautiful Engagement scrapbook! What a great way to record the night!

Spring Break

For Spring Break we hung out around Vienna, with some day trips and seeing the local sights. We visited a town called Rust, that hosts nesting storks each year. The storks build their nests on platforms placed on top of chimneys. While in the area we visited Austria's largest and flattest lake - only 6 feet deep at it's deepest point.

We also visited the Musikverein to hear the Vienna Boys Choir and saw the Spanish Horses perform in the Hofburg Palace.

Engagement Party

Our friends threw us an engagement party at the Pratter Ferris Wheel, with some Mexican food afterwards. It was a great time with great friends, great views, great food, and great drinks! :-)

Engaged!

It's official!  Chris and I became engaged on Saturday night, at the United Nations IAEA Ball in the Hofburg Palace!  It was wonderful, romantic, and quite like a fairy tale.  We were happy to be there with friends who could help us celebrate!  

Ski Week in Egypt

Nothing like spending Ski Week on the beach, with the sun shinning everyday!

Click on the picture for a link to my web album :)

Zell am See

We went on a little ski holiday before heading back to school in January. We stayed and skied in a town called Zell am See, about an hour south of Salzburg. It was a lovely small ski village at the foot of the mountain. We stayed at a family-owned gasthaus that was first built in 1482. Visit Picasa for pics.

Winter Wonderland

 

This week I worked in the middle of a winter wonderland.  The trees were covered with ice and snow.  For days the trees sparkled white, and we couldn't even see the green from the Evergreen trees.