Jakob's main summer activity: jump around

Since yesterday, when Markus returned to work again, our honeymoon is officially history.During the past two weeks however we probably have seen the best of the best of this summer in Austria: sunshine and warm weather returned just before our wedding ceremony started and remained with us until past Saturday afternoon when it cooled off with a heavy thunderstorm. In between we had almost countless days of ideal weather for the beach or outdoor pool with temperatures reaching up to 39 degrees and very mild (not to say hot) nights. As a consequence we spent almost every day a few hours by the water - be it in the nearby Stadionbad, the Neusiedler See or the St. Martins Therme in Frauenkirchen. Who needs to fly away for honeymoon if tropical weather comes and visits you?

What would we do without the waterslide?

Our junior not only loved the fact that both mom and dad were available for him but also enjoyed the hours we spent outdoors in and by the water. We could quite clearly recognize a certain preference towards pools where he can jump into the water rather than poools or lakes where one has to walk into the water. His enthusiasm about jumping around has been there for a long time - since months Jakob is jumping around at home on and off our sofa like on a trampoline - and this enthusiasm was further fueled by trampolines in the Stadionbad, in Weiden/Neusiedler See as well as in Geri, Lissi & Emma's backyard. Our sunshine used all these occasions to jump around like a rubber ball that seemed to never get tired.

Falling over on the trampoline is sooo much fun!

As mentioned earlier Jakob loves to jump into the water and that was his major exercise at the baby-pool in the first week of our holiday. Over time that was not exciting enough anymore for him and so in the next step he looked out for higher jumps and urged us permanently to join the queue with him for the 3m diving board in the Stadionbad. Not only that the diving pool was massively overcrowded and none of us really ken to jump of the 3m board on our own we clearly vetoed his wish. We had however to strike a deal with him and agreed on a compromise: the starting block 50m pool which is also used for official swim competitions. This block offers a ca. 1m jump into 2,5 m deep water and was just enough for our little crazy water-rat:

While this year the 3m board definitely is a no-go, we are somehow curious and worried about next summer as we are not sure if we can keep him away from that beast in summer 2012.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

We gotta feeling

When we woke up on Saturday morning everyone knew its gonna be a special day – not only the adults but also the two juniors Ylvie-Marie and Jakob sensed it. At 10.00 the flat was taken over by the ladies and Markus was kicked out from home. He drove through the rain to pick up his best man Peter and they then moved on to his brother’s flat where the boys had vintage champagne with pizza (unfortunately for all of them the pizza-service added garlic for free and made the experience of the food last longer). When the boys left for the Lusthaus, the location for both the wedding ceremony and the party, the rain has stopped and they could drive through Vienna with Markus’ open convertible. Upon arrival at the Lusthaus, where Sandra, Heidi and Flo have finished the decoration already, some guests have already arrived and thus the 45 minutes to the ceremony flew by very fast.

When Kerstin and the girls – Evi, Lini and Lissi – together with our sunshine Jakob approached the Lusthaus in a horse carriage not only the clouds disappeared but also Markus left. He did not run away but went upstairs where he was awaiting the bride. A few minutes later Eugen, Kerstin’s dad accompanied his daughter into the room accompanies by live guitar music by Kerstin’s cousin Katrin and handed her over to the husband-to-be. The ceremony was personal yet pretty much straight forward and after 20 minutes Markus was allowed to kiss the bride. When a short while later the new family left the room the sky was clear blue and the backdrop could not be more perfect. While we accepted congratulatins from all our wedding guests the impressive Nebuchadnezzar bottle of Veuve Cliquot has been opened, served and enjoyed very much by everyone.

"You now may kiss the bride" - no need to say that twice

For us the afternoon went by extremely fast thanks to a walk through the Prater in order to find the right spot for wedding pictures and it seemed that our friends and family did not get bored while we were away as they all were still present when dinner was served upstairs again. Each table had a little guest in the middle – a beautiful butterfly was circling over the table flowers – and made the whole experience even better: delicious food, sunshine on the balcony, good wine and most importantly a bunch of cool people. Before the party kicked off our group of closest friends – the Bella Familia – presented a lip-dub video of “I gotta feeling” in which they wished us all the best of luck. It was hilarious and moving at the same time and definitely provided the hymn for (at least) our wedding and the first part song our DJ played was – surprise-surprise – ‘I gotta feeling’.

The party started relatively early but lasted long, the dancefloor has never been empty and both the delicious wedding cake as well as the late night goulash soup were highly appreciated by the party-people. Just after 0300 in the morning we closed the shop and we left the Lusthaus. We dropped off Viki and Stefan at their flat before heading to our room for the night – the Romeo & Juliet Suite in the Triest which has been organized by Kerstin’s cousin Anja. As the bar was closed already by that time we had the strawberries and water that was waiting for us in the room before having a wonderful first night of sleep as married couple.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Mission accomplished!!

Details to follow...

The final countdown

The clock is ticking louder and louder ahead of the big event tomorrow: our wedding. While one would immagine that after 12 years the ceremony is something like a formality, slowly but surely some sort of nervousness appears.

In order to cope with that we have family and friends who are coming to the wedding from outside and arrived already today in town as well as our witnesses Mary and Peter for drinks and BBQ at our terrace. The party weekend is starting!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus