Conquering the hills around Vienna

For the past Sunday Mimi has been planning a mistery-mountainbike tour for Bruno and the rest of the Bella Familia boys but unfortunately Bruno and his two sons Max & Leo got ill and so the weeks of planning got obsolete and the large tour had to be cancelled. As we were though pretty much excited and looking forward to the tour a group of 6 – Peter, Geri, Mirko, Roland, Tim and Markus – decided to meet up at Lini & Peter’s place on Sunday morning anyway and take on the “light” challenge of the Pappelteichstrecke through the woods an hills nearby, while Jakob and Kerstin spent time with Lini at home waiting for both the boys to return as well as Anna to arrive.

On your bike! Ready! GO!!!

Moni’s 30th birthday party the night before caused the departure to be pushed a bit backwards, but at 1030 we rolled off, equipped with helmets, water and hi-tech mountain bikes. Especially Tim, Moni’s boy friend, stood out with a real downhill race machine that resembled more a moto-cross bike than a bicycle, and we have all be wondering which mountains he is racing down with this fantastic tool in his hometown Hamburg, rather famous for being flat. Soon after the departure the first and longest hill bringing us through the woods to the Wiener Huette requested lots of stamina and strength and Roland, who has an advantage being Tyrolean, left all the rest behind climbing up the track like a chamois. On the paths down Tim took over the lead and one had the impression he was trying to escape someone or something as he was accelerating like crazy and rolled over the rocks as if there were none thanks to his full suspension!

While all of us managed to get up all the ascents without having to get off the bike the last and final slope was impossible to make without stepping off the bike. Not only was it pretty steep, but also very muddy and wet so that the wheels were slipping and rocks or roots forced us to abrupt stops. We all managed to get out of the clips in time so that no one fell over with into the mud, but outfit and bikes were completely smutched – just as it should be on a bike tour. The following race downhill jerked the mud from the wheel into our faces and gave us the final touch. After 1 hour and 46 minutes and 29km we arrived knackered but happy at Lini & peters place where we not only could clean ourselves and our bikes but also were pampered with spare-ribs, sausages and a junky T-bone steak freshly grilled on the new Weber Q 200. We all agreed to have another tour like that, but next time there is no room to escape for Bruno.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

One month that passed by fast

Today Jakob has reached yet another milestone in his young life: he turned 1. One month into his time on this planet there are still sleeping and eating his two main businesses he is pursuing and Kerstin's milk seems to be very good as he can not get enough. Hence we are close to the 5kg threshold and we are very sure that by the end of August we will have a leading 5 in our weight declaration.

"Bring it on and show me the world!"

It might sound like Jakob is doing absolutely nothing else but sleeping and eating, but there is still time for him to be wide awake, "play" and experience his environment or scream. Even though he tends to be a very good and peaceful boy when we have friends visiting us, some of our guests also have made the experience of his sound intensity and we have had the impression that they were very glad that they could leave again while we had to go through the pain of high volume. Most of the times a few sips of milk do the trick to calm our son followed by a few hours of sleep and the opportunity also for us to rest.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

An exciting week

It has been an exciting week with for us with more moderate and therefore more bearable temperatures, further doctor appointments and examinations and a big visit by Markus’ family. The hard facts after our visit at the paediatrician are as follows: After 23 days Jakob is 57 cm long and 4550 g heavy and thus he is still clearly part of the larger group of babies, which does not really surprise us a lot as he is eating a lot throughout the days. Once Kerstin & Jakob returned from the doctor Markus' family came by for a visit and Jakob converted into a challenge cup when grandma, grandpa, aunts Ines and Viki as well as godfather-in-spe Steve offered Jakob a good rest in their arms. Our junior was peaceful as an angel and slept most of the time and once awake he was eating. Thanks to Markus' brother also us adults were fed with some delicious curry based on bananas, apples and carrots that he prepared in our kitchen.

After 9 months in amniotic fluid the element water seems not a preferred place

Thursday was another big day as in the afternoon Jakob had some follow up hip-ultrasound examination. The diagnostic findings were a great relief for Jakob as it meant that there is no need anymore to wear special swaddling clothes that kept the legs for the past 3 weeks apart. Not only that it seemed very uncomfortable it has also been very cumbersome due to the heatwave we experienced. The new freedom has been celebrated with the first bath since Jakob’s navel dropped off: With lots of noise and screaming he dipped into the large bathtub together with dad and in the end it almost seemed like he liked it. We have the suspicion though, that Markus had more fun than Jakob in the water, but we will find out the excitement of the little one for the wet element soon again.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Learning by doing

The summer heat has taken a tight grip on Vienna and made us sweat a lot during the past week. While Markus went back to work in order to spend the day in an air-conditioned environment Jakob, Heidi and Kerstin did their best to stay cool with the sunshields down all day, walks in the shadows of the Prater and occasional air-conditioned car-rides for some treatments and examinations throughout the week.

The new family is still working hard to get used to each other and Jakob in addition has to get accustomed to the weather which is probably also a difficult task with temperatures constantly above 30 degrees all day long, but it is probably fair to say that we are all doing well. The past three weeks have been super-intense and tiring but at the same time extremely joyful and laden with happiness. Jakob continued to eat well and he has taken on some more weight and grown in size and we can not wait to find out details later in the week when we have another appointment at the paediatrician.

So many news things to play with!

Apart from eatingJakob is also improving and learning every day and it is absolutely fantastic to watch him develop. Be it playing with some new toys (best after a good long sleep), be it following sounds and smiling back, be it holding up his head or be it properly screaming. The latter is though a nerve wrecking thing as our little boy has a very strong voice and he can sound as if we would have harmed him sometimes when he is in “screaming mode” during which we can hardly calm him down and which can not even be prevented by a long walk with our cool bugaboo cameleon stroller.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Our world has a new navel

Exactly two weeks ago our life has taken a sharp turn and entered a completely new path with the birth of our son Jakob who from the very first moment concentrated all our attention. While during Jakob & Kerstin’s stay at the hospital everything was fully organized around them we had to adjust ourselves to taking care of the little one and to simultaneously make sure we get enough sleep, food and nutrition, take care of the household, make sure we got all necessary equipment at home and sort out all bureaucratic issues like birth certificate or certificate of citizenship.

What absolutely took us by surprise was the randomness of sleeping, eating and being awake and it took us quite a few days to realise that we have to use every moment of peace to rest, as we don’t know, when Jakob is awake again and needs full attention. Our first visit to the doctor gave us a lot of confidence in doing the right thing as Jakob’s growth in size and weight were both on the upper range of the bandwidth – a strong signal for a healthy child and a gratification for hours of lost sleep during the nights.

Who would not get up at night to look after this sweet boy?

Last night Markus picked up grandma Heidi from the train station as she came to Vienna again for a week in order to support Kerstin at home when on Markus’s first week back to work. Another change for all of us and its unclear who is hit hardest: Markus who has a peaceful day at work not seeing his son, Kerstin who takes another step towards taking care of our son on her own during the days or Jakob who gets fed whenever needed, a clean diaper every other hour and all the sleep he wants. Take a pick.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

The Eagle has landed in his new nest

An intense programme of final check-ups, blood tests and detailed examinations were necessary in order to get the approval for Jakob and Kerstin leaving the Semmelweis-Klinik on the third day, Thursday 16th. We all were very happy and relieved when a very nice paediatrician gave us the good news, that Jakob is a healthy boy throughout and that we have the ok to leave for home.

On one of the hottest and sunniest days of the year we left the clinic early afternoon and Jakob clearly was fascinated and swamped at the same time by the totally new environment and impressions outside the clinic and in the car on the way home. It seemed though that he felt comfortable as he fell asleep halfway to home where grandma Heidi and aunt Sandra have prepared some welcome decorations for the new inhabitant and were waiting impatiently. The elevator was decorated with balloons and a little stork-figure, outside our entrance a beautiful picture painted by Sandra and Heidi was positioned and also Jakob's room was decorated with balloons. The long work Wednesday night and throughout Thursday definitely paid off.

Home sweet home - Welcome to your nest

The little man seems to have settled well in his new home, and even though it was pretty warm inside due to the heat, he was sleeping very well and long in his first night. Unfortunately we will have to wait long to find out what he was dreaming in this first night in a new place, we might even never find out. Anyhow we really hope that all his dreams do come true as the peaceful sleep he had gives us very much confidence, that it was nice dreams he had.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

The mystical expansion of "We together"

Monday morning our life has taken a planned and prepared but yet extreme turn - upon arrival to the Semmelweisklinik and after a check-up we immediately were transferred into the delivery room in which Kerstin was working hard and brave on the contractions and after several hours of being in labour, at exactly 14:04 our beloved son Jakob was born. His size of 53 cm and weight of 3610 g are indicators of the hard work Kerstin and Jakob, assisted by Markus and a lovely mid-wife had to do.

Here comes not the hotstepper, but our new family member: Jakob

Whatever one imagines and expects from the experience of giving birth, it is absolutely amazing, unbelievable and not explicable how wonderful this moment is. We both were absolutely overwhelmed when we held Jakob for the first time in our arms. All our imaginations of his looks became more realistic and it is simply great. Both baby and mother are well and healthy.

While the new dad met up with his friends that were available at short notice for some decent celebrations in the evening, ending at 0400 at the terrace with the last beer, Kerstin and Jakob chilled, relaxed and got more and more accustomed to each other. The grandparents are already on their way and will be able to meet&greet the newcomer soon.

Needless to say we are indescribably happy about our son and look forward to exciting and interesting years to come that will be pretty different to the years we have spent together so far!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Vote labour (pains)

After a night of regular and intense contractions it is getting serious now. With a few days delay our little one seems to be ready to leave his space capsule - Ground control to Major Tom - and hence we checked into Semmelweisklinik early morning.

Kerstin & Markus

10 years "We together" - and the best is yet to come!

Today it is exactly 10 years that we got together. What started off as two neighbours who were initially after the same flat - which by the way had windows providing a nice view in each other's flat - turned out to become something very special. For Markus that meant to learn a new set of language as the Gsiberger dialect is more like a foreign language for someone from the very east of Austria and to get to know a whole bunch of new - by now very good - friends (just imagine a "boring" banker clashing with a crowd of people from the advertising industry).

One of the first pictures together - taken in autumn 1999 in Schoenbrunn

During the course of the ten years we went through loads of great times with our friends as well as on great holidays in Bali, Brasil or Thailand but also had to cope with some serious exams and situations like the seperation when Markus was working in London while Kerstin worked in Vienna. This almost 4 years of long-distance weekend relationship did not result in more distance and was the a strong binding factor for our relationship.

Whether we can fully enjoy all the plans for our anniversary day depends though on our little one who is due any day/minute - but we are more than happy to share the day with him.

Kerstin & Markus

Loads of meat on the bone

Summer is back with temperatures around 30 degrees during the days and remaining above 20 degrees also during the night and thus we have the perfect settings for long evenings on the roof terrace enjoying a barbeque. The fact, that each day at least a short, but potentially heavy rainfall provides some humidity and water for the plants could not spoil the outdoor plans and so we have had 3 nights of delicious BBQ since Thursday.

Thursday night Viki and Stefan stopped by before leaving for their holiday in Spain on Friday morning and we had a nice farewell dinner. Stefan made it very clear that he would prefer our little one to arrive only after their return at the end of this week. Flo, who arrived in Vienna Wednesday night for his brother’s scholastic ceremony, was of a completely opposite opinion: he was hoping for delivery this weekend. As there were no signs at all we decided to invite Flo, his brother Philip and girlfriend Cherry as well as Flo’s mom Christine and partner Norbert for BBQ with spare ribs, Berner sausages, pork chops and turkeybreast on Saturday night. We expected the need of a lot of meat for the 7 of us and were pretty much surprised when after two courses everyone was done. We suspect that the amounts of beer that were consumed - and that took us by surprise as well – could be one reason for the low food consumption. Luckily we could use some more meat on Sunday night when we expected our neighbours Andrea and Stefan, but we definitely failed to eat up all we bought and so the freezer is full now as well.

Given the fact that most of the recent nights were quite short and Markus’s running programme foresaw a 2 hour sting of running on Sunday afternoon Monday is a slow and tired day and will see us early in bed. Lets see how long we can rest before the big day and when Flo has to return to Vienna together with Sandra, Heidi and Eugen.

Kerstin & Markus