St Martin's Day

On Friday late afternoon Jakob had his first big event at the kindergarten – the annual lantern festival marking the celebrations of StMartin’s Day. Following the tinkering of the lantern a few weeks ago the three of us made our way towards a park nearby our son’s kindergarten together with the lantern at dusk. We arrived shortly before 1630, had the candle in the lantern lit by one of Jakob’s educationists and soon after we strolled through the park altogether. The older children were singing the classical songs “Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond und Sterne” and “Ich geh mit meiner Laterne” while the Rookies like our sunshine were rather just walking along and looking around what was going on there. It must have been even more funny to watch from outside than it was for us being part of the ceremony.

This is serious stuff!!

After a round in the park the oldest group of children performed a play in English language telling the story of Holy Martin who was a soldier and helped out an old homeless man with half his coat on a cold and snowy night. The children did an excellent job as it is already a challenge at that age to perform a play in generally, but even more so in English (especially as none of them is an English native speaker). The play was followed with one more song before the warm tea, croissant and open sandwiches were served. On our way home Jakob insisted on having the candle lit all the way long and thus Markus had to lighten-up the candle over and over again. That evening Jakob also could only fall asleep with the lantern, sitting on the window board, lit.


Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

A feast with Gruffalo

Sunday afternoon Jakob was invited to his friend Serik's 3rd birthday party. Serik, Fritz & Jade's son, has picked the offices of the Astria Kids Academy as location for his party with 15 of his friends. As usually Jakob was rather shy and quiet in the beginning and it took him a while before he joined into the musical programme the team of the kids academy has prepared. But once the hand puppets have disappeared - our sunshine is not very much into anything that is in disguise - and real instruments as well as balls came into play Jakob was all fired up and enthusiastic and danced, played piano and jumped around.

 Jakob and music go along well

Later on a few parent s performed a little play and we were prepared already to leave the room with our junior as all the characters were disguised. Some more. Some less. Interestingly Jakob was all fine to stay, even when the terrible, terrible Gruffalo - Fritz portrayed him almost perfectly - appeared. Most likely the fact that the Gruffalo was afraid of the "mighty" mouse took away a lot of its scare.

Jakob was respectful, but not scared of Gruffalo

After the performance it was time for pizza and cake and Jakob obviously was all excited about that, taking the seat right next to Serik and sharing a piece of cake with mom and two slices of pizza with dad before playing with the other children (aged between 2 and 6 years) on the slide, improving further his piano skills and collecting the sweets and mars bars that were raining over the children (alongside lots of confetti) from paper buckets as grande finale for the party.

Finally - Food also for the children!

When we reached home at 1800 Viki and Stefan as well as Marina and Fabio were already waiting for us and they joined us for cold dinner and gave Jakob the opportunity to continue playing with a friend in a however more  calm way than at the birthday party and thus conclude a very nice and exciting Sunday.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Tinkering a lantern

Thursday started like a normal day for our little sunshine when went to the kindergarten as every weekday with mom and continued as usual with being picked up again after lunch and a nap around 1400. He was however somewhat confused when Markus was back home and in the later afternoon Jakob, Kerstin and Markus at 1600 got dressed and left for the kindergarten again. Never before has Jakob been to the kindergarten in the afternoon and never before dad was coming and staying there. The afternoon got even weirder when Jakob realised that all his group-mates were there as well and all of them had one or two of their parents with them - he has never seen the room so full. The reason for this get-together was easily explained however: It was time for the annual tinkering of lantern for the upcoming "Laternenfest" - Jakob's first big group event in the kindergarten.

I have a job to do! Don't disturb!

We joined the other kids and parents handcrafting, painting and stamping and Jakob had lots of fun applying the colours on the stamps, the paper and bottom of the lantern as well as himself and once the colours have all dried Markus had the honourable duty to assemble all parts together and finish the lantern. By that time Jakob had forgotten that is was late afternoon and a rather uncommon time to be in the kindergarten. He had already eaten 5 slices of supplied cake as the handcrafting obviously was exhausting and he played with his friends just like every morning. Our sunshine was also very proud to show us parents around in the room and present us with all the features - toilets and washing basins in the right height for children, the cupboards for their dishes and the loads of toys the little ones are playing every day. It seemed that he really enjoyed his time with mom and dad in the kindergarten but was very happy when we left for home at 1800 again. After all it was dinner-time!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

O'zapft is...

The Oktoberfest in Munich is an institution since 1810 and attracts millions of people each year to come to the Wiesn for singing, dancing and drinking loads of Maß-Beer. This year also Vienna is hosting first time something similar: The Wiener Wiesn on the Kaiserwiese just by the Riesenrad has opened its doors on September 23rd and offers until October 2nd  a similar programme like its big brother in Munich: food, music and lots of beer.

The boys are ready for the Wiesn

As Peter invited us for an afternoon in one of the four tents and so we had a perfect opportunity to get our Lederhosen out of the closet and get dressed up. For Jakob it was the first time ever to wear his leather trousers and after initial doubts he very soon started to like it. Both boys looked almost Bavarian in their outfit when we got on the way to the other side of the Prater. Both Anna and Jakob were initially a little bit scared (or were they overwhelmed) by the larger number of people out- and inside the tent, but after a while they started to enjoy themselves, enjoyed the (sometimes awful) music, danced, chased each other and had a lot of fun.

What a cool ride home!

Several hours and a few Maß beer later we left the Kaiser-Zelt and got on the giant ferris wheel. Even though Jakob has not yet enjoyed this Viennese landmark he was less impressed with the great view over the city but he was more fascinated by the roller-coasters next to the giant ferris wheel. Once we touched ground again his first way led him closer to these roller-coasters and it became pretty obvious to us, that fairly soon our little dare-devil will be going on one of these. We rounded the nice late-summer afternoon up with another premiere: we rode the Liliputbahn ratehr tah  walking the whoel 1,5 km home. Both Anna and Jakob loved it, waved to the people nearby, laughed a lot and were smiling all over. The perfect end to a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

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

Typical behaviour in untypical weather

The past 1.5 weeks the weather was anything but summer-like as temperatures dropped into the mid-teens and it was raining a lot. As a consequence we not only could not use our season ticket for the nearby Stadionbad and had to look for alternative entertainment for our junior. On Saturday we initially wanted to do some shopping at a Swedish furniture chain in the north of Vienna, but a combination of construction works and an early morning accident on the A23 made us postpone the trip to the afternoon . When Jakob woke up after a more than two hours long lunchtime nap we got into our car again and wanted to follow an alternative route to Ikea. However the inner city routes were clogged by that time as many drivers used this detour to avoid the still completely blocked A23. Hence we changed plans again, returned home and went into the Prater instead - Jakob was riding his bike and we tried to keep pace with him. We spent time on the playground on the large slide as well as the flying fox and our junior, who is currently ion the phase of “I can do that on my own” ordered us several times to stay away from him and not get near him to help. The following movie is evidence for that:

Sunday was a carbon copy of Saturday with weather not having improved at all, cloudy skies and temperatures below 20 degrees. We decided to go the zoo in the morning before lunchtime as we haven’t been there for ages and only last week Saturday had to call that plan off due to rain. We watched the feeding of the seals which as always has been a highlight. Jakob for the first time watched the whole procedure very concentrated and was laughing lout whenever a seal jumped out to grab some fish. The less than 1 month old newborn seal also used the morning feed to present itself to the public. It was clumsily getting in and out of the water and even made the typical seal-noise the animals make when the demand something (at least they do so here in Schoenbrunn). We afterwards went to the elephants as it started drizzling and hid in the indoor compound until it stopped raining , moved on to watch the white-hand gibbons playing outdoors in the trees and took a glimpse at the newborn giraffe. By lunchtime we were back at home again and spent the afternoon chilling and relaxing before getting to work and to nursery again on Monday morning.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Girls aloud - the story of a hen-night

Part two of our “farewell-to-singledom” took place this past weekend and this time it was the ladies’ turn. Hence Kerstin was picked up from home on Saturday just after lunchtime by her maid of honour Maria in order to kick of a weekend themed “Mad Women”. While Jakob was initially not too impressed with the fact that his mom would be leaving him behind – he tried several times to take off her shoes and make her stay – he soon after the ladies have left could be effectively distracted by playing with grandma Heidi, cousin Ylvie, uncle Flo and Markus. A total of 18 ladies congregated to celebrate Kerstin’s hen-night and gathered at Motto am Fluss for a warm-up and afterwards Kerstin checked into her hotel room, a stylish master suite in Le Meridien by the ring road. The girl’s plan to have drinks in outside the Moet Bar of the hotel but the fact that the funeral procession of the last heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Otto von Habsburg, was just passing by the hotel was a bit too depressing and so the drinks were in the outdoor-loungearea at the back of the hotel. Time now also was ripe for Kerstin to be properly adjusted for the night amongst other stuff with a little black dress and phenomenal high-heels which she was wearing for the rest of the evening.

So close, but no-one dared to jump...

For dinner the group had a reservation in Holy Moly – situated on the Badeschiff, a floating pool on the Danube channel – and they left the restaurant after midnight to hit the dance floor of Platzhirsch located right next to the Meridien. Kerstin not only endured dancing in her high heels for a very long time and only by 0300 decided to shrink by 10cm but also managed to have fun and enjoy the night without any drink while the girls around her had drink after drink after drink. The visit to the sausage stand at dawn however was a must and the sausage tasted similarly good with or without a drink. Having hit bed by 0600 Maria, Evi, Doris and Kerstin had nice breakfast/lunch in Palmenhaus on Sunday morning while Jakob was impatiently waiting at home for his mom and asked in regular intervals about her whereabouts. When the doorbell rang around 1400 and Jakob heard Kerstin’s voice on the intercom one not only could see his joy about hearing mom but also his relief that she returned. Our sunshine was awaiting her by the elevator and embraced her tightly as soon as she left the elevator. We are not sure, when he allows her to go out again without him!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus