Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Running and cycling Vienna

Past Sunday Vienna yet again belonged to the runners as the 30th edition of the Vienna City Marathon took place and took control of major roads in the city centre. While all of us were very keen to watch the race and cheer the runners, Jakob was always of the conviction, that he is running the marathon himself. Hence he was wearing his running outfit - shoes, pants and shirt - being not only nervous, but also full of energy for the race. When the elite runners - led by superstar Haile Gebrselassie - passed us at the Rotundenbruecke Jakob was watching with huge astonishment how fast man can run and quite a while later he was amazed by the sheer amount of people that were tackling the race - more than 40.000 runners in all disciplines in total! We lateron made our way (running ofcourse)  towards the ringroad where Jakob would have loved to use the nutrition areas for himself and was very happy when he did get an (empty) Powerade cup in the end. Together with dad he them was running alongside the racers on the course all the ringroad towards Schwarzenbergplatz watching runners, waving at spectators and happy whenever he had a chance to crush a plastic cup on the road.

What a great training-track!

Our base for the remainder of the race was the Schwarzenbergplatz where we not only could watch and cheer runners around km 12 of their race but also at km 41, so just before reaching the finishing line. While Jakob did avoid the competition with the leaders of the men's race he did run alongside some of the following runners for 100/150 metres and he did (almost) keep pace with them - see the video as evidence. Spectators along the course were as amazed as mom and dad and applauded the little boy a lot. He obviously loved that, as he repeated the little sprint 4 times. Together with Stefan and Viki we then refuelled the batteries with meat at McDonald's. Maybe not the healthiest food, but closest to the track so we did not miss much. When Viki's brother-in-law had passed us on his last metres of his race we said farewell to the great spot and made our way home by bus. Both Jakob and Julia have been really tired and used the busride for a short rest.

I can run. I can bike.
 
Once we reached home Jakob must have found a second energy as he was demanding to go out again on his bike and use the opportunity of traffic-free roads to ride his bike. Kerstin decided to go out with him while Markus stayed at home and put Julia to bed for an afternoon nap. Half an hour later he received a picture showing Jakob on his bike in front of the State Opera, approximately 5km from home. He did really ride the bike on the race track all the way there, made his way together with Kerstin to the finishing area before meeting Stefan again at the Rathausplatz . From there our big-boy cycled to Schwedenplatz where he got a well deserved large ice. The ride home was then very casual and we are actually pretty amazed of the energy Jakob had all day long. Not only was he running a lot throughout the day, but it was also his first big bicycle tour! Chapeaux!

Julia, Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Friday, April 5, 2013

Ta-Tu, Ta-Ta!

Its almost a tradition that children get presents for Easter which they can use outdoors and help them move around, be it a bike, inline skates or a scooter. As we are rather "mainstream" and our children are in that age the Easter bunny has brought some mobility tools for both Julia and Jakob. The big boy got a micro scooter so he can be faster on his way to kindergarten while Julia got a new Puky trycicle (including a slide rod) as well as a red Big Bobby Car. The latter means, that she does not need to borrow Jakob's black Mercedes anymore.

"Come on! We have to save the cat from the tree over there now!"

Yesterday afternoon there was then a lot of action in our living room as we had two fire-men present who had all sorts of jobs to do. Both of them have been very busy driving around on their fire engines and had a lot of fund doing so. While they in the past were fighting for the vehicles thi was the first time they cooperated and played together. These are the moments when we know for sure that the presents we got were the right ones. Whether we think the same way, when they start racing each other and crashing into all our furniture, walls etc we cant say at the moment. Future will tell.

Julia, Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Bugs cleared! Pictures and videos (back) online

Very often when not paying attention to things they go sour. Whether the fact that ther was hardly any/no maintenance of our blog for several months has led to bugs entering the system or whether it was pure coincidence can not be answered at this point. Fact is, that the bugs are cleared now, we could update the content a little bit, add a few new features and bring back to life some well known and appreciated features.

Ergo - you can finally take a look at the latest photo updates - now appearing on Google+ - as well as all other picture links that used to work in the past. We also added new Videos to the YouYube channel, whereas two of them can ONLY be watched by following the links in the "Video Links" section on the right hand side of the page. Enjoy!

Julia, Jakob, Kerstin & Markus