Update form Austria

It is Thursday morning here in Vienna nad it is SNOWING!!! Daniel & Katie Beth are very excited. Let me tell you, we don't have appropriate clothing for this weather! According to the 10 day forecast before we left it was suppose to be 50's & 60's. We have to walk to get anywhere. Yesterday was very cold and it looks that way for today as well! We are headed home in the morning! Even though we have had a great time, home is always the best place to be! We have all been in amazement at the beauty of God's great big world!

Austria Day 5

We went swimming agai this morning while Mike was a his conference. We ordered Katie Beth a boiled egg this morning for breakfast, but here they bring them with runny yolks. My picky eater would have nothing to do with that egg! We went to the Hofburg Palace this afternoon. It was not as impressive as the royal family's summer home. The Lippizaner Stallions had already quit practicing for the day. It was sort of a maze and hard to get around at this palace. The children weren't that impressed! It was freezing outside today and the wind was blowing. It snowed in the mountains last night! After wandering through the palace grounds, we decided to go on a city tour by carriage. Daniel & Katie Beth both loved this!
Tomorrow we are going to try the European railways and go to the little town of Krems to explore. It is only an hour ride and we can spend the day in the town before returning home in the evening. We have decided not to go to Prague or Budapest because they are so far away and the children aren't really up to another long bus ride. Actually, neither are we!! The pictures are from the carriage ride this afternoon!
Flat iron update! The front desk manager brought me her flat iron on Sunday evening and is letting me keep it until I check out Friday morning. She has gone above and beyond the call of duty and we plan on letting the Marriott know what a great job she has done! It may seem odd that I am using hair appliances from someone that I don't know, but I was desperate and she seemed very clean!

Austria Day 4

Today was a lazy day! Mike had to leave for his conference by 7:30am, so the children and I slept until 10:30, missed breakfast and went straight to the pool. After Mike came back, we went back to St. Stephen's Cathedral, did the tour and then climbed the South Tower. 343 steps later, we were at the top and about to have a heart attck from all of the steps!!! We thought the way down would be easier, but it is a dark, narrow spiral staircase and it made all of us a little nervous going down with no handrails! Daniel even shared that his armpits were sweaty and it was very cold and rainy here today! We made it to the bottom where we immeadiately needed a snack and a Coke Zero! Afterwards, we took the subway to Prater Park, which is an amusement park. The children rode some rides and had a great time. We probably walked 2 miles in search of a place for dinner. I thought Daniel & Katie Beth may revolt if we wouldn't have found a spot after all of that walking. The picture today is from the South Tower about 3/4th's of the way up.

Austria Day 3 - Salzburg

We went to Salzburg today on a tour bus. It was a beautiful trip. On the way there the bus stopped at the lake district of Salzburg, and we were blown away at how beautiful it was. The Alps were the background to these fabulous lakes! Salzburg was charming. We saw Mozart's birthplace and some of his original musical pieces. The children had their pictures taken at several sites where The Sound of Music was filmed. The bus ride was very long and I don't think we are going to do anymore tours. We are going to try the train on Wednesday!

Day 2 in Austria

We were late sleepers this morning. We finally got Daniel & Katie Beth up about 10:00am. We only made it to Schonbrunn Palace today. It was huge! We spent hours touring the palace and the grounds. The children couldn't imagine that being their home. It was the summer home of the Austrian royalty for many years. We didn't get back to the hotel until almost 6:00pm. We took our 1st subway ride today and didn't get lost! We are off to Salzburg at 7:00am. We can't wait to see the home of Mozart!

I still have been unable to replace my flat iron. I bought one today for $75, but it has the wrong plug on it, so I can't use it at home. I returned it once I realized this. The concerige is going to bring hers from home tomorrow afternoon and let me borrow it because there is nothing open here on Sunday!!!! She is my favorite person right now! All of the pictures are from today at Schonbrunn.

We are Here!

Dinner in our cute little booth!



Daniel, Katie Beth, & Myself in Vienna



Mike, Daniel, & Katie Beth @ St. Stephan's Cathedral

After about 18 hours of traveling we finally made it to Vienna! The children were wonderful. Katie Beth got a little restless about the last 2 hours of our flight across the ocean, but other than that the trip was very easy! We arrived at 2:00 am our time in the States, so we went to the hotel and slept for 3 hours and then everyone seemed ready to go exploring. We walked all over, saw St. Stephan's Cathedral and had some dinner. The cathedral was amazing! The restaurant that we had dinner at was very charming and the chocolate cake and apple strudel were fabulous! I am going to post more pictures, but I have no idea where they are going to show up on this page. Kellie has promised some lessons when I return home!

The only catastrophe so far is that my Chi iron stopped working. All of you with frizzy hair know that I may not be able to post pictures of myself after today unless we figure out a solution to this problem!!!

Tomorrow we are off to see a Castle, the largest Ferris Wheel in Austria, and maybe the Lipizzaner Stallions!

On Our Way!!!

We are on on our way! The children are so excited and were great on the first flight. We are in Detroit, waiting on our flight to Amsterdam. The picture below is from this morning at the airport! More updates to come. If there is no picture, then I couldn't figure out how to do it!!

QUICK UPDATE


I know it has been a week since I got home, but things have been very busy. Ecuador was great. We were able to perform 58 surgeries on children with crossed eyes. Even though we loved meeting the people and doing the surgeries it is always wonderful to be home!

On another note: I have a prayer request. A friend of ours, AJ has been deployed to the Middle East, eventually to end up in Iraq. Please pray that AJ comes home safely and that his exposure to combat time is minimal! AJ if you are reading this, we can't wait for you to be home!

We leave for Austria in 4 days, so my blogging time will be nonexistent between now and then. Hopefully, I will be able to post with some pictures from Austria. We are all excited and can't wait to go!

Adoption news: We received a 2nd contact on 10/1. The birthmother is very early in her pregnancy, so we will see how things go. Right now we are committing this birthmother and her family to prayer and praying for God's guiding hand for everyone involved.