Easter Sunday

Easter in Texas
This year for Easter, since I would be half-way around the world, I left strict instructions for Stephen. They went a little something like this...
"Although Andrew has no understanding of what Easter is, nor would he know any different, but for his mother's sake. PLEASE  remember to help the Easter Bunny fill Andrew's basket and take a few pictures."

 The Easter bunny did a great job and decided to hide Andrew's Easter basket....

 But Andrew really didn't catch on to the concept....

 So the Easter bunny tried hiding it again in a more obviously place.

 Again, Andrew still wasn't sure what was going on...

 Eventually with much coaching he found the goods and pulled everything out of the basket. A favorite pastime of his.

It sure didn't take him long to figure out what the chocolate reeses eggs were. 

Good Job Easter Bunny!!!

Easter in Austria

I don't think I'll spend another Easter without remembering my time in Austria with my parents on their mission. It was such a fun time to visit and see all their traditions.  One of my favorite things was their Easter Eggs. You can buy them in the store already dyed and they were the brightest colors I've ever seen. After much debating, we think that they had to have spray painted them or something. Oh and they sell everything in 10's not dozens...so you get 10 eggs and 10 in a bunch of flowers etc...

While we were in Salzburg we found the most amazing store. The Egg Store. They had thousands and thousands of beautiful eggs. It's a tradition in Austria to blow out real eggs and hand paint them, then hang them from trees, flower boxes or especially pussy willow branches with bright colorful ribbons. This store was incredible and we could have spent hours just looking at them all. They were nice enough to stay open for us girls to fill our carton of  these beautiful eggs. They said they have over 100 people painting eggs year round for this store. It was amazing!

The Easter Markets in Salzburg were beautiful and so fun to walk through. Fresh flowers, spring arrangements with colorful ribbons, anything and everything related to Easter. I loved it!

 With a bakery on every corner, some had the cutest little Easter treats....also hand painted. 

I fell in love with the pussy willow trees. You sure don't find those here in Texas!

 At our cute little B&B in Salzburg, the sweet lady who ran it had this darling Easter display. It had the easter eggs her grandkids had blown out and decorated.

From Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday, they had draped purple or yellow cloth over all the crosses or statues of Christ. This was everywhere inside churches or around the all the different cities. Not sure if there is some symbolic reason for the purple and yellow colors, but I found it to be an interesting tradition. 

Easter Sunday we made our way back to Graz, where my parents live, so we could attend their ward. It was really wonderful to see their ward and meet all those they have talked about the last year. Most of all, it was so great to see them in "action" as missionaries. It was neat to sit through the entire three hours of church all in German. I understood a few words, Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, and Moses....Oh and Frohe Ostern (Happy Easter...one of the few German phrases I picked up) My mom on the other hand can understand quite a bit more than she'd let you to believe. She'd kept leaning over to me and telling me what they were talking about, which helped a ton.

I was amazed at how people still wear the traditional Austrian clothing and many wore them to church for Easter Sunday. The cutest were the little primary kids who sang in sacrament meeting and the little boys in their lederhosen.  The ward they serve in is a big ward and they have many dear friends. People travel very long distances to come to church. So before and after the meeting block is a huge social hour. Everyone was so nice to us and loved to practice their English on us.

We learned a traditional game of cracking the eggs. At the Easter meal "Ostereierditschen" is a game played by the family. The goal of the game is to try and break your opponent's hard-boiled egg. In turn, the players tap each other's egg with the tip of the egg. The person whose egg outlast all the other eggs, wins!

After church, Mom made us some traditional Austrian food; Speztle, apricot pork, along with with salad and pumpkin seed oil dressing. All so yummy!!! Then we had the traditional Oster  Lamm (Easter Lamb) for dessert. These were everywhere in the grocery stores/Easter markets and represent the Lamb of God.  

Us girls with mom just before our Easter dinner. 

We had a wonderful Easter and I even got to facetime with my two boys before we went to bed.

Frohe Ostern!

Trip of a Lifetime

I can't believe it's already been a month, but I was able to take a trip of a lifetime. My parents are currently serving a mission in Graz, Austria and have been gone for just over a year. A few of my siblings have gone to visit and about a month before I left, I was searching for ticket prices....dreaming of course. And found an awesome deal....so we jumped on it quick.  Since Stephen couldn't take that much time off of work, he was an incredibly selfless husband and bought me a ticket to go by myself. It worked out great and was so surreal at how fast it all came together. I ended up scheduling it the same time as my sister Allison and her husband were heading over there. I absolutely LOVE traveling and had been to Europe once before, but I was a bit nervous to be traveling alone and didn't know what I'd do with 18 hours all by myself on an airplane. I managed, but it was hard to sleep because I was super excited to see my parents
I know I won't be able to record every detail and picture, but I do want to share a few of my favorite things as we toured around the beautiful country of Austria. Going towards the end of March and during the Easter season, my parents were able to get away. The Young Adults they work with were on holiday for two weeks for Easter. So it worked out perfectly.

The Food...
We pretty much ate our way through the country. My favorite treat was the Krapfen. It's basically their version of a donut without a hole filled with apricot jelly. My dad talked about eating these yummy treats on his mission all the time growing up and it was one of the first things I tried when I got there.

Alumdudler was also another yummy treat. This drink is unique to Austria. It's best described as an apple tasting-ginger ale. It was so good, I had to bring a little home for Stephen to try.

The bread and cheese were amazing and they had lots to choose from and many different ones that we don't have here in the states. One night for dinner we pretty much just had bread and cheese....we of course HAD to taste test all the different varieties.

For breakfast each morning we'd have a semmel (roll) with cold cuts and cheese, yogurt and hard boiled eggs, which is a typical Austrian breakfast.

Everywhere we stopped to eat we seemed to always order hot chocolate to warm us up. If you know how amazing European chocolate is... the hot chocolate is just that much more amazing! They sure know how to do it in Europe!

To save time & space in blogger. I'm going to do a few slide shows for pictures . Not sure why the pictures are so small, but enjoy!

The Weather....
Coming from Texas, where during the winter it averaged in the 40's. I froze my tail off. I went from wearing shorts to 20-30 degree weather. I guess it's one of the coldest and longest winters they've had on record over there and I would agree especially since you're so high up in the Mountains. We joked about going skiing in the Alps and drove past many ski resorts. They were still up and running. It felt like January weather to me. But I'll be honest...it really didn't matter...I was in AUSTRIA!

We tried hard to stay warm, but we still froze. Here my dad is warming his feet on the furnace.

It was trying to be spring amidst all the snow we saw.

The Culture...
For the 10 days I was gone we spent some time in Vienna, Salzburg and Graz. Each city had it's own flavor and uniqueness that I loved. People were friendly and very helpful. Pretty much everyone in Vienna spoke English, which I was a bit surprised at, but thankful as that was where I flew in and out of.  Salzburg was a quaint little town nestled up in the Alps and I loved the unique red roofs in Graz.

I don't know much German, but I learned that they sometimes put 3-4 words together for compound words. We saw this sign outside the bus station and it had to be the longest German word ever with 22 letters in it.

I was fun to see how they named everything around town 'haus' or house. They had the bank 'haus' the opera 'haus' the waurst 'haus' the beer 'haus' etc....

The Schauspielhaus means the playhouse or theater.

This is a bit random, I know but I guess it's unique to Austria/Germany. Their beds are very simple and all the size of a twin. Generally,in stead of a queen or king, they have two twin-sized duvets which are folded in half or thirds, and laid side-by-side on the bed. Each person has their own blankets. There is never a flat sheet on top. 

Austria was everything you'd imagine or see in a storybook. All of the houses were painted bright colors from yellow and orange to blue and green. It was so colorful. 

 Almost all of the homes have wooden balconies with unique cut-outs on them. They also have the swooping alpine chalet roof line and to add to the storybook touch...they usually had wooden shutters and flower boxes hanging outside each window. They were just getting their flowers planted for the Easter weekend and here is one where they've decorated it with the hanging eggs and ribbon. So beautiful!!!

I loved driving through the mountains and you'd come along these quaint small villages up in the Alps nestled in the mountains with usually a gorgeous church surround by homes then the farmers fields on the outskirts. It was simply breathtaking. This picture is one just outside of Graz...notice the unique red roofs.

The Nance's come to Visit

Can I just say how much we LOVE having visitors? It seriously is the best! We were so lucky to have Stephen's sister and her family drive down this way from Illinois at the end of March. Her husband had some meetings for work down in the area and since her boys had spring break, they decided to make a family vacation out of it. Our house was full and we had a blast! We've missed living close to them and love hanging out together.

Of course we had to show them around to a few of our favorite places in the area.

First up...the Fort Worth Stockyards. This is Cow-Town and a true Texas Cowboy experience. It's a fun afternoon get-a-way, where you can see some long horned cattle, a wild west show, and a bunch of other fun cowboy things.

Brother and sister with their two boys!

Andrew can't get enough walking and will make friends with you fast if you'll walk him around. The aunts were scoring big points helping him walk down the street.

I LOVE this picture of my boys!

Andrew and his favorite pal...Daddy! 

A few of us decided to hop on and ride one of the long horns. Here's me and my little cowboy! It's crazy to think their horns have a 6 ft span. HUGE!!!

It was just so sad that a few days after they arrived I jumped ship...or airplane and left. I wish the timing was better, but so glad that they came all that way! Stephen took a few days off of work to play and watch Andrew while I was gone. They hit up the Dallas World Aquarium, the Perot Museum and of course the park.

Sweet Aunt Meghan and Andrew

 (most likely pointing out the "bites!" aka lights!)

The dads...and all their boys. 

Playing on the swings at our favorite park! 

I think most of all, Andrew loved spending time with his cousins and teaching baby Lincoln some of his tricks!

The Nance clan....We're so glad you came! We Love you guys!

Our Birthday Boy!

Still can't believe my little baby turned TWO! How did this happen? Where has the time gone? No matter what people say...he'll always be my "little" baby. Although, he is turning into such a little boy (aka toddler with such strong-willed opinions)  

We are so grateful for that little personality of his and love so many things about this little guy. 

::his vocabulary is exploding these days. He surprises us with new words he can say and sign everyday. And lately has been putting two words together( bye bye daddy, uh oh mommy, no no doggie)

::he is totally into walking and it's the first thing he asks for when I get him out of bed in the morning. He can walk independently now with his walker and loves to follow mommy around the house.
::he loves to laugh and giggle at the smallest things and is becoming quite the tease.
::he loves anything and everything to do with water! Bath time and washing his hands (ie playing in the water) are all-time favorites.
::Andrew is an awesome sleeper. Sleeps around 11-12 hours at night and takes one 2-3 hour nap.
::At age 2 he is 24 lbs 6 oz  and 32 inches tall. He's tall and skinny for his age, but on the preemie growth chart for his adjusted age he's at the 50th percentile. So we are happy for that, as he's been on a weight gaining diet the last 3-4 months

Andrew's actual birthday was on a Monday. I was flying out early that morning to visit my parents on their mission in Austria, so we had big birthday celebrations with family the weekend before. Stephen's Aunts came over and his sister Meghan and her family had driven down from Illinois for their spring break. We loved celebrating with so much family! 

Here's the cake! Andrew has been totally into dogs right now...especially since we've been dog-sitting for my brother the past few months. He LOVES "doggies" and when he sees or hears something he doesn't know what it's called, he calls it a "doggie". So we had a doggie party for his birthday!  

This kid got spoiled and had a lot of fun opening his gifts! He understood the concept this year and was excited to see what was underneath all that paper.

Andrew's Great-Aunt P.J. who lives next door, is incredibly talented and knitted Andrew this stuffed puppy for his birthday, which honestly I still can't get over how darling it is.

We practiced all week blowing out candles. Andrew caught on quickly and could blow out two candles pretty well. Although, when the big moment came to blow them out at his party, he just looked around at everybody and said "bites!" aka "lights", then tried to grab at the flames.

Mommy even tried to remind Andrew that we blow out the candles....with no luck.

Eventually he did blow, just not very hard or in the direction of the candles...ahhh well...maybe three will be the year.

He didn't waste any time and knew exactly what that yummy chocolate cake was....I think he devoured it in just a few minutes and then signed for more. That's my boy!

Of course we had to Skype with Grandma & Grandpa Holden so they could join in with all the festivities. Having it displayed on our TV was awesome....it was like they were right there in the room. Technology is amazing! What a fun day full of celebrations!

Happy Second Birthday to the sweetest boy I know!  
We love you Andrew!