The Hills are Alive

I don't even know where to start when describing the beautiful quaint city of Salzburg. It was definitely a highlight of my trip. It was such a beautiful city nestled right in the mountains. My parent had found on previous trips to Salzburg the most darling little B&B run by a little austrian lady who lives on a little farm. It was so darling and she greeted us each morning with a "Guten Tag" and a wonderful spread for breakfast. She was truly part of the whole experience.

The breakfast room!

Her teapot collection...so darling.

The first night we got there we headed straight to the Als Stadt of course... They had an awesome parking garage right inside the mountain and we were able to walk through tunnels out to the Als Stadt. It was beautiful cobblestones and narrow winding roads with bright colored buildings. Shops as far as the eye could see and street performers everywhere. We were there the weekend before Easter and they had the most amazing Easter markets in Salzburg. LOVED them!

Heading to the Als Stadt in the mountain from the parking garage

Some of the unique brightly colored buildings we saw everywhere. 

Some of the street performers. These guys always make me smile. 

The Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooks the city and can be seen almost everywhere. It was built in 1077 and really puts into perspective what old means. We hiked to the top at night and had the most gorgeous view.

One morning, we went on a Sound of Music Tour. Now it's funny to realize that not many Austrians have even heard of the Sound of Music. It's really just an American thing. But nonetheless, they do the tour of all the famous sights in the movie for the American tourists. It was an awesome way to see the entire city and some of the beautiful countryside and quaint little Austrian villages outside of the city.

I have always loved the Sound of Music growing up and LOVED LOVED LOVED seeing the sights. Some of the highlights of the tour...

 Outside the amphitheater the Van Trapps performed at. These were the stairs they made their famous escape down to the car.

 Upclose view of the Leopoldskron Palace. This is the house that portrayed the back of the Van Trapps' home in the movie. 

 This is the famous lake outside the palace that the children fell into when they first met the Baroness. 

"I am sixteen going on seventeen" 

And yes...they now keep the gazebo locked because some 80 year old women tried to dance across the benches and reenact the scene and broke her ankle.  

 Mirabell Gardens and Palace...So beautiful even when it's 30 degrees outside. 

They had everything immaculately taken care of and flowers planted. The "Do Re Me" song was filmed throughout this garden. 

Here are the famous steps in the song where the children and Maria jump up and down them as they conclude the song. 

This is outside the wedding chapel that Maria got married at. 

And this is inside....certainly not as big as the movie made it look. 

This is the cemetery the Van Trapps came to hide in. Random fact. They didn't actually film in the cemetery because of the sacred nature and built a replica set exactly like it....but the Real Van Trapps came to this exact cemetery. 

Most of the graves had been decorated and flowers planted for the Easter holiday. 

Cheesy picture by the cheesy tour bus. 

One historic facts about Salzburg is that the famous composer Mozart was born in this small town. We saw the actual place of his birth and then one night we went to a Mozart Dinner Concert. This was incredible! They had a quartet of string players and a few vocalist performing Mozart's masterpieces. With recipes and costumes from the time period and it was held in a beautiful candlelit baroque hall...it truly felt like you stepped back in time to the late 1700's. I felt very cultured listening to Mozart in Salzburg! Thanks Mom & Dad!

Mozart "Geburtshust" (place of birth)

We also spent a few hours one afternoon in an incredible salt mine which was discovered in the early 600's by some priest. It was incredible and so fascinating.

Part of the mine crosses into Germany. Here's my dad and I on the border line. 

 After riding a train into the mine and hiking a bit, we went down a few slides to get down into the heart of the mine. They were awesome! I'll be honest I was a little scared at first. It was very dark and you basically straddle two logs. They are long and steep. But after the first thrill and rush, it became much less scary.

 Tasting the salt drips! 

They had their own "Salt Lake" we rode across in a boat. The colored lights made it beautiful. Our tour guide thought it was hilarious when we told him that my family was from "Salt Lake City".

 The view from outside the mine

The name Salzburg in German mean "Salt City". Salzburg sits right outside of two major salt mines which are a huge industry for the city and country of Austria....just a random fact I learned while visiting this beautiful place!

Andrew-isms

It seems as though, Andrew's language has been exploding the last few months. He is trying new words all the time and soaks it all in. I love it! I love that he can tell me what he wants and that he has an opinion about stuff....all things we never thought would be possible with this kid.

Just want to remember some of these cute phrases in his cute little voice. I've tried so hard to take some video of him talking, but of course when the camera comes out he's all shy and wants to play with it and not perform.

So I guess writing them down will have to do...alongs with a little explanations and a few recent pictures. It's weird to hear a little mini-me. I don't realize I say certain phrases, until I hear him repeat it.


"Go walk....um kay?"
Andrew is all about walking and since we moved, we had to turn in his walker and are waiting to check another one out. Mommy has since become "THE WALKER" and literally that is all we do all around our house, up and down the stairs and around our yard. I get nothing done during the day. He is climbing up my legs, trying to grab my fingers so we can go walk. It breaks my heart that he has to be fully dependent upon me to do something as simple as walk. Pray we can get a walker soon!

"ticka ticka ticka ticka"
Whenever he wants to be tickled, he'll lift up his shirt, find his belly button and say this phrase. Like he's trying to tickle himself, but REALLy wants you to tickle him.

"where are you ______"
This used to be one word to Andrew...."whereareyou?" now it's much more clear and a definite three words. He's into hiding stuff. He will first hide it and then ask where it is. He's always, looking for daddy, elmo, mommy, shoes, his ball or cookies...I'm not sure who taught him that last one.

"Have a good day"
The funniest was when we were shopping at Aldi a few weeks ago. I was bagging my groceries off to the side. He over heard the checker right by us tell a customer "Have a good day!" After that, Andrew chimed in like a little parrot repeating this phrase over and over to anyone and everyone who walked by.

"Here you go"
Anytime he hands you something, he'll say this phrase. This was definitely one I didn't realize I said until he started repeating it.

"emmma!"
Translation....Amen (In a very loud evangelical voice.) Sitting in front of the Holden's during testimony meeting can be quite entertaining. After every testimony you hear a little two year old's AMEN!


"Shoes on? Go buh bye?"
Whenever he sees shoes he wants to go bye-bye...mostly just to the backyard, but he also loves to get in the car and go places. With his braces he wears shoes all day long, so he'll walk me into my bedroom to the closet to find mommy's shoes. That's when he knows we are REALLY going somewhere.

"peas?" 
translation....please. Still needs reminders, but when he says it, it's always in a sweet melt-your-heart kind of whisper.

"eat eat eat banana apple"
This is Andrew's version of the song "I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas..." I love hearing him try to sing it.

"the end"
After every book we read....he says "the end". If he's done reading a book and wants a new one, he'll close it and let you know it's THE END whether you've looked at every page or not.

"ee-doo"
My personal favorite is to hear him say his own name. "ee-doo" for Andrew. After hiding under a blanket he'll often say "ee-doo where are you?" It's so fun to see his little personality come to life!

Happy Happy Birthday!

For those of you who know....Stephen is not a big birthday person. He just doesn't like being in the spotlight or making it a big deal. He claims that when you get older you don't need to do all those silly things. I on the other hand... LOVE doing all those little silly things. So this year we did lots of birthday celebrating!

He woke up to a yummy birthday breakfast. Cinnamon rolls and fruit. I got up early to make them...I mean pop them out of the can and put them in the oven. And then he decided to tell me that he was working from home that day! Wahooo! We got to spend the whole day together! Which Andrew and I always love.

That evening we had a big birthday dinner opened presents and even went for a bike ride.
Then Friday night, the celebrations continued! We grabbed a babysitter and went to the Studio Movie Grill for some yummy dinner and some Star Trek! This place was a lot of fun You basically get to watch a great your movie and order some dinner all at the same time! We had a great time!
Then the next night we went out with Stephen's Aunts  to and uncle to dinner...yummy Thai and had them over for Cheesecake! Wow! What a wonderful week of celebrations and wouldn't you know I didn't take one single picture of any of it! I'm getting horrible at taking pictures!

Hope you felt loved sweetheart! Happy Birthday!

Our Days in Vienna

I'm finally getting around to posting more about my adventures in Austria visitng my parents. I'm doing a little catching up on the blog and since this is my journal, I don't want to forget the incredible experience I had there.
Vienna was a beautiful and majestic city. We spent two days here and tried to soak it all in.  I loved all the large stately buildings all around the city. We spent some time at the Vienna Art Museum, which I think the building itself was the best part of it all. Such grand staircases and architecture... it was incredible.  I think I would have enjoyed it more, but I was running on zero sleep. It had been about 26 hours since I slept. So we headed back to our B&B and I took a short nap and slept. It's amazing what a few hours can do for you.

We picked up my sister and her husband who flew in later that evening...then the party started.

We found a fun little cafe and had to try authentic Wienerschnitzel in Wien(In German Wien is the city Vienna) and couldn't resist their apple strudel bathing in a vanilla sauce.  We seriously couldn't believe how delicious it was.


The next day we walked the city. Every city we visited had what they called the "Altstadt" or the old city. There was clearly a division between the Altstadt and the rest of the town. We started with one of the most majestic cathedrals. St. Stephen's Cathedral and Platz

It had one of the most fantastic view from the belltower at the top...although we didn't last long, we were freezing! I loved the mosaic tiles on the roof. What was even more incredible was to tour through the catacombs below. The huge marble sarcophaguses and a wall literally made out of human bones stacked like a pile of logs from floor to ceiling from when the black plague went through Europe. Incredible in an eerie sort of way.

We walked through the ringstrasse which is a circular road with many famous buildings, the Heldenplatz (where Adolf Hilter made the announcement that Austria would join the German Reich), The Hofburg Castle, museums and of course the famous Vienna Opera House.

We toured through the amazing opera house where many ballads and arias of Mozart were performed. It was incredible to stand in such a historic and world famous place. I loved seeing all the gorgeous rooms and being behind the scenes.

After a long day of walking we were tired. We grabbed our luggage and took a train down south to Graz where my parents live. It was a beautiful ride winding all through the alps with little villages scattered between the peaks and snow filled mountains. 

After a two hour train ride, we rode a bus for a bit and then hopped on the strassenbahn for a while before we made it to the church. where we piled all five of us and all of our luggage in my parents car and headed for their apartment. 

This train, bus, strassenbahn, and car ride is a typical route for my parents. They are in the Vienna stake and go there often for meetings and trainings. Gives you a whole new perspective for Stake Conference. 

We finally got to see their little apartment! (we'd only seen a few glimpses from skyping with them over the last year.) We certainly did fill the small place with five of us there.  

Another Year...

Missing my sweet baby boy more than ever today!

So grateful Heavenly Father allowed us ten weeks with this sweet angel. We love and miss him more than words can express. 

Thanks to my sweet brother for sending me these pictures! It makes times like these so hard to be so far away.

Lucy

The Background:
Back in February or so we were down in Houston visiting my brother and his family. We had a great trip and somehow ended up bring back their dog to dog-sit for what we thought was a few weeks. They were trying to put their house up for sale since they would be moving back to Utah in the coming months. They were planning on coming up to Dallas a few weeks later and the plan was to take the dog back home then. Well, their trip got canceled and two weeks ended up turning into almost 3 months. We had some fun adventures with their cute and lovable dog Lucy.

Lucy became part of the family while she stayed with us. We had a lot of fun and Andrew LOVES dog now that we had a little one in our home for a few months. I will be honest it was a great distraction during his tantrums. She brought many laughs, kept my kitchen floor clean and she was always at my feet to kept me company during the day. She was a great dog and I think this was a good trial run....maybe someday when we are not renters...we'll have a dog of our own.

 Andrew was way too smart and figured out how to unlatch her kennel. After that, they became good friends really quick.

After a tantrum of some-kind Andrew and I were cuddling on the couch. Lucy just had to come be apart of the cuddling.

She was so good and patient around Andrew. Lucy would always come up and give him kisses with her tongue right in his face. Andrew would just giggle and laugh. He LOVED it!

Because my brother never made it up to Dallas and we couldn't coordinate our crazy schedules with both of us moving at the same time....we ended up shipping the dog straight to Utah  to meet up with them. It was quite the crazy process to ship a dog. I certainly DON'T recommend it unless you absolutely have to.

Andrew was quite sad the day we had to say goodbye to the doggie and sent her on the airplane.....okay, okay well maybe he was more upset that mommy was trying to get one last picture and wouldn't walk with him. But poor Lucy knew something was up. 

March For Babies 2013

We can't thank people enough for the overwhelming response of support for us and our boys in our March of Dimes fundraising and the March for Babies walk. This year we were able to participate in the Dallas walk. I didn't really know what to expect, but was very humbled and overwhelmed at the number of people who walked for many babies who were born too early. It was a beautiful morning and we walked around the scenic White Rock Lake near downtown Dallas. I would venture to guess there was probably 30,000 or so people there...seriously I have never seen so many people in one place. CRAZY!!! We had a fun time though and couldn't have asked for more gorgeous weather. It was a five mile walk, but at every mile marker there was a turn around, because of all the little kids...you just never know how long you'll last. We made it to the 2 mile marker and then turned around. Andrew was a bit anxious to get out of the stroller and do some walking himself. Pretty much nobody ran....there was way too many people, strollers and wagons.

It was a mass of people for at least a mile. I tried to take pictures to show how just incredible of a sight it was, but they certainly don't capture it.

Starting out the walk

This was the only thing that kept Andrew happy! He LOVES to eat from a whole apple and gnawed on it for almost the whole race. 

They had tons of family festivities and lunch! We found the March for Babies Fed Ex car. Which was pretty cool.

I would have to say, that I didn't expect to be such an emotional basketcase. Okay...so I've decide, I'm weird like that. It brought to surface many of the hard emotions of our time in the NICU with our boys. And since then, I've thought so much of our little Ethan and missed him more in the last few weeks, than I have in a long time. Maybe because it's that time of year...the time between his birthday and when we had to say goodbye. ahhhh well....such is life, I guess. 

Another Move & Pictures

Life has been a whirlwind the past month or so. It's kind of been a blur to be honest.

We knew that when we moved to Texas and chose to live in Stephen's Grandma's old home, it would be a temporary thing. The family wanted to sell the house and close up the estate this spring. Which meant we'd be there for about a year.  We just didn't realize that once they put the house up for sale,  they'd have a contract and a closing date in under two weeks! Which meant the last three weeks, we had to quickly find a place, pack our entire house and move. 

{{Sigh}} 

Looking back it all worked out and we made it in one piece. To be honest, it went way better than I had expected.  (I tend to over-stress sometimes) We had some great help from friends & family who watched Andrew so I could focus on packing during the day and especially when the big moving day came. One would think that by moving three times in three years, I'd have the packing and moving thing down to a science. I don't, but this time I didn't have any choice but to dive in and just throw everything into a box.

We are enjoying the new house! Andrew seems to like exploring all the different rooms and has done awesome at keeping himself entertained so mommy could get some things unpacked. He wasn't quite sure for a few days, but after being here a week we've gotten a lot done and it's feeling much more like home.

We moved about an hour away to the northeast side of Dallas. At the beginning of April, Stephen found out his last rotation for work would be in the Dallas area, but on the other side of the city. So we figured this was actually good timing to move closer to his work and cut the hour plus commute down to 15 minutes. 

Andrew's favorite thing about the new place are the stairs. Yes...he is obsessed with them and says "weeee" in a high pitched voice everytime we go up or down them. We've had to teach some stair-climbing skills and he's catching on, but still quite wobbly. Plus he figured out how to get around our boxes at the bottom of the stairs, which makes me nervous.

So amidst all the craziness around our household, I decided to take a minute this afternoon and stop unpacking and blog a bit....it's a stress reliever to me. So watch out! I'll be doing some catch up blogging over the next little while, but until then. You can enjoy some of Andrew's 2 year old pictures. I had a darling friend take them in the Texas bluebonnets. Ohhh yes....I now have a new favorite time of the year in Texas....bluebonnet time. It's absolutely beautiful and they are everywhere! Too bad they only last a few weeks.