You will be missed Abel

It is with great sadness to anounce that one of our youth teenager has passed away. His name was Abel-Alin Gherasim, April 10, 1989- May 20, 2007 18yrs old. He drowned in a lake this Sunday as he was swimming with a friend. He will be greatly missed by his family & church family. It hurst to see the pain & sadness he has left behind, but we rejoice because he is in heaven. The viewing will be this Thursday & the funeral on Sat. Please keep his family in your prayers.

New Blog

Okay so I have been asked to post something new since the prev post kinda caught some people off guard. No worries! I hope that all you mother's out there had a great Mother's day! We didn't really do much. Church in the morning, eat after church. Yeah this turned out into a 3hr meal at the restaurant. We went with the pastor's & another family whom are moving back to Germany on Saturday. It was a very nice day, warm & relaxing since Sun night church was cancelled.

We rented a movie & slept in on Monday. Well I & Audrey slept in on Monday. We finally found a sroller. Wahoooo! went to IKEA for Andre's sake. He loves going there to play & eat SPILU (spaguetti) for 1Euro. Then later I bought me a dress & got the kids sandals. whew! Full day!

Today the funniest thing happened. Well it wasn't funny at the moment but I had to take a picture of it. I sent Andre to go potty like 3x's & he didn't want too. So I made him go. This was before his afternoon nap. He finally goes & closes the door. 3min pass by & I think..oh this is good he went stinky poopoo. When I went to ck up on him. He wasn't going, he was actually enjoying himself unrolling a brand new roll of tp. That's right. It was all over the floor. As soon as I walked in he jumps & sits on the toilet. He knew what he did was wrong. Of course we had a talk about this. Not cool at the moment but funny now.

I have been cleaning, did 5 loads of laundry..got 2-3 more to do 2morrow. You know what I wish there was? A thing like a vacuum that would suck up all the toys that lay around EVERYWHERE around the house. I swear I feel like that's all I do all day long. Even if I do it at the end of the day...it's amazing how many more toys I find in unexpected places & things. I think I will take pictures of all the places I find toys laying around. That should be my next post. :) Toodles for now.

Dubuque, Iowa

Although it's not as pretty as Austria, Dubuque is the oldest city in Iowa and boasts stunning bluff views of the Mississippi River. Dubuque borders the states of Wisconsin & Illinois. Just last night, my husband and daughter stood atop what's known as the Fourth Street Elevator and overlooked the downtown area of Dubuque. Enjoy my part of the world. (Click on photos for a larger, more detailed view.)
The bridge you see connects Iowa & Illinois with the Mighty Mississippi flowing between.
The tall clock towards the left forefront of the photo is the Town Clock . . . the heart of downtown Dubuque. It's also a few blocks from where myself and my husband work. The taller building with the gold-covered dome to the right is the courthouse, and off in the distance is Wisconsin (my birthplace).

Continuation of Boo! & Pictures of Salzburg

Ok, so I could of taken more pictures of Salzburg & of Mozart's birth place etc but my battery went dead & our guest took most of the pictures. I guess I could of taken pictures of all the bunches & I mean BIG groups of tourists that were visiting. haha! Maybe next time.

The picture of this beautiful park goes back to the meadevil times (is that how u write it?). Interesting that it still exists & is well kept. They had the most beautiful landscaping & tulips.

Boo!

Couldn't think of a title for this blog, specially since I haven't blogged in like a week. So here I am sitting down in my kitchen table. All is quiet. aaaahhhh so nice when the kids are sleeping & you can actually take a shower, go to the bathroom & blog without any interruptions, screaming, crying, & fighting.

It has been a gloomy rainy 2 days in a row. Lord knows we need the rain here. Farmers are freaking out here cuz it hasn't rain. But now we have it.

This weekend we had some friends from Norway come to vist. It was nice having company, friends that we've known for a while. They came on Thursday & left yesterday morning. We really enjoyed having them here. It was also a very busy go go go weekend. It seemed that we were doing something left & right. Besides running a few errands in between naps & so on. Friday we went to Gemund. It is a really nice small city or town. It's right by the lake. There is a playground for the kids & ice cream & a beautiful view. Then we had Pizza & salad for lunch right accross the street.

Pizza story: So we sit & order & the food came. As we are all eating I find a hair in my pizza. You know the feeling that comes to your throat after that. So I took it off, remove that piece & said...wel it's 1hair, yip still grossing out..but I'm really hungry & I have to eat. So then I start with my salad & guess what. Another hair was in my salad. About to htrow up. I cannot belive that I found 2 hairs. 1 ok, but 2. So I did not continue to eat my salad but I did my pizza & then a 3RD!!!!! hair I found in my Pizza. Yah! That was the nastiest, grosses experience I have ever encounterd...3 HAIRS!!! What is up with that. do they not belive in hair nets for crying out loud. So NO I did not eat any or the rest of my food. How bizzare is that. Only me, mua, yo had it. We did tell the waitress when we were about the pay & we did not have to pay for my pizza nor my salad. A miracle here in Austria. You see most of Europe is not customer service oriented but the lady was nice enought to not charge us.

What I mean by not being customer service oriented is by this other incident. Not the first in this Mc'ds by our house. So this couple don't have a Mc'ds in their town. The closest is over an hr drive. So they really wanted to sometime go to Mc'ds. We ended up doing that for dinner. B/C kids were hungry. we had a lady's meeting that evening & Steve had to open the church do p&w & teach his & mine class. So we ordered. I order a Mc Chicken meal w/ curly fries. I get a Quarter poundewr with Cheese & reg. fries. So not what I ordered. It's not the 1st time. Same with salads. Complete morons & idiots. Steve goes back & tells them that they got the order wrong & they started argung with him. 1st of all they supposed to read the order back 2u. Something that I will have Steve have them repeat back 2 him. They did not want to give me my mc chicken, finally they did. But they did not give me my curly fries which I paid x-tra for. This is like the 4th time they do this. N-ways. So that's what I mean by CS oriented.

Saturday we just hanged, Sunday rush rush, Church, eat, quick coffee visti w/some friends, hurry rush home & church again. Monday, we went to Salzburg & saw more of the city. Maybe this summer I'll do the sound of music tour. A real American tour. haha! I hear it's real nice. Then we came home. Made dinner. fed the kids other stuff put them to bed b/c they were beat. I enjoyed the company, but I am glad to have some peace & quiet. Not only that there's the cleaning & overflowing of laundry to do. Again. hehe! So this is my adventures in Austria.

BTW, the blue table & chairs were a hit. And the picture with all 3 kids in the tub was that evening. They seem to have enjoyed it.

Stoked!!!!!!

Yesterday was a holiday so since yesterday was a holiday many people also get Monday off. Mondays are Steve's day off anyway, but having 2 days off it's great!! So we try to make the best out of that 1dy off. Yesterday however, there was a flea Market in the city, so we decided to go. It's amazing the amount of antiques that you can find. I didn't buy any antiques really, but would of loved to if I had more tha 30Euros. Ha! That was my budget to start. But now I am soo hooked on Flea Markets.

So I really have to save $$$ so I can go & find treasures for my home. Steve is not so much into the stuff that I like nor does he find & see the value of it, but he supports me by going. So I bought a couple of things. Well let's just say I spent my 30 Euros cuz that's all I had. Would I have had more I would of bought some really cool nifty things. But it's a start. So here you have it.

I bought this metal box. I don't know how old it is. It's somewhat rusty But I cleaned it up as good as I could. I believe it was some kind of candy that was sold in the 1900's. I did the research but the information was in french. Sorry I don't speak french. I love it!!!

I bought these pewter platters & these two small coffee milk jugs to go with them. Also I found this measuring metal cup. They don't make these kind of stuff any more, but I foun dit for 5Euros. This other lady wanted to sell me one for 30. yikes!! I like this kind of metal kitchen stuff anyway. My most favorite beside the metal box is this camera. So this was the highlight of my day. Steve loved the camera. That was his favorite buying of the day. I believe his dad has some really old ones as well. We'll see if he'll pass them on to us. cross our fingers. hehe!

Then we grilled in the afternoon & watched the end of 24 season 5. Plese can somebody videotape season 6 for me & mail it to me. haha, just kidding. I shall read it on line & then watch it when it comes out on DVD. :(