Ski Days!

We managed to squeeze in a few ski days this season!

On Friday afternoon, Brian took Ellie to join the students at Lackenhof resort. They started on the bunny slope, which was fun because Ellie saw several of her girlfriends from school there! They then went up the mountain! First on the T-bar with Ellie between Brian’s legs. Down the mountain once and then back up on the ski lift and down the mountain again!

On Saturday we took the three kids to Maiszinken in Lunz am See.  Ellie went skiing with Brian while I went sledding with the boys. Francis had a wild ride down the hill crashing over the magic carpet, luckily no injuries for anyone! Ellie and Brian then went skiing on the big mountain! It’s amazing how much she can do in her third year of skiing. 

Francis insisted that he must go skiing. So on Sunday Brian took Ellie and Francis back to the ski slope. It was Francis first time skiing! We didn’t get any pictures but he did a great job, definitely fearless and not easily discouraged :-)

Ellie’s 6th Birthday!

It’s crazy to think that we moved here shortly before Ellie turned 2.5 and now she is 6!

She is nearing the end of her third year of Kindergarten (in the equivalent of American Kindergarten this year) and her German is near perfect. She adores her younger brothers. Is such a big helper to mom and dad. She loves fashion, picking out her own clothes, her brothers, and suggesting outfits for mom. She’s a holy, smart, brave kiddo!

We spent the two days before her birthday in Vienna on the school trip.



On Friday afternoon we visited the Natural History Museum and watched a dinosaur movie!



On Saturday after Mass, we were off to Mariahilfer Str. for the moment Ellie has been waiting many months for — getting her ears pierced!!

Before:



After:



She did amazing!!! Barely tearing up as the sweet woman did one ear and then the other. 

We celebrated afterwards with Dunkin Donuts!! It was a very American hour or so :)



Then we were off to the Aquarium. 



Ellie kept wanting to show Isaac her new earrings. 



He was more intrigued by ‘Baby Shark’!



The monkeys in the rainforest were pretty cool too!



On Sunday, her actual birthday, we had some of her Kartause friends over to celebrate!





There was a special guest appearance by the Ghost of Jacob Marley, Scrooge, and Bob Cratchit! Ellie was in the LCI’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ play last December and has been obsessed ever since. We often hear Ellie and Francis discussing if they saw Jacob Marley or Scrooge at Mass that day. So she was very excited by this surprise performance!





It was a great time celebrating our favorite 6 year old! ❤️

Snow, Salzburg, Still Snow

2019 brought with it a lot of snow!

This January we got the most snow we've seen in our 3.5 years of living here.  It snowed for pretty much 7 consecutive days.  Ski resorts were closed due to too much snow.  The Kindergarten never had a school delay -- the bus was still there to pick them up each day at 7:15am.  But the bus was unable to pick up the kids who lived just up the hill near Lackenhof ski resort.

Luckily the kids all love playing in the snow AND Ellie and Francis can dress themselves into their snow clothes.  Unfortunately, Isaac rarely keeps his mittens on!

Here are a few pictures from our house in January:

Last weekend we went to Salzburg for the day with the new group of students here for the Spring 2019 semester!





Per usual, we spent a significant amount of time in the children's toy museum!













Back in Gaming this week, the kids have off from school because it's Ski Week.  Unfortunately, we haven't made it up to the slopes - but Ellie tried out her ice skates for the first time on the parking lot near the fun court, which they froze over!





This weekend we're off to Vienna with the students!