Valentines Day

Our first Valentine's Day in Vienna was one of the best ever!!! Although, at the start of the day I had my doubts. Silly girl, don't you know your hubby always comes through!?! So, here's the breakdown for the day. The morning started off as usual, waking up and getting Abby ready for kindergarten, eating breakfast, taking a shower, nothing grand. Due to a crazy German class schedule this month, I have been taking Abby to school. That is exactly what I was planning on doing this particular morning as well. So, as we are about to walk out the front door, Jake comes out of our bedroom saying he is going to drive us to the bus stop and drop us off. What? This throws a wrench in my day. I had planned to take Abby to school and then drive to a store I have been wanting to visit and do some research on entry way furnishings. Well, now that was blown. We hadn't previously discussed the day's events, but I definitely made my plans. FYI, in case you didn't know, I don't like it very much when my plans get all messed up. I got over it and said it was fine if he dropped us off, thinking, "Well, I guess Ill just have to go down to Karlsplatz and have a Starbucks instead." So, Jake dropped us off at the bus stop and said to call him when I dropped Abby off. Arrrggghhhh, here he goes again, messing my plans up!!!! Then suddenly, it occurs to me he may be up to something. So, naturally, I cheerfully say, "Ok." Kisses and Abby and I head to the bus stop. I think I see the bus coming and we have to make a run for it. If you haven't done it before, picking up a 33 pound 4 year old and making a run for the bus isn't fun. Turns out, it wasn't even our bus.
We'll skip the uneventful bus ride and jump ahead to calling Jake. I make the call and he he asks me to meet him at the u-bahn stop close by one of the shopping centers. He says it will be a little bit so I can just hang out at the mall. Darn, just walk around the mall, well, if I have to. Turns out I'm glad I did. I found Abby a super cute hat, scarf and gloves in the clearance bin for less than 10 euros. You can see it in the pic below. Back to the big day. We finally meet at the u-bahn and jump on. We head downtown to have breakfast at a favorite cafe. They make a mean omelet and have a picture perfect table in the front window. We make the hike down there, only to find out they are "machen urlaub" aka on vacation. Who takes vacation in February. Apparently, restaurant owners in Vienna. Plan B. This is Vienna and there is always another cafe around the corner. We head around the corner and low and behold another cafe. We sit down and enjoy of very nice fruestuck (breakfast). Then Jake leads me down to fav little shop to pick out a Valentine's present. You can see that in the pic below, too. We have just a little time before we have to pick up Abby, so Jake takes me into Starbucks. We grab a cup of coffee and set off to pick up the pipsqueak.
So, I'm thinking, "What a great day. Good breakfast, shopping and coffee to boot." We get Abby and start to head home, or so I think. Nope, my awesome man has other plans. He made arrangements with Brian and Alisha to keep her for the afternoon. Abby is jazzed about the prospect because she gets to play with Sharkdog. After we drop Abby off, we do indeed head home. Jake had rented 2 movies for our "Valentine's Theater Matinee" He also had a very pretty rose plant for me. Once again, see pic below. So, we watched movies ate popcorn and just relaxed on the couch. Around dinner time, Jake told me to get my shoes on we were going to go get something to eat. He took me to one of our fav places that is close by our house. They serve great traditional Austrian food. We stuffed ourselves and enjoyed another cup of coffee and then went back home to watch the second movie. Around 8 he went to pick Abby up. It was a perfect day, despite the initial bad attitude and early dining setbacks. Thanks, Hon, you're the best!!!!

A Night Out

Jake and I had an actual date last night. A full date, can you believe it? Bart and Tamika had offered to keep Abby overnight for us awhile back and so we finally took them up on it. We dropped her off right after Jake got out of school and then we hit the town. We went down to Mariahilfestrasse to grab a bite to eat. We just wanted something quick and small so we had McDonalds. I know, I know a night out and we got to McD's, well it was still early and we had other great plans. After our super, yummy snack we went to Starbucks. Again, I know we live in the birthplace of the modern coffeehouse and we go to the lame, American imitation. Well, Starbucks is totally smoke free and just happens to make a great Carmel Macciato. So, there. When you visit us, we'll be happy to take you somewhere authentic, until then I'll have my coffee sans lung cancer as much as possible. Anyway, back the date. After we finished our coffee we had a little time before the movie started so we just walked around and talked and looked in a few shops. After our window shopping we went to see "National Treasure: Book of Secrets." Jake had been waiting to see this movie for a couple of months and I'd say it was pretty good. A bit unrealistic, but good. After the movie and a huge tub-o-popcorn we headed to one of our favorite restraunts. It's near Stephandom and we love it. Its called Ribs. Yep, that's it, Ribs. Now, mind you we live in Austria and not in Memphis, but these are really good ribs. We pigged out throughly and then decided it was late, like 7:30 and headed home. A note about the time, is it just me or does having kids totally change your life? We really feel like we are livin' large if we are out past 6:00 pm. I remember when.....(sigh).
So, this morning we slept in till 8:30. Once again, kids sure change things. We went and had a Wiener fruestuck (breakfast) and then went to pick up Abby. Well, actually Jake picked her up and I went to meet Alisha to go to a fabric shop. All in all, a great date. I can't wait to do it again, hopefully in the next 6 months :)

Another Milestone

Well, we've reached another milestone in Vienna. All three of us are sick at the same time. Jake started in Sunday night with a cold/allergies and now Abby and I both have some sort of stomach bug. Jake went to German class today, but Abby and I stayed home and watched movies all day. Looks like we will do the same tomorrow. Enjoy your day!!!

Email Problems

I just wanted to post a note about our Vienna Team website and email addresses. If you have sent an email or tried to log onto the website recently, you've seen the problem. Feel free to leave a comment and I can send you an alternate email.

A Few Photos of Recent Happenings

Abby got a cute little bake set for Christmas and we finally got around to making one of the recipes in the book with it. It was a fun Mommy and Abby day!!!



We had lunch on Sunday with our friends and new fellow Wiener transplants, Bart, Tamika and Izabella. The girls had so much fun playing together. Don't ask me what is going on with Abby's bow.



In other news, I finally had some success in making dinner rolls. I fancy myself a decent cook, but somehow homemade bread (not in a machine) and rolls have always been beyond me. Well, thanks to this recipe I may have finally done it.

Home Again

We're back home in Vienna, again. We made it in last night, everyone tired, but not too worse for the wear. The trip was obviously very short so we didn't really have time to see Zagreb, oh well, maybe next time. Below is the one picture we took of the trip. It is Abby and I in front of the hotel where we stayed. You gotta love the internet for finding great deals.

Far from home

Greetings from Zagreb, Croatia. Yep, you're on the right blog, the Haskews just had to take an unexpected road trip today. Today, we went down to apply for our residency permits and were told that we needed to leave the country. Not to worry, this is not a permanent change of address, we're headed back to Vienna tomorrow. So why Croatia? Well, it is sort of a long bureaucratic story. But in brief, we are required to leave the country every 90 days. And, yes, we did do that back in November when we went to Germany, but this didn't qualify. There is some sort of agreement between several countries in Europe that allows you to travel between those countries without going through any kind of border patrol. On 29 December several new countries joined this agreement and now the closest places we can travel to are Switzerland, the UK and Croatia. Well, Croatia was actually the closest and cheapest on such short notice. So, here we are. I must say I never thought I would go to Croatia. In fact, my knowledge of the place basically consists of 2 things 1) there was a war here in very recent history and 2) Dr. Kovach on ER is from here. I know you're embarrassed for me and my lack of knowledge. Oh well, I've gotten over it, I'm sure you will too. Please pray for our safe return to Vienna and that the visa process will continue with no major hitches. We did manage to file our papers today and we only have to fax in a copy of the passport stamp we got today. Love to all.