a random assortment of updates

I know it's been a long time since I've made a post with pictures, so here is one that has probably too many! But I wanted to get up to date a little bit. I've been really busy lately with church meetings, family activites, and just trying wrap up some of those "little things" that turn out to not be so little. And honestly, keeping up with my blog is one of those things. But this is pretty much my only "journal", so I've gotta write once in a while.

Here's what's been going on with us lately:
Sunday dinner at Nana and Grandpa Hess' house. A weekly favorite. (That's a big bird cage with finches inside behind the boys)

Guess who can put on his own socks and shoes and brushes his teeth all by himself? Peter! And guess who is the fastest 2 toothed baby in the west? Jackson!
Warm weather = playing in the backyard
Playing on the grass = eating leaves and dirt. yum!
This is the look of love from Jackson to Peter. He lives for Peter. And luckily, Peter is pretty nice to him most of the time.
Jackson really likes crawling around under the table. He also enjoys sticking out his tongue. Here he's doing both!
Amazing! Peter fell asleep on the couch! That never happens.
Sean and I got to go skiing together and it was heavenly! I used to be huge into skiing, but pregnancy and breastfeeding have put a damper on that activity. My parents were nice enough to watch the kids for a few hours so we could go up to Sundance. FUN!
Sean's Valentine's Day cake balls. I probably ate most of them.... It's not my fault though! I have a disproportionate amount of sweet teeth and I'm pretty sure Sean only has half of one.
My parents, the boys, and I took a road trip to San Diego last month and this was one of my favorite moments. We'd been in the car for about 6 hours and we stopped for the night in Vegas. I LOVED sitting on soft, green grass in warm weather! Ahhh... just thinking about it makes me smile.
Oh! The Beach! What a nice place to be. Happy children, family togetherness, naked babies, warm breezes.... Wish it wasn't so far away!
Sean flew down to be with us for a couple days before driving back. I sure like having him around! Here we are at Balboa Park. We managed to be there during the one hour of sunshine on a rainy day.
I love these tree roots! Balboa Park is a magical place full of incredible plants and huge squirrels. We fed the squirrels who lived near this tree some of our animal crackers in an effort to catch one. No luck there!
Peter found a big dragon!
Jackson did too! We had a really nice trip. I'm glad my parents were able to put up with me and the kids during that long car ride! Wow.... that was pretty crazy. You think I would have learned my lesson about traveling with children after our little Austria escapade! No, really it IS fun. But man, it's hard too.
Sean has been growing out his hair and he actually let me put it into a pony tail! It was a momentous occasion. Doesn't he look just like Westley from the Princess Bride? He's so dreamy!
Jackson and Peter LOVE to play together. It's kind of funny how Peter will follow Jackson's lead a lot of the time. Here they were banging loudly on the oven and making sounds with their tongues out.
This is what I found when I peeked into their room during "nap-time" last week after I heard them jumping and giggling. They just can't keep away from each other.
Jackson loves doing "up in the sky" with his hands. We've been teaching him some signs lately (eat, more, all done) and it's really fun to see him trying to use his fat little hands to communicate with us!
Happy baby! I will really miss these baby days when my kids get older. I am enjoying them so much! Sure, it's hard, but I really feel so blessed to have two of the world's greatest kids, AND the most incredible husband in the universe!

(as I've been writing this, they have been eating crackers together at the table. Peter crushed all his crackers into crumbs and spread them out all over the table and his chair. I said, "Hey! Look what a big mess you made! Clean it up please." He said, "No. YOU clean it up." Ignoring that comment, I continued writing and he "cleaned up" the crumbs by wiping them all onto the carpet. "Mommy! I cleaned up my mess!" he said as he pulled my arm to come see. Well, the table and chair are clean at least! But, now I get to clean up the mess anyway. It's a good thing my kids are so cute and lovable, because I really don't like cleaning up after people!)

Is there a band-aid for that?

Well, I haven't been posting pictures and writing about what we've been up to because my hand/wrist gets really bad tendinitis if I use my computer for very long. I'm just too right-handed and my tendons are upset with me.

This week in Salzburg has been really wonderful. Today we went to the house where Mozart grew up, ate lunch at the open air market, went to a jazz concert in a cave-like cafe which was dug into the side of a mountain, and then to a "light show" at the Salzburg Cathedral. We've been having a lot of fun and the boys have been so cute and good lately. Peter seems like he is getting over his "terrible two tantrums" so that's been nice (knock on wood.)

We've been missing good ol' Provo a lot lately and we feel tired of traveling. But we only have two more weeks left! Kind of crazy to be in the heart of Europe and to not be totally excited about it. But after a month and a half of all sleeping in one hotel room and walking around big cities with two babies in search of a meal, we're just tired! I dream of the day a couple weeks from now when the kids will be in a separate room and I can get a full night's sleep. So, yeah... now I've typed too much and my hand hurts :(

I'll post some pictures up tomorrow if my wrist is feeling better!

Hallstatt slideshow #2

Click the pics to go to a slideshow

Hallstatt slideshow #1

I found something that lets me upload more pictures faster, so just click in the box and it will take you to a slide show (watch it in gallery view or fullscreen). Enjoy!

Irony

After a long and tiresome day of travel, we are now in the tiny ancient town of Hallstatt. It sits on a small trip of land, squeezed between a beautiful swan populated lake and a sheer, forested mountain. We feel like we are in the most beautiful place on earth and we are so excited! But there's just one problem....

It's dumping snow.

Thick, slushy snow. We've come halfway around the world, spent half the money in our bank account, and we can only see halfway up the beautiful peaks. I know they are amazing up there in the clouds somewhere... So, we have been inside a whole lot waiting to get up enough guts to stick our feet into our cold, soaked shoes and try to see what's out there behind the blanket of falling flakes. I did manage to get a short glimpse of the huge mountains as I was trudging my way home from the grocery store. But when I got home to tell Sean to go outside and see the view, it was too late.

We have a really nice apartment though! We totally love it here and our landlords are very nice and non-interfering.

I love knowing that I am in such a history-rich village! Cool facts about Hallstatt:

- Some of Hallstatt's oldest archaeological finds date back to around 5500 BC

- In the year 1311, it became known as a market town

- Hallstatt has a salt mine (the life-blood of the town) with huge wooden slides inside that the salt miners used to get around quickly in the mines. And we get to go slide on them!

I remember specifically thinking as we were riding the ferry boat across the lake to get here, "Man - this place is in the middle of no-where! We might be the only people from Utah to ever even come here..." Then at dinner last night, we met a family from Oakley, Utah! After talking for a minute, we learned that they are friends and ward members with a family we know there (the Sorensens'). It is a small world after all!

Well, hopefully I'll have a chance to get some pictures of this incredible place, even if they are snow-filled. Until then, you can look up pictures on Google images and imagine Peter running around in the fields :)

Vienna week 3....we're still alive!

I know that my mom and Sean's mom get worried when I don't post often, so here's a little "hello" from Vienna! We haven't been as busy this week, but we've still done a lot of fun things.

Lately I've been getting tendinitis when I type too much, so I'm just going to post the pictures and short captions.

We miss everyone back home! Leave me comments please! I need to know that people who love me are out there somewhere :) We feel so much like aliens here sometimes. Not being able to speak the language very well makes us feel so awkward. Plus, everyone is always staring at me (probably due to the screaming children in my arms...) but it's a little unnerving to always be stared at.

Anyway, here are the pics:

Natural History Museum

It seemed like the museum had one of every single animal in the world!

War History Museum

Statue "April" at the Belvedere Palace. I love the expression on his chubby face! There was a cute little kid statue for each month.

Vienna Rathaus (City Hall)

In front of the Radhaus was a circus!

Statue/fountain in front of the Parliament building

I just love all the cool statues here....I wish I had a better camera so I could get clearer pictures. This merman had the greatest facial expression - he looked so burdened, but also determined to do his job. I wonder how often I have that expression on my face.

Zentralfriedhof of Vienna (the main cemetary). It was such a picturesque day. The air had a nice autumn chill, falling crisp leaves, and warm sun shining through the huge trees onto all these upright grave stones. What a beautiful and peaceful place.

Mozart's grave (actually, after reading a little bit, no one is really sure where he is buried, so I guess this is more like a monument)

Beethoven's grave

Strauss' grave
There were SO many incredibly lovely statues at the cemetary! I really love this one - the dragonfly winged fairy and the little cherub - how sweet!

Peterskirche

I rented a bike and went on a solo-adventure to Schönbrunn Palace.

They groom some of the trees perfectly so that they form walls of green all around the palace gardens.

I love the shaped bushes and designed flower beds at Schönbrunn.

The palace gardens have many of these leafy arch ways. It was such a nice evening. I loved being able to walk around the gardens here and feel the warm evening sun, and enjoy the peacefulness.

A visit to the park by our apartment. Cool grafitti! There are quite a few buildings that have grafitti like this - it's more like a mural.

I had another solo-adventure to the Art History museum. This is the main staircase that leads to the paintings. There were lots of statues, tapestries, and other artifacts that were very beautiful.

Every painting at the museum was so beautiful. The one above is called "The Holy Family" (Joseph, Mary, and Jesus). It was overwhelming to see that many beautiful, huge pictures. Some of them must have been 20 feet tall! I felt like I couldn't appreciate them fully because I only had enough time to look closely a few paintings. But seeing all those incredible pieces of artwork was really amazing.

The woman at the well story. Isn't it gorgeous? I wish my iPhone camera was better able to capture the beauty...

This guy came riding past me on the way out! Luckily he stopped to let me take his picture.

One of our neighbors (I wish I knew his name) brought over a plate full of delicious cheese filled "Gypsy bread". Yummm! He said it is a tradition of his to welcome new people to the building. Meeting nice people like him is so great when you are away from home. There have been many people we met here who have been so kind to us. Being far from home always makes me so grateful for my family and friends, and also grateful to people who befriend us even though we won't be around for long.

Only one more month of Europe before we head back home! Sometimes I feel an urgency to get out and see everything we possibly can. Other times I want to just sit at home and write on my blog all day :)