Ok, so I *might* be getting a little bit excited about Halloween too.

Audrey looks like a witch trying to dress as a Muggle today...oy.

You don't have to worry anymore!  I caught my tiger!  --at Tiergarten Schoenbrunn

Just added "a halfpipe" to A & B's Christmas list. --at Stadtpark

Even the girls' animals are getting in the spirit of Halloween.  I don't know why a strawberry wearing a fruit hat makes me laugh uncontrollably, but such is life.

Just another day in the life--at Resselpark

 "Mama, they took the water out!!"

We're keeping it spooky, decorating some haunted pirate ships.  (Also, I found a short, squat pumpkin!  Hurrah!)

Austrian Neutrality and Pumpkins, Hurrah!

There are a generous smattering of public holidays over the course of a year here in Austria, and since we're still generally unused to the flow of these days off, they tend to pop up and surprise us.  Granted public holidays wouldn't be nearly as notable if the grocery stores remained open, but, alas, lack of food availability will always be something of an attention-grabber in my book.  Today, the 26th of October, is Austria's "National Day"; a day on which we are basically celebrating the day the country's Declaration of Neutrality was signed. Side note:  they were basically forced to do this by the Soviet Union, but whatevs...Austria is neutral!  Hurrah for not publicly declaring allegiance to anyone...who may or may not be Nazis.

The city of Vienna is celebrating their National Holiday this year with a military showcase in Heldenplatz (the same place Hitler announced the Anschluss) which I find singularly odd in combination with the increase of support for radical parties in the recent election.  So...yeah...weird holiday.

Outside of making sure the fridge was stocked, we honestly took little note of the date today.  Instead, we decided to jump at the chance to enjoy a rare pumpkin festival in the hills of outer Vienna.  Each year on the last weekend of October the Viennese flock to the hills to enjoy all thinks squashy.  (because pumpkins, as we Americans know them, are just lumped in with the rest of the squash family and are all called "kurbis") On public transportation it took us about an hour (a tram, a train and a bus) to get out into the hills, but it was worth it.  The Vienna woods (and even the grape vines!) are in absolute riotous Fall glory.

We met up with some friends and got to enjoy what will likely be some of the last of the season's Sturm and some fantastic pumpkin cream soup. After the girls stubbornly waited forever in line to have their faces painted, we decided to ditch the crowds and head into the woods for a stroll that was basically a celebration of Fall in itself.  Nearly every tree had turned a delightful shade of yellow, and as we walked, golden leaves showered down lazily around us.  The girls and their friends spent most of the hike running through the leaves carpeting the ground, yelling warnings about trolls and advising us on the best ways to avoid them.

Once we were out of the woods, we declared it was time to pick our pumpkins; two little ones for the girls and a short, squat lump of a pumpkin for Mama (something tells me this one's fate will find it in the stock pot for some homemade pumpkin cream soup)

Even though we weren't signing any declarations or publicly supporting the military, I think we still had quite the holiday.

Just spending a Friday with Papa! Yay for random holidays!  At the Wiener Prater

We made paper jack-o-lanterns today.  Can you guess which one is Bailey's?

Cool kids waiting for the train to Monki Park at Suedtirolerplatz

It's FALL with my sweeties at Stadtpark

Bailey suddenly freaked out tonight and screamed that she needed to "spit in the bucket" (she did not).  She proceeded to grab her sand bucket out of the storage room and just kept burping into it...which is when I realized that Bailey has figured out how to make herself burp. MOMENTOUS MOMENT IN PARENTING!

I'm loving the fun presentation I get with these crazy plates Mom gave me.

We're in a new twilight zone for the Schweighardt Clan.  The girls slept in until noon.  That's never happened before in any timezone.  Crazy!

We've been home for ten minutes and the Mad Hatter and corn chex are already out in full force.  In other news: My flat makes me feel very short.  Yay for home!!

An afternoon at the park--taking some advice from the Starbucks barista:  Chill.  It rhymes with Jill, so I'll take it.

Vienna has welcomed us home with 75 degree weather.  I think she's feeling a bit jaded that we had to leave the country to find a proper Summer.

A lot of things have changed since we've been gone, but the most startling change for me is that Audrey can't lie straight in the bath tub anymore--she has to bend her knees.  That's a lot of growing in six weeks!

Good morning!  Come on over!  B is making blueberry pancakes.

Taking Maryland: Our Last Days in the US with Emma and Mike

Even though the days we got to spend with Emma and Mike in Maryland were too few, they were nonetheless, AMAZING. It has been eight years since I've been to the East Coast, but it was only four days in between leaving Emma at the Branson airport and meeting her at Dulles.  Still, the time in between was hard for Audrey.  She has a special place in her heart for her Emma--she's the closest thing to Mama there is in this world.  Literally (from a genetic standpoint), but also figuratively; there is no doubt that Audrey and Bailey are Emma's girls--first in her heart too.  The moment we were home from dropping Emily in Branson, Audrey sat me down and dictated a letter: 

"Dear Emma, 

I love you.  I love you so much.  I hope you have toys over at your house.  I hope Mike is there, and I hope you're there at your house.  I'm going to bring you something special.  How about a chocolate gummy bear? I hope you don't leave when we're coming to your house.  I hope we can make a gingerbread house--a real one.  I hope you will be excited when I come to your house.  

Love, Audrey"

Gahhh!  All the feelings!!  First of all, I have no idea why Audrey was so worried no one would be at Emily's house.  I'm guessing it was really just the only roadblock she could foresee, so she wanted to make sure her bases were covered.  Second, up until this point, the kid had been talking constantly about gingerbread houses.  She even spent a special art session with Grandma G learning how to draw all kinds of candy so she could color her own gingerbread houses.  But, clearly, this was not enough.  Turns out she asked the right person for something as ridiculous as a gingerbread house in October.  

Emily had spent those four days we were apart researching gingerbread house plans and baking her own gingerbread house pieces from scratch.  Not to mention procuring every kind of candy known to man.  To say these girls have the best Emma ever is a colossal understatement.  Audrey had the time of her life affixing candies to her house and decorating it to perfection. 

Meanwhile, Bailey briefly found the candy thing interesting...and then a bag of pirates booty emerged and she proceeded to spend her time pondering whether booty could be applied with frosting to gingerbread houses (it can!) and inhaling the contents of that bag.

  

   

Here's Emma and Audrey with their finished creation.  We all ended up taking a few bites, but mostly these guys were awarded places of honor as early Christmas decor.  

Even though the gingerbread alone would've knocked our visit out of the park, it was just the icing on the cake of that day.  Because we spent the entire morning at the National Zoo with Emily.  First, we got to hop on the Metro, which was a first for me, and we got to enjoy some gorgeous early Fall scenery on our way to the Zoo entrance.  The girls took it from there--they know how to do zoo's--bouncing from one enclosure to another.  It was even a free day for kids to ride the gigantic carousel. We met up with one of Emily's friends and her kids for a bit, grabbed some lunch in the crowded cafeteria, saw lions actually pacing around (the ones at the Vienna Zoo are NEVER upright, much less conscious), we kissed a (bronze) frog, and met some awesome white wolves before rain started encroaching on our day.  Of course, because the Emma was there, there were souvenirs to be brought home.  Both of my girls picked out cheetahs--one big, one small--and Bailey passed out on the train ride home.  This was probably for the best since we rode on a car along with a fellow carting home an entire case of stinky, stinky seafood.  I'm sure the narration The Bear could've loudly offered would've been epic, though.   

B is about to TANK

In the end, our time at Emma's place was short, but maybe it was the lack of time that made it all the more amazing how much we got to do and be together.  Mike kind of gets underplayed in this version because he was working during the days, but when he was home in the evenings, he was chief-head-in-charge of sneaking up on the girls and chasing them around the entire house. I'm pretty sure Audrey developed an entire tiger-growl-based language to communicate with him while we were there too.    

We ended up spending our last morning there prepping for our international flight, picking up some last-minute supplies and just enjoying being together.  The girls wrestled with Mike until he had to leave for work and then demanded they be allowed to explore the playground next to Emma's house that they had heard so much about from video chats with her. 

It was all so very bittersweet.  We missed Vienna, but we were so happy, spending all this precious time with family.  Our travel for home leave was an incredibly uplifting, happy time for us and we were sad to see it come to an end. The bright side of all that, of course, was that Vienna and that guy we call the Papa were waiting for us at the end of our plane ride, so it was with satisfied hearts, we made our way back home.   

Time for a Road Trip: Taking Chicago!

Grandma & Grandpa Pfaff

It's been two and a half years since the girls and I have visited family in Chicago. For John, though, it's only been two weeks--Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Jim rescued him from O'Hare and took him in for a day until it was time for his rescheduled flight to Vienna.  It's good to know we have family...and I don't just mean people who share common genetics, but FAMILY--people who love you so much they don't think twice before agreeing to come get you at the airport and make up a bed for you.  We moved from Illinois when I was five, but my family up here wasn't left behind.  There's something about being a Pfaff; it's a legacy of sorts.  We are all crazy and it's the particular brand of hilarious, adventurous, crazy that tends to glue us all together.  We all have different names, of course.  Some of us started out Gamelin's, Eichorst's or Hammond's, but it all comes back to Grandma and Grandpa Pfaff. They're the anchors in this crazy old family. My mom and her sisters are now the main driving force in this group and my siblings and cousins have all just learned to roll with the tide, laughing (or crying) as much as possible in between.  

These three have shown me what "sisters" were meant to be.

Overall, our trip to the States was already crazy, but I knew I couldn't come all the way across the ocean without seeing these guys.  So, a few days before our flight from Midway to DC, Mom, Dad, Joe, Catherine, the girls, and I all set out on a road trip to Chicago.

A ROAD. TRIP. 

B and Catherine bond over PIE!

I hadn't given it much thought until we were already on the road, but I MISSED ROAD TRIPS.  This is something so American...in the best meaning of the word.  I have traveled these same roads so many times, visiting family, taking Emily to and from college, watching cousins graduate or get married...It's a route I know well. And unless you're my father, who likes to try to beat his previous record time for the trip, you know that road trips aren't just about the end destination, but everything in between.   This time we stopped by Joe's old Alma Mater in Rolla, MO...and at a famous Rolla pie shop too...just because, well, we were already passing by, so why not?    

My parents volunteered to take the girls in their car for the 8-ish hour drive while I tagged along with Joe and Catherine.  This, in itself, was amazing.  The last time I traveled without kids was when I met Mom and Emily in Scotland.  "Luxurious" is the word you're looking for.  I could've been crammed into a clown car and I wouldn't have minded as long as no one pestered me for snacks and asked five million questions.  Also, I got to sleep whenever I wanted to.  GLORIOUS!!  

Soon enough, we were enjoying the hospitality of my Aunt and Uncle--listening as the girls exclaimed at all of Uncle Jim's amazing "guys" (The sculptures he creates mostly from stuff he finds at yard sales) and stuffing our faces with Italian beef sandwiches.  I love Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Jim's house. It has held nothing but happy memories for me. I adore watching the main room convert from a banquet hall to an extra bedroom, littered with mattresses across the floor to accommodate everyone, or even a dance floor...but I'll get to that later.  

Every time we visit, we're taken on "The Tour" of Mom, Chris, and Jeanne's childhood haunts. This time was no different...scratch that...The Tour is different every time.  This time, I gained some fantastic insight into the particular window sill under which Aunt Jeanne and Mom would sit to eat popsicles during the Summer...and since it was daylight, breaking into the Frank Lloyd Wright house was entirely out of the question. It's gems like these that keep you coming back for more.  Also, the ice cream.  It's the ultimate reward for surviving The Tour.  This time we ended up at Red Mango, where Audrey got EVERY TOPPING they had.      

Heaven in a bun with a side of fries

We also stopped by Penzy's Spices, where I mostly wandered around cursing the already over-packed state of my luggage. Salvation from that torture arrived soon, though, in the form of a burger and fries from Five Guy's.  People, Austrians have NO IDEA how to make a proper hamburger...and we don't have a grill, so I can't make one either (let's just leave out the fact that I would also somehow have to figure out how to make hamburger buns).  The point is: I have been deprived of decent burgers for far too long.  I only stopped inhaling that sucker long enough to take a picture, because I knew it would be the hamburger memory to sustain me for the rest of our time in Vienna.  

Bonus candid photo

Although we missed out on seeing some of our family since we were only in town for a day and a half, we did get to meet up with quite a few people for a fantastic dinner that night, complete with deep dish pizza.  By this time, Bailey and Henry had obviously had enough time to bond and become instant buddies.  The Bear rode to the restaurant with him and they sat together at dinner too.  By far, the best moment at dinner was when Bailey took a break from reading her wine menu to yell at my notoriously loud Uncle Bill to be quiet.  I don't think he even heard her, but our end of the table got a good laugh out of it...particularly because Bailey could give him a run for his money in the volume department.   

Pizza, the way God surely intended it.

The next day we were headed to the airport, so this day with family was really our big hurrah and Jeanne ended it on an epic note with a glow-in-the-dark dance party.  The kids danced like crazy until eventually it was time for jammies (and goblets of milk for some who shall remain nameless) I was worn out in the best way possible.  It must be something about the whole best-family-ever thing, but we managed to fit so much GOOD and RIGHT and HAPPY and TOGETHER into just one day.  Whatever Grandma and Grandpa Pfaff infused into this family, there was surely a little magic to it, because there's really no other explanation.

Journey to the Center of the Awesome: Taking Mountain Home

It had been a long time since we had been to Mountain Home in the summer...much less since our entire Gamelin family had been together all at once.  It has taken me more years than I'd like to count, but I finally understand why my parents elected to leave the frozen North and head South to live on the lake in Northern Arkansas.  It's a resort area for a reason.  The Ozark Mountains are beautiful--getting to see them from the air as we flew into the Branson airport took my breath away.  Somehow I always forget how many trees there are...all of them just rolling endlessly into the horizon.  The South can get a bad rap for many (just) reasons, but don't tell me the land in my hometown isn't breathtaking.

We made a few stops on the way to my parents house--one to fill up on some good old Southern food and another to give Uncle Joe some hugs before finally crashing for the night.  It's always strange coming home to my old house.  I spent so many years there, the juxtaposition of how things have changed so much while remaining the same never fails to send me reeling.  This time I was floored to find that mom had converted Joe's old room into Audrey and Bailey's room.  The walls were decorated with the butterflies that used to hang over the girls' crib, two kid-sized beds lay on each side of the room, separated by a desk full of toys and art supplies.  Grandma had thought of everything and my girls settled in, knowing they had a permanent place at Grandma and Grandpa's house--a little sanctuary meant just for them.



There's a method to introducing oneself back to Mountain Home.  "Visiting" is the official pastime of choice and there are respects that must be made before one can feel officially settled.  Naturally, the first stop was to see my Grandparents, Aunt Connie and Aunt Patty.  Together, we're all members of the official Gamelin Complex--a dream a very long time in the making for my Grandparents to be surrounded by their children.  It's incredibly satisfying to see my kids getting folded into the same little flock too.  I have so many happy memories of spending time with my extended family growing up, I want my kids to have as much experience as they can with that as they can too.  They'll never know what it was like to have my Grandma take them swimming at the lake, snacking on peanuts and worthers original candies while playing "I Spy"to while away the afternoon, but they know what it's like to hear threats of being squished like a bug for being caught in Great Grandpa's chair and they've met all the stuffed animals who live at Great Grandma & Grandpa's house...and piled all of them on top of Great Grandma to boot.


Next on our list of places to visit is always Grandma's flower shop--a magical place filled with brand new stuffed animals, (all of them in desperate need of hugging), flowers that all must be dutifully sniffed, balloons begging to be inflated and, best of all, a pottery studio full of all the clay and tools you'd ever need to make...well....anything really...as my Mom has proved on multiple occasions in the form of fish whistles and every dish known to man.  The girls love donning aprons here,
getting to poke, prod and squish clay into whatever form their little minds like.  Grandma glazes and fires anything these two put their hands to.

Just like that pottery studio was "never there" when I was growing up, there was a new addition to our regularly-scheduled "visits" this year.  My brother's girlfriend, Catherine, is an incredible cook and baker.  And when I say "incredible", I want you to hold in your mind the best food you've ever eaten and then double the satisfaction you felt in eating it.  That is how EVERYTHING this woman makes tastes.  Words will always fail to describe it accurately.  Just know that you are missing out unless you've had the pleasure of frequenting the Blackbird Cafe--a joint Catherine's sister runs and where her baked goods are available for the good people of Mountain Home...like ourselves...to enjoy.  The cafe is attached to Mountain Home's beautiful new library (I worked at the other one as a teen.  This one was never there.) and does a bustling bit of business.  Having defected from the birthplace of Starbucks to the land of coffee houses, it can be shocking, returning to discover that my hometown is a tragic wasteland when it comes to finding a decent cup of Joe...until now.  I sat in that little cafe, enjoying an expertly brewed latte and dying of happiness a little bit every time I took a bite of my magical caramel pecan-pie cake.  Everyone else at the table was experiencing similar levels of nirvana...including Audrey, who only grudgingly allowed me a minuscule taste of her cake, which was otherwise devoured in it's entirety.

Trekking down to the lake is something we don't often get to do on our Christmastime visits back home, but this time, playing in the water was the biggest event outside of eating.  Our girls are water babies--always have been. And there is no greater joy to be found than the sight of a lake and a beach filled with rocks to be thrown into it.  We started out that first day in clothes and soon let the girls strip down to undies and shoes and let them try to fill the lake with rocks.  The grown-ups showed off their rock skipping skills (Dad wins, hands down) and made a fire for hotdog and marshmallow roasting.
Back at Grandma's house there was homemade ice cream dished up in homemade waffle cones after a big swim in Grandma's enormous tub.


       
   


All this, and Emily and Mike hadn't even arrived yet. When they flew into Branson, Mom and Dad took the girls with them as a surprise, leaving John and me to our own devices...and also without car keys to the prius.  We were either stranded at the house or faced with the alternative of taking Beau into town...an old van so majestic you'd have to be personally acquainted to understand the full gravity of this decision.  I was thrilled.  John, not so much.  But, we made it to town and completed our errands before Emma and Mike made it to the house.  The silver lining in all this was that the two of us got to stop by Popeye's chicken, binge eat our amazing lunch and still fit in a food-coma-induced nap before Emma and Mike made it to the house.

I apologize for nothing

Once the gang was all together, we were running on all cylinders. My mother, the anti-napper, and her co-conspirator, my sister, had us running every minute of the day.  Luckily, the kind of activities they plan are really quite fun; visiting family, planning meals, making pie (with sprinkles!) and swimming in the lake are just a few of the things we got to enjoy on a daily basis.  We also got to visit Joe and Catherine at their place on the river for the first time.  Together, they had planned a festive Tacoberfest celebration for the family and also invited us over for a brunch that could have easily served as my last meal on Earth.  As it was, I decided to allow everyone present to side-step the inconvenience of dealing with the disposal of a grinning corpse and, instead, just kept on living, knowing full well I'll never eat a brunch so tasty again.

Eventually, it was time for the boys to leave us; Mike and John flew out of Branson and Springfield within 24 hours of each other, so we made a bit of a pilgrimage out of it, spending the night in Springfield and catching up with our friends, Shannon and Deborah, while we were there.  Springfield has a reputation for offering a broad swath of excellent restaurants, so it should be no surprise that we kept right on the binge-eating gravy train while we were there.  We managed to fit in a Middle Eastern lunch, hibachi & sushi for dinner, Andy's frozen custard for dessert and Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  There were certainly happy bellies, but heavy hearts, knowing John was heading back to Vienna without us.  We're rather fond of being all together, but we knew that good things would still be coming to us while we were apart.

John's "good things" came more in the form of building character as he endured delays in his international travel and then two weeks of living in Vienna as a bachelor.  It was comparatively quite easy for us to drive back to Mountain Home where there was still plenty of fun to be had.  Still, Dad and Joe were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the womenfolk.  Mom and Emily kept the ball rolling every day with all the cooking and baking, ice cream and trips to the lake.  Mostly, I drifted from food coma to food coma with a smile on my face.  We girls did all manage to take a trip together to Eureka Springs on a rare day off for Cathrine.  We spent the day poking around shops in the quaint downtown area, which was really difficult for Bailey to endure. The hight point for her, though, was making the acquaintance of the world's nicest art gallery owner. This lovely woman welcomed my crazy girl into her showroom, encouraged her to play some xylophones that she had on display and even showed us to some prints of the cow paintings that were the main draw of her collection--the main reason we had popped our heads in to begin with.  My newly livestock-crazed Bear picked out a print of a sweet cow named "Jackie" and I gave myself a pat on the back for surviving a trip to an art gallery with the proverbial bull in a china shop.

In the end, it was just an amazing blessing to get to spend so much time in my hometown.  Emily had to leave before us, but we knew it would only be a week before we'd see her again in Maryland. Most of the visiting I do with my family feels cut short--like I never get to truly settle in to just being with family.  In stark contrast, this trip just felt rich...decadent even; It was so nice to be able to reassure my Grandparents that we'd be around a while and be seeing them many times over before it was time to go. We were there long enough to really feel the rhythm of being home.  But, maybe the best part was knowing that when I left Mountain Home, most of my family would be coming with us.  We still had two more legs left of our home leave trip and we were loving every minute of it.