Mozart & Berchtesgaden

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Our family trip to Austria

For the boys short break in October, we decided to drive down to Austria to check things out. It was approxiamtely 5 hours of driving, but a beautiful drive it was. We took Lolli with us. Her first journey with us to a hotel. I'm still amazed that hotels take pets. We arrived at our quaint little hotel in Salzburg, just in time for dinner. We didn't even unpack, but went straight to the restaurant and all stood there, starring. Do we or don't we go in with Lolli? It was a descent Asian restaurant that had many patrons. We finally decided that we were hungry enough to go in and take Lolli with us. To our surprise, someone else had their Golden Retriever with them. This made us feel better. We sat down to negotiate for dinner. I say "negotiate" because we only speak English at this point. Our waiter speaks Mandrin, Deutsch, & a little English. Amazing! We order. Lolli is comfortably situated under the table. We enjoy our meal and dessert. I tell Jody that I'll go check us in and get the boys situated for the evening if he'll pay the bill. He calls me back and says to take Lolli too. I say that I will. Jody looks under the table...the perpetual joker that he is and says, "Where's Lolli?" I ask him if he is joking, but then realize that he is not! Where IS Lolli? She has been busy visiting the other tables around us. No one has mentioned anything, but we are quite embarrassed. We have learned a good lesson...."always attach your dog to something that isn't going anywhere...like a table leg or YOUR leg." Anyway, we got to visit many things while in Salzburg. We went to the Eisreisenwelt...the world's largest (discovered...Jody might add) ice cave. It was so cool. (Pardon the pun.) We wern't allowed to take pictures inside. We walked through it with little flaming laterns. Lolli was quite nervous, Tab's feet were cold, and Zane thought it was neato that the guy that discovered it was buried there. We also visited a really neat medival castle. It was beautiful and amazing. The boys, all 3, thought the torture chamber was terrific. We traveled into the heart of Salzburg the next day. We got to see where Mozart was born and the house that he lived in later in life. We ate dinner at the Mozart Cafe and strolled along the shopping district. Tab wandered off at one point and scarred us half to death. Jody hollered and the world stood still, but he found his baby boy. Another good lesson learned...quit daydreaming and stay close to mom and dad. On our way out of town we stopped by Hitler's vacation get-a-way. His officers had it built for him as a birthday gift for his 50th birthday. He didn't visit it very much because he was afraid of heights. It's in a beautiful area. It is surrounded by a 360 degree view of the Austrian and German Alps. Amazing. After the war, the Chancellor asked that it not be torn down. Most all of the other buildings were, but this remains for the public's viewing. A fun trip all in all.

Salzburg, Austria Oct., 2007

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I love?/ I hate? IKEA

I keep saying that I am going to blog about my experience(s) at IKEA. I'll have to say that I was pretty excited about living close to IKEA when we first moved here. They don't have them in Colorado or anywhere near by for that matter. Since Jody's work was helping with our large furniture expenses I thought it would be the ideal place to shop. At first, it was. It kind of became my home away from home. I was there so often, the workers called me by name and I called them by their name(s). Some knew English, others were a challenge. It seems as the days went by, I began to sweat just knowing that I had to go back there. See, trying to explain your needs to someone who speaks a different language while the line behind you grows longer and longer can be quite embarrassing. It probably shouldn't be, but it was for me. Most the time, I'd get what I needed, but then would have to return because I was missing one piece of something. It got to be very frustrating. I'd have to build something in order to put something away. Jody and I ordered 4 closets. That doesn't sound like much, but boy howdy, it is!!! We asked that IKEA deliver it to our house and set it up. They said they could deliver it, but that set up was 3 weeks out. We didn't have 3 weeks. Our stuff was due to arrive in less than a week. I begged Jody to take off work to help me assemble the darn things. He graciously complied. Some things I'm capable of doing by myself....but closets require at least 2 people. The big, burly delivery guys marched our loads up 3 flights of stairs. The biggest one and I played charades. The translation went something like this....
Big Guy....You assemble this????
me...yep.
BG....NO WAY...must have help!!!!
me...yep...I've got my man and we will do it.
BG...walks away with his shoulders slumped, snickering to his self.
This instills confidence, yes? Anyway, Jody and I did get them put all together and we were amazed at our capabilities. I'm sick of screwing however! My wrist is like jello. We have said that IKEA funiture is "disposible" furniture. I can't imagine taking this with us when we leave. I just hope it all lasts for 3 years because I don't want to have to do this again.
All that to say...I'm grateful for IKEA and the ability to have "things". I hope you all laugh at this, because it's meant to be funny!