TRACTOR!

We went to the zoo today with our friends, Vanessa and Eleanor. We were treated to some really cute baby goats in the petting zoo area, which we all loved. Carsten learned the sound for a goat, which I had been trying to teach him for some time :). Carsten also held Eleanor's hand and helped her walk a couple of steps, which was SO cute. In the petting zoo, we found a tractor that of course Carsten had to sit on. And of course, he LOVED it. Here's a few photos:

'TRACTOR!'

Happy kid. :)

Changing gears.

If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it! (Yes, he makes this face when I sing this song)

Grandpa Hoogie, I think someone is going to have a great time riding tractors with you in October! :)

Gone hiking

Andy and I have been talking for a while about doing a hike with Carsten on the ridge just behind our house. So, we took the jump and went Monday morning in celebration of Labor Day. We enjoyed the lovely, cool weather, and I enjoyed it that Carsten was able to walk some of the way instead of having to be carried all of the way like last summer. It was also a relatively easy 3 hr hike since we started in Forch and ended in Egg. We took a snack break in the middle to admire the view of Lake Zurich and the Alps. All in all, it was great fun and we loved being able to do some hiking with wonderful views (especially since it was soooo close!). Here's some photos:

Carsten decided that Andy did not need his hat anymore.

Pretty Alps.

Forest :).

Carsten and I documenting our hike.

Cows of course.

Carsten likes flowers :).

Apple tree!

'Circle!'

ALPS!

Lake Zurich and the Alps.

Mt. Rigi!

Carsten admiring more flowers.

Snack time! With an amazing view of the Alps and Egg.

Egg. 

All in all, it was a great time and we will be doing it again before we leave :). We live in a very beautiful place...

Vienna - Day 3

So, I totally missed day 3 earlier (how embarrassing), so I changed some of my previous headings and this will be out of order - oh well. Anyway, I'm going to blame this absentmindedness on the fact that we really couldn't take any photos in the museums we went to on that day. We went to a couple of museums, (Sisi museum and the treasury museum, at the Hofburg Palace. The Sisi museum was interesting, and we did enjoy getting to see their furnishings. We then went to the treasury museum where we got to see the crown associated with Charlemane (so pretty and old) as well as one of the Hapsburg's crowns. Carsten most enjoyed the statue on the square between the museum because he could walk up and down the step. There was also a nice grassy area where we played for a bit as well. Here's a few photos:

Statue in the grassy area.

Action sequence #1.

Action sequence #2. 

Action sequence #3.

The statue that we spent a lot of time by watching Carsten go up and down the step :).

About to go down.

After seeing the museums, we headed back to our apartment to let Carsten nap. After his nap we decided that we wanted to head to the Danube River area and have supper at a cafe since all of our other meals were pretty cheap and quick. Well, this ended up being a bit of a bust because we did not know where we were going. We didn't have internet and we did not guess the correct place to find a restaurant. We ended up back by Swedenplatz after a lot of frustration and found a nice restaurant who served amazing Viennese food (wienerschnitzel = yum). Here's a photo of our yummy (and still relatively expensive) dinner :).

Our nice dinner :).

Vienna - Day 6

Since Carsten and I were flying out in the afternoon and Andy was able to take the morning off of the conference (nothing of note to attend), we elected to drop off my bags at the train rail station in the city center and go to the next door stadt park. It was a very relaxed morning, and it was nice to have some low-key family time before Carsten and I headed home. Here's a few photos:

Stadtpark.

Andy and Carsten in the park.

Play area :).

Merry-go-round!

Andy also made use of the play equipment :).

Carsten and I had a great flight back, he actually slept for most of the flight, so it was very relaxing :). Hooray! We missed Andy all week while he was at his conference, but I was busy editing a paper from my thesis and Carsten was busy playing cars, so we did ok :). 

Vienna - Day 5

On Sunday, we first went to the downtown area to view a few more buildings that we had missed on our earlier excursions: the Parliament building and the New Town Hall building. Both were extremely beautiful, and we enjoyed the lack of crowds that goes with an early Sunday morning. Here's a few photos:

Parliament

New Town Hall. I don't think it's that new. Should probably be called Newer. But it is gorgeous :).

Carsten loves to drink water from fountains.

So pretty :).

Then we took the public circle tram which goes on the route of where the city wall used to be, so you get to see a lot of things without walking. Our good, sunny weather was short lived, but we elected to continue on to Prater Park anyway, which has a huge ferris wheel and an adventure park of sorts. And what did we find in the park? A carousel with a 'TRACTOR!' on it, which someone wanted to ride and ride and ride and ride. And I got to ride a crazy, crazy ride which was fun. It was like the swings ride, the one where you just go in a circle, except this one went WAY high. It would probably never be allowed in the US, but that made it that much more fun :). See photos below:

Carsten LOVED this. We had to do it twice :).

Happy kid.

Swings of doom.

It started raining a bit, so we headed back to our apartment to give Carsten a nap and hopefully wait for better weather for the afternoon. Carsten took a 3 hour nap (amazing!), so Andy and I got some good relaxing and packing in while he napped. We then headed back out to the Swedenplatz area for some pizza and gelato. It wasn't raining until after we had our pizza, so we had a fairly pathetic 'picnic' using our umbrellas to keep our food dry. Admit it, you're jealous ;).

Rainy picnic.

The gelato was delicious, and once again, Carsten wanted only the cone, not the ice cream. This goes perfectly with me because I have always disliked all cones except for waffle cones. So, now I can eat my ice cream and he can eat the cone :). After ice cream we went back to our apartment and packed for our departure on Monday afternoon. It was a great day despite the rainy weather :).

Vienna - Day 4

We decided to head downtown to Stephensdom so we could see more of the church and hopefully do a catacomb tour. We arrived in the church just after 9 am, and unfortunately, the next catacomb tour wasn't until 10 am. So, we wandered the church a little bit and decided that we would attempt to do a bit of shopping. Unfortunately most places were not open either, so our 'early morning' attempts at doing things did not go very well. Oh well, we ended up finding a cute Noah's Ark clock for Carsten at this adorable clock store, and we even attempted to shop at H&M (which did not go well). Long story short, we made it back to the church in time for the catacomb tour. In our tour we got to see the burial places of the priests, organs of the Hapsburgs (yes that is correct), a few of the early Hapsburgs, and a mass grave of those who died in the Black Plague (yes, again, that is correct). We didn't know what to expect and it was cool to do the tour, but I have a feeling we won't be doing too many more :). Sorry, we didn't take many photos, but here's one of Carsten admiring a Swarovski window.

He really didn't want to leave this window.

After our tour we walked through the Hofberg palace, and found some cheap lunch before we headed out  to Schonbrunn. We had decided that it would be a perfect place to let Carsten take a nap in his stroller while we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Carsten fell asleep right away (in his stroller!), which was sooo nice. We took the opportunity to wander the grounds and take some photos.

Carsten actually sleeping in his stroller.

Pretty.

still sleeping, but not for long.

pretty fountain.

 Carsten woke up after about a 40 min nap. Needless to say, we were hoping for a much longer nap. Oh well. Carsten was actually quite upset when he woke up, so I tried putting him in the carrier to see if I could get him back to sleep. He was starting to make some tired noises, and then Andy made the honest mistake of singing him the song we sing him before bedtime. He started sobbing. Seriously sobbing. And that was the end of our attempts to get him to keep napping.

Sad buddy.

So we headed out to the museum of technology, which was pretty close by to Schonbrunn. This place was Carsten's favorite place of all I think. It had helicopters, airplanes, and trains, and there was a little man who was running around like a crazy person because everything was so AWESOME. We honestly kept going back to the helicopter for about 30 min because he just could not leave it behind. What a kid :). There was also a fun area for kids, and Carsten enjoyed driving a car and a fire truck (both stationary). This afternoon was just what Carsten needed, and it was super fun. Andy and I also enjoyed the museum, especially some of the cool sciency demos :).

'TRAIN!'

driving a car in the kid's area.

Technology is cool.

Anyway, we had a fun day, and I'm pretty sure Carsten would have stayed there forever if we had let him.