23

 Jason and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary on Sunday.  We actually didn't do too much celebrating on Sunday since the whole weekend had been a celebration.  I still need to write about my birthday, but it was so much I'm still trying to even figure out where to begin! 

Happy 23 to us!

He Loves a Camera

 If there's a way to get on TV he's going to find a way to do it.

That's Some Mud

I had a big birthday party in New Orleans this weekend, so it feels like we've been partying for a week, but that's nothing in comparison to how long Kyle's been working to catch this.  

 He says he's been trying to catch this one for 2 months. 

 

He came home yesterday covered in this same amount of mud and said he caught a 20-pound catfish.  Today he brought home the photographic evidence of this alligator gar. 

Flag Day and Father's Day

 We've been busy celebrating Flag Day and Father's Day since we've been home.  The jet lag was nothing compared to what we used to experience coming home from China, so it was a smooth transition back into the swing of things. 

Flag Day was celebrated with lots of flowers and such.

And we celebrated Father's Day yesterday, but I took these pictures while we were waiting on Grandpa Gary to get there, and then I forgot to get pictures of him.  So even though he's not pictured, Grandpa was there too. 

Back Home

 We made it back home, and as I suspected, we weren't really missed while we were gone. 

Reed caught fish.

JR continued to celebrate his birthday.

And Kyle caught these! 

Munich

We did as much of Germany as we could with only having a few hours. After being on a Viking River cruise, our hotel was a welcome change to make us feel young again. We had a hot tub on the balcony which I made Jason get in, just because, well, we had a hot tub on our balcony! I thought our balcony view looked like a scene from Mary Poppins (which I know was London).

We had dinner and sightseeing in Marienplatz, which has been the center of the city since 1158. The food was amazing, and the sights were pretty spectacular. Now off to the airport so I can get home to see my boys who I've missed, but they probably haven't even noticed I'm gone. And of course to see my only daughter, who I know has missed me!

Budapest

We started out the morning in Budapest with a city tour that ended with us touring a beautiful church. We would have had great city views if it hadn't been raining. I'm not sure if Budapest got more torn up during World War II than the other cities we visited, but they definitely talked about it more.

In the afternoon we went to a Turkish bath. I think Jason and I were both envisioning a health spa and instead it was like a city public pool. I give it a 1 out of 10, would not recommend. I did make Jason go check out the naked area (they call in "bathing suit forbidden") so make sure you ask me about that when you see me.

This morning we left Budapest and flew to Munich, so we are headed out to find some dinner and maybe see some German sights since our only German stop on our cruise was canceled.

Here are our pictures from yesterday.

2 Countries in a Day

Yesterday morning we arrived in Bratislava. I had no idea where we were and when I was told "Slovakia", that didn't help much either. I finally figured out it used to be called Czechoslovakia, which I had heard of.
 
We had a walking tour of the city in the morning, and then the boat left about noon heading towards Budapest. We arrived in Budapest to all the buildings along the Danube being lit up. It really was quite stunning, the pictures aren't even close to doing it justice!

So today's pictures are: one of the streets of Bratislava, the finish line of a race we ran into that I took for Reed (it was the ending of a race across Slovakia), and 2 pictures of coming in to Budapest.

The Rest of Krems and Vienna

So I mentioned that we visited an abbey in Krems, but the abbey was for monks. (I just assumed all abbeys were for nuns.) The abbey is also a vineyard, which is how the monks have supported the abbey since 1083.  I'm still not sure the difference between a monk and a priest, because these wine making monks look like priests and not what Disney movies led me to believe monks looked like. Speaking of Disney, I kept thinking I was waiting in line to ride the Alpine Sleigh Ride as the city of Krems is so charming it almost looks fake.

Then yesterday afternoon in Vienna we had our Lipizzan horse tour. This was what I was looking forward to the least. I'd never even heard of Lipizzan horses, but Jason was very excited to go. It actually turned out to be super interesting. I kept saying,  "I've been in Austria for a week and nobody has even mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger"…finally they brought him up on the Lipizzan tour! Arnold's hometown is where the horses are born and where they retire. I'm not sure who has better lives, the Kentucky Derby horses or the Lipizzans. But both are super charmed!

So here we are at the monks who make wine abbey, the town of Krems, with a Lippizzan horse, and on our carriage ride around the center of Vienna.

Some Krems and some Vienna

Yesterday we were in Krems where we visited an abbey and the town, but I don't have any of those pictures yet (they are on someone's phone) so I'll have to recap that later. This morning we did a walking tour of Vienna and this afternoon we're going to see the Lipizzan horses.
We needed a refreshment after riding the subway and walking around Vienna, so here we are doing that.

In a Lock

After 3 days in Linz, the Austrian government finally let us leave port to sail down the Danube River at 3:00 in the morning. When Jason and I woke up we were excited to see some new scenery, we pulled back our curtains and were greeted with this.

We were in a lock!  I've seen boats in locks on TV, but I had to google exactly what they are for. A lock raises or lowers water levels so a boat can go up or down a significant slope. We didn't even feel the boat going up or down!

And this is how tight the lock is. I'm not even standing on our balcony, I just leaned out the door from inside our room.

We watched the concrete wall go by for a while, and then all of a sudden we were out of the lock.

D-Day

No pictures today. On this 80th anniversary of D-Day, it seems appropriate that we went to Mauthausen, which was a Nazi concentration camp from 1938 until it was liberated by the Allies on May 5, 1945. Even though it was considered a "work camp" and not an "extermination camp", 90,000 people were killed there. It was as horrible and awful as you can imagine, set against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It was so clear we could see The Alps in the distance. Our tour guide was just a few years older than us, (she graduated high school in 1986) and she said they had a very different version of the war that was taught in their history classes. Today every high schooler in Austria is required to go to Mauthausen and see it as part of their curriculum.

A Visit to Grottenbahn

We were in Linz, Austria today since our first port was cancelled and since we had an extra day in Linz, I quick googled what we should. I figured out there was a tram (the steepest in Austria) to take us up to what I would call a mountain but they call it the Postlingberg Hill. I was expecting pretty views and a pretty church, which we got, but we also happened upon what can best be described as a fairy tale amusement park but with only one ride. (Grottenbahn) We decided it was perfect since this is the homeland of fairy tales.
So here we are with pretty views, a fairy tale dragon train mountain ride, and me as Puss n Boots.

Love Locks and Mozart

After a big day of Sound of Music reenactment, we went to a Mozart dinner, which was exactly what it sounds like, music by Mozart in between dinner courses, and put a lock on the Love Lock Bridge. The Mozart dinner was fun, as was making our lock.
This morning we were supposed to board our cruise ship in Passau, Germany, but the river is too high there so we got on in Linz, Austria instead. I'm not sure how it's going to affect the cruise, but I'm just here going with the flow.

Sound of Music

The Sound of Music was filmed here in Salzburg, and thankfully our tour guide was happy to tell me all about it! The sound of music kids and the nuns stayed at the hotel we're at (Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews were at different hotels) and the Do, Re, Mi scene was filmed almost all in Mirabell Garden, which is right behind our hotel. I also learned that the ending scene where they are climbing over the mountain in to Switzerland is totally fake because if you climbed that mountain from Salzburg you would wind up in Germany and you actually have to take a train to Switzerland. It was a super fun day, and here I am reenacting the Sound of Music for you. 

Eagle’s Nest

After landing in Munich we made the drive to Salzburg, but on the way we stopped at the Eagle's Nest. This was supposedly one of Hitler's hide outs, but according to what I learned, he really wasn't there that much.

Here's what the views are supposed to look like compared to what our views were. The views definitely would have been breathtaking if it hadn't been cloudy, instead, it was the altitude that took my breath away.

Landed in Munich

We are going on a friend's 60th birthday cruise down the Danube River and we landed in Munich.
I have never slept one wink on a flight before, and I slept for about 5 hours. I believe it was my combination of champagne and 2 Zquil! I'm going to try to blog about the trip along the way, but I'm relying on emailing my blog posts in since I didn't bring my computer.