Vienna, Austria: A walk around the city

On our first full day in Vienna, we woke up to sunny skies and a beautiful view from our apartment's balcony. Since Matt lived in Vienna for a year as an LDS missionary (1 year in Munich + 1 year in Vienna), our only plans for the next couple days were for him to give me the grand tour. Translation: we were winging it.

We started off with breakfast in our pretty little courtyard before grabbing a map and heading to the neighborhood cathedral, Votivkirche.

The rest of the day was spent exploring Vienna's historic districts. I'll let the slideshow take it from here:

Now, please go back to the last picture of that slideshow and notice the crazy downpour that had us huddled up inside S. Oliver for nearly an hour! We walked inside Stephensdome while the sun was shining, came outside to ominous rainclouds, and literally thirty seconds later the sky was falling. As soon as it had cleared up a bit, we braved the wet and empty streets to try to beat the crowds to Figlmuller.

Figlmuller was highly recommended to us by many locals, and for good reason! The weinerschnitzel (pronounced "Veen-erschnitzel" and nothing like an American hot dog) and other Viennese specialties were to-die-for delicious. Matt also loved that they served his favorite Austrian soda.

After dinner, we headed back to our apartment and enjoyed the view before bundling up and heading out for a little date at the Rathaus. More to come on that next time!

Back Home

Matt and I pulled into our garage at 1:02 a.m. last night after a visit to Utah. What started out as a quick Easter weekend break for the two of us turned into a 9-day stay for me and back-to-back weekend trips for Matt, due to the passing of his sweet Grandma Jean.

She was such a wonderful lady with a remarkable way of making everyone she knew feel welcomed and loved. I feel so lucky to have known Jean and so blessed that my children will have her as part of their heritage. We are so grateful for eternal families and our knowledge we'll see her and Grandpa again someday. The funeral was beautiful and we enjoyed spending so much time with both of our families.

Now, we're busy catching up on life and sleep, but will hopefully catch up on this blog soon. I have so much to tell you!

Brave... or crazy.

Matt's a brave man. Either that, or just downright crazy.

He recently decided that he was fed up paying the base barbershop $15 every other week for haircuts that were never perfect anyway. His solution? Having me cut his hair. Me, the girl who didn't go to kindergarten long enough to learn how to cut a straight line through paper... let alone hair. Yeah, I'm going to go with crazy. (Unless he was hoping that I'd butcher his hair so badly that he'd finally be allowed to shave it, in which case it was a fairly good idea on his part.)

Nonetheless, after much prodding, he finally convinced me to whip out the hair cutting kit we'd received as a wedding gift and get to work. And then the tables turned as I had fun trimming away and Matt became scared for his life.

Until, of course, I handed him the mirror and he confirmed that I hadn't mutilated his head.

I may or may not have made him hold a plastic bag in his hands for me to dump all the hair in as I went along. I'm sort of OCD like that sometimes. But I'm pretty sure those perfectionist tendencies helped it all turn out okay in the end, right?

Since then, my lovely friend/Paul Mitchell grad Carolyn taught me how to cut his hair the fancy way, sans clippers. It may take two hours to do but hey, you can't beat the price!

6 Figures

We are now officially the proud owners of not one but two 6-figure cars.

In the mileage sense, that is.

Redlands Temple

We normally visit the Los Angeles Temple each month, but decided to mix things up in March and headed to Redlands instead.

The Redlands Temple is absolutely beautiful inside and out. Our camera unfortunately died before we could take pictures of the grounds, so I grabbed this picture from www.lds.org to show you how pretty it is. See?

The sky was even more vibrant when we came out of the Temple that evening. Or maybe it just seemed that way; I love how the whole world seems like a better place after attending the Temple. The gospel and Plan of Salvation just bring so much joy to our lives. We are especially mindful of those blessings this weekend, as we watch General Conference and celebrate Easter. I love this video and its timely message (I love this video released last April as well):

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, lives. We are eternally grateful for Him and His Atonement, and we wish you a happy Easter as we all celebrate His resurrection.

3 Horrible Days!

One Tuesday, my 4-year-old brother Josh woke up grumpy. Throughout the morning, it didn't get any better. His brothers didn't let him play with their trucks, mom made him clean up his toys, and he wasn't allowed to sit on the computer all day. By the time lunch rolled around and mom was making him a lunch he "didn't like," Joshie had simply had enough. He began putting on his shoes so that he could run away. My mom teased him a bit by quoting his favorite book: "I was so mad!"

Joshie, with all the indignation of a teenager who just got their cell phone taken away, glared at her. "Mom, stop! It’s a horrible day!" My mom tried to convince him otherwise, but Josh simply continued: "...And I already had three horrible days!"

Mom stifled a laugh and asked, "What days were those?" (Thinking his answer would be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday).

Joshie's response? "Ashley’s wedding."

Yes, that's right. Nine months later, the poor little guy still remembered the torture that was being forced to behave for not one but three events (the wedding day, Matt's hometown reception, my hometown reception).

"Why were they so horrible Josh?"

"All you did is watch... and eat!"

Well, true. But the food was yummy, and you also seemed to have a lot of fun throwing rocks into ponds, climbing big trees, and running around with your little brother and cousins. Oh, and bonus! Matt became your brother-in-law. But he's been in your life since you could walk, so the marriage certificate probably didn't mean much to you, did it Joshie?

All of this "happy" wedding talk did little to convince him that he had anything but a horrible time. So I submit to you a small sampling of evidence that is Josh at random intervals throughout those 3 days. And I ask...

Was it horrible?

Or was it happy?

Debatable.

(PS-Matt and I about died laughing as we went through our wedding pictures and saw all the different faces my little brothers made. They are so stinking cute!)

Vienna, Austria: The Staatsoper

Before leaving for Europe, we found a great deal on tickets to Mozart's Die Zauberflote at the Vienna Staatsoper. (Translation: The classic Mozart opera, The Magic Flute, at the Vienna State Opera.) We booked them for our first night in Vienna and made it just in time to check in to our hotel and rush over to the opera house.

The building was absolutely beautiful, and it felt so surreal attending a classic opera in Europe. We had to keep pinching ourselves all night!

The vaal reminded me of old fashioned movies I've seen, along with The Sound of Music (although that was filmed in Salzburg, Austria). It was gorgeous!

During intermission, we toured around the opera house a bit more. Again, so, so pretty.

Then it was back to the opera that I totally recognized (it's where the well-known soprano opera song "Queen of the Night" comes from) but didn't entirely understand...

...despite the English subtitles. I was just too mesmerized by the opera itself to pay attention to both the stage and screen at the same time! (Although I did love catching beautiful lines like the one below.)

It was such an incredible night! Afterwards, we were a little worried that the rest of our stay in Vienna would be a bit anticlimactic because the first evening had been so amazing. Luckily, we were pleasantly surprised by what was in store for us in Austria.