Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do

View from on top of Fortress (built over 1,000 years ago!!)
Salt mine slides...we really went down 2 and a time and they are just wooden rails you straddle and slide down. Crazy!
Fountain in front of oldest church in Salzburg...beautiful!
View of Salzburg from the river side ... fortress is up at the top of the hill
Mirabell Gardens

Can you guess where we were this weekend? Salzburg! Home of The Sound of Music. We watched it with the kids a few weeks ago, so we were all ready. Eric thought that I downloaded all of the music to my IPHONE so we could listen to it on the car ride - but I hadn't thought of that. Maybe a good idea in the end?! :)

Funny thing was, when we went to Mirabell Gardens, none of us thought it was SUPER duper recognizable and we are all excited to watch it again to really notice things now.

Fist of all, Friday night was the halloween party at the school. It was very fun and the kids had a blast. Good thing our kids aren't high maintenance about costumes, because I didn't want to go out and spend 50 Euro on a costume! I told them to pick from something we brought... so Julia was Minnie Mouse for year 2 :) and Evan was another year of a professional soccer player. He wanted to be Ronaldo...which I think was just an angle to get a new soccer jersey as apparently he doesn't play for Manchester United anymore. I told him he could be vintage or "throw back" Ronaldo and he was good with that! So a soccer uniform and some spiked hair with gel and he was happy!

Lots of games, etc.. Evan mostly ran around with his houligan 4th grade friends bugging girls and getting into trouble. Julia saw some of her friends and was content playing games and getting her face painted and her nails painted.

We got an early start on Saturday morning. We ended up taking a back road as we got closer to Salzburg and drove through some spectacular Alps Lake country to get to Hallein, Austria about 30 miles south of Salzburg. This is where a salt mine is that can now be toured. It ceased operation in 1994 I believe. The tour was great and we all enjoyed every second at the salt mines. Hightlights were the train ride into the mine and the two slides out of the mine! You just sit on these wooden rails and slide town...super fun! We were even in Germany for our first time as part of the mine crosses over into Germany many meters below the earth! :) Salz is salt in german and Burg is castle... this is why Salzburg is Salzburg! :)

We got into Salzburg and checked into our hotel and then walked into town. The town is beautiful and quite small. We were looking for a restaurant that was recommended and found a Lions Club once/year FleaMarket instead occupying the restaurant this weekend. The next thing I know, Eric is buying ski poles for Julia and an Excercise Bike! Leave it to Eric! Anyway.. it was too good a deal to pass up, even if we didn't know if it would fit in our small car! We only paid 10 Euros for this nice bike - yeah! Maybe I can work off the 10lbs I have gained since moving here - UGH!

We did make it to a restaurant and had a great meal followed by a good nights rest. Eric and Evan did a hike up a nice hill in the am and then we all had a yummy breakfast. We were talking about how a few months ago we didn't understand breakfast here and even were confused by the eggs served in egg cups etc... We have now figured out the Austria breakfasts and enjoy them a lot now. (veggies, olives, meats, cheeses, breads, throw in a sof boiled egg or two and you are all set)

After picking up the bike (the kids had to ride with part of it in their laps but never mind that part of the story), we headed to the fortress. We took a cool fast train like thing up the mountain to the top where we did a nice audio guided tour and looked around ourselves too. Very impressive and historically interesting. We then headed down for a quick bite to eat and off to Mirabel Gardens. We ran around, played at a wet park (it was drizzling most of the day) and took lots of pictures.

Ready to start another school week. The kids have United Nations Day at school on Thursday and our Fall week long break starts after school on Friday. UN Day is supposed to be really neat and we are looking forward to it! All the children in the school wear clothing that is traditional to their country of origin or colors of their flag etc... There is an assembly in the morning where the kids will be singing and doing different dances they have been working on. The UN Rights of a Child poem will be recited to begin the assembly. This is super cool as Julia was chosen as her class represtative to learn the poem and the movements and perform it at the assembly. She has been working during recess with the other children that were chosen to learn it. Should be adorable! They also have country booths set up (by parents) in the gym so the kids can tour the booths and learn all about the different countries. ALSO, there is a feast for all the grades where they eat with their grade level. The parents bring in finger foods etc. traditional to their country for the kids to eat for their lunch. Isn't this AWESOME! :) Any ideas for all american finger food I can bring in????????? I was thinking about chicken wings -but this might be a pain in the butt. Please send me any ideas that you have!

Okay, sorry so long - I'll sign off now. Love to all!