More celebrating...

We have 3 January birthdays in our family, so we seem to be celebrating the entire month :)

This weekend Luke turned 13, so we went to the Sonnentherme in Lutzmannsburg.  It is just about an hour and a half drive from Vienna~ and sooo fun!  The hotel we stayed at a had an underground tunnel where we could walk through to get to the indoor waterpark.

Luke brought his friend, Andy...

  And our dear friends, the Seversons also joined us.

the waterslides were out of control FUN,

and there were also lots of pools to swim in...

indoor and outdoor

From the youngest to the oldest...we all had a fantastic time!

13!!!!!!!!!

How did you become a teenager so fast?  We love you Lukey!

Happy 13th Birthday!

Skiing

We have lived in Vienna for almost 5 years now, and Abby and Magdalena met the first week of first grade.  Even though Abby has had 2 new schools since then, we have continued to remain friends with their family.  The girls have taken horseback riding classes together, Turnen classes- which are a bit like gymnastics, and for the last 3 years we have had season tickets to the "Kinder Theater".  The girls really have a good time together, and we really enjoy spending time together as families.

Every winter for the past few years, we have talked about going skiing together, but it has never worked out... until this weekend.  And wow, we were so glad it did!

Here we are all packed up and excited to head out!  We took off for Steiermark (which is about a 2 hour drive) and met up with the Dorfers for dinner.  It was pretty funny that in the small town we tried to eat dinner in, we were turned away by 2 restaurants because we were too big of a group.  Finally we ate a good dinner and then we headed to our hostel.  The next morning we awoke to newly fallen SNOW...

Truly a Winter Wonderland!

We went skiing at Lachtal.  The weather was perfect, the slopes were great and it was so fun to watch our kiddos keep up with their Austrian friends!  And I thankfully survived :)

After we finished skiing, a front moved in and it started to snow again...

The kiddos loved it and played the rest of the afternoon outside...

Here is Luke trying to dig a tunnel

Here are all of the kiddos sledding back at Magdalena's place

And we ended the fantastic day with Raclette!

We all hope we can do it again next year!

Celebrating...

In this house, the celebrating of birthdays seems to last for days and there is always yummy food paired with the celebrating!  For Levi's birthday breakfast there were cinnamon rolls, for his birthday dinner it was lasagna and for his class party, banana muffins.  I love that there are requests made, there are "favorite" recipes and that usually all of these good "eats" are shared with friends around our extended table.

Levi's 8th birthday party was fairly low key.  He invited a few friends from school over to our apartment and a high schooler that attends the same school as Luke and Abby, volunteered to come and do some magic tricks.  I was a bit skeptical at first, as I had not seem him perform before... but he did a great job and even taught the kiddos a few tricks! :)

Happy Birthday Levi!

It is so hard to believe that you are turning 8!

7 was a good year for you...you really came out of your shell and became adventurous!  You still are very funny, sensitive and kind.  All of your teachers tell us that you are a great leader and friend, and we see that too!  We look forward to seeing what this year has in store for you.  We love you so much!

North Carolina...

For us, NC means memories.  There are memories in the furniture, the mugs, the pictures and the pencil lines on the door that have measured the heights of lots of kiddos.  Everywhere you look there is a memory and a story behind it...

North Carolina means family! Whether it is extended family or just us, the time there is always special...

North Carolina always has something fun to do outside...

In NC,  we never tire of going to the same places over and over again...

Fred's

Mast General Store

The Candy Barrel

In North Carolina, we also get to see good friends who spent time in Vienna...

and in North Carolina, the view ain't half bad either...

"New Years Partay!"

Memoo arrived in NC,  just in time to celebrate New Years...and we rung in the New Year eating her famous sausage bread...

and then we taped 100 glow sticks on our bodies and had a dance party...Oh yeah baby!

Here is Levi...

Check out Abby girl...

Bradford...

Brad with all of the kiddos...

And Luke is getting down! :)

All I know is that everyone got their groove on and we rocked out to Abby's awesome playlist!  Then we watched the ball drop in Times Square and fell asleep by 12:03!

It was a very fun way to ring in 2012...

Scenes from Christmas...

Christmas at Beech Mountain is always a treat!
We love being with our family and having cousin time.

Christmas PJ's... it's tradition!  Can't wait to show this photo at a wedding rehearsal dinner someday :)

We got lots of great gifts, but I think the mustaches from our good friend, Shannon were a big hit!

Mikey totally rocks this look doesn't he?

You can see more photos HERE