Auntie Alisha has a nephew

Welcome Samuel Scott, Jr!


Probably the worse thing about living so far from family is missing out on days like Tuesday when my sister Amber gave birth to her third child. But fortunately the hospital had WI-FI and my mom had her laptop, so I was able to watch my niece dance around the waiting room and was able to see Sammy soon after he was born. Not quite the same as being there, but it was pretty nice.


Sammy's first experience with Skype.
For more photos, check out Amber's blog.

More info

After yesterday's big announcement you're probably curious about our adoption plans. Well, Brian and I are kind of private people and we don't want to just put all of this personal information on the internets. So I've started another blog -- a private blog -- where Brian and I will share more information about our adoption plans and eventually information about and photos of our child.

There's a link to the new blog, Three Little Birds, on the sidebar, but you have to receive an invitation before you can view the site. If you want to follow along, send me an email or leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you an invitation to the blog.

Oh, and remember a while back when I showed you some cartoons made from photos? And I told you I was working on a project. Well, here it is -- the banner for the new blog.

How not to break the news

Remember back in February when I told you about the Christmas gifts I made for my family last year? You probably thought February was late to be talking about Christmas gifts, but I guess June is really late. But I want to show you something.

This is the tin I decorated for my Dad's magnetic word kit.


See, it was filled with little magnets.


I even left him a note on the inside of the lid.


And I packaged it carefully so the magnets wouldn't shift around during transit. This was very important, because I also left a note for the whole family on the bottom of the tin underneath all of the other magnets.


There it is. Do you see it? Here, let me help.


I tested it several times to make sure the message would stay intact during shipping, but unfortunately I didn't count of someone in customs opening the package and taking everything out. So once it arrived, the message was no longer there. Just in case you ever want to make a big announcement with magnets that are going through international mail, here's some advise: glue the magnets in place.

Fortunately, I knew it was possible that the magnets wouldn't stay in place, so I had another cool way to make the announcement. Not as cool as the magnets, but still fun. I wrapped up a baby dress that I made and since we were opening gifts together over Skype I made sure everyone knew that this wasn't a gift from my family ("Oh, this one must be from Santa") so everyone was watching, then when I opened it I said, "This must be a gift for the baby we're adopting." Everyone was excited and my sister accused me of upstaging Christmas, or something like that. We repeated the whole baby dress announcement with Brian's parents a few hours later.

And so, that's the last time I'll blog about Christmas 2008.

Oh yeah, and can you believe it? Brian and I are ADOPTING A BABY!

ich bin ein Wiener *

I've been wanting to use that title for a while now... Ever since I read a Wiki article about JFK's speech in West Berlin where he made his famous "ich bin ein Berliner" statement. Have you ever heard that Kennedy made a grammatical mistake and accidentally called himself a jelly doughnut instead of a citizen of Berlin? Well, I had never heard it either. But apparently that rumor is going around. And it's wrong. Wiki can explain it better than I can:

According to an urban legend that is both completely untrue and practically unknown in Germany,Kennedy made a slightly embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry:

Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article "ein", his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut".

The legend stems from a play on words with Berliner, the name of a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin.

In fact, Kennedy's statement is both grammatically correct and perfectly idiomatic, and cannot be misunderstood in context. The urban legend is prevalent only in English-speaking countries but largely unknown in Germany, where Kennedy's speech is considered a landmark in the country's postwar history. The indefinite article "ein" can be and often is omitted when speaking of an individual's profession or residence but is necessary when speaking in a figurative sense as Kennedy did. Since the president was not literally from Berlin but only declaring his solidarity with its citizens, "Ich bin Berliner" would not have been correct.

So there you go. The next time you're at a soiree and someone starts in on what a fool JFK made of himself in Berlin, you can set that person straight and turn them into the fool.

Now all of that was just introduction. Let's get to the point. Why would I say, "ich bin ein Wiener? Drumroll, please.

I got my residency permit today! (Brian too.) We're now official (and legal) residents of Vienna. And it only took about a year.

* For all you German-speaking folks out there, yes, I know that "ein Wiener" is masculine. But I figured that if I named this post "ich bin eine Wienerin," no one would start an urban legend that I called myself a hot dog.

Happy Mom's Day

Happy Mother's Day to a woman who can do it all. As I get older and feel like life gets busier I have no idea how you did (and still do) it all. I feel crazy busy with just a husband and a job. Somehow you managed to take care of a husband, 3 kids (and millions of others at the house all the time), and finish school all while making costumes, putting on class parties, baking cakes, and the list goes on and on. I say all of this to say--you rock mom! I have no idea how...but you rock!

Okay, I confess. I just copied that from my sister's blog. But I thought it was a well-worded and I have the same sentiments. Hopefully Mom checks my blog first. :)

The last supper

This week has passed too quickly. Tomorrow around 4:30 a.m. a mini-bus should arrive to pick up my family and take them to the airport. It wasn't too hard to decide where we wanted to go for our last dinner -- back to Centimeter.

Once again we got the sword meal.



And once again, we weren't able to eat all of it.



But this time we came prepared. In case you're not familiar with restaurant etiquette in Europe, it's not typical to ask for a take out box for your leftovers. So my dad had the idea to take along our own doggie bags. Fortunately, we were sitting in an area that was around a corner from the main seating area, so I don't think anyone noticed.



After dinner, we had a little live entertainment.




If you like the video of our after-dinner entertainment, more video may be appearing soon on Amber's blog.

City tour

This morning when I woke up it was bright and sunny, but within a few minutes the clouds had rolled in and we had a bit of a snow shower. It was sunny again by the afternoon, but quite cold. The family decided to brave the cold and Brian led us on a city tour.

We started out at the Riesenrad. I prefer the German name Riesenrad better than the English translation because "Giant Wheel" just sounds silly. Plus, it's a little different from what you would typically think of as a ferris wheel. You don't sit in a little basket with one or two other people. You load into a boxcar with 8 or 10 other people. What it lacks in excitement (is a ferris wheel exciting?), it makes up for in the amazing view. You can see all of Vienna from the windows.







Afterwards, we headed into the city. We visited Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral), Michaelerkirche (Church of St. Michael), Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church), and Minoritenkirche (Church of the Minorites). The last one had a really nice mosaic of The Last Supper. But I didn't take a photo. In fact, this is the only photo I took in that church.



We also stopped by Brian's favorite cafe -- Cafe Central. I think Amiya was tired of us asking her to smile for photos.



But she finally agreed.



We ended the day with dinner at this restaurant called Centimeter. I've been waiting and waiting to take my family to this restaurant where you can order a sword full of food. But when we got there everyone wanted to order their own thing. After throwing a little fit, everyone agreed to get the group meal -- although some were still worried that there wouldn't be enough food. But once the food arrived, everyone knew I was right for insisting that we go with the group meal.



The meal included schnitzel, pork chops, french fries, chili and chicken wings. The menu said it was enough for 6 people, but it was probably enough for 8 or 10 people. I think I'll have to make this one of the standard restaurants when we have visitors.

Emmy didn't make it into a lot of the photos because she was sleeping or sitting in her stroller a lot of the day. But she looked awfully cute.

A day at the zoo... and other places

Today we headed out to the zoo. It may be the only day we have nice weather this week, so we took full advantage.


I think the sea lions were playing with us. They kept swimming right up against the glass.


And isn't this the cutest little puppy.

After the trip to the zoo, we headed to the town center for some ice cream.


And then we saw my favorite street performers. Lots of fun. I'm too tired to write more, so enjoy the show.

Happy birthday to me

In the spirit of full disclosure, my birthday is not really today.

But I did have a little party. And some pretty special visitors.



This morning around 9 a.m. I greeted my mom, dad, Amber, Amiya and Emmy at the airport. It was quite exciting. After working through some snags with the transportation service I had reserved, we headed to the apartment.



This was my first time to meet Emmy because she was born after Brian and I moved to Vienna. You can see that she was thrilled. I think she may have been the only one to sleep on the plane.

My family brought lots of goodies from the U.S. But the biggest surprise was this...



Yes, that's a cake. But not just any cake. It's a red velvet cake from The Red Oven in Texas. I've had this cake for my birthday every year for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it's a little late and sometimes it's a little early, but not a year has gone by that I haven't had a red velvet cake from The Red Oven. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not be have a Red Oven red velvet cake for the foreseeable future. But my mom managed to bring one with her in her luggage! Never underestimate this woman.

My dad's birthday is actually on Monday, so we decided the cake was for both of us.

The big delivery

Finally, the delivery we have all been anticipating. After long months of waiting and wondering, we finally caught our first glimpse.

What, were you expecting something else? Perhaps something like this...

That's right! There were two big deliveries today!

At approximately 12:30 this morning (Vienna-time) -- 5:30 p.m. yesterday Arlington-time -- my sister, her husband and their daughter welcomed a new addition to their family. (Just so there's no confusion -- Emmy was born on August 21st in Arlington, TX. However, it was already August 22nd in Vienna.) Here is Amiya with her new little sitter Emmy. I think she's a little nervous about holding such a small baby. And Emmy looks a little unsure as well.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for the day, at approximately 10:30 this morning, the container with all of our stuff we shipped from the U.S. arrived. Unfortunately, when the movers started unpacking it, we discovered that our belongings were at the very back. Well, the back when you're unloading -- I guess it's the front when you're loading. In any event, the movers decided to deliver everything else (for the other three families who moved to Vienna) and then come back to deliver our stuff.

Here it is, all unloaded. Now we just need to unpack.

One of the long-anticipated arrivals is our scooter. As I mentioned earlier, scooters are pretty popular around here. Unfortunately, we're going to have to buy a battery, get it registered, get a license and insurance and some other things before we can drive it, so it may just sit there for a while.

I have long planned to name my scooter (yes, like J.D., in Scrubs), but I haven't been able to decide on a good name. However, after surviving such a long journey, I think it's time that the scooter gets a name. So today I am christening her "Betty." Sure, the name would be a little cooler if Betty were black instead of red. ::Singing:: Whoa, Red Betty. Bam-ba-lam. Whoa, Red Betty. Bam-ba-lam. It just doesn't have the same ring to it. But, it's still a nice name. So here's to Betty! I'm glad she made it to Vienna!