I'd call it a success

Thanks for the tips for the Halloween party. It turns out, I didn't need as many games as I anticipated. The ghost bowling was a huge success. We learned at our front hallway doubles well as a bowling alley.





Since the kids didn't get to go trick-or-treating, we had a little indoor trick-or-treating fun after dinner. I told the kids I would be behind one of four doors and they waited in the living room while I went into one of the other rooms. Then they knocked on each door until they found the room I was in, then yelled "trick or treat" while I passed out the candy. It's not quite the same as the U.S. tradition, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Here are all of the kiddos in their costumes.


Sharkdog also dressed up, but he didn't make in the photo. Just like most little kids, he only kept his costume of for a few minutes. However, I was able to get some photos later on when I bribed him with a piece of bread. That dog will do anything for some bread!

Here he is getting into costume:

What? You'll give me some bread if I put on my mask?

And the transformation is complete:

The phantom of the opera is here!

Visit Tip Junkie for more Halloween show-and-tell.

Photohunt: Blue

I had a hard time picking between the photo below and this photo. But in the end, I had to go with the blue Danube.


Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt

Halloween help

Last year Brian and I planned a Halloween party for the kids on the team, but it was kind of last minute and it basically consisted of watching the It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and decorating cookies. We're hosting a party again this year and I'd like to add a little pizazz -- maybe some games or something of that nature. But here's the problem: I live in Austria. You might think that the biggest problem with having a Halloween party in Austria is that Austria doesn't celebrate Halloween. However, there's a surprising amount of decorations and ghoulish paraphernalia to be found. No, here's the real problem: No Hobby Lobby. No Michael's. Not even a Wal-Mart. There's no where (that I've found) that has a good selection of products I could use to make games or crafts or whathaveyou. There is actually a store that had plastic jack-o-latern buckets last AUGUST, but silly me, I wasn't really thinking about a Halloween party at that time. When I went back to the store earlier this week in hopes of finding a few buckets tucked away somewhere, there was nothing Halloweenish to be found. However, the Christmas stuff was all out and, having learned my lesson from the Halloween in August situation, I bought a few things.

But enough rambling. I'm really here looking for suggestions. I have a craft planned, so I'm looking for a game or two. Any ideas come to mind? I don't mind making something -- I was planning on making beanbags for a toss game, but since I haven't been able to find the Halloween buckets, that game's out. I need a few ideas. Help me out here!

Oh my darling

I love fall. Have I mentioned that I love fall? But that's to be expected. Who doesn't love fall? There's a lot to love. One of my favorite things -- orange food. I've already talked about pumpkins and sweet potatoes several times, but this is probably my newest favorite orange fall food. Clementines. Yummy.

I know it's early to talk about Christmas, but...

Earlier this year I had these crazy plans of making all of my Christmas gifts this year. The part about making everything wasn't really the crazy part -- the crazy part was thinking that I could have everything finished well before Christmas. I still have hopes of a handmade Christmas, but I'm a little behind schedule. Since I have to mail everything, I only have about 7 weeks, maybe 8, to get everything in the mail. Eek! I'd better get on the ball.

I won't be able to show off my Christmas sewing prowess for several months, but I've been waiting for my sister to upload these photos so I could show off my cute nieces and the matching shirt and dress I made for them this summer.




I used this tutorial from House on Hill Road. If you're thinking about making some of your Christmas gifts this year, I recommend checking out Sew, Mama, Sew blog. Next month is Handmade Holidays with 30 days of gift ideas and tutorials. I hope they have some good suggestions for guys because I could use some help in that area.

Spring Up quilt giveaway

I learned something new about myself recently. I really like quilts. I might even say that I love quilts. When Brian and I got married, Brian's grandmother made us a quilt. And when we moved to Vienna, a woman from church made us another quilt. And one day, I plan to make a quilt myself. But for now, I'd like to win a quilt. And you can get in on the fun as well. Visit Pigtails and Snails to learn the details of this awesome giveaway.

To treat again

Boy, it's been a busy week.

Last week I participated in my first church retreat since moving to Vienna. The retreat is for the women in the churches in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria and it takes place in an Austrian village each fall. Oh, and did I mention that it's in German? To be perfectly honest, I was part of an English-speaking discussion and prayer group and there were at least half a dozen ladies from the U.S. there, so there was plenty of English. But the daily times of worship and the lectures were all in German. And there were actually women there who didn't speak English. And I actually spoke to (some of) them in German. And I spoke in German to people that I knew spoke English. It was a crazy week. I even explained how to play Nerts (the card game) in German. When I explained that everyone should play their Ace in the middle, the other native English-speaker at the table chuckled because, well, the German word for Ace is an English word for something completely different.

If you visit my other blog, you've already seen photos of the beautiful location. But in case you missed it, here's a shot that didn't make it on the other site. The village is in a valley and the hotel where the retreat was held was a little ways up a mountain. This photo was taken early on a foggy morning.


But there was more to the week than just an amazing view. The lessons and worship were encouraging and I really enjoyed meeting new people. Plus, I probably spoke more German during those five days than I normally speak in several months. Ok, that may be stretching it a bit, but it was a lot of German. Kim and I even participated in one of the worship times by reading a Psalm. I was pretty proud of both of us.

And I guess I'll finish this off with some more photos that didn't make it onto Almost Daily Vienna. It would be a shame for them to waste away in Flickr without having ever seen the light of day on the blog.

This one seems very Pioneer Woman-ish. Except she doesn't have mountains behind the horses in her photos. And she would have taken the time to edit the photo to make it look prettier. Ok, so maybe it's not Pioneer Woman-ish at all.

The church has an interesting cemetery. Most of the headstones are orante ironwork rather than the traditional marble or stone. Plus, the area in front is really small -- as if the people buried there were exceptionally short. (Just to clarify, these were grown people -- many I looked at were priests. The cemetery was gravel, but each grave had a small area in front of it with room to plant something.)

For some reason, this one makes me think of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.