Friday, January 16, 2009

Free Formula

For my local mom friends:

I received a can of Enfamil formula in the mail yesterday and obviously I don't need it anymore. Anyone need it? First comment, first serve.

Baby Tag

I still have more Vienna posts but my pictures are being held hostage so....

Tagged by Mandy

1. Were you married at the time? Yes for almost 3 yrs.
2. What were your reactions when you found out you were pregnant? We had been trying but it was the kind of trying where you don't really expect it so I was excited but very freaked out.
3. How old were you? 25, 26 when she was born
4.How did you find out? I had a sudden intuition and went home for lunch and stopped by a CVS. I stopped at CVS because the people at Walgreens are too nosy.
5. Who did you tell first? Um, the nurse at Dr. Shanbour's office? I was antsy waiting for Ben to come home so I called and made my first appointment. I think the 3rd person was the lady at Curves because I told her I was quitting! ( I was really looking for any excuse). The 4th person was Mandy and she guessed because I ordered a Sprite instead of a Coke. That is sad.
6. Did you want to find out the sex? Yes, I can't handle when people don't find out. I would go insane.
7. Due date? June 22nd, 2007
8. Did you deliver late or on time? early, June 6th
9. Did you have morning sickness? I had 2 really bad days of morning sickness. One was Halloween and Mandy threw a party and I was in her bathroom the whole time. I was so bummed!
10. What did you crave? spinach queso, I had aversions to all forms of meat.
11. Who/what irritated you the most? Well unfortnately the dog we had at the time, he kept knocking me down and destroying things that I couldn't bend over to clean up. Poor guy. That and the heartburn. I HATE heartburn.
12. What was your first child's sex? girl
13. How many pounds did you gain throughout pregnancy? I really don't know, I didn't want to know but my Dr. said I gained what I was supposed to.
14. Did you have any complications during pregnancy? Well I found sometimes wetting my pants to have been somewhat complicated. But other than that no.
15. Where did you give birth? Mercy
16. How many hours were you in labor? I think around 12 only 5 of those were at the hospital.
17. Who drove you to the hospital? Ben
18. Who watched? Ben and the 10 drs and nurses, okay maybe it just felt like 10.
19. Was it natural or c-section? Natural, although I'm sure some people would debate that:)
20. Did you take medication to ease the pain? Yes I think they should give you an epidural at around 7 months.
21. How much did your child weigh? 6 lbs, 11 oz
22. Did your child have any complications? Nope except that she was so tiny for a long time. She took care of that.
23. What did you name her? Aidan Blythe
24. How old is your first born today? 19 and 1/2 months.

I tag Morg after Chloe is born, Lynn, Bethany, Olivia (you should start a blog) and Amanda W.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Assorted Vienna

Karlskirche

Votives inside Stephansdom

Stephansplatz

Inside Demel, the fancy bakery

From the bell tower of Stephansdom

Graben, with the New Years Eve stalls being set up

This is our favorite restaurant in Vienna, Brezl Gwolb. We ate schnitzel, potato soup and freshly baked pretzels down in the candlelit cellar.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Schonbrunn Palace

When I was on the Vienna studies trip back in 2001 I had a reputation for overly planning and picking out what I (and whoever was with me) was going to see that day. Some people may have possibly referred to me as tour guide Barbie.  So since we lost a day and a half in Vienna because of our flight cancellation you can bet that I was determined to make up for it.  I made Ben get up soooo early in the morning to go out to Schonbrunn Palace.  The early morning was great for pictures though!









Thursday, January 8, 2009

Gruss Aus Wien

Despite all the airplane drama Ben and I had a wonderful 5 year anniversary celebration in Vienna (well actually in an Embassy Suites in Atlanta but whatever). ANYWAYS, we had a great trip and I'm sure I will have several posts on our vacation but here are a few from our first day in Vienna.  I'm sure some of these pictures won't mean anything to a lot of people but for people who went on Vienna Studies, especially in the early 2000's :) they should bring back some good memories. 


The Maria Theresa monument between the art and natural history museums. This was at 3pm! I forgot how early it gets dark in the winter.  It was freezing too! I think the 3 weeks in between when we left before makes a huge difference in temperature.

Inside Kunsthistorisches, my favorite European museum next to the Musee de Orsay in Paris.

Even the horses had earmuffs on.

Coming through the Hofburg onto Kohlmarkt 

Eating lumberjack potatoes at Zum Bettlestudent where our group celebrated many birthdays:) I think they had the exact same menus. One of the bad things about having only 2 people on a trip is one of you is going to be the one who gets photographed eating all the time.

Some of the newer Christmas decorations leaving Stephansplatz. You can see Pizza Bizi in the distance Wieners.

Rathaus at night. Vienna's town hall is so beautiful.

Eating gelato at Zanoni and Zanoni. Our group always preferred this to Tichy Eis because it was in the center of everything and open all year round.  We bought this hat for our future brother-in-law but I had to break it in because I was so cold. 

We also preferred the happy Italians. 

Next up: Schonbrunn!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

How not to start your vacation...

...a true story.

First of all let me start by saying that Ben and I had an amazing trip to Vienna. I will be sharing all of those details once I sort through the 700 or so pictures on our camera.

But before we get to all of the fun our trip sure got off to a rocky start.

We flew out of DFW on Friday. Our flight was held on the ground for 2 hours and then an additional hour once we got on the plane because of fog in Atlanta. And that's the star of this story, the Atlanta Airport, or purgatory, depending on your particular religious persuasion. Unless it is completely and utterly unavoidable I will never set foot in that place again.

We were told repeatedly that all flights were delayed and that we would all make our connections. Our connecting flight left 5 minutes before we landed. Over 60 people on our plane missed that connection. Once we walked to the Delta counter we were met with the longest line I'd ever seen in an airport.

Ben had the genius idea to get on to the phone to Delta customer service to see if we could get a new flight. And it would have been a genius idea if anyone who works for Delta ever tells you anything remotely accurate. The lady on the phone told us that if we ran to the gate we could get on a flight to Copenhagen and then fly to Vienna from there.

I don't think there is anything that makes you feel sillier than running through an airport terminal. You're weighed done with bags, you're passing people who have nothing else to do but sit and watch you make a fool out of yourself and half the time you're dressed for the climate of your destination and not your connection airport.

So by the time we reached the Copenhagen gate, I was sweaty, out of breath, my pants were falling off and I was on the verge of tears. I was in fact, as a certain diminutive Project Runway winner would say, a hot mess.

So if you've ever seen an episode of The Amazing Race, I'm sure you know what happens next. The sweaty out of breath contestants plead their case to the stone-faced airline employees (it's life or death, this flight is worth a million dollars!). Only to be told that there is no way to get them on the flight (even though there is plenty of time and room by the way). And that's pretty much what happened except that we didn't make up an emergency or anything. At this point my hissy fit was in full swing and a few tears started to fall as Ben remained patient and calm.

That's when Atlanta tipped the scales from being just a typical frustrating airport to the worst of the worst. As I silently started to cry the lady at the Delta counter got ON THE INTERCOM and announced to the entire boarding area that there was no crying in her terminal. And EVERYONE in the vicinity turned to look at me as I immediately burst into tears.

So that about wraps up that leg of the trip, except to say that we went back and stood in line for over 3 hours, only to be given hotel vouchers for the night, only to discover that we still had to pay for half of the expensive hotel, only to also discover that they had booked us for the wrong flight the next day and also showed us taking off on the Copenhagen flight, causing Ben to have to leave the hotel and and catch the last shuttle to the airport to stand in line for another hour to have them fix their 15th mistake for the day.... But other than that Atlanta was great!

All I can say is that I could have kissed the shiny pristine floor of the Zurich Airport, that place was running like a Swatch watch. And everyone spoke English.