End of 2008

As 2008 draws to a close, we'd like share a bit of what we've been up to recently. The past two months have been busy and packed with lots of great things for us! Some of our more interesting highlights follow...

Thanksgiving:

We hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner for 10 people! We had a nice mixture of Austrians (mostly first-time Thanksgiving-ers) and North Americans (who would have otherwise been Thanksgiving orphans, and we just couldn't let that happen!). In hindsight we should have noticed earlier (say for example, more than 1hr prior to arrival time) that we only had 5 chairs to offer out guests. Oops. This problem was quickly remedied by transporting extra chairs from the Hans-Riehlgasse apartment to ours - via tram. Yes, via tram. We made it despite incredulous stares and comments like (and I quote) "Look! Chairs!! Oh, MORE chairs!!" (We should have sold tickets!)

All of our lovely guests brought a dish while Rebecca Honts and I did the turkey, for the first time, I might add. This included (warning / plot spoiler to all our vegetarian friends) calling a butcher in advance to order said bird (I've never felt so intentionally carnivorous in my life) and picking up the bird which weighed exactly 3 tons (again, trasport via tram) . *Phew* Our turkey turned out well. Thank you, Food Network. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, bread, pumpkin parfait, chocolate cake and wine. All in all the dinner was a smashing success.

Snow:
The First Snow in Graz was the last weekend of November. As you can see the roofs were sprinkled white. Although it didn't last much more than 24 hrs, we totally enjoyed it!

View from our apartment: St. Leonhard Church

Advent!

During the month of December we enjoyed our advent calenders. One word: Chocolate. :)

APC in Vienna:

The first weekend in December Thomas and I led a group of 15 teenagers from our church to a national prayer conference in Vienna (APC). APC stands for Autrian Prayer Conference. Guess I don't have to translate that one for you. :) We stayed in a place called the "Schulschiff" (school ship). It's just what it sounds like - a ship converted into a school. It's in the Danube and yes, that's where we stayed. We had a fabulous time and even got to lead some of the teenagers around parts of downtown Vienna (espeically Leopoldstadt - a primarily Jewish area pre WWII) where we learned some of the area's history including certain individuals or businesses and we even cleaned the plaques placed there to recall and honor the Jewish people and heritage. It was a very moving and significant time. We and our teens were changed by this entire weekend.

Bri:

Next came a visit from our dear friend Bri! She was on her way back to the States from Thailand where she had worked for over a year teaching German and English, working with Step Ahead. Though her time was sprinkled by a few needed doctors visits, we had a good time catching up and even hosted a Thai dinner for 6. Bri cooked 2 delicious curry dishes for us all. Yum!

Christmas #1:

Shortly after seeing Bri off at the train station, we had a trip to take ourselves. We visited Tom's family. His brother, Richie, and Sabine live outside of Melk, (you may have heard of the pretty famous Abby there) where we celebrated Christmas along with Tom and Richie's mother. We tried to lend some helping hands in putting together a new furniture piece they'd bought. But since a couple of parts were defective, we weren't able to finish the job. But that didn't keep up from enjoying all the wonderful meals and cookies and treats!! We also enjoyed their Christmas tree and exchanging gifts!

Christmas #2:

Tom celebrated Christmas with his company inside the moutain Schlossberg.

Christmases #3 &4 OR The Best for Last:
Our first Christmas! We celebrated in Graz first on the evening of the 24th in true Austrian style and then on the morning of the 25th in true American style! For those new to the ways of Austrian Christmases: This meant waiting until evening for things to get going: such as gathering around the tree, lighting some type of (to me scary) flamables directly ON the tree, singing AND then opening presents. All this happened after attending our church's Christmas service. This was nice, quite, comfy and cosy. Then on the morning of the 25th we did it the American way...a great big breakfast complete with an egg-sausage casserole and monkey bread (thanks to Rebecca Honts who was also celebrating with us!) Then - while still in our PJ's - we dove into opening the rest of our presents!

Next big shindig is New Year's!!! Let the countdown begin!! :)