oesterreich.

last wednesday, i got to spend the day with family friends from mocksville. the fullers were in town. carli, morgan, john, and anike. john is an architect i used to work for, and my sister used to babysit for the two girls. they are so big now. 8 and 11, i think. they are in germany to visit family and decided to make a stop in heidelberg. we did the typical tourist thing and walked through the old town and ate at a german restaurant. it was great to see them, and strangely enough, i fly home before they do. on thursday, we were off to goldegg, austria (oesterreich) to visit friends of sabine and nils. sabine and the boys and i left around 10.45 on thursday morning. we reached our destination at 8pm. it is 5 hour drive, so probably 6 hours with two 3 year olds. in case you're terrible at math, it took us 9 hours. the morning got off to a good start when we left the house and max and tom were screaming because they wanted me to sit in the back seat with them. after that wound down, we were stopping at the bakery, and sabine realized she had forgotten her wallet. so we cam back home. then we were finally off. it rained more or less the entire way, and it was more or less a traffic jam the entire way. tom was having one crisis after the next, and doing plenty of whining with an ehhh ehhh ehhh noise. then we stopped to eat something and sabine accidentally threw the car keys in the garbage. we had to laugh. it perfectly fit how the day was going. around 7.5 hours in, max and tom were both screaming and kicking seats, and i have to say, i can't really blame them. however, i arrived with a headache. within 2 minutes of arrival they were friends with constantine (10) and phillip (8) (sons of the family we visited) and were running around playing. exactly what they needed. we had dinner, hung out a bit, and went to bed. friday morning we were playing outside. they have a really awesome treehouse. i was slightly too big for it, max and tom were slightly too small. nils and the dad from the other family arrived friday afternoon. we all took a walk to the playground, soccer field, and lake. it was july 18th. i had long pants, short sleeves, a zip up hoodie, and a fleece. sometimes i forget it is summer. i'm going to melt when i get back to north carolina. saturday we went fishing. well, more like constantine went fishing. we drove through some gorgeous parts of austria. we wound up at a place with fishing ponds, a few pigs, llamas, and people with such a thick austrian accent that i couldn't understand a word they said. max was very cute and really wanted to help with the fishing. it took a long time to catch a fish, but max was so excited when they did. (tom was busy digging in the sandbox at the playground.) he would touch it and then scream and laugh. then within about 5 minutes, constantine caught another. after we are all finished fishing, tom wants to go fishing. we told him he could help eat the fish. when we got home, constantine was so cute, and he prepared the fish for the grill. then he made a fire, and cooked his fish. they were good. tom was excited to eat fish. he spit in back in my hand within half a second though. not for him. saturday evening we went to eat dinner at a place where they cook steak on an open fire. it was delicious. sunday we drove home. it took the normal 6 hours. thankfully. sunday night, max and tom graduated to big boy beds. nils, sabine, and i put them together when we got home. they are blue and elevated with a spot for playing underneath. tom's has a wheel like a ship, and max's has a little shelf where they can pretend it is a shop. once this weekend, someone asked max if he needed a straw, he replied, "nein, ich bin schon ein big boy." no, i'm already a big boy. they are seeming more and more grown up. max doesn't want to hold your hand anymore when walking. phillip was riding a bike down the hill at the house in austria and wearing a helmet like a little stuntman. max decided to try as well. i was surprised, but he did it several times and was quite good at it. no crashes. on that note though, the life of a three year old was fairly tough yesterday. tom was screaming like it was his job. "no" is not really a word he is interested in hearing lately. when they returned from kindergarten he wanted chocolate candies that we didn't have. sabine told him that after naptime we had to go shopping, and he could pick some out. well, after nap time, we were off to ikea. at ikea, they have a play area for kids. we went in to look around to see if the boys wanted to play there while sabine shopped. they have a train. tom was sold. one problem: you have to have a certain kind of ID which sabine lost a few weeks ago. so, tom couldn't stay. tom was screaming and crying when he found this out. for the duration of the rest of the trip to ikea he was crying, screaming, and randomly throwing his body on the floor throughout the store. we left ikea, and we drove to the grocery store. you would think that the fact he is on his way to get chocolate candies would calm him down. it worked for a few minutes. there was a firetruck outside that you can ride. tom is a negotiator to the maximum. sabine says if there is no crying in the store, they can ride when we leave. okay, deal. then he discovered some little toy at the grocery store. when sabine tells him no, we can't buy everything we see, we got a repeat of the show put on in ikea. i think everyone in the grocery store stared at us at some point. this one lady had a baby with her that was probably 8 or 10 months old. i'm sure she was thinking, man, what have i gotten myself into? we finally make it out of the store, and i'm sure sabine had only about half the things she planned to buy. we pass the firetruck on the way to the car. the screaming definitely didn't stop when he found out he wasn't allowed to ride. we drive across the street to the gas station. tom has unbuckled his seat. sabine told tom if he didn't calm down, he wasn't allowed to ride home with us. after that, taking him out of the car, having a chat, and pulling off the street once after we left the gas station to remind him he could climb out if he didn't stop screaming, he quieted down. he also decided he didn't want the chocolate that he was so intent upon earlier. he has really great endurance. this episode lasted a while. the good news was that max didn't feel the need to cry yesterday. i appreciate it when only one is screaming at a time. around 8pm, all was good again, and he and max were playing under their new beds and telling sabine and i stories and laughing so hard, they couldn't eat their dinner. i think every three year old has these days. the good news: we grow out of them. however, i think that in the process, it leaves some very tired grownups.