More Austria pics

We finally got copies of the picture the other 2 families took while we were on vacation in Austria back in Sept (can't believe it been that long already). It was over 2000 of them so it required an external hard drive to be passed around. I've gone through and picked out some of my favorites... Jaydon's always a good pal to have around. And this is Jaydon's very 1st taste of ice cream - in case you were wondering he liked it and the Bjorn was pink for the rest of trip. Aiden, Ella and Jaydon on the bus right after their international overnight flight-they were troopers. Jaydon also got the hang of riding public transportation - he tried to grab these handles on every train and subway we went in. Jaydon was a big fan of the greenery. And the rest of these are various family and group shots.

Halloween

Jaydon's first Halloween was a big success. He was the cutest monster on the block. He just barely fit in the costume I bought him. Notice the sleeves are about an inch above his wrist I got it from a website going out of business back when I was still pregnant. Why I thought a 6 month size would fit him at almost 9 months I'll never know. I sure hope I got a good deal on it. All the kids in the compound were out for the festivities and a good number of neighbors also joined in the fun by letting us trick-or-treat at their house. The Mitchells' really get into decorating there little front yard so their house was the backdrop for almost every one's photos. There's 1 kid in the compound who's actually tricker treating age, we let him do all the door knocking, the rest of the bunch were more interested in the candy wrappers rather than the candy its self. Maybe next year Jaydon can taste what's actually inside the wrapper. After all the fun outside in the 80 degree humidity in a fleece monster suit Jaydon spent the rest of the evening playing with his new spider toy and trying to cool off. Oh yeah, and the adults had a little fun too. We held the 2nd annual Halloween Villa Crawl at our compound this year and is was another great party. What you're missing from Steve's costume is the cut off jean shorts and loafers with white knee high socks :)

Teeth

Jaydon has 4 pearly whites in now. As you can imagine teeth are difficult to get a picture of but tonight he was flashing a big tooth filled grin.
Now that he has teeth he's starting to expand his food repertoire. Cheerios are definitely his favorite. He's learning the finer art of picking them up and getting them into his mouth without dropping them. He's also figured out how to find the dropped Cheerios in his lap but he has to be quick before they fall to ground and get gobbled up by Athena.

Austria

This year for Eid holiday we wanted to do something easy for Jaydon's first real vacation. 1 flight, less than 8 hours and no connections. Being in the middle east this left a lot of cities open to us so we decided on Vienna. But since that was so easy we decided to go ahead and get a little more challenging and invite along our good friends the Fullers and Phillips who also have babies close to Jaydon's age. 3 babies touring Europe - no problem.
Here's Aiden, Ella, and Jaydon enjoying the cool grass at the Salzburg castle. After doing some research on Austria we realized that we couldn't make a trip there without also seeing Salzburg. Salzburg is a beautiful town in the mountains that was an easy train ride away from Vienna. So we spent 3 nights in Salzburg and 4 in Vienna. I think if we could've had the great accommodations of the Hilton Vienna (where we stayed in Vienna) in Salzburg it would've been perfect for the whole week. As you can imagine traveling with 3 babies caused quite a commotion where ever we went. We constantly had tourists (usually from Asia) taking video and pictures of our babies. Jaydon didn't mind - he loves to flirt with new people and have a good 'ole time.This is the castle in Salzburg viewed from the river below. We hiked part way up to the castle and took a vernacular the rest of the way. Jaydon is posing on one of the canons they had set up on display. We all loved the parks, Jadyon got soo excited every time we set him down on grass. He's flapping his arms so fast that the camera can't even catch them.

With Oktoberfest going on in Germany the crowds were much smaller than what we had expected and in the spirit of it Steve made sure to test all the local brews. He especially liked it when he could get a mug of beer as big as Jaydon.

Jaydon took to travelling very well and learned how to eat and sleep in all kinds of weird places. We also had fun buying baby food based on the picture on the label. Spinach was pretty easy to figure out and Jaydon loved it.

This is from the butterfly house in Vienna.

We had a big bay window in our room in Vienna. Got an awesome deal at the Hilton thanks to Steve's Gold membership there. Jaydon loved to hang out in the window and watch all the goings on down below.

Just in case you were wondering exactly how much luggage 3 babies (and their parents) need to go on a week vacation. Keep in mind this doesn't include the 3 strollers, diaper bags and day packs we had with us for the train ride from Salzburg to Vienna.

Enjoying another beautiful day at a beer garden in Salzburg. Jaydon had his first taste of soft pretzels here (and promptly threw it up) and also had fun feeding the pretzel to me.

Few - all that vacationing is tough work. This is how he'd usually take a few of his naps during the day, on the go in the Bjorn. He got pretty good at it but the naps were never very long or refreshing.

Jaydon also decided that it's much better to see the sights perched up on dad. There's also the added benefit of having all that hair to pull.

Here's a shot of the city of Salzburg from the castle. (I know these pics are all out of order but blogger and I haven't been seeing eye to eye lately and I finally gave up in the interest of time wasted arranging pictures...)

These butterfly's were enjoying someones flower garden outside their cute little Austrian cottage.

Did I mention the pretzels. Our friend Brandon couldn't resist buying the one bigger than his baby.

Hmmm - looks like someone is looking for trouble.

Don't worry Jayodn didn't drink the beer (at least that's what dad claims) he just liked chewing on the edge of the cold glass. 2 top teeth where trying to make an appearance, his gums were swollen the whole trip.

These last few are from our day trip to Germany to see the Eagle's Nest which was one of Hitler's mountain retreats. The views were great and all the kids did a great job traveling from train to bus to bus to train.

The theme of the vacation was 2 out of 3. At any one time 2 out of the 3 babies were doing something the other wasn't whether it came to sleeping, eating, crying, or pooping. There are more good pics our fiends have taken so when I get a copy of them I'll post those too.

Brussels

I had my first business trip since going back to work and was lucky enough for it to be in Brussels. It meant spending 2 days away from Jaydon which was tough but the beautiful weather, greenery and good food helped the time pass by.
The offices are on the outskirts of Brussels so I was only able to go into town one evening before I left to meet Steve and Jaydon in Vienna (next post coming soon). I spent the evening walking around town. Enjoying the sights of an old city and buying a little box of chocolates at every chocolate store I came across.

After about 100 Euros of chocolate purchasing I decided that the chocolate from one shop must be similar enough to the other shops so I stopped and had some dinner on a chocolate laden belly.

But what's a trip to Belgium without the waffles. So after dinner I had a waffle topped with chocolate ice cream. The waffle was amazing and the ice cream pretty good too. It was definitely a good way to start off a vacation (that's the Vienna part). These were the only pictures that were worth posting from Brussels. Doesn't do it much justice...next time maybe I'll just photograph the chocolate and waffles.

Silly Daddy

This one is great, Jaydon loves playing with his daddy :)