July Pictures

Even though we celebrate the American Revolution every day the year, the boys especially enjoyed the 4th! We started early with a bar-b-que at church followed by watching the city fireworks from our front lawn.

They are British soldiers here

On the actual 4th, we had a special breakfast, Dustin worked long and hard on insulating our bedroom ceilings, and friends came over for hamburgers, s'mores, and fireworks. Elijah loved setting off fireworks by himself!

An afternoon at Clark Park:

Claire loves meat; she thought the ribs were delicious!

We went to the Getty with a dear friend:

Lunch is lots more fun on a hill. The water bottles just
"had" to be rescued multiple times.

Best quote of the day: "So you mean all of these are originals?!?" Apparently, I neglected to tell them what made museums so much cooler than reading art books.

In the child's play area

Claire spends her days pulling things off of shelves and out of drawers. She likes to put them on her head and around her neck if possible.

We've had summer camp twice a week. One day we made African rhythm instruments, which were a hit.

 .
Claire discovered the joy of looking through colored window blocks...

...and climbing. Steps help you reach even farther!

We celebrated Dustin's birthday. His birthday weekend looked like putting dry wall up on our ceilings, running sound at church, and leading our small group.

And more July pictures to come -- Claire's birthday weekend, swimming, and reading!

Claire -- 11 Months

At 11 months, Claire loves to crawl, crawl, crawl. And stand. And reach all the things. She likes tiptoes because she can now reach higher.

 She is all smiles, all the time. She says: Mama, Dada, Elijah/Josiah, hi, and yay and signs more (mostly for fruit, meat, and cheese). She waves hi and bye.

She's our smallest baby, still wearing 6-9 month clothes with a handful of 6- and 12-month clothes thrown in. She has six teeth and her hair is starting to grow. She loves her straw sippy cup and eating all kinds of food although strawberries, watermelon, and blueberries are her favorites. She's a fabulous napper and sleeper at night, except when she is not. No nursing and snuggling back to sleep for this girl--night wakings last at least an hour if not two or three. But she has slept through the night every night for most of her life (unlike a certain brother), so all is mostly forgiven.

 She thinks her brothers are the best and wishes they'd occasionally leave their door open, so she could play in the wonderful world of tiny toys.

Her eleventh month brought no new states, but it did hold a trip to Fresno and Yosemite. Poor girl also was sick with roseola for a week and was a sad little baby.

We think she's the best little baby and it's hard to believe that her first year is almost over!

Vienna, Austria -- take 1

We all made across the Atlantic ocean relatively painlessly; some sleeping even happened. Dustin used his skills to get us bulkhead seats (more leg space for Dustin! a bassinet for Claire!) and into an airport lounge at Heathrow, providing beloved playdough space for the boys and unlimited snacks. Then a two hour flight to Vienna. 

We got in early evening, so we took the train into the city, found our hotel, and got dinner at a nearby cafe, a meeting place for intellectuals such as Freud back in the early twentieth century. Josiah missed dinner and slept on through the night.

Other than Dustin's hour or so playtime with Claire in the lobby, everyone jumped time zones pretty smoothly. We started the day at St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Then the Albertina for some beautiful Impressionist art.

Looking at Paul Signac

Monet! Love seeing the texture of the thick paint up close.

 Then Schonbrunn Palace, the former imperial summer residence!

Claire wanted to pick all the wild primroses

 The Schonbrunn Zoo, founded in 1752 making it the oldest zoo, is in the "back corner" of the grounds. It's a beautiful zoo -- pandas, penguins, cheetahs, polar bears, and bats were the highlights for us,

That brown lump on the left side is a full sized penguin chick--the juvenile
is as big as the adults, but still covered n fluffly brown feathers

Poor Josiah fell and scraped up hs mouth. :(

Maze! Decently complicated.

Glockenspiel in the labyrinth

Mirrors in the labyrinth

Water play in the labyrinth

We still had energy after the palace, so we went to ride the Vienna ferris wheel (built in 1897 and whose metal frame survived WW2 bombing) which offered great views of Vienna. This is the ferris wheel featured in Orson Welles' "The Third Man."

And then, because pacing for us looks like going until everyone crashes, we finished the night at the House of Music Museum, which offered all sorts of fun sound exploration activities.

Day two started at part of the Hofburg Palace touring the palatial rooms followed by 17th century Flemish art. The treasury and the Natural History Museum were disappointingly closed.

And because we mis-read the times and had missed it, we headed back to Schonbrunn to tour just a few of the palace's 1441 rooms. This also gave us time to visit the Children's Museum, which the Elijah especially enjoyed.

Then it was a quick playground stop while Dustin shopped for peanut butter and picked up a dinner of bratwurst.

We left Vienna for Florence by overnight train!

Beloved playdough time; partway through the day, Josiah would start
asking "sit and do something with his hands" (i.e. playdough)

Thrilled to be sleeping in the top bunk of
a sleeper compartment 

Not quite as thrilled to be sleeping in the top bunk of 
a sleeper compartment 

Pretending to sleep