biking, there and back and there and back again (148/365b)

we nearly didn't make it out on time today - we left much much later than our intended time. and because of construction on the bike route to the train station we actually had a little bit of a weird way there too. but we still made it in plenty of time.

brian was packing and repacking his paniers and his stuff for the week, but for this part of the journey he took everything off again and carried felix on the bike seat. we made it the first 5km in pretty fast (for with kids) despite some stops (picture taking) hiccups along the way like...

always time to check out the view

short break before we get back in the saddle

theodore's chain fell off 1/2km from where we left - so cute, henry had a screw driver with him and wanted to help. it was even probably the correct tool, but nobody noticed him saying that he had one.
...and tara got stung by a bee *on her lip* 1km past that.

ice cream at 11am can also be medicinal

since we were making such good time we decided we might as well go on a completely superfluous 6km spoke, 12km all together, trip to thaler see and back, effectively doubling the distance we had planned. this was all very well and good but as soon as we left with the new destination in mind all the kids started saying they had had enough. but we decided the challenge was worth it. and it was! we made it and everyone was happy to get a little walk in on the way. i even found 2 eierschwammerln. (very funny to people like nina, who wrote to me she was looking for mushrooms today and probably filled a basket full, but i think it's pretty good in such a well-traveled spot to find anything) - i also had a cappucino all alone by the lake. it was €3.40 and not even the best cappucino ever. .....

better than the one i made of all of us, on a self timer which fell and smacked on the ground.

off we went back home, and the ride was relatively uneventful - henry hit a curb once and fell and scraped his knee and cried a lot, and i was very nervous because it looked really bad from where i was, but when i got there it didn't even need a band-aid (although of course we gave him one!)


At home again I cooked like crazy fast to get food ready so that we could eat before they all took off again. I don't know how but all the strudel was gone. I guess it was worth staying up half the night for. Shawn used his last few minutes in driveway to teach Henry a new way of tying a bowline knot with just one hand. It looks cool - like a magic trick - and Henry was very impressed and then proud of himself.

Brian's ausrüstung

Have a good trip!

We waved goodbye, and then, I guess the kids weren't even that tired from their 20km bike rides, they wanted to go out and play somewhere. playground was closed so we went to the soccer field across the river, but that was full of playing teenagers, so we shot basket ball hoops with a soccer ball, and played the game PIG with very strange rules. - Felix "won" ... his task was just to try to graze the hanging down part of the basket with the ball. I lost all together, which was impressive as the first ball i threw landed directly in the basket and after that i must have thrown 30 near misses in a row.

Tired and happy we meandered home for stories and leftover dinner.

coffee for instagram (147/365b)

nonchalant at suesse luisa

Figuring out how to meet when her kid is sick and we have company is not so easy, but our quintet keeps up our instagram (or Barbara does) and on wednesdays we talk about who we are. Except in the summer time we don't generate so much content but we still have to output what we say we are going to. this time (for the next 5 weeks) we are writing about our favorite coffee shops. Aww, poor us: we had to go get ourselves a coffee and a croissant.

It turns out i had missed a text message about a gig that we are playing on the 23rd. i sent brian a message to put it on the calendar, and got a text immediately back that i assumed was from brian, but it was actually a quite unrelated person saying that they want me to play a quite unrelated gig on the 23rd. Graz! You have to stop trying to double, triple, quadruple book me! I have lots of unbooked weekends, please just ask first!

when i got home i sat down and edited photos right away, which took a long time actually, because i'm just so far behind on photo stuff. tara tried to get the kids to go pretty much anywhere. she and shawn wanted to go out for dinner tonight, and she said she was planning on leaving at 4:30, but she would pretty much go anywhere and do anything before then. at 4:15 they weren't even properly dressed but they convinced her to let them show her the abenteuerspielplatz. we followed after and rescued her.

brian and i entrusted our 3 boys to the personel and went for a walk of our own - picked up henry's bow from getting rehaired, and picked up a package from the post office, and overall just had a nice walk together. our package was all books so we kind of got lost in them in the evening. and then just as i was getting ready to go to sleep brian asked if i still had any plans for the apples in the bowl.... oh

oh yes.

i was going to make an apple strudel, the one thing tara had asked for. i made the dough. everything was so very very very sticky! i don't know why. i've never made such sticky dough (except for everything with rye flour) .... the first one completely fell apart. i made more, added butter. it stuck too. not to the pan though. i think the the world is just so humid and hot and nothing is quite right. as soon as it baked it was perfect. really really perfect. it was also past 1am. i hope people like apple strudel for breakfast - we won't have any other time to eat it. brian and tara and shawn start their Mur River bike trip tomorrow, and we're doing the first few miles with them. Train leaves at 10:04. Better get to bed!

cast off! (146/365b)

SOOO happy that Felix got his cast off today! Brian took him in. The rest of us went hiking.

Up to the burgruine goesting.

I took zero pictures because of battery exhaustion, although i carried the heavy camera all the way up and back, slung over my shoulder like a highschool student. as tara said, she used to think "back pack over one shoulder = high-school. back pack over two shoulder = college."

henry wants to take a break at the first bench.

Admiring the view at the top: high yield hike

pointing out the train station and the schlossberg

me and henry looking over the wall

Theodore and Henry practice Henry's new "SUPER ZOOM" technique

shawn and henry discussing when the bus ticket might expire

theodore showing us the short cuts

brian waiting for us at home, with felix

still not comfortable to walk, but teaching shawn labyrinth is just fine.

Spent the afternoon with Michi and Raphi. Tara had work to do and Shawn had shopping to do. Michi and I sat in the full hot sun and watched the rain pour down right next to us. Strange weather we're having.

croissants for breakfast (145/365b)

Sometimes on a drizzly morning the doorbell rings and Nina is standing there with 2 huge bags of croissants. Doesn't ever happen to you? well, I guess we live a charmed life. It was a nice relaxed breakfast with very strong coffee and very calm conversation.

It was hard to get us motivated to go anywhere. First we thought if it cleared up we could go to Schloss Eggenberg, but eventually we decided to do all the nice little sites of Graz, which our visitors hadn't seen any of yet because of the weather. But I can't go anywhere easily with Felix. I biked him to the foot of the Schlossberg and took the bahn up. Carried him around everywhere, and then back down the same way.

At the top we found 2 figs. One wasn't that perfectly ripe, it was ok. One was perfect, and at the very top of the tippitiesttoppetest branch. I climbed up, lost a shoe on the way up, was scared for my life, grabbed the fig, tossed it towards felix and tara, was surprised at my own strength, and watched it fly past their heads over the wall into nothingness. Oh well, I tried.

next movie poster: everyday super heros unite!

We met up again at hauptplatz and went to the eisperle, yummy vegan ice cream.

ice cream for dinner
felix had the biggest one
(although i asked them to give him an extra small one)

This time we nearly beat the rain home. We started trying an earlier bedtime, in anticipation of school starting (yuck) next week. It wasn't hard, everybody's exhausted and cold and bed feels just right.

I met up with Jackie for a spontaneous birthday gathering at die Scherbe. It was nice, but I'm not a big fan of crowds of strangers or drinking. Still I was the last one standing. I brought a cake (chocolate peanutbutter, vegan and gluten free and so delicious), which i balanced on a porcelain plate on my left hand while biking with my right. I nearly dropped it when I was locking my bike, but nothing happened. the whipped cream was still piled beautifully on top. I had to wake up brian to let me in because I forgot my key like a soprano. Ooops.

And on the subject of cake... I was a little nervous about bringing a cake to a restaurant. I was discussing the etiquette of this with Centa. permission vs. forgiveness etc. Then Felix says: You can just smoosh it in someone's face and say "here's one think I learned from the movies."

RAIN?! (144/365b)

When we left to show Tara and Shawn the Farmer's market I felt a drop or two, and thought I'd take a rain jacket and umbrella "just in case" it rains. Felix's cast isn't supposed to get wet at all.

bundling up

unterwegs

Well, we hadn't been at the market more than a half a minute before it started to pour beyond belief, and it was a good thing felix was covered in my jacket and an umbrella (his cast still got a little wet, but not horrible) and I was left completely, very much completely, drenched, to the skin. Like i'd gone swimming. Brian got back and all the shopping bags, even the shopping bags inside shopping bags were completely soaked. But he had finished buying everything that we needed for the weekend.

So mostly we stayed inside after that. Card games...

felix won 11 games of rummy and centa 0
one man's grin is another's chagrin.

Chatting...

all kinds of politics and running shoe shop

Theodore and Henry came back from their campout, and they were very happy to find fresh hummus (I tried to recreate Berlin hummus, and got pretty close) and fresh veggies. They told us they "weren't tired at all" but that they had "stayed up all night."

I can't believe it's September. I'm not ready for the end of summer. I guess that's what this cold rain is supposed to tell us about.

tara and shawn arrive (143/365b)

So fun to see Tara and Shawn again today!

All morning Theodore and Henry couldn't figure out what to be excited about. They were packing to go off to a day of camp with the asp, and Henry still needed a new sleeping bag. Brian took felix to get his cast renewed, and Nina came over briefly. Then he went for a run, and got a willhaben sleeping bag, and picked up Tara and Shawn from the train station. They passed each other on the platform somehow, but then found each other again.

Theodore and Henry wanted to show everything, do everything, eat and make and talk and explain, but they also really wanted to leave. They packed everything up, i took them there in the lastenrad, 

all packed:
violin, djembe, cello, umbrella, sleeping bags, smiles

and then headed away to the sound of theodore explaining to henry that he doesn't ever feel homesick.

picking all the apples before they leave(after fixing the apple picker with twist ties)

Nina visits our invalid

showing tante tara his treasure box

There were unbelievable thunderstorms all night. i alternated between feeling like "eh, i trust fritz, they're totally fine" and "i hope they're ok, and dry, and not scared, and that they didn't leave their instruments out."

private gallery viewing (142/365b)

We didn't go anywhere yesterday, but I had thought yesterday or today i would check when this mechanical art gallery would be open and take the kids to it. not wanting to risk the trip without knowing when they were open, and not finding things online so easily, i rode there first, and saw the gallery set up, but the sign on the door said the final day was yesterday. i was crestfallen. then i asked in the gallery next door, whether i could just look inside. she tried to call the artist and then the curator and got no answer. took my phone number and went inside again.

later i got a text message: they are opening for you and your family at 2pm. i texted back, thank you thank you!

it was a gallery of plywood machine sculptures by niki passath .... very wonderful. we were only sad the mechanical drawing arm was not turned on to paint a canvas. the other sculptures all turned on moved in synchronicity. it was fun to try not to get hit by a revolving arm while walking around and seeing what the similarities and differences were.

deep analysis

all the boys

henry wondering if he can make one himself

plywood gears

it was super cool, but the artist has much cooler things that he's done. i was very impressed by the book in the gallery of some of his other work.