Weekend in Zakopane

As I posted previously, last weekend was Caleb's birthday. Back in the States, we would have had a big birthday party with all the grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. and the boys would have had a sleepover party with their best buddies. Since we are spending their birthdays this year away from all their friends and family, we wanted to make sure and do something extra fun on their birthday. We decided for Caleb's birthday to drive down to Zakopane and spend a weekend skiing and enjoying the views of the Tatra Mountains.

We had a great time, but our plans were slightly changed due to the weather. It was FREEZING cold...so cold that we could only tolerate being outside for a few minutes. Luke, Isaac, and Caleb attempted skiing on Friday, but only lasted about an hour and a half. We went out for dinner Friday night, and it was painful walking the few minutes outside to get to the restaurant. We decided on Saturday that since no one wanted to ski another day and it was really too cold to do any sightseeing or activities outside that we would just head home Saturday afternoon. We still celebrated Caleb's birthday Saturday with lunch, dessert and presents. Here's some pictures from our fun, but bone-chilling, weekend:

Our apartment was so cold Saturday morning that Andrew ate his breakfast with his hat on and Luke's coat wrapped around his waist. (The temperature inside the apartment was my fault...I unknowingly left the patio door partially open Friday night. Oops.)

One of Caleb's biggest surprises was that several of his friends from back home had sent cards and gifts. He wasn't expecting that, but it put a huge smile on his face.

His Lego City set that he had been hoping for....

We let him choose where we would eat for his birthday lunch. Of all the choices in Zakopane, he chose KFC. And he wanted Jello for dessert instead of birthday cake.

Enjoying his birthday fried chicken

We enjoyed the scenery of the Tatras..... from inside our warm car.

We stayed in an apartment rather than a hotel. (We are discovering that is the best way for a family of six to travel through Europe. Hotels aren't very welcoming to families with four kids, and require us to book two rooms. Most Europeans cities have nice apartments you can rent for a very reasonable price.) Isaac wanted a picture by the spiral staircase:

The view from our patio

Getting ready to hit the slopes!

They were so hungry...when will the pizza get here?

Caleb was being shy. Or maybe he was just trying to thaw out his face from our cold walk to the restaurant.

Naomi is such a cheese...she loves getting her picture taken.

We waited quite a while for our pizza...what better time to have a family photo shoot?

It was a fun weekend, but we were thankful to be back in our warm home Saturday night. Isaac is requesting a trip to the beach for his birthday....I think he just wants to go somewhere warm!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Caleb turned seven today! We celebrated by going to Zakopane for the weekend. It was a fun weekend...I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow. We had a great time celebrating the blessing of seven years with this guy...

Caleb, we're so thankful God made you a part of our family!

Naomi's first phrase

Naomi said her first two-word phrase this week. It wasn't directed towards myself, Luke or the boys. She was talking to Jasper. She said, "Hi Doggie!"

She and Jasper have become very good friends.

Winter Fun

We finally got some snow here! Last week we awoke to snow falling every morning, although a lot of it ended up melting. Here's some shots from a few of our snowy days:

Four Kids and a Candy Store

Yesterday was another beautiful fall day and we decided to head to the Rynek (the Market Square in downtown Krakow) for a visit to a candy store called Ciuciu (pronounced choo-choo). We had heard about this candy store from a few different people. This store makes hand-crafted candies, and they do demonstrations in the store where you can watch the candy-making process. As you can imagine, the boys were pretty excited about a field trip to a candy store. Here they are outside the store before the demonstration started:


We arrived at the store a little early, and had twenty minutes before the show started. So we decided to walk around the Rynek for a few minutes while we waited. The Rynek is such a beautiful area, and there's always something entertaining to do there. Like climb inside a giant head.....
...or watch clowns walk on stilts and make balloon animals.

After our stroll through the square, we headed back to Ciucui to check out the demonstration. (Isaac gives candy store field trip a big thumbs-up.)
Naomi had a great view of the demonstration from Luke's shoulders, but she was so upset by not getting to immediately eat all the candy she saw that she got a little fussy. I ended up taking her to the back of the store where she continually said "Bey!" (translation: Please!) at every bag of candy she saw.
Luke and the boys stayed up front and watched the demonstration. Luke took a bunch of pictures of the process:

After the show, we let the boys pick out some flavors to take home. They were very excited.

Ciuciu was a very fun place to visit, and I'm sure we'll be back!

Fall Fun

We've done a lot of fun things over the last few weeks. We had this guy come visit for a few days...

(Clayton is a friend of ours from our church back home. We LOVED having him stay with us.)

We spent three days in Vienna. Very fun weekend!

(I put an entire album of pictures from Vienna on Facebook. After loading them all on Facebook I didn't have the energy to do it all over again on the blog. I'm kind of a lazy blogger, but since most of our blog readers are also friends on Facebook I didn't figure it was too big of a deal.)

And we have been LOVING this amazing fall weather we have been having. Fall is beautiful here! There are so many trees in Krakow, and the leaves are so colorful. Our favorite trail is lined with huge trees and now that the leaves are falling, the paths are covered with leaves. The boys had a lot of fun playing in them on our walk today. Here's some of my favorite shots: