Austria

Hey first of all, shout out to everyone who read my last post about the inauguration. It'll probably always be my top viewed post, since I'm not all that interesting, and I hope I offered some insight. 

But, the world keeps on keepin on, and we go back to our regularly scheduled programing. 

On Monday, we celebrated Austria Day ! Calib's country during the Winter Olympics in Sochi was Austria, so he told us all some things he remembered about it. (Mostly that Hitler and Arnold Schwarzenegger were from there, they speak German, people like to ski in the Alps, and strudel is very popular.) 

Our landmark for Austria was Eisriesenwelt, which literally translates to 'World of the Ice Giants'. It's cited as the largest ice cave in the world, and is a huge tourist destination in Austria. (In case you're wondering, it has 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor, and yes, we check that sort of thing). We also learned of some other interesting caves, where there are color changing crystals.  

Hayden particularly enjoyed the legend of Krampus, a sort of santa's evil twin, who punishes children who have been 'naughty'.  We discussed more famous Austrians than just Hitler and Arnold Schwarzenegger, we also talked about Mozart (who also provided our dinner music- have I told you guys we've been doing that a dinner? If I have, sorry. If I haven't, we put on music from that country in the background at dinner. Sometimes it's suggestions from our book, sometimes it's someone who was born there).  

 I really liked the boys Austria postcards. Calib says his are never as good because he prefers to use crayons to markers, but I think he does a good job. He usually googles how to say something in whatever language they speak, which is fun. 

None of my kids are going to grow up and be artists, as my genes have provided them zero artistic skills, but I really loved  Hayden's Austria card. He drew a guy skiing down the mountain, two guys playing the Austrian finger pulling game called Fingerhakeln, and then Krampus on the top of the house. Down below he drew some guys in crystal caves, and the yellow is supposed to be the light from their headlamps. Asa and I both gave him our quarters. 

For dinner we had wiener schnitzel complete with a lemon, Austrian potato hash, asparagus in brown sauce, and apricots. We were going to have apple strudel for dessert, but Publix only had strawberry cheese strudel. So I had to decide on strudel, or apple. I chose apple and just got a different apple pastry. We work with what we have. 

Dinner earned three spoons up. 

Calib, Asa, and I all enjoyed it (except for the apricots, I couldn't find fresh ones- so we had to get canned, and they weren't amazing). But, Asa did a great job on everything else. Everyone except Hayden enjoyed the asparagus, and everyone liked the hash. 

Austria is ranked 114th in area, so it's not all that big. And small countries mean nobody but Peyton is brave enough to color them in. 

But Hayden was happy to scratch off the map and the flag. 

Ten countries down, 183 to go! 

Next Up: Azerbaijan