Not every little boy gets to celebrate his 5th birthday in Austria! Well, you know, except for the actual Austrian kids. hahahaha! A tradition in our house is that every birthday kid gets to choose whatever special cereal they want for their breakfast that morning. No matter how bad the sugar/fiber ratio is, if that is what they want, that is what they get. Noah had picked out his birthday cereal several weeks before our trip, and I made sure to bring it with us. When we got up in the morning, we brought the box down to the hotel restaurant and he proceeded to enjoy a big bowlful. All the other kids thought it looked pretty good, and wanted to have some as well. But Chris said, "No way, we paid for you to eat breakfast here, so dig in." 🙂 After a delicious, leisurely breakfast, we hopped in the cars and drove back to Salzburg to see just a few more sights in that lovely city. We headed a little ways out of town and drove to the Salzburg ward house.
My first Christmas on my mission, we attended Zone Conference in that building. Good memories, especially hearing "Silent Night" sung in the original two part harmony, accompanied by nothing more than a guitar. Around the corner from this building, is another, very well known building.
Do you recognize it? My kids sure did! And even better, there were baby ducklings swimming in the same lake the Von Trapp kids fell into, so we stayed and fed them the last of our bread.
Not too much further down the road was a park which had the famous gazebo in it. Unfortunately, it was locked, so we couldn't get a shot of the kids on the benches dancing. :( I am not sure if it is only opened for tour groups, or if it is always locked. What a bummer if no one ever gets to go inside.
Then we were off to Vienna. We had planned to climb up the tower in Stefansdom, but of course, we got there just after it had closed for the day. No matter, though, the kids loved all the street performers, and we could still get in the church, just not the tower.
And besides, the first thing we did was stop and get everyone ice cream, BEFORE dinner, which was such a huge treat, no one would have cared what else we did for the rest of the night. While we were finishing off the ice cream cones by the church, we saw a man dressed up as a Roman soldier. As we were admiring his costume, some other ladies came up to him and he posed with them for a picture. Naturally, our kids wanted in on the action, so we walked over and he turned out to be the nicest guy ever.
He even had a little bag of candy to pass out to all the kids who wanted their picture with him. I am sure he makes quite a good living, he was so personable and friendly. I know we paid him well! :) There were also two girls playing on violins a little further down the street. We stayed and listened to them for quite a while. And of course, we had to give them a little something as well. Straight up begging I abhor, but give me a little entertainment and I will gladly cough up some coins.
Since it was Noah's birthday, we asked him what he wanted to eat for dinner. Pizza! was the answer. As luck would have it, we happened to find a parking spot not 5 meters from a nice looking pizzeria. It was even family friendly. Well, all the childless people were eating on the balcony outside, and we had the entire interior to ourselves! We asked if they had a children's menu, but the man said no, they would just make smaller portions for the kids. When the pizzas came out, they were huge! And mine was the exact same size as the kids. So much for smaller portions. But do you know, the kids ended up eating every last bite of those pizzas. One, they were very hungry, as we hadn't really stopped for lunch, just snacked in the car. And secondly, the crusts were so thin, they didn't take up any space in their tummies. Seriously, it was paper thin, practically see-through. It pretty much was just there to give the sauce and toppings something to stick to. So, so, so good.
Nick ordered a "diablo" and the waiter was very surprised and started to explain that it was very spicy, perhaps he would like something else. But we get a diablo pizza from the grocery store every once in a while, that is also pretty spicy, and he just loves it. He also loves spicy mustard and when I make Kung Pao chicken, he always wants me to add extra chili sauce. So we let him go ahead and get it. Not only did this thing have jalapeno peppers on it, the pepperoni they used was an extra spicy version as well.
He went through two whole bottles of water just himself, and blew his nose about 4 times during the meal, but smiled the entire time. Hot, but good! He was in pizza heaven.
After dinner, we went to our hotel, where the kids were happy to see that there was a pool. We made plans to take a swim after breakfast, which was the only way to convince them to finally go.to.sleep!