Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas in Austria!












Here's how it all went down: First up there you see the forbidden door. This was closed up all day long on Christmas Eve. We did some stuff around the house, and then we went visiting friends up on the Pfander which is a local mountain here in town. We rode the Pfander Bahn to get up there, but more on that later.
When we got home we walked to church, and Hannah and David rode their scooters.
After we got back from church, we had a scrumptious lasagna for dinner--this is a Burger family tradition.
As we were finishing up our dinner, we heard bells ringing from inside the forbidden door! We threw open the doors, and there we saw that the Christ Kind had brought us a sparkling, flaming Christmas tree with presents under it! It was an amazing sight, I tell you.
We sang a song or two, Hannah played her flute, then we dove right into the presents! We played with all the goods until we were worn out and had to go to bed.
But that's not the end of the fun! This family is special: they still get to wake up on Christmas Day to open more presents (these from Santa, of course) in their pajamas like good little Americans everywhere are doing RIGHT NOW as I'm typing this!!
Merry Christmas to all of y'all who are reading this!! We sure miss you!



Sunday, December 24, 2006

What have we been doing?











We had lunch up in the mountains where there was snow! We haven't had any snow down in Bregenz. We watched Cars. We went to church to see Hannah and her class perform some something I couldn't understand because my German is a little...bad. And right now it is Christmas Eve. Tonight after dinner is the big excitement for Austrian kids. The Christ Kind (The Christ Child) will come while we are eating dinner. He will bring a Christmas tree complete with decorations and presents underneath. Right now the doors to the living room are closed tight so he can do his work. When he's done, he will ring a bell letting us know that we can open the doors to the living room and dive into the presents! I think I might be more excited about this happening than the kids are...




Food!








Breakfast is toast and coffee. Rachel's home cooking is the best! We had Apfel Streudel at Cafe Goetze. Brat kartopfelen go great with beef!


Food!




Saturday, December 23, 2006

Rachel and Andreas


These are the parents of Hannah, David, and Jacob. Aren't they gorgeous?

Friday, December 22, 2006

The Burger Family-Hannah

Hannah is lovely and excruciatingly fashionable. I might have spelled 'excruciatingly' wrong, or, even worse, it may not even be a word.

The Burger Family-Hannah

Hannah is multi-talented: she's brilliant, athletic, artistic, and musical.

The Burger Family-Hannah


Hannah is a thinker. For example, here she is thinking about what would be the best thing to order for dinner.

The Burger Family-David

Among other things, David is a super star soccer player. When he can't play soccer outside, he'll settle for a compter soccer game, or watching a game on the telly. His favorite team of all time is SCB.

The Burger Family-David

He is a HUGE fan of his Highland Park Bulldog shirt!

The Burger Family-David

He's not a real big fan of shopping, although he is an expert at fashion. He was very good about letting Rachel and me know what did and did not look good on us.

The Burger Family-Jakey


He likes to take pictures with his Aunt Leslie.

The Burger Family-Jakey


He's way, way cute. Really. Even when he's a little bit of a stinker.

The Burger Family-Jakey



Jake, he's a climber.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Jacob

Jacob, Jakey, Noki, Noki-Bussi, Fussi-le. He has many nicknames because, according to Hannah, "he's so cute."