Vienna vs. Netherlands

Last night I had my first European soccer experience! Matt had been once previously, but this was my first time! It was a friendly match between Austria and the Netherlands to help both teams prepare for the Euro Cup 2008 coming up this summer. So put as many layers on as possible, and prayed we wouldn't freeze to death. (Keep in mind, it has been snowing here, and is in the low 30's with crazy cold-bitter wind).
This is the Stadium, about 30 minutes before gametime. The only seats open when the game started were the higher blue and yellow ones. It was a packed house with over 40,000 people there!

I have attended some pretty roudy athletic events in the States, but nothing compared to this. They were nonstop. They were always doing a chant, or a cheer, a "song," or screeching in an extremely high pitch when they didn't like something. Really, they didn't stop the entire game. Well, they did stop after Austria lost their 3-0 lead, and in fact, people just started leaving. It was pretty funny!
I know you can't tell, but this is the crowd on their feet cheering their hearts out. Seriously, I bet they burn a ton of calories!!

Austria went up fast 3-0, which was a complete shock because they are not that good of a team, and the Netherlands is. At the end of the first half, it was 3-1, Austria's lead. the crowd was going crazy. Then it was 3-2, with 20 minutes left to go. Austria subs off its best two offensive players. Then it is 3-3, 15 minutes to go. Then, with about 5 minutes left in the game, the Netherlands scored another goal-4-3. (This is when the cheering stopped and people started leaving). I still cannot believe Austria ended up losing when they had a 3-0 lead. But secretly, I was cheering for the Netherlands the whole game!

Thought I should include a picture of the actual game!

And to top things off, we didn't even get cold until the end of the game! It was great to be able to sit back and relax, and enjoy someone else doing the work. =) Thanks so much to the Pacheco family for buying us the tickets, and granting us an experience we never would have had on our own!

This is a picture of a HUGE Austrian flag that was waved periodically thoughout the game. You can see a lot of other smaller, more manageable flags. I thought it was pretty cool.

Spring Break??

This is how we spent several days of our SPRING break. Snow. Sad to say, our winter break in February provided us with better weather than this!! To make matters worse, it has snowed the first few days of this week to! I'm dreaming of a white Easter.....it just doesn't fit!

Fröhe Ostern!! Happy Easter!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating the death and resurrection of our Savior! Mein Erlöser Lebt!! My redeemer lives! On Sunday we attended church with Chad, at an Austrian church, started by the missionary parents of one of our senior students. So yes, it was all in German! I (Stephanie) thoroughly enjoyed the worship, and actually understood what I was singing! Then we got to the sermon, and well, lets just say he talked REALLY fast and was all over the place and making jokes, and I struggled to follow along. But I caught some things here and there. Chad was translating most of it for Matt. All of this to say, it was a great service celebrating the resurrection of Christ.

One of the big things to do around Easter time in Vienna is Easter markets! Similar to their Christmas markets, these markets include Easter decorations -hand painted Easter eggs in all variations, palm leaves, Easter candles and flower arrangements - as well as artifacts from all over Austria, including glassware, ceramics, stoneware, tin toys, straw animals and beekeeping products. My favorite Easter market it the Freyung market because they have over 35,000 hand painted eggs. It is a site to behold!

This is a picture of my Easter Tree. It is tradition in Austria to hang the eggs on pussy willow branches. Because palm branches were not obtainable in Austria, the church blessed pussy willow and used it instead. In some European nations, it is even called Willow Sunday instead of Palm Sunday.

The above pictures are of the 4 new eggs I was able to buy this year. I love all of the intricate designs! My sunflower one is kind of 3-D and the white design on the red one is furry! For those of you who are wondering, Matt picked out the globe one, although I think its really cool too. Who would have thought--a map on a hallow egg?

Our First Company

For the last 9 days, we have had the privilege of having my Grammy Tuley, cousin Jennifer and her boyfriend Anthony visit! They are the first visitors we have had since our move to Vienna. It was so much fun to have them in our home, and show them around our "hometown."

They flew in on Friday morning, and in order to keep them awake until bedtime, we headed downtown to walk around for a while and eat lunch. Saturday morning we got up and drove to Prague, Czech Republic. Prague is by far our favorite city we have visited in Europe (not that we have been to many!). It is an amazing, beautiful city with over 150 church spires rising up over the city. We walked our legs off all day Saturday and Sunday, ate a lot of delicious food, and thoroughly enjoyed the city. The picture on the left is of Grammy in front of the famous Charles Bridge. The one below this is of the palace Cathedral. It was purely amazing.

Tuesday through Friday we spent touring Vienna, in the rain. We were able to see a lot of places, and again, do a lot of walking and eating!

On Saturday, with my friends Becca and Sally and her boyfriend Tyler who was visiting from the States, we visited a few places about an hour drive from Vienna. First we went to see Durnstein which are castle ruins. This is the castle where they held Richard the Lionheart, King of England, in 1193. It was quite the hike to the top, and I am proud to say my Grammy made it the whole way! Check out the hike on the right! Up above is a picture of Grammy at the top!

After Durnstein we drove over to Melk Abbey, one of the worlds most famous. Today it serves

as a school as well as an abbey, and is most well known for its baroque chapel and library containing countless medieval manuscripts. Although we did not pay to take the tour, we were still able to see the chapel and walk around the grounds a bit. Its a really pretty abbey, or "stift" in German. Our question of debate "What is the difference between an abbey and a monastary?

Finally, we ended our trip with a visit to Aggstein, another famous castle in the area. Although this castle is also ruins, you are still able to walk around parts of it and see the basic foundations. It was really cool and had a spectacular view of the Danube river valley.

Our Team

The following picture is of our high school boys basketball team, which Matt and I coach. All of these boys are very near and dear to our hearts, how could they not be after we've spent the last 4 months with them?!?! 7 of our 12 players are seniors. We are REALLY going to miss these guys next year in so many ways!

Basketball Tournament

We left Thursday evening to travel to Budapest, Hungary for a basketball tournament. In the course of two days, our boys played 5 basketball games, which is a lot of basketball! They played really well, even though they were completely exhausted. We ended up getting fourth, not because we were the 4th best team there, but because the boys were just dead tired.

Regardless, it was a super fun weekend, and gave us lots of time to hang out with the boys and be able to minister to them in various ways. We are really going to miss our senior boys next year...

We got back around 11:30 Saturday night, completely exhausted! Who knew coaching took so much energy? We got home and crashed!

Today, Monday, is our last basketball game. We are excited and really sad all at the same time. We are excited because we are ready to have our life back, we are sad, because we will never get to coach our senior boys again. We hope to post pictures later today from our game.