The awesomeness that is macaron

It was sick week! All three kids caught some virus making them cough uncomfortably, enough for them to be excused from school and kindergarten. We were just at home except on Tuesday when we *visited* the doctor. They were given cough syrup and fever meds and nothing more...I fervently hoped that they would feel better soon especially since forecasts said the weather will be nice!

Friday afternoon the cough subsided a bit, we were able to get out and walk around the city with Kuya O (in photo with dawty). We visited Mozarthaus, the apartment where world-renowned musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived. The building has been turned into a museum housing Mozart and his family's belongings. Tidbits about Mozart and his students could be read and you can literally follow his footsteps to his own bedroom, kitchen and music room.

Dawty likes Mozart a lot and has learned some of his piano pieces. I've onced featured the Mozarthaus at my other blog, when we visited it during the long nights at the museum. You can view the write-up here. We bought some souvenirs at the shop and met a friendly Japanese student.  I practiced a bit of my Nihonggo  tinee-nihonggo with her while Kuya O conversed with her in ease being fluent in the language and having lived in Osaka for sometime now.

Despite the cold, street performers are still there freaking out...I mean entertaining locals and tourist. The one  below is a headless goldman, the kids dared not come near or pose for a photo. :D

Kuya O commented that Dr. Jose Rizal (Philippine hero) must have been really impressed about Vienna that he often wrote of his trips here and to other European cities in his memoirs. He now understood what Rizal saw and felt...even if it was more than a hundred years ago. (Rizal visited Vienna in 1887 with his friend, Dr. Maximo Viola.) I wrote about their trail sometime last year for a Feature magazine and published a few paragraphs on my other blog (will have to search first).

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In the middle of our walk, C requested for a stopover to have a drink. So off we go to the nearest joint, bought iced tea and had some free hot milk (lol). He was starting to get grumpy, annoying his siblings by repeating everything they say. It's getting on my nerves too. It was a relief that he saw the French macarons on display and insisted he'd buy one, just one. He said he'd buy it using his own money, so I let him. He came back with a lemon macaron and happily munched it with gusto! He was so happy with it that he stopped bugging us afterwards...whatever the macaron had that calmed him down, I'm just thankful. This little piece of yummy treat is something I am aiming to learn how to make...surely, if I can make macarons at home, the house would be a little quieter. Macarons are awesome sweets, C also nodded in agreement.

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Friends' Weekend

Weekend was a bonding getaway for hubby and dawty and dawty's friend, AD. I was at home with the boys so credit goes to hubby for the pics. ;)

They went to the Wasserpark again...I was told by AD's dad that they would go as far as the Praterstern when biking. (It takes more than half an hour ride with the train from our place to the Prater.) So I guess the hubby was a bit cautious because he has two girls in tow.

Dawty and AD have been friends since pre-school, so that spans about 3 years now. AD lives at the building opposite school so there are chances that dawty gets to visit her and I pick her there. They get along well since both of them do not have sisters but have 2 brothers (only AD's are both older than her). I often see notes from AD telling dawty how thankful she is to have a little sister in her. Sweet!

Since the Wasserpark has a big playground, the hubby let them play while he took some photos of the area and of the two as well. He also treated them to their favorite ice cream afterwards...AD with bubblegum, hazelnut and chocolate and dawty with vanilla and strawberry!

---Enjoy your week!---

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Green Weekend

Two posts below you saw my youngest's photos during a shoot this weekend. Here now are some of the shots I did of his sister and older brother. Here you can see the little boy picking lawn daisies...he does that a lot and would hold all in his hand and give them to me later on. He still needs to learn how to pluck correctly though, even if I teach how to pluck including the stem he would only pick the flower itself...

Daughter was enjoying the cherry blossoms on the ground, we were all happy that the sun has been shining gleefully, we can now go out with shortsleeves at the middle of the day.

In the afternoon we went biking again and ended up in a park with hilly landscapes along a green carpented ground. There was a pond below the hill and there weren't fishes rather tadpoles much to the kids' delight. :D

This is also the first time I got the chance to take photos of flowing water...one the I had wanted to do for the longest time...I have enough stock photos now.

---Enjoy your week!---

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Hanami Weekend

Hanami or "flower viewing" is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning sakura (cherry) blossoms or ume (plum blossoms). From mid January to early May, sakura bloom all over Japan. Since Japan is too far from where we are, the kids and I enjoy are own viewing in spring. There are a variety of plum, peach and cherry trees around especially in the street leading to their school.

I have been taking photos one day at a time to compare the blossoms. One day they were naked, second their light pink and in full bloom the next. I just hope I'd still see them when the petals are on the ground, literally making the  grounds the street of a thousand blossoms.

At times I get confused as to which are cherry blossoms and which are peach blossoms (momo). These are white and pink sakuras that almost look like momo because they have lots of petals. The leaves would confirm though that they're indeed sakura.

For those who wonder, I am not Japanese but Filipino, my husband is Filipino-Singaporean but we are enthusiasts  of Japanese cuisine, songs, culture, language, basically anything Japanese...(anime, cosplay, manga, comedy, actors, singers...) I've never been to Japan but I am in constant contact with friends and relatives there, learning the language slowly, acquiring new recipes ;) and turning Japanese bit by bit (kidding!).  Should we have a chance and the means, we'd live there for the rest of our lives. :)

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The tulips are not to be left behind. They are also in full bloom now, in all colors but I need more time "flower viewing" to capture all. Hopefully this week. :)

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Enjoy the week ahead.

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Rainy Weekend

It's certainly spring and the rain accompanied the flowers as they bloom...Unlike kids, I don't enjoy rain much. Surely the kids enjoy thumping about not caring if they get wet...One reason why the bible's advice to remain a child at heart is a good thing! :D

Anyway it was a whole week of raining, save for Friday when my daughter had to go to a farm, 1 hour away from school. I wasn't able to go with them (sayang!)  this time. I only listened to AB's stories of the sheep running about, the horses and the grasses they eat, the rabbits and their tiny ears and how she carried a lamb in her arms. She also saw ducks in the pond, chickens along with their chicks but they weren't allowed to touch any much to her disappoinment.

It was a good thing though that she still wore the rainboots we bought the day before, she came home with them full of mud.

AB chose this Hannah Montana rainboots herself. So no matter how much she thumps on water, I wouldn't worry that her leggings would get wet (hopefully).

Finally, Sunday was as it's name supposed to be, sunny! I bought some strawberries the other day and decided to make strawberry milkshake but a piece of our blender was missing so I instead make this (tweaked) fruit smoothie. Recipe is here.

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---Enjoy the week!---

Bookworm

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Being a bookworm, I am happy seeing my daughter develop that same interest. Last Friday, I went with their class to the district library which the teacher has arranged. They visit regularly, every 2 weeks at most, borrowing books and  also returning the previous ones they've read and reviewed a bit in school.

The library was not as big as the libraries I frequent back in PI. This is after all, just a district Bücherei, enough to hold books for the small population and those few heads who are interested enough.

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The library has a small corner where kids could lie down and read a book of their choice...lively colors no? This is located in the children's section and really all kinds of  books that tickles a child's imagination are here. It's amazing seeing these kids get lost in their own world through a book. I also noticed that the chairs seem to cater more to the little ones!

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The last time the class went, my daughter brought home a book by Risa Wataya, Keritai Senaka ("The Back You Want to Kick") which in German has a funny title to it. :D - This could be because of her interest in Japanese art and language. The book was a bit much for an 8 year-old since it tackles romantic relationships between teenagers. So this time, she asked me a lot of times if the book she got is ok for an 8 year-old. She was being cautious since they need to write a summary of the book later on. She then got 3 books of fables, saying they were easier to understand and write a review of. :D (Lol, mana talaga sa mommy pag tinamad!)

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Visiting often, the kids know the routine of borrowing and returning books well. They are very familiar with the Librarian, Markus as well. In photos you see, the little girl browsing  a book she got from the shelf,  reading a bit then going to the counter for stamping and that...finally, chitchatting with friends (lol!).

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Lastly, a very personal touch included in this trip is the Librarian reading a story to the children. It's about the lion and the hare, on  lesson about listening.

I also registered for membership (18€ for a year) and borrowed Rembrandt's childhood sketches and Gail Tsukiyama's Die Straße der tausend Blüten (The Street of a Thousand Blossoms). I also wanted to borrow Berta von Suttner's Nobel Prize winning work Die Waffen Nieder (Lay down your arms) but it was unfortunately still on  loan. No worries, there's a next time and I can''t guarantee that I can finish the book soon since I still have another book (Emma, Jane Austen) that I've began reading...

Here's to us bookworms!

---Enjoy the week!---

Biking Weekend

(Trying on a new dress I bought from the pre-teens section.)

I realized that my daughter has grown when I started buying clothes for pre-teens and not for little girls. :) Time really flies so fast and I thought I don't really want it to go by just like that. Thank goodness, hubby is in tune with this.

We went biking as a family for the first time, the little girl got on her old bike which seems too small now. Good thing I sill have my other bike around, hubby took it out from the cellar and she can ride it well now. Same thing goes for the bigger boy, so we need to upgrade him to dawty's bike now. ;) Our youngest has yet to ride with daddy as he can't go on for long runs, he actually fell asleep.

(Dawty on the small bike, son on even smaller bike.)

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We didn't plan on going anywhere so we just followed the road less travelled...I mean the bike lanes. The city is very friendly for bikers, providing paths for easy travel. We travelled a route that usually takes 15 minutes with a tram and so it was a bit too much for me :D . Muscle pull perhaps but I did jog a bit before we left, but the pain was too much I wasn't able to walk the next day. We ended up at the Waßserpark and saw that lots of flowers has been blooming, there were also kids at the playground, families on picnic, old people/couple out on a walk and ducks at the lake. This is after all adjacent to the Danube...I so wanted to come back and take my camera with me to get some serious photos. (Photos taken with an iphone camera, sorry about that).

(Daffodils in full bloom, Ume/plum blossoms in bloom and dawty watching ducks from afar.)

Next weekend would be a better time, the plants would surely have their leaves then. Have a nice week!

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