Seasons and Five days..

So heres the post i promised oh... 3 weeks ago. SORRY. and those happened to be 3 very eventful weeks. where to start...

OK so it was a monday. first week of december ( i think) And the night before I got a call. from the Schmidls. For those who do not know, THE schmidls (Johann and Brigitte) are the people who we lived with when I was a little girl. They are also the parents of my aunt (no, NOT my grandparents. she married my moms brother) and they have more kids. and two of their sons + their families . And the schmidls who called me were one of those families. And they happen to live in the apartment where we lived. Which has been remodeled since then. and i've been waiting and waiting for an invitation to go see it.. and finally they called. and invited me for dinner and family home evening.
so on monday after school i walked the familiar path down by the school. Except it was muddier than i remember. but the fence was still there. and the deer on the other side of it. and the big green hills (yes, they are alive with the sound of music) i also saw the place where we found a baby deer once. well, i think it was the place.
then further down i saw the woodpile and the big pine trees. and the house. still the same on the outside.
the little kids (the family i visited has 3 little girls and a baby boy) ran down to meet me. then we hurried inside. cause it was freaking cold. the stairs up to the apartment were still exactly as i remembered. the apartment though... WAAY different

first of all, the wall between the living and dining room was broken down. second: the bathroom is now a storage closet. yeah, its that small. third: there is a wall dividing the room we used to sleep in. its two rooms now. one for kids, one for parents. theres also a new (bigger) bathroom attatched to the parents room.

i played with the kids while rafaela made dinner. we (me and leoni (the oldest) ) were trying to teach marina (second oldest) to write her name in cursive. ella (the youngest girl) was sitting on the table sticking her hands in the juice pitcher. she also dipped a pencil in it and licked the tiny droplets off the pencil, then dipped it again. she also drank out of every cup. that is, after she dipped her fists in them.

then oliver got home, and dinner was ready. I wasn't going to say anything about ella, but oliver caught her in the act and got new cups and a new pitcher. dinner was goulash, pizza, and salad. the salad was really good. the goulash had hot dog in it and was well, goulash. the pizza had a whole wheat thin crust. it was kind of tasteless and soggy. (lets just say, moms crust is better)

then we cut twigs off pine branches so rafaela could make an advent wreath. after i sweeped up the floor, the kids and i played a game called blinde kuh (blind cow) where you have to tag someone blindfolded. i just stayed in the corner and tried not to get tagged. the little girls, however , were running around. shreaking. after the game we all sat down on the couches and oliver told a little bit of the christmas story. about how no one believed the prophets that christ was coming, but then they were right. and how the prophets are always right.
then we went to the table and ate krapfen and the little kids had m&ms and gummy worms. ( the picture is of krapfen)
after that, the kids got ready for bed and i read to them until they fell asleep. then rafaela took me home.

that weekend (saturday) we went to a christmas market in Linz. It was at a school that goes from first to 12th grade. and it was beautiful! it was so artsy. i'll write more on that later..

OK then the weekend of the 6th, I was sick.
on thursday i was talking to eva about how mom sometimes gives us ''mental health days'' where we stay home from school. she told her mom about it, and her mom said she could stay home on friday, but i had to go to school. I didn't sleep very well, and when i woke up friday morning i had a cold. one of the achey ones. but, i went to school anyway. All day at school i felt like crap, and i REALLY was not up for two hours of PE. so i texted eva and asked if i could come home. i did, and when i got home, i had a fever. 38.6° celcius i think. i slept better that night. then i felt fine sat morning. the fever was gone. I went to a friends house in the afternoon. (carina gstöttner who was in my first grade class) it was fun. we played with her rabbits (named hoppel and susi) they are both really fat and soft and HUGE. we also watched a movie (aquamarine) it was actually really dumb. we also ate a pizza :)
then her mom drove me home. and back at home the fever came back. I was really mad becouse i had been planning on going to the sperrers sunday morning.
i slept bad again that night.
in the morning, i got up early and got ready to go, even though i wasn't feeling too awesome. then monika told me to take my temperature. 38.7. she didn't let me go. i went back upstairs, frustrated and sleep deprived, and slept a bit longer.
eva woke me a few hours later. we went downstairs and ate breakfast and got our ''german christmas '' (st. nikolaus day) things. just nuts and chocolate, basically.
monika told me if i was feeling better, i could go to the sperrers in the morning.
i did some homework, and the fever was gone.
it came back (AGAIN) at night though . i slept ok.
no fever in the morning. but monika wasn't mentioning anything about me getting to go. this was also the day of evas debutant ball. (the one we went dress shopping for) then at lunch, monika brough up the topic of what i was going to do. she asked me if i would mind staying home alone. (they would be gone from 8pm to about 230. ) i felt like she meant sperrers were out of the question. i said i was ok with that.
i helped eva get ready. then they left. i felt like cinderella.
i stayed up until 12 talking with coco on facebook . then the next morning i slept in. REALLY long. i think it was 10ish. didn't do much on tuesday. no fever though. but i did get out of going to school on wednesday. haha
that weekend (last weekend) we went to vienna. it was amazing! we stayed in a nice hotel. and i felt like such a tourist. i took at least oh.. i dont know.. maybe 400 pictures. its such a beautiful city :)
on sunday morning aafter a fancy hotel breakfast, we went to the spanische hofreitschule (picture above that i didn't take) and we weren't allowed to take pictures, which is dumb (but i snuck a few, the computer just wont upload my pictures). it was SO COOL! the horses were beautiful. everything was so perfect.
the ground also got cold enough for snow that weekend. yay!!

and i only NOW feel like its december. it was wierd without the snow. my seasons are out of whack. i blame it on no halloween and no thanksgiving..

sooo now its wednesday and i'm about to finnish off my last week of school :(
yesterday for PE we went ice skating (in peuerbach). it was pretty fun. the rink smelled like smoke , and a really old guy worked there (he was the only worker) and he always nodded his head, he also sold old , stale, overpriced haribo candy. and afterwards i went to a friends house in eferding. we were there for .. maybe an hour and then we went back to peuerbach and met up with a few more people and saw a movie (the princess and the frog) it was good. we were actually talking through most of it. but there were only 2 other people in the theater. it was fun . and when we waited to get picked up, i swear it was -30 degrees. i was SO COLD!!!
school is going well. i actually am really going to miss it. its waay better than clayton (no offense) but the teachers are nice. and the people are nice. its just.. nice.

well i only have 5 days. (AHHH) and i really can not believe it. i swear i've been here for a week. i am really going to miss this place.

i'll post before i leave
<3