Hochfügen Austria

We thought we had gone on our last ski trip of the season so when our friends Miles and Sandra asked us if we wanted to go to Hochfügen Austria for the last weekend of ski season, we couldn't refuse. We checked the snow report and Austria was getting a ton of snow so another friend from work, Jeff, and Jami and I hopped in the car and drove to Austria. Miles used to live near Hochfügen and knew a guy with a Hüte. A Hüte is a hut, in this case on the side of a hill. And no, there are no stairs to it from the road and yes, we had to haul all of our stuff up and down the hill. It was heated by wood stoves but did have running water and electricity. We met some really nice Czech Republic friends of Miles and I learned my first Czech word "babishka" (spelled phonetically) which means grandmother. That is the only word that I could remember. We were a little concerned because there was no snow at the Hüte. We woke up Saturday morning to about 20 centimeters (~8 inches for our metric challenged friends). The snow on the mountain was exceptional, the best I have had in several years. Not bad for the middle of April.
Miles' 7 and 10 year old sons skied with us the whole day going down double blacks diamonds with no problem. Very impressive. Jami ordered a new ski jacket and it got in Thursday before we left. She was really excited to get to try it out since she thought it was going to be next year before she would get to. Here is a picture of Jami with Miles, Sandra, Ty and Max.

Here is a picture of Jeff (Max and Ty are in the bottom left sliding down the hill).
Sunday was really warm. Here is a picture of the same hill above the Hüte on Sunday. Gotta love Spring skiing. We had an awesome weekend. Can't wait to go back next year!

Wien (Vienna Austria)

A couple of weeks ago, we decided we needed to go somewhere new, so we drove to Vienna Austria for the weekend. Being able to do things like that is one of the things we love about living here. We did the Rick Steve's self guided walking tour, toured the Vienna Hofburg Palce, and mainly just took it easy and tried to enjoy what Vienna had to offer.

This is Saint Stephen's Cathedral

This is a really cool restaurant that we found. Walking downstairs into the cellar was like stepping back in time. The cellar shown here actually used to be at ground level during Roman times.


How to make this napkin fold is only known by two people in the entire world. It can only be used for official dinner parties. We are hoping that our friend Rich could use his origami skills to figure out how they do it, then hold the knowledge for ransom. Well Rich?

Since Vienna is such a musical city, we decided to catch a concert at the Wiener Konzert Hause.