Home again....

Yes we are back!!! You can never get too much of a good thing and Belfast is a good thing for me!! I love coming home.

Leah and I arrived on Wednesday afternoon. My brother Jim and his friend Garvin were in Dublin, so they were able to collect us at the airport. It was wonderful not having to get the bus to Belfast. It was also great to have a couple of friendly faces to welcome us at arrivals. (Thanks Jim and Garvin!)

We stopped for lunch at a wee hotel. It was really delicious and gave me just what I needed for the ride home - a full stomach to fall asleep on.

Before long I was home again hugging dad and unpacking things in my old bedroom. (this time with Leah as my room mate!)

Today brought a new day with new challenges, the biggest challenge being - shopping with Leah! (Oh help!!!!!) What a day it was!!! That girl can literally "shop till you drop" and I admit, I dropped today.

We arrived in town at 11am and were leaving at 6pm!!! Leah could have stayed even longer - I was already dead at 1.30pm....I really am getting old. (It was rather depressing to discover that today. I remember the days when I could run all over Belfast from 9am to 6pm.)

Well I warned Leah before we went that we were NOT spending all the time in Primark. I have been to Belfast, I don't know how many time in the last 2 years, and have only ever seen Primark!

So we spent about an hour in Primark and then did the rest of the town!! We got to Castle Court, Royal Avenue, Corn Market...it was amazing. But Leah wanted to go back to Primark....I couldn't cope!!!

I acutally hate clothes shopping! I am soooo not into clothes at all. My type of shops are book shops, music shops, dvd shops, household items or restaurants. So Leah and I made a deal. I would go to the Faith Mission bookshop and she would go to Primark. I would find her in Primark when I was finished. So for about 50 minutes I had a wonderful time in a bookshop. (By the way the Faith Mission is so lovely now! It used to be a real dump, books everywhere, even piled on the floor - not anymore. It was a pleasure to be there.)

I found Leah again in Primark and we went on to spend another hour in there while Leah tried on clothes and made up her mind what she would buy. (She didn't have enough money for everything so things had to be put back!!)

What I would like to know is how I got two daughters who are sooo into fashion and make up?????!!! Maybe it's seeing how badly I dress and how uninterested I am in fashion and makeup that has pushed them in the other direction!

Anyway I really had sore legs and feet by the time we got home.

Oh yeah, in the middle of that shopping there was time for a Subway!!

Begin with the end in mind....

...On our last evening in Austria, we took a final walk around the village and through their cementry. The grave stones and gardens were all so beautiful, filled with beautiful flowers and lots of colour. (I love to walk around grave yards -I know I´m weird)

All the grave stones had pictures of the people who had died engraved (or stuck) on them. It got me thinking. I was wondering about the different people. Did they achieve what they set out to do with their life? What were their dreams? Did they make a difference in anyones life? Were people glad when they came around or did people dread seeing them?


Well I voiced all this to Kristian and the kids who looked at me weirdly and told me that I was being far too deep for the last evening of a holiday!! (Honestly!)


Anyway this made me think about a book I have been reading..."The 7 habits of highly effective people". One of the chapters begins by telling you to go somewhere were you can be alone. (so go on - find a lonely spot!) then close your eyes and imagine yourself at a funeral. You see the beautiful flowers, you hear the organ music, you see friends and family, colleagues and neighbours. You walk down to the front of the room and look inside the coffin, and there you come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today!


(When you get over the shock!) You take a seat and wait for the service to begin. As you look at the program you see there are 4 speakers; a family member, a friend, a colleague and someone from your church. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What difference would you like to have made in their lives? (Now go do it! write down those things!)


This is your ultimate goal in life. You begin with the end in mind. By keeping that end clearly in mind you can make certain that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

I thought this was brilliant!!


I started thinking about this tonight as I packed for Ireland. The memory card in my camera needed emptied and there were photos from our last evening in Austria on it, which I had forgotten about. Seeing the cementry brought back what I was thinking that last night. I just thought I would share it with you.

And the picture above is one of my favourite spots in Austria. I loved that field. Just want to let you know that I will live here one day....wait and see!! This is were I am going to spend eternity in heaven. It is here God is giving me my log cabin!! (with the big fire place!) And in heaven I am not going to have a cat as a pet but a lion!!! and every day I will hop on its back and it will run through that field at top speed, with me holding fast to its hair while screaming my lungs out!! It´s going to be great fun!! I honestly can´t wait - and I am not joking!!!

Ok - one more deep thought for the evening;

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us! (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

Good night all - I´m off to bed. The bags are packed the passports and tickets ready - tomorrow evening I´m sleeping in Ireland. (Wish the whole family were going though! )

I´m soooo cool....

...yes that I am!!! Me, with my new cool Samsung telephone! The kids are totally jealous!

Just before going on holiday my telephone broke. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhh. So for a week in Austria I felt naked! I use my telephone as my arm watch and alarm clock. I was lost without it. So today I went out to find a new one and got a great deal on this Samsung. I have also got 1 months free internet connection - so I am living it up. (Although I am thinking of cutting the internet connection after the month!) I have never had such a fancy phone...but it´s easy to use and that´s what I need. As long as I can find out how to text from it, then I´m a happy woman!
Then it was out to do some shopping for the old lady that I visit. I spent a nice afternoon with her.

Sara arrived home today from her long weekend away with her friends at a go-kart race in Belgium. She had a lovely time but came home with fever and a sore throat. Typical Sara! So she was needing a little TLC (tender loving care) this evening.

It has been soooo warm here the last few days. I can´t stick the heat. It has been up in the 30´s. Our apartment has been unbearable. Tonight however there was a fantastic thunder storm!! At last we could feel a breeze, and it actually helped to have the doors and windows open. We got the apartment cooled down to 27 degrees!!

So tomorrow is a busy day. I have a load of washing to do and a load of packing too. Wednesday morning Leah and I fly to Dublin. We will be in Belfast visiting dad for a week. I have an idea in the pipe line for a get together, but it is, as I said, in the pipe lines. Keep checking the blog for more information!!

Remember the book I ordered for my holiday? Well it didn´t arrive in time for my trip to Austria!! The DVD with "Everybody loves Raymond" arrived and we had many laughs watching it. Today, however, the book arrived so I am about to curl up in a sticky, hot bedroom and start reading until my eyes close with sleep. I will keep you posted about what I think of it!! (Roll on Autumn and winter when curling up in bed with a book, is a most wonderful thing!!)

1458km...14 hours later....

and we are home!!!

We had a wonderful holiday, but it is nice to be home again!! The journey home went soooo smoothly. No traffic jams, in fact, hardly any traffic on our side of the motorway at all - really strange!! The other side of the motorway was another story! It was one traffic jam after another, around the south of Germany. We were thankful that we were not heading in that direction.

So now it´s time to catch up with all the blogs that I have missed reading. I think facebook will also be getting a visit before I head off to bed.

The weather is fantastic. A little too fantastic for my liking! It was 37 degrees the whole way home today. We were soooo thankful to have a car with air condition. (Thanks Hanne og Flemming for doing a swap - we would have died in our car with the heat!)

If at first you don´t succeed...

try again!! - and that´s what we did today.

On Tuesday we had tried to drive up to the Alpine Road in hope that the weather would change, but it didn´t. Well today we woke to a gorgeous day - perfect for driving on that road.

I tell you we were not disappointed. The views were fantastic!! (more pictures will come later on facebook!)

There was even snow!!!

A really fantastic day in the nature - now I better go. The bar is closed tonight and tomorrow evening and I am hanging outside it, in the hallway!!! haha I look desperate!! haha I am a little worried about getting locked in this hallway!! You probably won´t hear from me until we get home again. Bye for now

Salzburg

Today was our big day out. We were going to Salzburg to explore. The weather was totally different than yesterday. It was warm and sunny! Perfect weather!

We arrived in Salzburg around midday and went exploring. What better way to explore Salzburg than in a horse and carriage. It is a beautiful city and we got to see some of the sights where The sound of music was filmed.

It was then off to a beautiful place called St. Gilgen by Lake Wolfgang. The opening scenes of the movie (The sound of music) were filmed in this area. We took a cable car up 1500 metres (what an experience that was!!! – Andrew and I were a bit scared to say the least.) We wanted to get a better view of the whole area. It was gorgeous. We spent a bit of time on top of the mountain before taking the cable car down again.

It was then off to the town of Mondsee to visit the church that appeared in the sound of music when Maria and The Baron got married. It was beautiful. We ate dinner there before finally heading home.

We are now soooo tired! A day in the mountains has a way of making you feel that way. Good night all!! I´m off to bed.