Daily Micah 3: The fan

Micah is easily entertained by a number of different things, but perhaps the most amusing to us is ceiling fans. When he spots one, moving or not, he is often entranced.

I had Micah laying on the top of my legs. He got bored of looking at me, and noticed that if he really craned his neck he could spot ... the fan!

Bonus Micah!

Alex took the original of the picture below, which I think I posted in Austria Part 3. It's just lovely as a black and white, and cropped this way. I can't get enough of it. There's just something about these un-posed pictures of Micah that captures a part of his personality that's otherwise missing.

Daily Micah 2: Baptism!

Micah was baptized last Sunday. With all the grandparents present, it was quite an affair. Thank you to Scott and Nancy Sunquist for agreeing to be his Godparents. A friend, Kensley, taped the event for us, from which I've excerpted a short clip for you to enjoy.



Welcome to the family of God, Micah!

Daily Micah 1: Car seat comparison

Just for fun, I'm going to start a series of posts to reward those who compulsively, err, I mean regularly, check the blog. Look for a new picture or pictures each day for a while! I'll let you know when the series is over.

By Car seat comparison I don't mean comparing car seats, but rather comparing pictures of Micah in his car seat.

The first is from when we were leaving the hospital, on 7/19.


The second is from a couple of weeks ago, on 10/9.


It's amazing just how quickly he is growing!

Salzburg, Austria, Part 3: Festung Hohensalzburg

Our time in Salzburg was very rewarding. It was also very difficult. Looking back, we are very glad that we went, even if there were moments when we weren't sure if we had made the right choice. The conference itself was rewarding in the sense that it was very affirming of the work that I've done and my ability to present it well. Our time in Salzburg as a family was also rewarding, and the joy and challenges were epitomized by our trip to the fortress, Festung Hohensalzburg.

Click the pictures to see a larger version. Especially, click the panoramas!

We started out at 12:30 pm, after I went to a morning session at the conference. Micah was ready, though perhaps a little uncertain about lay ahead.


We were going to walk to the fortress, pictured below (on top of the hill in the background). It's probably only a 30 minute walk to get up to the fortress. Our round trip took seven and a half hours. Have I mentioned that everything is more complicated with a 2-month old?


Micah ate just before we left, but Sarina and I hadn't had lunch yet. Our first stop was lunch. Just FYI, Austrians (perhaps Europeans) do not rush a meal at a restaurant. I don't think we left the little cafe until nearly 2 pm. Micah fell asleep while we were there.


We left the cafe, and in the process of walking Micah woke up, meaning we had to find a place for him to eat. We stopped just outside the Cathedral in Salzburg. The square we were in is featured at the end of the Sound of Music, the part of the movie where you first see the Swastikas up on buildings.


The Cathedral was gorgeous, every inch of it art for the glory of God.


Inside, every surface was covered with sculpture or paintings.


We looked around a bit with Micah too, after he ate.


We left the Cathedral, and nearby got another view of our ultimate destination. The walk up looks more and more intimidating the closer you get. Before starting the climb, we changed Micah's diaper and grabbed some water.


So we started our trek. Alex came with us, thankfully, and offered to help haul Micah's things.


I had the greatest honor: bearing the boy.

When we were level with the top of the Cathedral we had just visisted, we stopped for a picture. Micah was passed out.


Since he was asleep, we put him in the stroller, and I continued to have the honor of bearing him up.


And up.


And up.


And up.


And finally we arrived at the top! Micah ate again in the fortress, and then it was time for some pictures. Thanks to Alex again for the wonderful pictures.


The view from the this spot was spectacular; you could see basically the whole city. Click to see a bigger version of the panorama.


Walking around to the other side of the fortress, you could see the Bavarian Alps.


The sun started setting as we looked out from the other side of the fortress (we set out at 12:30 pm, remember).


As someone from Microsoft said to Alex and I a couple nights earlier, every where you looked could have been a postcard. Click to see a bigger version of the panorama.


We left the fortress, and bought some art on our way back, near the Cathedral square. Micah needed to be changed again (and then he made a mess while being changed ... I don't miss changing Micah on random European bathroom floors). We stopped for dinner on the walk back, and rolled into the Hotel, absolutely exhausted, at 8 pm.

We took it easy the next day, our last day in Salzburg. After the morning session, we had lunch at a nice little Bistro.


We enjoyed our food. Micah enjoyed looking at his hand.



International travel is hard enough for one, and with an infant very challenging. Sarina says that she's glad that she went, but that she wouldn't recommend it to any new parent. I think we were crazy to do it. Paradoxically, I think we would also have been crazy not to.

Preaching Schedule

Sarina's upcoming preaching schedule:

Nov. 4th, 9:30, Hiland Presbyterian Church (www.hilandchurch.org)
Nov. 18th, 9:30, 11:00, Eastminster Presbyterian Church (www.eastminsterchurch.net)
Nov. 25th, 9:30, 11:00, Eastminster Presbyterian Church (www.eastminsterchurch.net)

You're all invited to come if you are available.

We haven't forgotten to post more pictures of Micah. We've been busy lately and will try to post some soon! We also have the final post of our Austria trip coming soon.

Baptism Invitation

Micah is going to be baptized on October 28th at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. The baptism will be at the 9:30 service and there will be an acknowledgment or something like that at the 11:00 service. If you are able to make it, you are invited to come and celebrate with us!

Salzburg, Austria, Part 2: CODES+ISSS

The next morning we left Bloberger Hof for the Sheraton Salzburg where we would be staying for the rest of our time in Austria. The reason for the move was that this hotel was attached to the convention center where the conference was being held.


We couldn't get into our room right away, and so instead we wandered in Mirabellgarten for a while before going to lunch. Mirabellgarten appears in the Sound of Music; part of the "Do Re Mi" song is sung there, particularly around the pictured in the foreground fountain below. You can also see Festung Hohensalzburg (Fortress "a bit above Salzburg") in the picture below ... much more about Hohensalzburg to come in Part 3.


Here's another picture of Mirabellgarten with the fortress in the background.


We went to lunch with my old officemate and fellow CMU graduate student Alex Bobrek. He was also in Salzburg to present in the conference. Thanks to Alex for all the pretty pictures he took with his nice camera (and then shared with us).


After dinner, we set Micah up for some tummy time. I got a sequence of pictures, that, when strung together, make it look like he's doing push ups (click the image to see this). Our baby is so buff!


The next day, I gave my presentation on my research in one of the early morning sessions. The presentation went very well and was well attended (but you don't care about that--you just want to see more pictures).

Later on that day we set off to explore "old town" in Salzburg, across the river from the conference center.


"Old" Salzburg is section of town with narrow streets (that cars aren't allowed on) and a multitude of shops and restaurants. Because of the weakness of the dollar as compared to the euro, we didn't do much shopping.


Walking in this part of town, we noticed something we're unaccustomed to in the US-- monks walking the streets. We soon realized that we were actually in the area of an operating Franciscan monastery. The picture below features a plaque reading "Franziskaner Kloster 1583," or a cloister for Franciscan monks started over 400 years ago.


On our walk back, Micah noticed, perhaps for the first time, the leaves on above him. He was quite impressed.


And here's another gratuitous-cute-baby-moment.


Stay tuned for part 3, our trek up to the fortress!

Salzburg, Austria, Part 1: Bloberger Hof

We survived!

We're back from Austria, though I think we're all still a bit on Austria time. Because of the number of pictures and the amount of things we'd like to share, we've decided to break our coverage of the Salzburg trip into three or four pieces.

As I mentioned in the last post, I had a paper accepted for publication in a conference (CODES+ISSS), and part of the deal was that I attend the conference and present my work. We decided relatively early on to try to make a family trip of it. When would we next have a chance to go to Austria with essentially half of the expenses paid? Sure, traveling with a 10 week old could be tough, but how tough could it really be? Hahahaha ...

We thought it would be a good idea to spend a couple of extra days to try to soak it all in, and we settled on a nice little bed and breakfast on the outskirts of the city, Bloberger Hof.

We left Pittsburgh on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Salzburg Friday evening (yikes!). Tired as we were we couldn't do anything more than collapse. I caught a cold at some point on the trip in, and Sarina was exhausted. Fortunately, Micah adjusted to the time change relatively easily and slept eight hours that first night.

We got up the next morning and went down for breakfast. But before, we took a moment to admire the view from our balcony.

The picture below is a panorama built from a number of pictures we took. To make the panorama I used Hugin, a nice bit of open-source software. As always, you can click on the picture to see a bigger version of it.


To make really nice panoramas we would need a better camera; lens flare (I think) causes the white balance to vary significantly.

Breakfast demonstrated just how small the world really is: there were some people from Oshkosh, WI also staying at the bed and breakfast! Linda from Oshkosh held Micah while we ate, and he fell asleep.


After breakfast we set out on a quest for diapers. We didn't bring enough diapers for the whole trip (we would have had to bring an additional suitcase with only diapers), but were assured by the Lonely Planet book on Travel with Children that there would be 24-hour pharmacies with diapers. We asked where the nearest pharmacy was: four bus stops away. We were also told that there wasn't any place that would serve us lunch this far out from the city and that we would have to catch a bus to the city center to eat. Talk about adventure, and all we wanted was lunch and some diapers!

Thinking we might be able to walk to the pharmacy, we set out. On our way, we came upon a lovely little catholic church with a beautiful graveyard.




Eventually we came to the pharmacy. It was closed. It also didn't appear to sell diapers, or much of anything related to babies. Fortunately, we saw a sign that there was a cafe a bit further on, the Killer Cafe. Ironically, the logo was a set of crosshairs, artistically drawn.

After eating a leisurely lunch (the food was excellent! Austrians really know their sausage), we headed back, having eaten but not having found diapers. We ended the day with ...

A bath,


and a lovely sunset.


In all, we really enjoyed our time in the outskirts of Salzburg. It was the anti-touristy area, and it was just lovely.