Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody! We wish a safe and very happy holiday to you and yours.

As a special Christmas treat, here is a video documentary of Cassie's progress at about 6 months. WARNING: Contains poop.

First Fruit

Cassie's been eating rice cereal and baby food vegetables for several weeks now and really starting to enjoy solid foods. She is noticeably starting to prefer solids to milk for some of her feedings. We've just started adding baby food fruit to her diet, which is a significant change in taste for her. This video shows her trying peaches for the very first time. We'll leave it to you to decide whether or not she likes them.

First Snow

Even though the forecast while we were in Michigan called for several inches of snow, we only got to see a few small flurries. But that was enough to justify bundling Cassie up in her snowsuit to go outside and see her very first snowfall! She was admittedly a little underwhelmed. Maybe she'll be more excited when she can play in it...

Toe Eating...Yum!

Cassie has been learning new tricks almost daily. She discovered her toes a few weeks ago and they are now one of her favorite toys. She can play with her toes for what seems like hours on end. In Michigan, for the first time, she discovered that she can actually suck on her toes and apparently finds them incredibly delicious.

Friends in Michigan

We got to see lots of old friends while in Michigan, which was a lot of fun. We met up with Linda in Ann Arbor, Katy and Josh in Birmingham, and in this picture, we're having lunch with Heidi and Christy and CK Diggs in Rochester. Christy came with her husband and two kids who were very fun to see.

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Cassie!

Today is Cassie's 1/2 birthday, exactly 6 months from the day she arrived. Happy 1/2 Birthday, Cassie!

Back to our adventures in Michigan...Cassie really enjoyed the piano that we all played growing up at John's parents' house. The video is a short clip of her very first piano composition.

Cousins in Michigan

One of the special things about going back to Michigan for Thanksgiving is seeing family for the holiday. Cousins Lillian and Penyuan joined us from UChicago and Duke. We also took the opportunity to celebrate Ben's birthday which was just a few days before.

Family Historian

At Thanksgiving dinner in Michigan, Lillian presented a very special award to dad recognizing him as the best family historian. If you would like to subscribe to the family mailing list and find out about the happenings within the extended family, you can e-mail him directly.

John Goes to Japan

John had an opportunity in late October to take a business trip to Japan. His new customers are located around Tokyo, so this was a standard customer visit. Because of where the program is, several other Intel folks joined in on the trip. This is a picture of everyone who traveled at dinner one night, enjoying some delicious Japanese shabu-shabu.

Mmmmm....Cider!

With Thanksgiving and us spending a week in Michigan, we're just now catching up on blog posts. There's a few coming over the next several days. Suffice it to say though, that we had a fun trip to Michigan and that Cassie is a great flyer! You can see Carrie enjoying some delicious hot cider and donuts here in Michigan, a midwest tradition. Yum yum yum.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays of the year, and this year we all got dressed as a family of ducks. Cassie got to trick or treating in the neighborhood and scored some yummy candy that she'll have to wait a couple of years to eat. After she sacked out, we had some friends over to pass out candy to the 6 kids that came by to trick or treat. Yes, that's not a typo. 6.

Cassie Rolls Over!

Cassie has gotten much better at tummy time and will hang out for several minutes while playing with toys and looking around. She's even figured out how to roll herself back over on to her back sometimes. She's also recently discovered her feet. You get to see both in this video!

Jasmine Comes to Visit

Yen and Joe were in town on a random spur of the moment trip, and had some time to stop by the house on their way home. So they brought cousin Jasmine over to visit. The babies last saw each other almost 3 months ago and got to play together for a little bit before Cassie's nap time.

Yummy Rice Cereal!

Cassie has taken her first step towards eating solid foods. We captured some video of her first morning trying out rice cereal. Plus, you get to see what she's like first thing in the morning, something most people don't get a chance to see.

Little Doggy

Cassie is, of course, the cutest baby that ever existed. But she has a penchant for wearing hats. She's sporting her doggy hat here. This, incidentally, was taken around the time where we dropped the last of her night feedings. Cassie started sleeping from 7pm until 7am on October 17, 2008...4 months and 2 days after she was born. w00t!

Cassie Laughing

As gets older, she starts to learn new tricks. One of the funnest things is that she has learned how to laugh. Which is a much nicer sound for her to make than crying. haha.

Go 49ers!

It's football season and we have season tickets to the San Francisco 49ers. This picture was taken back in late-September at the 49ers vs Lions home game at Candlestick Park. Normally, the stadium is a nice place for babies because the 49ers are terrible, so the crowd is pretty quiet, just a bunch of white noise. But it turns out that the Lions are even worse, so the 49ers ran up the score. Which caused the crowd to go wild. Which Cassie really didn't like. She enjoyed the game and dressing up, but isn't a fan of sudden loud noises.

International House of Pancakes

OK, so we're admittedly behind on blog posts. Again. But we'll be catching up over the next several days. This was from mid-August when we took Cassie on her first road trip to SoCal for her cousin Jasmine's red egg party. We stopped at IHOP for lunch, and Cassie got to experience a traditional American breakfast!

Rock Band

Last weekend, we were at our friends' Kyle and Tina's new house. They've got a room setup to play Rock Band, a fun video game where you can play guitars, drums and vocals. Carrie took the opportunity to karaoke a little, and Cassie enjoyed watching mom play some video games.

Segway Golf

You know how when you're playing golf and sharing a cart with somebody, how inefficient it is to have to drive to each other's balls, and how annoying that you can't take the cart up to the green side? San Jose Municipal Golf Course has solved that problem by introducing Segway personal transporters to their fleet! You can rent a Segway for your round for about the same price as a golf cart, and it is WAY more fun. The Segways have jumbo off road tires and a "holster" for your clubs. A free training class is required, but it's fun and takes less than an hour. John played San Jose Muni recently, and took the class with a couple friends, Jason and Kyle. Good times!

Superbaby!

Cassie's newest trick is that she has started laughing. This is at the same time that she is starting to interact with people more, and is able to play with toys on her own. She really likes her Exersaucer that she got from her cousins Kelsey and Skyler, and she's been having lots of fun with her Giggle Puppy toy. We've discovered that she really enjoys playing Superbaby (as Carrie demonstrates in the picture), despite the ab workout that it requires for mom or dad.

We've started adding to Cassie's Month 4 photo album. Check it out if you're starved for new pictures.

Cassie Bear

It's been crazy the last few weeks, and we've been a little delinquent in getting blog posts up. You might want to scroll back a few posts to see if you missed anything, we're posting a handful of items retroactively today.

John's started playing ice hockey and is currently skating twice a week. This morning, Carrie and Cassie came to watch practice at the early morning skate. Because the ice rink is cold, Cassie got to wear some of her winter clothes. This particular outfit is courtesy of our friends from the Campbell family. Loves it.

Hail to the Victors

Carrie pretty much got to have her way with Cassie's ultra-girly nursery. But at least there's one piece of positive influence in her crib.

Even Cassie Gets It

It's Cassie's first Michigan football season. She's been watching the games and is excited to be a part of the Michigan family, but even she gets it. Her expression pretty much says it all.

Yumyums and Burpies

Cassie loves to eat. She doesn't so much like it when her bottle's taken away. But a girl's gotta burp.

Happy Labor Day

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday weekend, mostly just at home with the baby. On Labor Day proper, we went over to Julie and Dave's house for a little barbeque. John shows off the versatility of the Baby Bluetooth...hands-free parenting!

Starting Month 3

We're starting our third month with baby Cassie. At her last doctor's appointment, she was 12 pounds, 9 ounces, and 23.5 inches long - putting her in the 90th percentile for both. Since our last post, she has achieved a number of firsts:

• Smile: She now smiles on her own and is close to laughing. She makes cooing and exclamatory noises at things she finds funny.
• Punch: She can visually recognize her toys and is able to reach out and bat at them. Is occasionally able to actually grab a toy of her own accord.
• Sleep: She has started sleeping through the night. She goes to bed at 7pm every night, is waken up at 10:30pm for a feeding, and then has been sleeping from 11pm until 6:30-7:00am in one single stretch.
• Crib: Cassie has graduated from her little bassinet to a big girl crib that John assembled. She seems to really like it and no longer has to sleep on an angle, having grown out of some of the gas and acid problems she has early on.
• Road Trip: We successfully took our first road trip to South Pasadena last weekend to attend our cousin Jasmine's Red Egg and Ginger party. Cassie was a very good girl on the 8 hour car ride down and back, and slept amazingly well in her pack and play while we were at Joe and Yen's house.
• Clothes: Though she just turned two months old, she has effectively grown out of her first set of baby clothes and is now wearing her 3-6 month sized clothing.

As an aside, it has not gone unnoticed that the photo album on our new photo webserver with the professional photo shoot has been hammered with hits. We find this interesting because we thought these pictures were amazing, and yet nobody commented on them when we posted the link on the blog. Hope all you lurkers out there are enjoying the investment we've made to enable your viewing.

New Fileserver

For those of you who are close to us, you know that we tend to be early adopters of technology, especially when there is a clear and present need. Granted, we often recognize that "need" several years before "typical" people do, but our early adoption is almost invariably to meet a need. We have just installed a brand new RAID5 NAS with a total effective capacity of 2 TB. The new 1080i HD camcorder that we got before Cassie was born consumes a massive 8 GB/hour of video recorded, so we almost instantly consumed all of the hard drive resources we had in the house. The new fileserver meets that need, in addition to being an iTunes media server, backing up all of our PCs to a single self-redundant source, and most relevant to all of you...acts as an external photo web server. We're not sure if this will be a permanent host for our images, but we're currently testing out how it works. Long story short, we can now host our images to the entire internet straight from the hard drive that they're stored on. No uploading to Snapfish or Picasa or flickr. The photo albums work like any on-line albums you've seen before, except that all the picture are available in full hi-resolution. So you can download them straight from the source and send them to print on your local printer with no loss of quality. Seriously, does that get any cooler?

Since this blog has been Cassie focused as of late, we've made her pictures available first. Check them out at: http://jbwei.selfip.com/photo/ You don't even have to create an account, they're available to view right away!

Who Let the Dogs Out?

As with many infants, Cassie's hungriest time of day is in the afternoon, typically around 4-5pm. To stay on schedule however, we don't feed her until 6:15pm with a snack only as needed at 5pm. And for the week 8 schedule, we'll be dropping the 5pm feeding altogether. We've discovered an effective way of distracting her until it's time for her evening feeding is rocking out to some music.

Cassie's Photo Shoot

As mentioned in earlier blog posts, Cassie had a photo shoot the other day. Our friend Hawk, who took the amazing pictures for our engagement and wedding, came over to the house and took some picture of us and Cassie. I'm not even going to front, they're stunning. Check them out yourself.

Normality Returning

We're starting to see elements of our old life return. Cassie is cleared to leave the house, so Carrie takes her to Starbucks every morning, and has taken her around town to Babies R Us, Costco, Target, the grocery store, etc. Carrie is also cleared as healthy and recovered, so she's been able to go to the gym and workout for the first time in two months. We've started accepting external social engagements again, meetings friends out at bars and restaurants, and even bringing Cassie to a friend's house for dinner (though, that was less than successful). So all in all, turns out life doesn't completely end with a baby. ;)

The Theory of Scheduling

Anybody who's had a baby knows that there are a million and 1 opinions about how to raise a child, and everybody is eager to convince you that their method is the right way. Every book has fundamental conflicts with every other book, so it's impossible to take everybody's opinion to heart. Carrie read dozens of books getting ready for Cassie's arrival, and the one that made the most sense to us was Gina Ford's very influential (and equally controversial) Contented Little Baby Book. The essence of the book is to put babies on a strict schedule to help them establish a routine and healthy sleep schedule. We're in week 7, and Cassie's daily schedule looks like this:

• Wake up at 7:00am
• Major 5oz feedings at 7:00am, 10:45am, 2:30pm, 6:15pm, and 10:30pm
• Minor 2-3oz snacks as needed at 5:00pm and between 3:30-4:30am
• Scheduled naps at 9:00am-9:45am (in stroller), 12:00pm-2:30pm (swaddled in crib), and 4:15pm-5:00pm (swaddled in crib)
• Bath time at 5:45pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday
  
• Bed time at 7:00pm

At her last doctor's visit, she weighed 11 pounds, 6 ounces. The typical guidance is that babies should get 2-3oz of milk a day per pound of body weight, so we have 31oz of daily feedings scheduled for her. At 7 weeks, Gina Ford's regimen enforces no more than 4 hours of nap time during the day to encourage good sound sleep at night from 7:00pm to 7:00am with only minimal interruptions for feedings.

Overly strict and regimented? Many people think so. But by the fourth week, Cassie had fully embraced the schedule to the extent that when we deviated by 30 minutes one day, she freaked out and was upset all day. We like knowing that we can have regular meal times for ourselves each day. It's nice to know that Cassie is at her happiest in the morning (when we scheduled the photo shoot) and that she's in bed by 7:00pm every night (when we tell friends it's too late to visit her). Knowing when the baby is going to be eating, sleeping and times she's likely to be fussy (just before a feeding), makes it infinitely easier to schedule doctor appointments, figure out when to go to the store or the gym, and when to have visitors.

We're not willing to swear by the book yet, Cassie could just be a coincidentally good baby. But we've enjoyed the structure and guidance it's helped us establish.

OMG, We're On Our Own!!!

Week 5 is finished, John's mom left this morning, and we are officially on our own with no training wheels. Aaahh!! To our dear friends and family, be on notice that we took careful notes these past few weeks and will be calling you in the near future to start redeeming those offers for babysitting and free dinners...lolz. This was a big week for us. Cassie celebrated her one-month birthday, a significant milestone in the Chinese culture. It also means that we're no longer house-bound, and have the doctors' permission to take Cassie out and about in public. Carrie's been taking her on 2-3 mile strolls each day. Additionally, Cassie got to visit the Campbell Farmer's Market as well as downtown Los Gatos. Being able to take her out definitely opens up our options immensely, which has been nice. She's been getting more and more alert the past couple of weeks, but that's really only translated into more time with her being awake and screaming. We were rewarded this week with her first real smiles though, which as you can see from the picture, are ridiculously cute. Starved for more pictures?

• Week 5 pictures including some from the past month shot by John's mom
• Week 2 pictures that were posted a while ago but weren't linked until recently
  

How to Entertain a Newborn

It's a rare moment when Cassie, Carrie and John all get a moment to rest their eyes. Certainly a moment worth capturing.

As Cassie spends more time awake each day, we find ourselves at a loss for how to entertain a newborn. The books tell us at this age she can differentiate black and white, and should be able to recognize faces within about 20 inches or so. But other than that, we're not really quite sure what she's interested in. When she's not asleep and not eating, her attention span is only about 5 minutes before she gets bored and starts crying. From family suggestion, we picked up the crib-mounted Symphony in Motion toy which she seems to be amused by. But, not having a crib yet, makes using it kind of tricky. Any suggestions are welcome! :)

We have a new photo album up with pictures of her third and fourth week. Enjoy them over at Picasa.

End of Week 3

"Pondering."

We have reached the end of our third week as parents. Carrie's mom left a week ago, we survived a week on our own, and John's mom arrived yesterday for the two week Grandma second shift. Cassie is noticeably more alert now, and is awake 7-8 hours a day. It seems like her vision is starting to come in, as she spends a lot of time looking around...this picture is typical of her during the day. She continues to be a pooping machine, pooping about 10-15% of her body weight each day. If she were a 150 lb adult woman, that would be like 20 pounds of poop a day. Gas pains will occasionally wake her up from a nap, but that's pretty much it. She slept soundly through the traditional July 4th fireworks extravangaza in the Campbell area.

We've Survived Two Weeks!

On the one hand, the last two weeks has just flown by, it's hard to believe that we've already survived this far as new parents. Then again, when baby Cassie is inconsolably crying in the middle of the night, it feels like it has gone by very slowly! The next week should be an interesting test as Carrie's mom heads back up to Auburn, and we're on our own with John back at work. In other news, we are in post-production for the next edition of our DVD. Let us know if you'd like to receive a copy.

Check out pictures from week two.

Night Feeding Video

We feed the baby about every 3 hours, 24 hours a day. Thought it might be interesting to some to share a video of one of the late night feeding that John does with Cassie. The 1 hour feeding is trimmed down to just about 7 minutes of highlights. Special bonus, a buttastrophe caught on film! The sound is pretty quiet because it's the middle of the night, you may want to turn up your volume if you want to hear everything.

Wow, What a First Week!

Wow, what a week! Baby Cassie's first week was eventful, fun, educational, and filled with tons of visitors! She had visitors every single day of the week, both at the hospital and at home. It's fun visiting with everyone! We're starting to settle into a regular schedule when Cassie cooperates. Carrie has had the chance to get out of the house and take a field trip to Target (w00t!). John's been able to get out of the house to even play softball for a bit. Nana's been cooking up a storm keeping everybody very well fed. Pops even descended upon the house with a carful of Costco bounty to host a barbeque at the house. Nobody's going hungry, that's for sure. Here's some pictures from the first week.

Sleepy, Stinky Sweetie

We're about halfway through our first week with the baby, and everybody's starting to settle into a routine. We're certainly running into our fair share of speedbumps along the way, but so far so good (knock on wood). Cassie, we've discovered, has a sick sense of humor. She's a sleepy newborn, which makes all of our visitors think that she's just an angel. So far, John's been taking the late night feedings (between 1:30-3:30am) to try and let Carrie get a 5-7 hour block of uninterrupted sleep. Ironically, Cassie has been 2 for 2 in choosing that feeding for her stinkiest buttastrophe each day. Here's some links to share:

• Are you starved for more pictures? We have photos from her first 24 hours posted up at Picasa.
  
• If you have an iGoogle or MyYahoo! page, you can add this blog to your page. Then new posts will just show up there, and you won't have to continually check the blog to see if we've posted something new. You can subscribe to that RSS feed here.

It's been wonderful having so many friends and family come to visit and meet Cassie. Thanks to everyone who's taken time out of their busy schedules, it certainly helps us maintain our sanity to touch base with the outside world from time to time.

Baby Cassie's First Video

For those who won't be able to see baby Cassie in person, we took the opportunity to shoot a little video to share. This is a rare moment when she is both 1.) awake and 2.) not screaming. After the first day, she's had a few moments where she's alert and looking around, and it's been really neat to see her take in the world.

Welcome Home, Baby Cassie!

We got discharged from the hospital today, both mom and baby checked out healthy. Cassie came home in her stylin' Ferrari-red carseat and didn't peep the whole time, just taking in the outside world for the first time. She loves her room, loves her bed, loves the decorations mom put up, and even let mom take a nap for a few hours while dad and nana took care of her. Firsts today: bath, buttastrophe, new outfits, new swaddling blankets, new hat, socks, mittens, bottle.

Ridiculously Good Looking

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." -- Derek Zoolander

Today, Cassie had recovered a lot from the enormous effort of coming into the world and was much more alert and awake than yesterday. She took the opportunity to work on her breastfeeding skillz. We discovered that, like mom with chicken on the bone or shellfish, she gets pissed off when she has to work too hard for her food. We also discovered that, like dad, she's a little narcoleptic and sometimes falls asleep while eating.

Introducing Cassandra Jane Wei

Cassandra Jane was born at 1:35am early on Father's Day, happy and healthy. She's 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and 19 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well. We are at Good Samaritan Hospital for the next couple of days and happily taking visitors. Please give us a call if you'd like to come visit the baby at the hospital or at home when we check out.

Carrie has officially started labor!

We made our first trip to the hospital very early this morning at 3:00am after Carrie had had contractions for about 4 hours, but were sent home because she far enough along. We were just admitted officially on our second trip to the hospital and Carrie is working on bring Sparkle into the world.

Scheduled: Monday, June 16

Carrie's doctor has decided that she will be ready to have the baby anytime next week, so we have scheduled her to check into Good Samaritan Hospital on Monday morning at 7:30am. Of course, if she goes into labor before that, we'll go before that. But Carrie will definitely be in the process of having the baby by this coming Monday. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest and up to date news about Baby Sparkle. You can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the "Subscribe to Posts (Atom)" link at the bottom of the blog. This will allow you to add it to your iGoogle or My Yahoo page, and automatically be notified of new updates without having to regularly check the blog itself.

Two Weeks or Less

We are now inside the two week window. Carrie is officially on maternity leave, our overnight bags are packed, the nursery is all setup, all the baby appliances have fresh batteries. It's just a waiting game now, everybody's on-call 24/7.

San Francisco Weekend

As Carrie's due date gets closer and closer, our vacation getaways get closer and closer to home so that we can be near our home hospital. With just about four weeks left, we spent this weekend in San Francisco to enjoy some of the joys of the city. We had brunch with friends at Luce, got massages, had afternoon tea at the Palace Hotel, enjoyed some shopping in Union Square, and had a sumptuous dinner at Postrio. One of the more pleasant surprises, however, was the Intercontinental Hotel, where we stayed. It just opened in February in SoMa and is beautiful. Because of the promotional special rate, we were able to stay on the club level 32nd floor with stunning views of the city. With the club level, we also had access to the club lounge. The picture is of Carrie watching the Bay to Breakers crowd on Howard Street pass by below as we enjoy a free breakfast in the club lounge.

The Baby's Getting Big

Carrie had a doctor's appointment today and they did an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was going well with the baby. The picture is a little grainy and it's a little tricky to make everything out, but they're estimating Sparkle at about 7 pounds right now. With a little over a month to go, it looks like she's going to be a pretty big baby!

New License Plates

It seems that everyone in California has vanity plates on their car, they certainly seem more popular than in any other state. Ever since moving here, John has wanted vanity plates but didn't want something dumb or that he would get tired of after 6 months. So after 9 years, he finally settled on "GTDRPTP", a reference to his Mustang GT convertible (GT Drop Top). They arrived this week and look fantastic!

Pebble Beach

The common piece of advice that everybody continues to give us as Carrie's due date approaches is to spend time together and take those weekend getaways that you want to go on before it becomes hard to. So last weekend we went on our third "last big trip" to Pebble Beach. We spent the weekend down in Monterey at the luxurious Lodge at Pebble Beach. We had some great food, amazing weather, and lots of time to relax. Since golf is difficult for Carrie at this point, we spent Saturday kayaking in Stillwater Cove, which is a protected bay that sits between the 17th and 18th holes at Pebble Beach. The water was smooth as glass, and we saw leopard sharks, harbor seals and lots of sea otters. We also had the opportunity to catch the bagpiper at Spanish Bay as he walked the dunes at sunset. And John got his golf fix in at the beautiful driving range at Spyglass.

4D Ultrasound

Ray, a friend of ours, works for Siemens and has connections into their ultrasound division. As part of their research and development, they need models to see how their latest and greatest machines are working, so Carrie had an opportunity to go and model with Baby Sparkle. We got to take home some pictures and video from the session. This is one of the pictures where the baby is smiling and looking forward to coming out two months from now.

Bon Jovi in concert

Today is our three year wedding anniversary. And to celebrate, we took Baby Sparkle (her new nickname) to her first concert at -2 months old! It's a good thing that we generally share the same taste in music. We've been wanting to see Bon Jovi in concert for a couple of years now, and when the opportunity arose to sit in the 20th row, smack in the middle of the floor, we jumped on it. They played all their old hits as well as the new hits from the last two albums. Even Sparkle seemed to enjoy rocking out.

Camp Wonder featured in USA Today

John used to volunteer as a camp counselor at Camp Wonder, a free summer camp for kids with skin diseases. It's a great place for the kids, and provides a place to make friends and have fun, without worrying about whatever medical ailments the kids may have. A full medical staff is on-site to take care of them, and there's always a fantastic group of counselors that complement the camp directors to create an amazing atmosphere. Camp Wonder is being feature on the front page of the USA Today Lifestyle section on April 2, 2008. Pick up a copy and tell your friends!

[Edited 04/02/08] The article got delayed because of technical mix-ups at USA Today. Will update when it is published again. Sorry if anybody had to buy a copy of the paper that they weren't interested in!

We're home - photos posted on-line

Well, we're finally back from our trip and trying to readjust to jetlag...again. It's certainly nice to be back home in our own house, with our own bed and a full closet of fresh clothes. Thanks for following along with our travels, check out our photos that are now posted on-line:
- Vienna
- Prague
- Salzburg

On our way home

We are at the Vienna airport, ready to start the long journey home,
with a brief stopover in amsterdam. It's been a really fun two weeks, we'll have all the pictures up here in a few days.

Finishing our trip in style

Yesterday, we left Salzburg to return to Vienna for a couple of days before we head home. We were pleasantly surprised by the nicest train we've seen yet, we had our own spacious cabin in a brand new car for most of the ride, with soft leather seats, electrical outlets to charge our batteries, and lots of space to stretch out. We're spending our last two nights here at the 5-star Hotel Sacher, an historic landmark in Vienna and reknowned for its world-famous Original Sacher Torte. It's a beautiful hotel and a beautiful room for us to enjoy the perfect ending to our two-week Babymoon through Europe.

Tours around Salzburg

Yesterday we spent some time on organized tours going out and around the Salzburg area. Salzburg in German, literally means "salt castle", and was established as an important economic center in the beginning because of its proximity to salt mines. So in the morning, we went and visited a working salt mine and got to see the tunnels, equipment and underground lakes of the mine. In the picture, we're all suited up in our miner outfits, about to board the train into the mine. Later in the afternoon, we got a chance to visit all the lakes around the area and see the quaint little towns next to them on the "Lakes and Mountains" tour. Was a nice day of sightseeing (despite a brief cloudburst of winter storm) and a welcome break from miles of walking everyday.

First day in Salzburg

Today was our first day in Salzburg and we spent the day wandering around and exploring the city. It is as charming as you would imagine it, beautiful mountains, snowy caps, whimsical alleys with boutique shopping... We paid a visit to the fortress which proudly overlooks the city and saw the history of Austrian military and royalty that have stayed and visited the fortress. We grabbed a light lunch at the farmer's market which, inexplicably, had delicious and fresh berries and figs for sale. This evening, we had the opportunity to enjoy dinner with a concert at the oldest restaurant in Europe. Between (delicious) dinner courses, a string quintet and two talented vocalists entertained us with selections from Mozart's operas. It was extra special because of how intimate the setting was, with the singers freely wandering around the dining room to sing right next to our tables. Very fun and entertaining.

Train ride to Salzburg

This evening, we jumped on a train from Prague to Salzburg and had quite an adventure. This isn't a high traffic route, and it kind of meanders through the mountains, so the only train available to us was a slower, local train. In total the ride was seven hours long, leaving at 5pm, and arriving in Salzburg at midnight. We incorrectly assumed that such a long route would have a dining car, and didn't discover our error until the train had left Prague. Knowing that we wouldn't arrive in Salzburg until very late and that most restaurants would be closed, John took advantage of a 30 minute stop in České Budějovice to try and find some food. Unfortunately, all six food stands and stores in the train station were closed. So was the McDonald's that John found four blocks from the train station. So were the five convenience stores that John ran past. So were the two hot dog stands. John finally found a shopping mall that was still open three blocks away with a snack stand selling nuts and dried fruit, before sprinting back to catch the train just in time. Thankfully that tied us over until we reached Salzburg and found a late night restaurant.

Tastes of home

As much fun as it is to travel around Europe, seeing new things and trying new foods, it's always nice to get a small taste of home. We stayed up (really) late to watch the Super Bowl, but wanted to catch it live if it was possible. Was nice to see some American football, but have to admit that it was a little underwhelming to see history not happen. And since we were watching a satellite feed, we didn't get to watch any of the commercials. Had to catch them today on the internet (love the E-trade baby ads, hilarious!) after the fact. Carrie also found a Haagen-Dazs stand to get some familiar ice cream taste. Off to Salzburg later today...

Traditional Prague

Today we partook in some key traditional Prague experiences. The one pictured is the traditional supper of roast pork, boiled cabbage, potato and bread dumplings. Accompanied by the traditional Czech beer, Pilsner Urquel. The food was surprisingly tasty, despite what it might look like. We spent the day visiting New Town Prague, Old Town Square, and Wenceslas Square. The original city limits of Prague were built up around Old Town and walled in to protect the city. New Town is the area that was built up outside the city as it expanded, and Wenceslas Square is the famous boulevard in central Prague in front of the main museum. Wenceslas Square is famous for being the hub of demonstrations and protests through the years, and gained worldwide notoriety when a protester set himself on fire.

Prague's Marquee Sites

Prague is famous for its extraordinarily well preserved historic buildings, having for the most part been spared significant damage in the major World Wars. Today we visited the Prague Castle, St. Vitus' Cathedral and St. Charles' Bridge. St. Vitus' was definitely the highlight of the day. It is the largest church in Prague, and is the home of the Archdiocese. It's a magnificent example of Gothic architecture that took some 600 years to complete, beginning in the 1344 when the archbishopric was founded. The cathedral is up on the hill in the background of this picture taken from the St. Charles' Bridge.

We have arrived in Prague!

After a fun train ride through the Eastern European countryside, we have arrived in Prague. We're staying at the Hotel Josef, a very modern, high-design hotel. Our room has a glass bathroom! The train ride was per European expectations, and was very nice. John even had a chance to try the famous European version of Budweiser, a light Czech beer, that has no association with the US version of Budweiser.

Finishing up the major sights

Today is our last day in Vienna for a while, so we took it relatively easy and hit the remaining major sights that we had on our list. We headed out of town to Grinzing, famous for its plethora of wine taverns, where we strolled around the city and had a very traditional Austrian lunch. In the afternoon, we continued up the hill to Wienerwald, the forests of Vienna. Contrary to how it sounds, it is not a theme park filled with hot dogs, sadly. But the views were magnificent, and an added bonus...far from all the crowds. This evening's entertainment has been people watching, as tonight is the Vienna Opera Ball, the culminating event to Ball Season here in Vienna. The high society folks are out in force, dressed to the nines. The Opera Ball is a white tie event where all the men are in tuxes with white ties and tails, and the women are all in gorgeous floor length ball gowns. Ticket prices start at about $1,500 per person, so you can imagine the types about town tonight. Good people watching. Tomorrow we are off to Prague!