A day at the zoo - with the Daxens

In the last week before school started again, the Fischberger family decided to help Kerstin with her studying for her test last Friday, so we took her sons out to the Tiergarten Walding near Linz. Christoph and Markus got my camera and fired away and so, we have about 200 pics to show of that short but quite interesting afternoon out. One of the typical Christoph pics you can see above... ;-)

Markus taking pictures of his favourite animals - the camels. Christoph liked the elephant best, and Georg the goats, I guess.

Rita, Paul, Christoph and Markus having a rest on a bench just by the goats´ stalls. Below a group pic of the fabulous Dax boys, Joe, Jack, William... there´s no Averell, Paul is still too little! ;-)

Well, we did take more pics and some of the animals as well... I´ll show them to the boys soon...!
ERF

Happy birthday, Daddy!

Hi everyone, all the many people out there waiting excitedly for the return of Paul, his mom and dad and their pics!
Today I want to show you how Paul, auntie Karin, Rita and me partied wild in the park behind our flat in Linz for my 34th birthday. I am growing old, I know, but it did not feel too bad, to be honest.
After Rita, Paul and I had gone to Feldkirchen for a while to organise something for our not-yet-to-be-built house we returned and found Karin waiting for us with some delicious cakes - so we set up camp outside and had a few coffees, cakes and, in Paul´s case, a little nap out there. It was a lovely afternoon, thank you, Karin!
The pics do not need any explanation I guess. But isn´t that guy cute with the hat?

That´s it from Linz for today, in the next few days I will report about our exciting trip to the zoo in Walding with the nephews a couple of days ago, so stay tuned,
ERF

Visiting Irnfritz, Lower Austria

As we had been invited to the Gablers´ house before, we did not find it too weird to go to a place called Irnfritz. So, we went there and spent a couple of wonderful days with our friends and their lovely daughters Mia and Ina - they are very keen on nursing Paul and love taking him out for walks, trying to change nappies, dressing him... you can see his reaction in the last pic.
Anyways, it was great to be there - thanks for your time, Mathias and Sabine!

For a walk, Ina checking constantly on Paulie... he was alright!

The Gablers and part of the (future) Fischer family

Well, interpret this picture any way you like - but there´s no way around it - Paul liked LA...
ERF

Visiting great granny Glaser

Last week Rita and I made a trip to Bad Leonfelden where my granny Maria lives in an OAP home. It was grand to see her and exhilarating to find out how great she still is handling our little Paul despite her age of nearly 88 years!
What a day... she´s so cute, isn´t she?
ERF

Being busy, meeting friends

Lots of first encounters for Rita´s baby (= Paul) in the last few days! At first, we had our friends from "LoonyFritz" in LowerAustria with us, then my cousin Judith came to see Paul for the first time - she found him alright, too, I guess. As you can see, Sabine and her girls, Mia and Ina, had a good time with our little man and, the girls loved watching Rita nursing our cutie. Well, they´ll end up doing that too, at one point...
Then Mathias showed that he was as skillful holding boys as girls - well done, my friend.
On Friday, cousin Judith took some time off work to come and see Paul; great of you to pass by, J., lovely to see you - and I hope you´ll pop in again soon.
Then we went to Niederranna and spent a day at grandad Hubert´s, and on Sunday we went to meet the whole Wöss family for lunch and then went to my parents´ place - for a walk.
There´s granny Herta doing her best to pacify Paul!
All in all, we had an eventful and pretty cool weekend - by the way, it was Rita and my 8th anniversary - oh, and Happy birthday, Reiter! ;-)

Everyday life in Leonfeldnerstrasse 83, Linz, Austria

Hi guys, today I want to give you a little input about our daily life here in Linz - at first, we have to get Paul to bed - sometimes that can be a bit tricky, as he goes through a nightly routine of flatulence -and most of the time we have to give him a medicine called "Antiflat" ;-).

We always try to go for a walk early in the morning, when it is still relatively cool out - and then we go for another one in the evening, when the air is chilled already - sometimes, Paulie still goes berserque - it´s good fun to have him out in the park - he enjoys that.

When we get home (from our first walk, obviously), I hang up the washing and make sure everything´s dry and clean so Rita can do the ironing perfectly. Well, and while we are working away Paul enjoys himself in his bed... that´s it, really... it´s perfect, we´re loving it...!

You´ll get some info about how we play with Paul in the next blog entry - keep coming! ;-)
ERF

Happy birthday Mum

At my mum´s birthday party, there were the "Badgers", Uncle Franz, Christoph, André (village priest), my great grand auntie Maridl and Rita and my family (Paul) - we had a bbq and then chilled in the sun or inside - some of us found it too hot on the terrace... just some impressions of the peaceful afternoon in Oberkappel... and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM!

More visitors

In the last few days there have been a lot of visitors, so Paul, Rita and I were quite busy and did not have a lot of time to put posts online. This morning, while Rita and Paul were taking their well deserved nap after another night with too little sleep, I decided to upload some stuff again. There were more visitors to our house, as stated above: Doris, Lilly and Dominik, who came to see Paul and brought some lovely cake along and wanted to get to know Paul a little better, and Karin and Linda. The reasons for their coming was Linda´s birthday a few days ago (Happy birthday!) and an interview Karin had in Salzburg the following day. It was lovely to have them here and Paul was well pleased - as you can see! ;-)

Dominik, Doris and Lilly

Doris with Paul, a sceptical Lilly observing them!

Karin, a future midwife? Well, Paul likes being with her anyways - good sign, Paulie, just as long as you do not start playing with your toes, Auntie Karin does not like that at all!!! ;-)

ERF

First visitors

Alright? This time I would like to show to you the first visitors Paul had in the first week of being home in his flat. David from France, living in Brussels, came to see Paul, Rita and me last weekend - he was meant to be staying at ours but, thank god, Julia (on the first picture with her lovely daughter Hannah), our mutual friend, managed to squeeze him in her in-laws place nearby - it would have been crazy to have him around. Not because he´s a loony, no, he is fantastic. But we still need a lot of time to get to know Paul and understand him fully.
Thanks Julia, again, by the way!
Linda, Rita´s sis, seems to comprehend his needs entirely, however. Look at how relaxed Paul is when sleeping in her arms! ;-)
ERF

Before and after pictures

Two pics I would like to show to you guys today.
The first one obviously shows little Paul a few days BEFORE he left his Mom´s save womb and decided to bless us with his appearance on Earth. The second one clearly shows that he´s not entirely happy about his choice all the time - especially when being cleaned, he is not a happy bunny at all most of the time.
However, Rita and I are getting better at that, and sooner or later he´ll accept that there was no way he could have stayed inside...
ERF

Little Paul is a curious fellow!

Hi everyone,
today´s update is a short one - there´s not much to tell, really. Paul, Rita and I had a relaxing Sunday morning at home, David came round for lunch and then we took him to the train station, and in the afternoon we went to my sister Kerstin´s place, where Paul´s nephews tried to play with him unsuccessfully - he´s a little too young for that, to be honest.
Working for school now, as tomorrow the new week starts, with a few interesting highlights... grading, some more oral exams, and the big final conference to discuss the students final grades... yeah!
I´ll be in touch again soon,
ERF

Our first trip to the park!

Hello fans! ;-) Well, I hope there are some out there...

Anyways, the day before yesterday, Paul, Rita and I went for our first official walk together. It was quite exciting since new but everything went well... Paul was fast asleep throughout and got some fresh air, Rita did some brave walking and felt a lot better afterwards....
Paul is getting better at nights, and changing nappies is becoming easier, too, as the remains of his umbilical cord have finally come off... that´s a relief.
That´s it from me, I´ll blog again soon, as we have our first official visitor in Linz this weekend. He´s a member of the French European Commission and works in Brussels - you might have guessed - it´s David.
TBC,
ERF

Hommage á Rita

Hi everyone!
I am willing to keep you updated this time - I hope I´ll be able to as I am a little stressed throughout the following couple of weeks. Anyways, this is a wonderful little picture I took yesterday when Rita and Paul had a moment together - she´s amazing, so is Paul - they already are a good team.
The picture below is the stork the boys and Marion put up for us at our flat on Monday night - well nice, that - and they brought some beers as well. Thanks boys, I will return the favour one day!
To be continued soon,
ERF