I know I only skipped a single week of listing Happy Things (to talk about the happiest thing!), but it feels like forever since I talked about anything other than travel.
It feels… good to sit down and write about Happy Things!
APRIL FOOLS
I don’t do much to celebrate small holidays, especially as the kids are getting older. When they asked if I had anything planned for April Fools I could very honestly say No. (I did freeze their cereal and spoon in milk when they were younger and a host of other little things.)
Anyhoo, when John and I headed to bed on March 31, the kids were deep in conversation and I had a hunch they were plotting a prank.
I was wrong! It wasn’t a prank, it was over a dozen!
Indy took a tiny piece of tissue and stuffed it into the top of the toothpaste (it was impossible to see).
All the plates and bowls were missing from the kitchen.
They took ALL the toilet paper out of the bathroom except a single sheet that said: Use sparingly and wisely. (They also put tissue paper under the seat/over the bowl; thankfully NO accidents were had.)
I found a shoe in the microwave. One of John’s sneakers was in the freezer, and we both had a shoe out on the balcony.
Indy wrote out April Fools with toothpicks and playing cards.
Clean laundry got hung from the ceiling.
Bread got coloured with a marker and put back into the bag and it legit looked like mold through the plastic.
I’m forgetting more of their devious little tricks, but it was really fun.
MOVING ON
I’m sad to be leaving Vienna, but also excited for a change. Our road trip is going to be exhausting and exhilarating and epic, and then we’ll be settling down in Helsinki for a month which feels like a good balance of adventure and routine.
WRAPS
I have zero pictures, but we found wraps at the grocery store (marketed as “American wraps”) and I have been having wraps for lunch the last few days filled with leftovers and veggies and they are so delicious.
SPOTIFY
I love having music at my fingertips. The main winner in all of this is Belle. When we’re on public transit she’s usually listening (with one earbud) to music.
As I type up this post, she’s belting out a tune.
LIGHT OF CREATION SHOW
Belle declared the Votive Church Light of Creation Show to be better than Broadway. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it was spectacular and I am so glad we went.
The boys stayed home so it was a special mom-daughter date and I will always cherish the memories of this night with her. The music and effects were spectacular.
GOOGLE MAPS
I know Google (and perhaps the internet in general) makes us lazy but I cannot imagine doing a trip like this without having Google Maps at my fingertips. I open the app every single day, sometimes dozens of times.
We can navigate to quite a few things now without any prompting, but it comes in clutch for getting around the city and making sure we’re on the right branch of public transit.
SUNSHINE
After a week of cool temperatures and overcast skies, we have had truly glorious weather lately. Sign me up!
BONUS HAPPY THINGS
- Getting e-mails with Cool Bloggers Walking Club pictures! The first recap goes up tomorrow and it is so fun pulling these posts together. Also, not making collages saves an incredible amount of time on my end. Go figure. I think this may have to be the new standard moving forward 😉
- The delicious cup of coffee within reach of my hand this minute.
- Jenny found THE PERFECT MOTHER OF THE GROOM dress!!!
- Rachel had an incredible time in Portugal!!
- Walk-and-talks with Joy. Once we sorted out time zones and schedules… TWO calls happened in the last week. It’s not the same as walking together in person, but it’s still delightful.
- The washing machine whirring; clean clothes. How thankful I am for washing machines. Come to think of it, the dishwasher is also whirring AND the coffee percolator is keeping extra coffee warm.
Your turn.
- Tell me all your Happy Things from the week!
- What’s the best April Fools prank you’ve been a part of?
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The light show looks amazing!
Happy things:
1. I went home for a week and enjoyed celebrating Easter and my dad’s birthday. I also got to look after my sister’s cat while she was away which was a lot of fun, apart from when the cat brought in a mouse!
2. I caught up with some friends.
3. I managed to go to the gym when I got back and went up a weight in dumbbells (9kg). I also ran for an hour yesterday and went swimming!
4. I’m seeing a friend after work.
5. The weather has been beautiful here too!
A mouse!!! Hard pass.
Sounds like a truly great week, and nice weather is the proverbial cherry on top 🙂
The mouse lived, thankfully! The cat was not happy when I took her away from it lol.
That is one lucky mouse 🙂
Oh man, the kids really outdid themselves. The TP heist was savage.
It’s been a week of mostly gorgeous weather here. Lots of hiking has gone down. I only have one more hike in my winter hiking challenge, so that’s on the docket for this weekend.
The TP prank was genius. I hope you made them put everything back!
I do not like pranks, but one was done to me that certainly made the pranksters happy. I taught high school for one year, and one class was a true joy. One of the kids,G, in it had had a serious neck injury and had missed weeks in the winter. On 4/1, I walked in and the other kids told me that G had hurt his neck and had to rush to the school nurse. Very worrisome! Then G comes in all smiles saying April Fools! I turned around and hit my desk with a yardstick so hard. They laughed! I forgave them.
Happy? A nice chat with a friend, a sunny and not freezing track meet. Fuzzy cats! Hot showers lacking this week.
I hope you get a hot shower this weekend, but glad you didn’t need to thaw after track. Standing outside watching other people stay warm with exercise is a unique form of parental sacrifice.
Yes, the kids put all the things away 😉
Though it took a few days to realize everything that was hidden and prompt them to pull things out.
Thankfully, I noticed the bathroom prank before I used the facilities AND I found the shoe before turning on the microwave.
Yay for nice weather. Winter is so long and it is such an emotional delight to revel in sunshine on the face!
Ha! I love the kids coming together as allies on April Fool’s Day. I like jokes like that, rather than the kind I usually get, e.g. “I got expelled from school… April Fools!”
I’m not trying to navigate myself around a foreign city, and I still can’t imagine how we managed without Google maps??? I mean, how did we get anywhere? I know there are physical maps but you can’t look at them while you’re driving. Somehow we managed, but I can’t remember how.
I’m very excited for your road trip! And, Helsinki- I’ve never been there. While I’ve enjoyed a trip down memory lane for Vienna, I’m excited to see a new place.
I remember doing a road trip down so South Carolina with my parents with their map book FULL of notes from previous trips. I also remember missing a critical turnoff and adding an hour drive to our itinerary. I don’t miss life without Google maps!
Look at those pranksters!!!!
I was just writing a post about the amazing technological advancements that have come within my children’s lifetime – Spotify and Google maps are top of my list!
Enjoy your time in Helsinki, and your road trip!
Happy things: the irrigation has been turned on, I have been gardening, I planted some seeds, I had a lovely lunch with friends yesterday – life is good!
It’s garden season in the Gnome House!! Can’t wait to jealously follow along.
Spotify and Google are the best. I’m also really appreciating my Kobo on this trip. I can read in bed at night without a light and carry around a dozen books in the palm of my hand.
Planting 8 trees on a steep bank at church to camouflage the neighboring trailer after raising the trees from seed—a happy thrill! Yes, it will take several years before they look like anything, and several more before they begin fulfilling their camouflage duties. Best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; second best time is today.
Received the physical copies of a book that I have been editing and designing for almost 10 years; I had to finish it without the author’s help. He procrastinated, wrote another book, was paralyzed by perfectionism, and finally, Alzheimer’s erased his ability to write. It is now my hope to visit him in memory care, hand him a copy, and see recognition in his face.
Finished a difficult pencil drawing commission and delivered it to a happy customer.
Ha. As I was reading your comment I was thinking about my response. I was going to write: the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the next best time is today.
Congrats on completing two difficult creative projects.
LOL on the TP prank. Glad you discovered it before you needed it! Those were some charming pranks for sure.
Beautiful pictures, hard to believe you’ve been in Vienna for a month already. Your road trip is going to be great, such beautiful scenery!
Happy things around here…the workers are almost finished with the construction, replacing our almost 50 year old, NOT properly maintained shingles with fire resistant siding. BONUS! You are not supposed to nail things into the siding, which seems crazy to me, but that’s where we are. When Ted told me I couldn’t put in a hook for my hummingbird feeder, it was definitely a ‘kill the messenger’ situation and I was PISSED AT HIM. His fault? No. Still. BUT, one of the workers found a place and screwed in a hook for me, so I will be able to hang my feeder right outside my window soon! WHEW!
The pictures you’ve shared on your blog look lovely! I’m sure you’ll appreciate the upgrade.
Hooray for solving the feeder issue.
What a brilliant April Fools effort by the kids!
I love that, in the middle of all the travel chaos, it’s the simple things making the happy list too: sunshine, wraps, coffee, clean laundry, music. That Votive Church show with Belle sounds really special too. Those one-on-one memories will probably end up mattering most.
Looking forward to seeing you all in a couple of days!!
I can’t believe we’ll be in Zurich TOMORROW. But before that I will be in three different countries! Yikes!
I’m a hard pass on April Fools. I wish the “holiday” didn’t exist! I can see the fun in pranks but it’s just not my thing AT ALL. I do not have a good enough sense of humor to enjoy it. Phil and his friends used to do elaborate pranks, though. One year they sent a letter to a friend who had recently bought a house, saying the city was buying the lot as a light rail was being developed in the neighborhood. It looked super official. They’ve done a few other things like that over the years. Phil is not the mastermind behind it but was in on it.
Google Maps is such a life saver. I use it all the time when traveling to look at restaurants, find the closest orange theory, and to navigate the city. Thanks to google maps, it was easy to find my way to the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn to meet my coworker for dinner this past week when I was staying in NYC. It would have been really hard to figure it out pre-google maps!
That light show looks so similar to the one I saw at our Basilica in January. It was so incredible!
OH MY GOODNESS. I would have lost my mind over that letter. How stressful. Also, pretty clever and devious 🙂
The light show was wonderful; they also had heating lamps set up since the church can get cold which was a really nice touch.
These April Fools jokes are next level. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that impressive. We were driving back from Florida on April Fools and Tank got a text from his roomie: I QUIT MY JOB. JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. This was so believable, because he really hates his job and his boss has really pulled some uncool punches. We all believed it, but a moment later he texted that it was a joke.
Happy things for me this week: the weather this coming week is gonna be in the 70s all week, and Curly committed to her school. So exciting. Upcoming post about it . . . soon.
That is such an exciting turn of events; it’s a wonderful feeling to have a big decision like that (schooling) all sorted. And hooray for nice weather. Bye, bye winter!
I am high-key impressed with the kids’ April Fools pranks! They did a great job of keeping you guys on your toes. And I love that they did it together. <3 Adorable, all around!
My best April Fools was when *I* got totally fooled by my mom. When her dog Chip was a puppy, she lived next door to another couple that had a dog just like Chip (same color and everything!). He was a year older. And one of the people in the couple is in the military, so my mom texted me that the couple is moving overseas and asked if my mom could take their dog. I was freaking out!! Hahah. We still talk about that prank. She got me good!
A memorable prank is a delightful memory!