A victory lap of sorts ...

We've had a few fun moments lately and though they'd be more fun to blog on than packing (which has consumed us for a few days!).

Henry graduated from kindergarten!  His school held an interesting ceremony with songs and music that included the graduating children circling the play area in front of teachers, parents and younger students that will continue on in the school next year.

The graduates take a lap around the garden at the school

And then the teachers chased these kids with brooms to symbolically kick them out of the nest.  Henry enjoyed this immensely!

Henry makes it around another lap without being slapped with a broom!

Henry received his "gift cone" from his teacher, Frau Rita.  This is a traditional Austrian way of packaging presents for children, especially for the first day of class.  This is one that has Henry's name on it and he decorated it.  Sue and the kids tried to buy these as presents to bring back to the their friends, but they are not in stock this time of year.  In the fall, not only can you buy them empty and fill them yourself, but you can also buy them at the bakery filled with sweets.

Frau Rita is retiring this year.  Henry is part of her last, and best, class :-)

Bike ride with Loulou tough!  Last weekend we made a day trip with Loulou, Renato and Carlo.  The original plan was to head up to Schökel (Henry wanted to ride the carts again) and then stop by a lake for a swim on the way home.  Oh, and Loulou wanted to take me out for a countryside bike ride.

Sue heard this plan and thought, "that's a lot to pack into one afternoon!"  And Grace thought that it would be a tough hike in hot weather (or a long gondola ride in a really hot car).  So, we kept the bike ride and the lake, with Loulou and I riding there and Sue, Renato and the kids driving.  We would all meet at the lake, swim, and then we'd come home (ride/drive).

The bike ride there was 20 miles/33 km through rolling terrain.  That made it the longest bike ride of my life.  Combine that with the fact that I've not ridden outdoors in forever and not been to a spin class in Austria, and that it was hot, etc.  Anyway, I was beat when I arrived at the lake ... and I still had to ride home!

The lake was fun.  We all played in the water and the pool.  The kids played at the beach.  We ate some food, got ice cream, etc.  It was great ... except that I couldn't relax!  I had to keep hydrating and restoring my electrolyte balance.  I finally caved and asked Loulou if there was a shorter path home.  She said sure, but it was really steep uphill and then almost all downhill the rest of the way.  Thankfully Renato saved the day by offering to drive us to the top of the hill!  So, a very gentle 10-mile ride back was a great way to end a fun day and a new experience :-)

Final dinners with friends!  We are in the process of saying good-bye to our friends ... at least until next year.  It started last Friday with Francesco's family (Francesco being Graces's best friend at school).  Virginia and Pablo are from Argentina, lived in Germany and Canada before moving to Graz last year.  It was nice to enjoy dinner with them.  Grace then stayed over for a sleepover as I took Henry home and Sue went out for cocktails with the international women's group.

Saturday was the outing above with Loulou, Renato and Carlo.  It was to be the last time we'd see Renato for the year.  We've really enjoyed outings with him and his family and it's very sad to think that we won't see them for a while!

Sunday was a quick visit over to Silvia and Peter's.  Silvia adopted us early on and made sure we knew everything we needed to know.  And they had lent me the backpack I used in France.  So, we went over to return the backpack and have afternoon desserts.  It was also great that their two children, Anna, one of the kids' babysitters, and her brother Thomas were there.  With time spent in the US and then The Netherlands, before returning to Silvia's home country, they have great stories of time spent living elsewhere.

Tuesday I gave my final lecture at TUG.  I talked about my consulting project with SSI.  I tried to share both the technical aspects as well as the social aspects of introducing change to an organization.  There were some ups and downs on the project in terms of getting folks to open up to a new way of doing things.  And because I'm an American, I'm sure there were some cultural aspects that didn't go as well as they could have.  But in the end, every single person at my final presentation at SSI (which occurred the week before) was in favor of deploying the computer tool that I developed.  In other words, a big success!  Anyway, I gave my lecture and then the institute hosted a bar-b-que in my honor.  It was very well attended and Sue and the kids came as well to receive a couple of small parting gifts.

This Friday night we had dinner with Jörg, his wife Rita, and their 12-year old granddaughter Jolanda.  Jörg is who got this whole sabbatical started by hosting a conference here 8 years ago.  We reminisced on that event and how he made everything so easy to setup for the sabbatical.  The highlight of the night, though, was the extensive exchanges between Grace and Rita.  Rita was so pleased to see (hear) how much progress Grace has made with her Deutsch.  I even pulled out my John White (from the UofA) line, "I'm often pleased, but rarely satisfied."  But I told her that I was quite satisfied and proud with how well she's learned German this year.  And wouldn't you know it, I heard Henry saying a word or two of German under his breath!

No Jörg in the picture :-(

Last night we had dinner with Miriam, Robert, Antonia and Quentin.  Another multi-lingual family with a British husband, an Austrian wife, and time spent living in the US and Australia in addition to England and Austria!  We had dinner at our favorite pizza place (at our "usual table") and even the weather cooperated to make it "just like old times" ... it poured on us on the way home -- we've had rain every time we've gone to dinner with them!  Our kids seem like they are really starting to gel (their two are two years younger than our two) and when they came back to our apartment so that Robert and Miriam could pick up some of our books, the kids went right to work trying to demolish the place!  Thankfully our security deposit still looks secure :-)

Robert, Sue, Miriam (back); Quentin, Antonia, Grace and Henry.

And tonight, it's the last meal we'll share with Loulou and Carlo.  As I draft this, Loulou has had our kids since 10a this morning so that Sue and I could pack up all of our stuff without having a junior committee of two second guessing our every move/decisions.  It has been bliss, actually!  Loulou texted to say they've played well, made a cake together, were watching a movies and then they'd have cake and she'd bring them back.  What a great rainy day set of activities and what a great friend!  As I type this, the sun just came out for the day (it's been raining almost non-stop since dinner last night) and they are heading over to have a simple dinner together and to take some of our leftover food and wine home with them (and hopefully some books to save for the English-speaking group's book sale).  This will be the hardest good-bye ... our families have become close with all of our day-trips in the region together.

Loulou, Russ, Sue (back); Carlo, Grace and Henry.