MoseleyWorld

It’s becoming almost as popular (at least by the media) to hate Google as it is to hate Wal-mart. But, I challenge you to watch the Google commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and not find it endearing. Google did a great job of giving a personality to a HUGE company while demonstrating not only what their product is, but how well it works.

Sorry, this ad contained no talking animals or babies, gonad punching, football or guys in their underwear (whoa!). But maybe that’s why it was a breath of fresh air, a departure from the lowbrow tone taken by most of the commercials aired during the big game. BTW, who dat!

A couple of pictures of the girls, fresh out of the camera. Have a great weekend.

samantha - 17 months

saxon - 3 years old

More photos from the September trip to Europe with my father (part one here ). It’s been difficult to narrow down a large set of photographs to a user-friendly number!

breakfast at a Viennese coffee house, Cafe Pruckel, which opened in 1903. The cafes in Vienna were the meeting spots of day in late 19th century / early 20th century.

what year is this? 1955?

take your pick of newspaper to read, a daily offering at cafes for decades.

A statue of Mozart found in the Burggarten (court garden) which was made after Napoleon’s army demolished the defensive structures which previously occupied the land. It served as a private royal garden for the Habsburg family, from the time of its design (1818) until the end of the empire in 1918. The Neue Burg section of the Hofburg Imperial Palace is in the background.

The way to fold the Imperial Palace Napkin is still a closely-guarded secret. The "royal bread holder" is still used at state dinners today. Only two people know how and they pass it down to the next generation of royal napkin folders before they die. The silver collection tour at the Imperial Palace was one of my favorite museums. Seeing all the different serving pieces and the centerpiece dessert service with ceramic cream cups Queen Victoria sent as a gift of friendship to Emperor Franz Joseph in 1851 was fascinating.

People hanging out at the Museums Quartier (called "the MQ" by locals).

lunch at the Naschmarkt Deli. Spinach salad with a disk of grilled goat cheese, fresh-baked bread and a glass of Grüner Veltliner. The Naschmarkt is Vienna’s open-air, mile long food market.

St. Stephens (Stephansdom ) Cathedral. Consecrated in 1147. The towers were finished in 1433 and are still the highest point in the Vienna skyline. The pattern on the roof is comprised of 230,000 glazed tiles.

We took a train to Salzburg, which is about 150 miles from Vienna. Salzburg, the 4th largest city in Austria (pop 150,000), is famous to Americans as the setting for the Sound of Music, you know as in "the hills are alive with…"

Salzburg is famous with Europeans for being the birthplace of Mozart and the location of the world-renowned music festival, the Salzburg Festival . In the middle of Mozartplatz (Mozart Square) they had a wine bar with some very relaxing-looking seating. Even though it wasn’t five o’clock (11 am?), I decided I better investigate.

so, while i hung out with Mozart, dad, segway-ed his way around Salzburg. Salzburg is a fun little city. We were only there for a day, but could have spent 2 or 3 days there seeing everything. Some more sights from Salzburg follow:

Strollers can kill your kids. Cribs can kill your kids. Ever get the feeling that your job as a parent is simply to just keep your kids alive?

Now, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the window blind industry are recalling nearly every Roman blind and roller shade ever made - to the tune of 50 million blinds. Wanna know how to avoid one more way of your kid getting killed? Check out the tips provided by Super Baby, in a video produced by the Window Covering Safety Council.

We all know St. Nick has to use his Santa magic to accommodate many different homes and traditions. I posted a request on Facebook for folks to chime in with their family Santa traditions.

The questions? When Santa visits, does he deliver wrapped or unwrapped gifts? How does Santa’s loot compare to presents given to kiddies by Mom & Dad? What goes in the stockings?

I loved reading the responses:

• In our house, unwrapped from Santa… Santa gifts are the bigger ones (bikes, trains etc…)
• Unwrapped from Santa…wrapped from mommy/daddy
• Santa doesn’t wrap.
  As the kids age, Mom & Dad’s gifts supersede Santa’s, thereby giving credit where credit is due.
• Santa gifts came wrapped in our own special paper. All my gifts in one kind and my brothers in another, my mom said she started this when we still couldn’t read so we could distinguish whose was who!
• I never remember presents from my mom and dad, Santa brought it all!
  Santa doesn’t have time to wrap - busy visiting houses all over the world and all. Santa loot - fun stuff. Mom and Dad loot - stuff you need anyway
• We don’t wrap the presents. And I try to only get the gifts we hear them ask Santa for…more from mommy and daddy!
• Santa doesn’t wrap. He doesn’t bring the "best gifts" . He just brings 2 or 3 things plus stocking stuff. Mom and Dad deserve the credit for getting them the most wanted gift. Abbie asked for something very expensive and said Santa could bring it, I had to tell her Santa was on a budget this year.
• Santa didn’t wrap at our house. With 7 yrs. between my Brother and me, he was a BIG kid before he quit playing the game for me. Then for several years Mother would ask me if I wanted gifts from Santa, or just wrap them all under the tree. There was never a penalty for recognizing the truth–just a gradual easing into understanding that Santa was another expression of Parent’s love.

So, what’s your Santa Claus (or Papa Noel, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle) tradition? Click on the link below that says "No Comments" (or 1 comment, etc) to share your tradition.