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Summertime and the Livin’ is Fine

Monday, August 15th, 2011

I can’t believe we have been in Canada for almost a month already. It has gone by so fast. The trip has been, in a word, fantastic!

B.C. was a busy time of visiting friends and family, as expected, but we did enjoy it all. Annie and I had an amazing time in Victoria with Stacey, who is pregnant with twins. She has been following doctors recommendations to take things easy and rest most of the day, so I think she was as glad to have us around as I was thrilled to be spending time with her. And I understand her husband, Andrew, also appreciated that Stacey had another adult to talk to.

Stacey, Annie and the twins

And after two years, Annie and I were able to spend some time with Rebecca. She graduated from highschool and is very much looking forward to university at SFU next year.

Rebecca and Annie with Grandma Susan and Grandpa Ken

Time in Vancouver was spent with family, as I hadn’t seen my brother, sister-in-law or their three children in over 2 years! Crazy. Annie was in absolute heaven, and my nephew and nieces were wonderful to her, not to mention very patient with her exuberance.

Hamming it up at Capilano Suspension Bridge

And I got to actually go to work for 2 days!! Those of you who daily go into an office for a living might question my sanity, but I was as excited as a schoolgirl to be meeting with live humans and exchanging ideas about interesting things.

The first week in Manitoba was a whirl of spending time with family and preparation for my Dad’s 80th birthday. At the last minute I, with the help of the family, put together a slide show of some photos. This is the first time I’ve tried to do this and I’m pretty pleased with the results. I could have smoothed out the music transitions more and certainly cut about 5 minutes from the grandkid section (hey, I love looking at pictures of my daughter, nieces and nephews…why wouldn’t you?), but overall a good first effort. I uploaded it to YouTube if you want to check it out. For now it is here, but could get pulled any time for unlicensed use of music, so act fast if you want to view. Sylvia and I went through great-aunt Edith’s photos and found some real treasures. My dad’s younger brother, Ross, died when he was in his 30′s, so there were a few tears in the audience remembering him and their time together.

Beyond that it has been a fantastic time of visiting with friends and family at the cottage, oodles of hours swimming and boating on the lake, and reconnecting with my good friends in Winnipeg.

Annie, and the VanSam cousins

The favourite "Hotdog" with Paige and Amie

Aunt Lorraine and Annie

Grandpa with Annie

A very rare photo of six cousins together

In Winnipeg Lori, her daughter, Matheson, and Annie and I had a delightful morning at the new Children’s Garden in Assiniboine Park. Three hours just flew by for all of us.

Matheson and Annie racing down the slides

The girls enjoy the big chair

And now I’m off to jump in the lake! Hope you are enjoying your summer as much as Annie and I are.

Posted in Family | 1 Comment »

Finally Five

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Dear Annie,

Yesterday you asked how old you would be in three weeks. Five, I said. Awwwwww, you moaned, deeply disappointed. You just turned five! Where’s the rush??

You were very, very excited about the party, of course, asking for weeks how many sleeps until you are five. You wanted a costume party, which was fine with me…as long as we just invited girls. (Costumes mean indoors, boys mean outdoors.) The day before we finished the unicorn cupcakes, (cupcakes with ice-cream cones covered in melted white chocolate and sprinkles, filled with gummy bears over a cupcake–everything coloured a very healthy pink, of course) blew up balloons, and created the photo corner.

The next morning started with a surprise…a new costume and fairy wings from the Vancouver Samsons left at the foot of your bed to wake up to. I heard your squeals of delight and then you came down the stairs, hair a mess, dresses up like Lillifee.

We opened presents from the family on the bed. So many great gifts and beautiful cards.

After breakfast we finished getting ready for the party. I managed to get your hair brushed, but no luck on the tights or shoes.

The party went quite well, despite the unfortunate weather. The guest started arriving right on time, decked out in lots of pink and glitter and fairy wings.

The party got off to a good start with crafting. Some children started by making beaded bracelets, while other decorated their butterflies. (I had bought cardboard butterflies instead of goodie bags, and painted them all white–2 coats!) With oodles of stickers, gel markers and glitter glue, the guests had fun decorating them.

Since it rained the whole time, sadly, we set up an indoor picnic to have lunch and the cupcakes.

Games were next. I had really planned on at least an hour outside on the trampoline (all the girls brought other clothes), so I kind of ran out of indoor games. Luckily one of the mom’s helped me out with suggestions and we made it through the three hours.

The last 15 minutes I just put on some music for dancing. Always a good standby with this group.

Annie 5th Birthday Party from Hillary Samson on Vimeo.

As the guests were leaving the sun finally came out, so parents stood around chatting as their girls bounced a few times on the trampoline. You had a great time and there were almost no tears, so I’m calling it a success!

Last year I really struggled to think of you as four, but this year five seems about right. You have made such a huge leap in your independence, skills, and confidence the last few months, it seemed so strange to say that you were only 4 years old when people asked.

Five is already starting out with lots of adventures. We went for four days to a family hotel (blog post to come), you are starting to really enjoy your new roller blades, and your class sang a song about Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the year-end performance…and you were Goldilocks! So confident walking across the stage, being just where you were suppose to be the whole time. Amazing, my love.

This next year, like every year of your life so far, is sure to be full of lots of adventures and lots of changes. I look forward to every minute of it.

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Will You Be My Friend?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

She comes home from playgrounds, the swimming pool, face bright and excited. “I made three friends today.” It is her measure of a successful day.

We are at one of the adventure pools, about 45 minutes outside of town. It is late, after work, over the dinner hour, and there aren’t many children around. I am sitting in a lounge chair, watching her climb up, up, up the spiral staircase to the big loopy slide. I watch her shadow through the blue plastic until she swoops out into the shallow water at the end. She loves it.

I need a friend, she says to me. We walk to the baby pool full of tots, mostly younger than her. She walks up to a couple of girls, “Are you my friend” she says, although I know this more from experience than hearing, as I hang back to let her make her own way. She comes back into the main pool area. “No one is my friend.” Oh well, I say. Let’s go back to the slide.

She waits at the end until a couple of older children tumble out the mouth of the slide. She has to tilt her head way, way, up to look at them. “Do you want to be my friend?” The oldest one, maybe 14, gives me a confused look out of the corner of her eye and then waves her hand as she good-naturedly says the German equivalent of “come on.” The teenager looks pleased, the way an older cousin feels generous to include a little one in her play. I give them a smile and then pretend to read my book. The big ones leave after only a few minutes.

She stands by my lounger as a mom and two girls walk towards some near-by chairs. I tell her to wait just a minute, let them get settled. But they pack up their things up and walk towards the showers.

Now she has found someone more her age, maybe a year or two older. They jump into the big pool and I hurry to bring her a noodle, as we are letting her go without water wings. The two play for a while, but then her new friend moves over to other older girls, kids obviously known. She tags along, trying to show off her skills in riding the noodle, laughs too loud, saying look at me. I offer to swim with her, but she says no, wants to only play with the children. I see her follow the group over to the the indoor/outdoor pool, and my throat starts to tighten, tears come to my eyes. This girl is going to get her heart broken a thousand times, a thousand ways. I dread it but know it can’t be avoided.

The older girls swim under the plastic curtain to play in the outdoor pool with a ball, but it is cold out today, the water not heated enough because of the warm weather the day before. She hangs back, staying indoors.

I walk over, seeing her floating in the water, staring after the other girls. By the time I start to walk down the steps into the pool she turns around and comes to me, devastated. Her tears overflow and her face crumples. “No one wants to be my friend” she sobs. I know love. It’s just that they are older. It happens. I go to get Dad and they play together for a while. They walk back towards me and she still has red eyes, is sucking on a finger. And my girl who always looks so grown up to me these days seems tiny, fragile, hardly more than a toddler.

We go to the pool-side restaurant and let her order ice cream and french fries. I don’t know what to say or what the lesson is here. I was never like this, this fearless child whose adventures aren’t complete unless they are spent laughing with friends. I say, “some days you will meet lots of friends, some days none. That is just the way it is. Next time maybe we can bring a friend.” She nods, already feeling better from the treats.

We go back to the big slide. She pushes off first and then I follow her, chasing her and trying to catch up. We are laughing, our voices echoing in the covered tube. She waits for me at the bottom and we both have trouble catching our breath. One more time, I say, but that turns into three more trips until we are both shivering.

We shower and dry hair and head out to the car. She is awake most of the trip home, staring out the window as we wind through the mountains, falling asleep just at the end. Dad carries her in, tucks her into our bed, brings her water. Not much later I too am tired and lie down beside her. I stroke her hair, listen to her steady deep-sleep breathing, whisper in her ear how much I love her.

I never knew that being a parent meant going through the pain and heartache of childhood all over again. I thought I would be more of an observer, more of a shoulder to lean on, someone stronger who would always be there with words of wisdom. I was wrong.

Posted in Family | 3 Comments »

A Lovely Week

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

The last week and a bit has been really, well, nice. Not thrilling or exciting or eventful. (Actually, I’m kind of done with eventful for a while), but just lovely.

My birthday on the 20th was so sweet. Annie and Markus brought me coffee and presents in bed, singing me a rousing chorus of the Happy Birthday. I had a relaxing day at home, mostly crafting birthday and Mother’s Day cards. After Kindergarten I brought home a friend for Annie to play with. I actually made the play date last week, totally forgetting it was my birthday…clearly this is not a big event in my life anymore. But these days it is usually easier with 2 than 1, so it all worked out.

We then dropped Annie off for an overnight with Chloe (Margriet’s present to me) and Markus and I went out for one of the best dinner’s I’ve had in Innsbruck.

Heading out for a birthday dinner.

Markus was taking pictures of me so Annie, of course, had to do some posing on her own.

The restaurant is called Chez Nico, and the owner is a French chef living in Innsbruck with his Austrian wife. There are only 12 seats in the whole restaurant. About a year ago he changed his menu to be vegetarian. I’m usually up for a good vegetarian meal anyway, but this was seriously fantastic. I even got a bit drunk on the wine course pairings, which doesn’t happen often these days. A great meal, time with Markus and Annie, and many phone calls, cards, emails and Facebook posts from friends and family made it a special day.

On Saturday I took Annie up to a family meet-up with the Innsbruck expat group. I’m starting to really enjoy their company. Such interesting stories about how people ended up here! The Easter bunny showed up and there was a big egg hunt. They actually hide colored boiled eggs here, but Annie just finds them and then passes them along to someone else; she sticks to the chocolate and gummy bears as keepers. It was beautiful weather and a great way to start the Easter weekend.

Sunday was our Easter egg hunt, of course.

After the chocolate-eating fest we went for a long bike ride. Markus kept me to flat ground, which my knees and lungs appreciated. We sat on a restaurant patio and had a light lunch while Annie played in the playground.

Markus had to pop into the cafe on Monday for something, so brought home the chocolate egg a friend brought from Italy. Apparently, so Markus claims, this is standard fare for Italian kids.

Ridiculous! Thank goodness it wasn’t filled with anything. At least the chocolate is decent so we are all pitching in to finish it off before…I don’t know…next Easter?

Besides that we have been enjoying our yard and the sunny warm weather this last week.

Markus is crazy busy in May with a bunch of catering (thank goodness) and hopefully a hopping cafe (at least on sunny days), so this was very nice that we got to spend some longer periods of time together…eating lots and lots of chocolate.

Posted in Events, Family | 2 Comments »

Update

Friday, April 1st, 2011

The thing about taking an extended blogging vacation (no, not vacation…stress/laziness-related work stoppage?) is that when you start again you feel the need to fill the masses of readers (all 6 of you) in on what has been going on. So not to balk at convention, here we go.

A few months ago I started to really feel like I wanted to work more. One of those deep down feelings. Why I didn’t also realize what was coming is poor foresight, since after 40 years the one thing I know about myself for sure is that I am an amazing manifestor of work. Although this is in no way related to being able to manifest money (odd that), as soon as I think “more work”, “new job” or “I’m bored” something comes along. The last 2 years, despite verbally bemoaning my unemployed/work eligibility status, I didn’t have to dig very deep to realize that I actually wasn’t interested or ready to work due to a large and exhausting list of reasons.

So.

This time, when that thought passed my consciousness, I knew it was the real deal. Fast forward a few weeks. Friend Lesli offers me a retainer for 20 hours a month to be her business manager. Pug Pharm gets a few hundred thou in funding so I sign-up with them 60 hours a month to start. Another former boss and friend starts a business and needs her website written. Despite two previous rejections, a friend at Swarovski prompts me to send in my resume to the Director responsible for online communications, and I have an interview for an (on paper) well-matched position (more on that in a sec), plus two positions for English-speaking jobs at a local non-profit (SOS Kinderdorf) get sent to me. Whew! (Reminds me of a story I once read about a rainmaker who did his thing after several months of drought and down came a massive flood of water. He commented he could make it rain, but had no control over the volume.)

And I’m still doing some shopping, laundry and the occasional lunch shift at the cafe. All with Annie in Kindergarten 20 hours per week.

So what is the fall-out of all this? Firstly, I’m totally loving my contract work. Being involved with a new venture when it isn’t primarily your money at risk is fun. (Being involved in a new venture when your own money is at risk is stressful.)

I’ve also been thinking a lot about what it would look like if I worked full-time right now. In summary, it wouldn’t be pretty. Families with children here don’t have 2 full-time working parents (or one full-time working single parent) unless there is another family member to step in. (It is the 1950′s here in Austria, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.) So Annie would pretty much be the only child at Kindervilla (of about 100 children) to be there full-time. And believe me, she would notice. (The word “unfair” gets a lot of play these days.)

Plus the cafe is picking up again (a very good thing!), which means Markus is working a zillion hours a week. (A 12-hour day is a shortish day, with at least 2 or 3 long days of 17+ hours.) So Annie literally would have no parent around most of the week. The fact that my (overly judgmental) response to my friend telling me daycare in San Francisco was 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (to 10:00 p.m. and on Saturdays if pre-arranged) was “why bother having kids then?” does indicate that this doesn’t jive with my parenting belief system.

And don’t get me started on what happens once she goes to the first grade. School is over here for the day at 11:45. 11:45!!!!

Not to mention a full-time job would mean giving up my contracts, which as I mentioned, I’m loving.

So it was with this ambiguity that I got gussied up and went to the interview for Manager of Online Communications at the headquarters of the multi-national, multi-billion dollar, family-owned Swarovski empire. The job description was for a manager responsible for a team of four to work on the strategy and implementation for all online, mobile, and social networking communications. Very similar to my last job at AbeBooks plus some things I’m doing at Pug Pharm.

Ah assumptions. You would think in my middle-ageness I would have learned better. I sent my resume in English, the director answered me with an email in English, the admin assistant booked the meeting with me in English, the job posting (which was in German) stated that perfect written and spoken English was required…you don’t need to be a genius to see where this is going.

The incredibly hip, pleasant and obviously smart director gave long explanations of the position in his (thank goodness High) German, to which I had to concentrate so hard to follow that when he was done my brain was ready to explode so that I would give insightful and relevant comments like “interesting!” or “good idea!”. Blink, blink, stare, stare. I don’t know whether I’m more embarrassed for myself or my poor friend who actually recommended me.

That was just a few days ago, so I’m going to let that sit for a while before doing anything else on the work front. In the meantime, I sent out my first set of invoices for the contract work, which felt pretty good after two years of not financially contributing to the family.

In other news…as mentioned, the cafe is picking up. Yeah! The franchise owner helped Markus out with a spring patio-opening celebration where they handed out 5,000 tulips to near-by office workers and people on the street. See photos here. And since the weather has been lovely the last 10 days, people have been making good use of the outdoor seating. That plus a good run of catering events means sales in March are double what they were in January.

And Annie is, well, Annie…..

That’s a wrap for this update. Here’s hoping this is the restart to something more regular.

Posted in Events, Family, Learning German | 4 Comments »

It Had to Happen Sometime

Monday, February 7th, 2011

I’ve been so over growing Annie’s hair for a while now, but just hadn’t made the time to get it cut. And speaking of time…was it ever!

Friday was the day. I gave a nod to my alternative (flaky?) side and had it cut when the moon was waxing, and to my practical side by heading to the mall where cut, blow-dry and the cutest round-the-nape-of-the-neck braid was only €13.

Annie sat quietly smiling through the whole thing (because she isn’t, you know, two) and of course loved the results.

Before the event

Scraggly

Hair up....

...and cut!

Muuuuuuuch better

Likin' it

Yeah, I'm never going to be able to do that.

Oooooo

And dance!

Posted in Events, Family | 7 Comments »

Three Randoms

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

Annie wanted to make me breakfast this morning. I went back to bed and waited for her to come and get me. Blueberry yogurt, a spoon and a glass of water were laid out on the placemat.

Annie: I couldn’t reach the glasses because my arms are too little so I took one from the counter and washed it out.

Me: Resourceful!

**********

I have to figure out how to take a video of Annie skiing. (I’m usually skiing with her and don’t want to take our video camera on the slopes.) You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it. She is going smoothly around hairpin turns and flying over bumps with her hands in the air, laughing the whole time. And the school’s ski week isn’t until March. I thought I would have a couple of years until Annie was a better skier than me. Think again Mama.

**********

Another particularly funny Hillary-learning-German story to add to the list. I wanted to say to Markus’ parents that Annie is full-speed ahead from the moment her feet touch the floor. But for some reason I chose to say “when her toes are on the floor.” So what I actually said was “wenn ihre Zähne auf dem Boden sind,” which means “when her teeth are on the floor”. Kunk. Zähne, Zehen, same same.

Posted in Family, Learning German | 1 Comment »

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Friday, December 31st, 2010

So here is how Christmas played out in our part of the world…

Traditionally Christmas is celebrated here on the evening of the 24. Family gathers, eats usually a fairly simple meal, and then the Christmas Child (I haven’t quite got the whole story yet on who that is. Jesus? An angel?) comes and brings the children presents.

We decided to have the family dinner at the cafe, as it was easier for everyone. Markus closed at about 1:00 p.m. and then we went back a few hours later to set up and get ready.

Pretty Christmas table

Everyone arrived together: Markus father and step-mom, sister Suzi with her daughter Lili and two dogs, and Suzi’s grandmother. Markus’s dad made steak tartar, which amazingly I actually like (just have to pretend I’m not eating raw meat.) Markus also put out breads and spreads and Italian meats and everything was lovely.

Franz, Renata and Uhroma, (she is 93!)

Suzi and Lili

Uhroma and Diego

The Christmas Child brought Annie a Princess tent, a doll and beads. Perfect!

On Christmas morning Annie woke up to a present at the end of her bed that Santa left. A ballerina-pink sparkly dress was inside. That Santa sure knows Annie well!

Downstairs the wonder of gifts under the tree and stockings hung by the fire (really laying on the couch) brought hoped-for squeals of delight. I actually didn’t take too many pictures, as we were just enjoying opening gifts and being together. Also, when I was a child, present opening lasted literally hours, so there was loads of opportunity for photos. Here, with one child and few adult gifts, it was all over in 20 minutes. I did snap these two lovely shots though.

AND!! (I’m so excited) I turned on the video to catch Annie spinning in her dress. It is way too dark and grainy, BUT I unexpectedly captured that iconic childhood moment when Annie’s little brain is trying to figure out why there is more than one Santa. She is saying that she saw Santa at the Christmas Market and he had a different face from the one that came to her kindergarten, Kindervilla. (Then she says the whole thing again for Papa in German, as he clearly doesn’t speak English.)

Just check out her face as her brain tries to process the information when I say that maybe one is Santa’s helper. Hilarious!

There are 2 Santa Clauses!! from Hillary Samson on Vimeo.

Happy New Year to you all.

Posted in Events, Family | 3 Comments »

This Day Brought to You By the Letter “S”

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Sunday Markus, Annie and I went to Seefeld, a pretty recreational area about half and hour from Innsbruck.

The day was filled with skiing…

I'm in the white and Annie is ahead of me in the pink. (Click to enlarge.)

…sliding

…and sleeping.

Annie and I have had a run of particularly crappy days lately, so this awesome one was truly soul saving.

Posted in Family, Things to do in/near Innsbruck | 2 Comments »

Learning All the Tricks

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

We were at cousin Lili’s birthday dinner tonight. She had asked for a Friendship Book so we gave her one covered with horses, which are her current passion. All of the children share around Friendship Books here in Austria, writing about likes and dislikes and favourite things. It has been a tradition for decades.

It was a very nice, relaxing time with the family.We had a casual dinner of different fishes on toast, and Lili really liked her gift.

I also learned two interesting things about Annie. One is that she likes smoked salmon. This makes me very happy as, although high in sodium, it is very good for Omega-3 oils. More salmon means less trying to remember to add the flax to Annie’s cereal in the morning.

The other concerns a story I already told on this blog about how Annie pushed me out the door the night she slept over at Oma’s and Opa’s. I was a proud Mama, thinking how independent my girl was and how much she loved and wanted to play with her grandparents. So today I got the real story. The second that she had shuffled Markus and I out the door, she looked up at Opa with her big blue eyes and said, “May I have an ice-cream?” She knows I’m somewhat restrictive about sugar (compared to Austrian’s anyway, who must have the highest consumption of sweets in the world) and wasn’t going to risk asking this while I was in the room. That girl. It is going to be a fine line I will need to teach her to walk between getting what you want out of the world, which is a great thing, and manipulating the people around you. Not so great. I think I have some work ahead on this.

Posted in Family, NaBloPoMo | 2 Comments »

Across The Water