HAMMY AND WIFE: Mom and Jared come to visit!!

There was never a dull moment during mom and Jared's visit. I think the first photo sums up the theme of their visit... lots of fun! We were silly, ate lots of good food, and I introduced them to Vienna. One of my favorite things about their visit, was watching their reactions to all things Vienna...mouths open, yet speechless. We walked more than either one would have liked, though we did get to see almost all of the city in the 10 days they were here. Jared loved Vienna so much that he even changed his major to international studies ( I knew you would once you got out here!!).

We took a train ride alone the Danube River and visited a small town called Durnstein. This town is famous because Richard the Lionheart was held captive here 1192-1194 by Duke Leopold and was later set free by Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor. The castle and it's walls stand in ruins, as it was destroyed several times. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun romping around the ruins!

We thought this would be a fun picture...and it was, but...

I got stuck and mom had to help me up, so we are all laughing...at me...

Before we hopped on the train to head back, we had my favoritest soup in the world--pumpkin soup! It is a regional specialty and i love it! Well what we didn't know is that this was no ordinary soup. It turned out to be evil soup, because I had a terrible allergic reaction and within 1 hour, I was decorated with hives! It was definitely not my best look...and it was unpleasant.

Mom and I amuse ourselves by throwing up the peace sign when we take pictures together. We are waiting on our train back into Vienna, notice my skin is normal and not all rashy here!

Jared is decorating our super sized cupcakes. We had some extra batter over and decided to do the "ho-cake" version of cup cakes with the extra--still trying to think of a clever name though...

...apparently I'm super excited!

One day we ventured to Klosterneuberg, which is the largest private winery in Austria, and happens to be a monastery. They got to taste the most delicious apple juice in the world (not exaggerating!), and tour the monastery, which houses one of the most famous religious works in Austria. It is a large alter made of enamel and gold hat details 36 events from the old and new testaments...it is really really beautiful. I don't know the significance of the building behind Jared, but it made for a nice picture!

Mom is scared of ferris wheels, but she always rides them anyway. This ferris wheel has cups that spin, but mom was not interested in the spinning...even though Jared and I tried to convince her to let us...we failed.