Last week Kati had a week off of school and we took advantage of the time as a family.  We were able to enjoy some sights outside of Vienna which we hardly get time to do.  I think it is always good to continue to learn as much as we can about Austria in order to help us live and minister more effectively.

I have posted some random pictures of the kids and some cool places we visited.  One day we met up with some good friends, the Perrys, and Dawn made a comment that struck me.  She said something like, “Isn’t it amazing that this town and the buildings we see are older than the United States.”  It really puts things into perspective as to how long of a tradition people have been building upon.

One day we went to Enns, the oldest recognized city in Austria April 22nd 1212! I found the old part of the city rather facinating because in most towns we visit the center of town is a church and in this case it was not but the city tower.  There was a church on the other side of town but the main part seemed to be the tower and city hall.

Last Saturday we decided to take advantage of this cool deal and go to the Zoom kids museum.  We signed up to learn about everything that flys.  To our great surprise kids and adults were free.  We enjoyed our time.

The displays were really well done and everything was kid friendly.  There were coustumes to try on not just the ones in the picture album but costumes to do with airplanes, pilots uniforms, air controllers (the guys who direct the airplane once on the ground), etc…

There was a flight simulator, a paper airplane section where we could make different paper airplanes and see how far they could go, a hot air balloon, a place to draw/trace different insects or flying machines and many more cool things to see, touch and try.

We all agreed it was a fun time.  Kati’s favorite (and mine) was the paper airplanes.

By the way, please keep the information about our family being “Super” just between us.  If our identities got out our lives would never be the same.

Last Friday I felt like we were part of prime time sitcom.  So many things happened it was almost too funny to be true.

For starters early in the morning Elena woke up crying for no apparent reason and had to be held a bit before she went back to sleep (Being a deep sleeper Christy told me this in the morning).

We woke up to a house that didn’t have heat.  Our boiler stopped working in the night which was why Elena cried she was too cold.

We called the maintenance man and he told us the water pressure was o and we needed to just fill it, well since we grew up in America and haven’t been exposed to their type of boilers we didn’t know how to do this and their is no instruction booklet to be found so he said he would stop by before noon.

I, Eric, had planned to get rid of our old refrigerator which decided to stop keeping things cool about 3 months after we lugged it up three flights of stair.  My long-time friend came over to take it to the recycling depot.

Not 20 minuets after my return from the recycling depot I was in the living room getting ready to do some office work when I heard Christy calling from the kitchen, “Eric”    “Eric”    “ERIC”.

I walked to the kitchen and Christy looked at me with wide eyes and pointed to our kitchen wall cabinets and said, “it’s moving toward me”.  And sure enough it was.  Thursday night Christy said she noticed a few pieces of small plaster and dust falling when she was using the kitchen machine.  But today she saw the whole cabinet lurch toward her.

I got on the counter to and to my horror saw that the anchors which held the (two) bolts for each cabinet were almost completely out of the wall.  We quickly took all our dishes, glasses and mugs out and went to work taking the cabinets completely down.

Fortunately, all that was needed was to put larger anchors and larger screws in the same position as the old ones.  Now they are back up and actually look good.  We realize that they were never really in even when we moved in!

Oh, yeah and Kati was really sick too, did I mention that.  Christy just got back taking her to the doctor and found out that she has a really bad case of bronchiticus.

Now that I type it all out it doesn’t seem that crazy but on Friday it felt like one thing after the other was happening to us.

Oh yeah the maintenance man did come, a little after noon oh about 4 ish if I remember correctly.  I am sure glad I didn’t try to find a place to fill it with water because he hooked up a hose from our bathroom and filled the water directly to one of our heaters (not through the boiler).  We have heat now and Elena is sleeping comfortably.

Just thought I’d share a slice of our life with you today.

Again for those readers who like the bottom line up front:  We applied for a “first time” visa this morning and as far as we can tell we most likely made it into four of the 60 open slots.

For those who want some more details continue to read.

My day, Eric, started at 4:45am.  The Visa office opens at 8 and we wanted to be there early because to make sure we were at the front of the line. 

The first thing I did was look out the window to see if there was a lot of snow on the road to see if getting downtown would be difficult.  I saw no snow and was relieved.  Then I quick checked the thermometer knowing that we had a little over 2 hours of waiting in line outside before the doors opened. It was -2 Celcius which is 28 Degrees Fahrenheit and knew it could be much worse.

We had some Austrian friends agree to watch the girls while we went to apply.  Fortunately, they are early risers and didn’t mind the early hours. We dropped off the girls and arrived in line around 5:55am.

When we got there there were about 10 others ahead of us in line.  One had spend the night, another arrived at 2am another at 4am!  Our stomachs tightened and our stress level rose when we saw others cutting in front and were informed by the person in front of us that some people were being represented by a lawyer and the the lawyers had multiple cases.  The cases could “cut in” to be by the lawyer.  We were wondering just how many people would be in front of us.  When 8 o’clock arrived and went in we were 19 in line and made us feel much better knowing that even if the 19 in front of us had families we would be within the 60 available spots for a private visa that we need.  We also knew that not everyone in line was applying for the same type of visa as we were.  

Once we waited about a half an hour our number was called. After explaining to them our situation, the visa official agreed it was easiest to start over from scratch and reapply for the correct visa status.  We had thought this would be the case and I had already prepared all of our documents with this in mind, so we turned them in and by 10:15 we were on our way. 

They said that since our visas are in process, we do not need to leave the country even though our visa expires tomorrow.  They provided us with a paper that says we are in process of obtaining our visa and we would only need to show this in case there is any question. We were so relived not having to think or plan a short trip out of the country this week.

We’ll just wait for a letter and we’ll see if we have to jump through more hoops for getting our visas again. We even had friendly visa officials, which is amazing since this is probably their craziest day of the year. One official I spoke with today says they will process about 1,000 applications today!

Okay probably more information that you had wanted but there it is. Thanks to those who have been praying for us.  We did get close enough to the front of the line that I think we don’t have to worry about not being in the running for the 60 open spaces. Please continue to pray they will process our applications quickly and that we will be granted our visas.

For those who like the bottom line up front here it is.  On Monday January 4th 2010 Christy and I will be applying for our (first time) visa.  This means we are starting all over and need to receive a different type of visa for which there are only 60 places each year.

For those who are interested in the visit and a few clarifications continue reading.

Our good friends, the Perrys, had Kati and Elena sleep over so Christy and I could go to the visa office alone to talk with the government worker which was a big help. 

Fortunately, we were one of the first ones in that day and the official was in a good mood, he actually smiled a few times.  He informed us that there was nothing to do but reapply for a first time visa on January 4th.

Our current visa runs out on January 5th and told him we don’t want to be left out in the cold with no visa.  He said that the best thing to do was talk with the first time visa office on Monday the 4th.   We reiterated that we want to do the right things and are already settled here with an apartment, work and Kati in school and wanted to find a good solution to this predicament.  He smiled and said there is always a solution.

So the adventure continues on Monday morning.  Christy and I will be standing in line long before the visa office opens to, hopefully, ensure an early place in line for the few visa places for our particualr visa status we need.

Communication is always tricky in that the communicator thinks they are communicating clearly until someone gives feedback on what they understand. My sister asked a very good question about what does this mean for us…what if we don’t have all the documents by Monday….will we be kicked out of the country……

No we will not be kicked out of the country but it does put some added stress to our lives and jumping through hoops to provide all the necessary documentation, time in gathering the documents, waiting for appointments etc…  It has been our experience that since there are only 60 spots each year we need to apply on the very first day the visa office is open so our application is one of the first to be processed in order to “secure” a position before the spots get filled up.  On previous years we have had people apply on the 15th of  January and all the spots have already been filled.  This would mean that we would have tourist visas that would last only 3 months and would need to leave the EU in order to “renew” our status.

So we will keep you in the loop as things progress.  Your continued prayers are appreciated, that we would be in the 60 that would receive visas this years, that they would process our applications quickly and that we (and the Austrian government) would find a good solution for our status in the country after Jan. 5th.  Pray that they would provide something that we would not be on a tourist visa but a special visa that would cover us until we receive our perminant visa.

First of all our landlord has been  negligent for the past 3 years on some major repairs.  In the winter our windows let in so much air we can blow a candle out!  And more disconcerting is whenever it rains heavily our basement leaks.  We do feel fortunate because our other 3 neighbors say their basements flood every time and that they get water in their first floor rooms as well, ours has not gotten to that point (yet).  We thought it is better to move when we don’t have to and in a few years it would get to that.

Second, Kati starts first grade and will be going to a bilingual school.  Right now the commute one-way would be about 40 min. I know some people do that and don’t think about anything but we would have to walk about 10 min to a bus stop and transfer to a street car.  At our new apartment the commute one-way is around 20 min. and the street car is about a five min walk.

A few added bonuses is that a major bus stop is at our front door and there is a good route to the BAO/EVAK office downtown.  I am also getting more invovled with Greater Europe Mission Austria and will be eaiser to reach via public transportation.

Anyway, it is a really good thing.  We have been slowly moving since returning from our GEM conference and will rent a truck next week to move the larger pieces of furnature.  Now I remember why the last time we moved I said “Never again”.  Moving is a lot of work.  I am just glad that we are really looking forward to our new place and it almost makes moving worth it.  Almost.

We were able to capture Kati sledding down a hill in our neighborhood.  We took this on a digital camera and apparently it does not record any sound so it looks almost like an old fashion movie.

Elena was also bundled up but didn’t seem as impressed with the snow as Kati.

Kati Sledding from Eric McCauley on Vimeo.

Tags: family

Yes, I am on facebook. Christy introduced it to me and I fought it for the longest time not wanting to waste my time.  And yes, it can be a waste of time.  I know some people who spend hours and hours on it texting, uploading so many photos, playing games etc…  I thought it might be a good way to reconnect with those who are interested. Not that I am really chatty on it.  I basically punch in what I am doing on a particular day and that is that.  Sometimes I don’t go on it for days.  Like one time I posted that I was reading a book to Kati and it was there for 4 days!

Yesterday, I was minding my own buisness trying to get some thank you notes written when Christy came to me and said have you checked your inbox on your facebook account.  “No” I replied.  “Well you had better take a look right now!”  “Why” “Just do it Okay there is someone you want to see”  So I opened it up and was amazed.  Now I do know that it IS called the WORLD WIDE web, but really struck me at that moment.

Back in 1993-94 I spent a year in Stavropol Russia with the CoMission teaching teachers how to use school curriculum of Morals and Ethics based on the Bible.  I was part of a team of 12. It was one of the hardest years of my life and one of the best years of my life.  Anyway, as I opened up the Facebook Inbox I was reading a note from one of our translators from my time in Russia.  Since then I have been finding others from my team on facebook.

I am finding rather fun remembering them and times we had together and wondering what are they up to now.  I am sure I will be finding out more about them and they me in the coming weeks.

It also causes me to stop and think.  How did have I grown since I have last seen them?  How did I come off to others way back then, I turned 21 while there and was pretty young.  Okay, enough facebook and blogging back to thank you note writing.

Have a good weekend.

Tags: family

This week Kati’s kindergarten had a visitor, Nikolaus.

Ttraditionally children here would put out a boot between Dec. 5th and Dec. 6th and St. Nikolaus would put small change to the ones who were well behaved.  Kati had fun and I am not sure if she thinks he is real or not.  We have talked about Santa Clause and she knows he is not real but St. Nikolaus isn’t Santa Clause and St. Nikolaus did come to her kindergarten……

Picasa-Webalben – Elisabeth – Nikolaus im Kindergarten 2008_12_03

Tags: Family, Culture

Soren Anders McCauley was born on October 28th. Weighing in at 7 lbs & 2 oz and was 20 inches.

We are rejoycing with my brother Andrew and his wife Kristi with their first child!

It is kinda fun to see the little cap he is wearing because it was the same one that the Hospital in MN provided when Elena was born.

We can’t wait till the next time we are back in the states to see Soren and get to hold him.

Tags: Family