The Life of H{e}arts: Some serious life lemons...

At this point I should be sitting my tanned bottom in front of this computer writing really A-hole-ish things about how wonderful Formentera is and how everyone in the world should drop everything they are doing right now and go there.

But alas...my white legs are crossed in front of me thinking about the sporadic shit storm that has been the last week or so of my life.

I know that I made a reference to the "life handing you lemons" thing last week, so in light of that, I will start with the shitty business...


That's right Fonzie. Thumbs WAY down to the following...

Pre-vacation illness: We all get it. It is like our body winds down to the point of death any time we even think about holidays. And our fam has not been very well these past few weeks anyway. I got a killer sinus infection, baby was up and down with fever, hubby generally cold-ish since March. But nothing. NOTHING. was stopping us from getting on that plane. Except....

Italian Airport Workers Strike: Yep. Thank you baggage handlers and airport staff of Bologna airport. The plague was not going to stop the Harts from taking their FIRST beach vacation EVER...but you certainly did. All flights grounded for 4 hours from 10 am on Friday. When was our flight due to leave you ask??? 10:10. Cancelled. No flights until Sunday.

Missing our friends' wedding: No need for explanation, it just plain old sucks. But we did receieve a rather interesting picture of the bride sitting on the toilet in her wedding gown...personally I would have preferred the paella, but that is what we got.

Full blown ear infections: My child is satan when she is ill.

Broken water pipes: And here is the kicker. We don't know whether it is in A) the super difficult place under the terrace that would require tearing up a chunk of the tile or B) the super difficult place that would require tearing up our steps or C) any other place that would require tearing apart the garden that we have spent over a year working on which prompted the need of the beach vacation that we did not get...

So that is my vent.

Those things can all get bent along with all the other general shittiness that happens day to day around here.

But it is important to realise that even though we have rough times, we are very lucky in so many other ways. Things may not ever be perfect, but we have perfection that is around us in many other forms...

I agree Chuck Norris. Thumbs up for the good things in life...

Making Lemonade: Life handed us a ginormous lemon and we made some seriously good lemonade. Where do you go when you have been defeated by Italians? That magical place where everything is clean, organised, and people queue up for things....AUSTRIA. Bless you Austria. You made me feel like a new woman. Even though the vacation was not without its little problems, we had an amazingly lovely time.

Family Hotels: This being our very first family vacation, we somehow managed to find ourselves in the best best best family run hotel in all of Austria...if not Europe. The owners of Flair Hotel am Worthersee were the most accomodating and helpful couple. Having three boys they understand what a family hotel really needs. And choosing the half-board option was wonderful. Martina is an AMAZING cook. Laurent is an AMAZING host. I seriously cannot sing the praises of this place enough. I recommend this place to anyone with kids or even without...the setting is lovely....

Dinner on the terrace

Beer. Beer. Beer.

Brand new hotel pool...

Yay for swimming!


Playground for little ones!


And this view...LOVELY.

Petting zoos: Yay for animals (not caged as in a zoo...), they make a grumpy 19 month old happy any day of the week!

The amazing Worthersee and city of Velden: Ten minutes into town from the hotel. Bike paths clearly marked and cars which stop at zebra crossings?! Immaculate playgrounds. Ducks to feed. Fountains to splash in. Takeaway noodles and sushi in the park. Seriously. Heaven.