The perfect spot for a vacation with small children - I found it!

Hey there,

Getting back into the habit of blogging - or at least trying to...
I promised to share pics from my last vacation, but I didn't want to turn this post into some kind of pic spam, so I'll share some of the details :-)

Anyway - if you're a family with small kid, you know my trouble. Where shall you go for vacation? Here are some of the things you want to avoid:
1). Long air travel. I don't know about you, but most people seam to hate long plane rides with screaming toddlers. Our kids are great travel companions, so long rides in the car/on a plane are fine, but they might not work for everyone
2). Very hot climate. I like sun (don't we all?) but only in moderation. I can't stand it when the temperature gets over 30°C in summer (for all you Americans that would be the high 80s/low 90s) and we get that here in Vienna. My kids don't like the heat either - and I hate having to worry about puting on sunscreen for just 10 minutes outside.
3). Exotic immunisations. Big No-No for me - my kids always react to immunisations, even all the normal ones. I don't want to test them on some of the more exotic stuff.
4). Nothing to do for kids. Not a big worry, to be honest - we're good at finding things for our kids to enjoy, but it doesn't hurt to figure that one in...

And here are the things you'll probably want for a vacation with kids:
1). low cost. I don't care how much money you're making, but I'd much rather be able to add a week of vacation time than live expensively...
2). room to roam. My kids need it to be happy
3). safety. I'm not safety crazy (as some americans seem to be :-D), but I still don't want my kids to drown, fall from great heights or suffer any kind of serious injury
4). cooking my own meals once in a while. My kids are picky eaters (or at least, my son is) and I know what they'll eat. I love going out for dinner, but not HAVING to go out is great - especially if it starts raining..

After going to a farm last year (absolutely awesome!), we wanted to see the sea again. We live in Austria, so we know we would have to leave the country, but where? there are a couple of options here: the mediteranean (italy, turkey or greece), the altantic ocean (france, spain or england) or the north sea. italy is pretty close (good) but hot and crowded with tourists - as are greece, turkey and spain. France would be cool, but none of us speek french and getting along in france with english or german - good luck! England is very expensive, so we decided to go to germany. We picked Cuxhaven as our destination. We've been there before and loved it. Renting a vacation apartment allowed us to stay there longer, have guests and cook our own meals. I highly recomend it!

So, what makes Cuxhaven so special?The sea is very shallow there. At low tide, the water goes wayyy back - about 20km (16 miles) and you get to play and walk around on the ocean floor. Our kids where allowed to roam freely - and they enjoyed it! There were not that many people around, and that was quite a big bonus for us! Twice a day the sea is acually there - way too shallow to swim, but perfect to sit there and soak while the kids play with mud and water. There is a great public pool - its a seawater pool with waves - great! with a childrens play area, and we went there frequently :-)

Weatherwise, we've been unlucky. It should be 20°C-24°C at that time of year, but we happened to get there in the middle of a heatwave and had a couple of days with more than 30°C. Better than almost anywhere else in europe, though...

So for us, I've found a perfect vacation spot. This will not hinder us from going other places (disneyworld for example...) but hey, if you're somewhere close, try it! Also, buying fish is insanely cheap there!

What do You want from a great vacation? Where did you spend yours? I'd love to hear from you, and if you blog about it, leave me a comment so I can come read about it!

In other news - sadly, I STILL have not opened my HC shop yet. But I'm getting there! Promise!

Hugs
Vee

Just a very quick hello

I just wanted to say that I still exist :-D I'm busy working on a big bunch of dolls - and now both my kids are sick :-(

Hugs
Vee

Hallo und herzlich wilkommen

*this is my german welcome post - if you don't speak german, feel free to ignore it :-)*
Hallo und herzlich wilkommen auf meinem blog!
Eigendlich ist meine Muttersprache ja deutsch und ich lebe in wien - aber mein blog ist im Großen und Ganzen englisch, weil doch mehr meiner Leser englisch sprechen als Deutsch. Auf dieser seite findet Ihr LINKS zu meinen deutschen posts in diesem blog, HIER ist eine deutsche "über mich" seite und die kommentare sind der beste platz um fragen zu stellen, wenn Ihr welche habt.
Liebe Grüße
Vee

EDIT:
Da mein Blog jetzt im Großen und Ganzen zweisprachig ist, ist diese Seite überflüssig geworden. Wenn es etwas gibt, das Ihr nur auf englisch gefunden habt, lasst es mich bitte wissen - ich helfe gern!

Back from vacation...

...and really, really busy :-)

current to do list:

-finish the blog makeover (make all links work)
- open my hc store
- make my HC grand opening stars
- re-size my product pictures so they will work on hc
- finish the big bunch of dolls that are sitting here
- etc

Anyway, our vacation was great - photos comming soon!

Vee

...under construction!

There will be some design changes coming soon - if links don't work, don't worry, I'm fixing them :-)

...and that's who I am!

Hello there,

I thought I'd introduce myself properlyto all the new readers I hope to get and re-introduce myself to my regular readers. My real name is Sarah, but I have been going by the name Veelana for so long, it feels weird to type Sarah - I very rarely use it online at all. I live in Vienna, Austria (nope, we don't have kangaroos here - its the small country next to germany) in an appartment, that has beesn lovingly filled with lots of geeky clutter and stuff, with my husband and our adorable two kids Lilith and Dorian.

I am a SAHM (stay at home mom) right now - Dorian has started Kindergarden last september and I'm glad I have the chance tostay home with and for them at the moment. The state of austria currently pays me for staying with my daughter (austrians have wayyy too little babies - and the government is trying to change that by throwing money our way), and I will continue to receive that money until she is 2 1/2 years old. I have decided that I want to make enough money by selling my dolls by that time so I can continue to stay with them.

What else can I tell you? I'm a total nerd when it comes to entertainment - I love reading Science Fiction (all time favourite author: Robert Heinlein) and Fantasy books (current favourites are Dave Duncan, Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin), I'll read whatever comes my way... My husband and son are big Star Wars fans, we play Pen and Paper Roleplaying games and a LOT of board games.

I went to a waldorf school for the first eight years of my school career, and while Ididn't like
most of the underlying philosophy (Anthroposophy) and some of the teaching methods didn't really work for me, I absolutely loved the arts and craft education I got there. I have been making window stars or suncatchers since I was about 7 years old - my first doll I made at 12. I never stopped with the paper crafts, but I only re-discovered dollmaking recently, when I decided that my little daughter just needed zu have a handmade doll.

I met my husband almost 15 years ago - on a Star Wars/Trek convention. We lived 560 km apart, I was a Trekkie and he was (and still is) a die hard Star Wars fan. It could never work...
...well, it did - and I moved to vienna as soon as I was finished with school and started university there. And now I've been here for over 10 years...

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Hello there,

its so hot here that the computers are turned off all day - I'll try to blog tonight when the kids are asleep. I'm going to talk about my personal experience with waldorf schools sometime soon.

Vee

And now for something completely different...

A couple of weeks ago we had a visitor from the US staying with us in Vienna - a red meeple! Hw has already seen a lot of Asia before he came to us, and here is a post my husband composed for the BoardGameGeek Forum:

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Here is the account of Red Meeple´s visit to Vienna.

The trip from Israel seems to have been quite eventful. Still in Jerusalem he tried to pull a Mc Gyver maneuver and to escape from his envelope. The security specialists put him into a plastic envelope (like magneto´s prison) that kept him in place.

He arrived a day after RftG:BoW and was able to witness our first few tries.

The next day he came with me to a game of Imperial.

Here Red is checking out his current whereabouts. The next day he was always looking for the yellow cannon.

Next day he took my family out for some sight seeing. Here he is looking at the 1000+ years old Saint Stephens cathedral that marks the center of Vienna.

Next we walked to the Hofburg. It used to be the imperial residence but since now Austria joined this current democracy fad our newly re-elected president has his offices in there.

Betweedn Red and the Hofburg is a Fiaker. One of a hundred horse carriages that scam tourists out of their foreign money.

Next we showed him the museum of natural history. Right next is an exact copy of that building that contains the museum of fine arts. But red wanted to see the darwin exhibit showing some of his ancestors...

In this picture we caught Red trying to chat up empress Maria Theresia.

Here he´s checking out her behind...

Red, meet blue in the Museumsquartier. This used to be the stables for the imperial court. Today there are some 15 museums in that spot. And this fall some blue meeples will visit here.

Next, we took the subway to the local amusement park, the Prater. Located a little outside of the city center next to a huge park with hundreds of attractions. Red immediately went for the biggest of them all the giant ferris wheel.

We went aboard the Riesenrad and looked at all the other carts. Red told us about the first time he saw the movie The Third Man with Orson Welles.

Wow, Vienna even has a skyline. In the area of those big buildings the Spielefest is held in November. A gaming fair with some 60000 visitors. Sadly, red won´t be that long in Vienna. We went home that evening and had a nice dinner of Wiener Schnitzel. Not the hot dogs but rather breaded pork chops.

One more day. This day we tried to remind red of where he is from. In the morning, we went to a baseball game. The home team won 20 to 1.

Next, we went to an original american diner. He was very surprised that people smoked there and that there was no coleslaw with his burger, but at least the milkshake was fine.

In the evening, we went to an evening of gaming. This game of Brass was the last thing he saw of Vienna before he was put into a special padded envelope for criminally insane meeples and off he went to
Netherlands.

We kept him so busy, that we heard him snoring from the mailbox.

Here he is with his best friend in Austria.

Bon voyage little guy!

The doll no little girl can resist!

Hello there,
glad you found your way here :-)
We had a "rest and relaxation" weekend here - and boy did I need it! I went to visit my friend Anja on friday - they had some things to organize and do some shopping to do that they couldn't take their kids along to (a set of swings for their garden - a surprise and big enough to need the whole car). So I took my two kids to their apartment and together with Anjas three little daughters I had five kids to watch. Lea is almost seven, but the rest are all 4 and under...

I actually managed to get some sewing done. I don't have a sewing machine, so I either have to sew my dolls by hand (a pain in the butt - especially when it comes to doll clothing) or sew at her place. I have to say that I think I used the time pretty well. The kids where not too bad, just very loud - my head hurt badly when I came home...

Anyway, what has all that to do with dolls, you may ask? well, I had four girls there to ask about dolls - two of them old enough to actually have an opinion about dolls, and they where begging me to make them dolls like this :-)

This little princess is 12" tall (30cm), has 4 different kinds of yarn in her hair and bright blue eyes. Her dress took a long time to make, thats why she costs a bit more than the other dolls her size...

Also new in my shop today - a pink little bunting baby and a friendly 12" boy. you can go see them in my etsy shop!

And just in case you where wondering - yes, Anjas girls will get dolls like that. For Christmas :-D Please don't tell them :-)

The first bunch has arrived!

I am very happy to announce that the first three dolls are now for sale in my etsy store! The first two are pretty tall, 16" each, made from cotton jersey, with soft bodies and waldorf style heads.

The red headed little boy has brown eyes and freckles and wears a pair of jeans and a simple shirt. I absolutely loved doing his hair - the yarn was so much fun to crochet! Please click on the pictures to view them in full resolution - my monitor shows weird patterns on the dolls skin, but in full resolution mode they are gone, so please go and take a look.

The little girl has almost mysterious green eyes and black hair with blue and teal highlights - I love the way it looks! Her hair is not fully styleable, but her shortish hair can be styled a little bit and if any strands of hair come loose, you can always tuck them back into her blue headband.

The third doll is a tiny baby with closed eyes. It has no body as such, just a bunting made from very soft cotton velour. Its hat has a knot for teething babies to chew on, so it can be a perfect first companion for a baby - or a great present for an expecting mom. If you want one in a different color, just tell me - I'll see what I can do!

And on a more personal front, if you are wondering why I'm blogging on mothers day: my husband has taken the kids outside (I think they are going to a childrens museum) so I can have some mommy-me-time. And what do I do? Work. *sigh* I'll go play sims 3 now - my husband got me a new graphics card for my computer for mothers day :-D We're such nerds...

So please - enjoy your mothers day, check out anita renfroe's mom song on youtube and get a little present if you order anything from my store today. Just tell me your favourite part from the mom song :-)

Keep creatin'
Vee