The family with the turkey dinner
IAEA Ball in February
The Easter bunny visits Emily & Becky
Last year we spent Christmas and New Year at home and enjoyed the usual holiday turkey
with all the trimmings, including Marian's Grandmother's famous bread rolls. In early February, we attended the IAEA Ball in the Hofburg Royal Palace in Vienna. If you look closely, you will
see our Director General, Mohammed El Baradei, in the top left corner in the background. Also in February, John represented the IAEA staff at a conference in Copenhagen. After that, we took
our usual one week ski trip - this year to Bad Hofgastein. In April, the Easter bunny brought lots of chocolate to our house.
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The family with the turkey dinner |
IAEA Ball in February |
The Easter bunny visits Emily & Becky |
In April, the Junior Choir of the Vienna International School
held its annual Spring Concert and Emily announced one of the songs.
In May, John went to England to visit his parents for a long weekend and came back
with a bad attack of his trigeminal neuralgia. This attack turned into a major
incident and lasted for most of the rest of the year resulting in 40 working days
lost to sick leave which was the worst year so far for him since this chronic
illness started. In June and July, we spent two weeks in the town of Chamonix, in the
mountains near the French/Swiss/Italian borders. We took a train up the mountain
and visited the glacier.
Emily introduces a song |
The view from the balcony of our apartment |
The famous glacier above Chamonix |
Marian travelled quite a lot this year for her work - Sweden in August and
England in October. John held down the fort at home while she was away.
We had the usual round of family birthdays in September (we are all born in
September, even the cat!). The cat was 5, Becky was 10, Emily was 12,
and Marian was 50 (but don't tell anyone!). John's sister's family sent Marian
a beautiful flower arrangement.
Emily's birthday cake |
Becky about to blow out the candles |
Beautiful flowers for Marian from the Kimbers |
In September, Becky joined the Junior Choir and was one of the announcers at the Junior Choir
Fun Fest in October. Becky enjoys music and is very good at sports, playing soccer with some of
the boys in her class at lunch time. Emily is now in Secondary School and has her own locker -
a major event in her life. She is enjoying learning Spanish and math very much. Believe it or
not it snowed at the end of October and the girls were able to build snow people
in the back garden.
Becky and her 2 best friends (Jani & Lauren) |
Becky announcing the song in German |
Snow in October! |
Marian visited her sisters and their families in Southern California at Thanksgiving. She had
a wonderful time with them cooking and playing music and just hanging out. She would have liked
to have stayed longer. Still functioning on European time, she made use of being awake at 3 in
the morning by scanning in most of the photos from the family albums while everyone else was still sleeping. Otherwise, she stayed up pretty late every night and generally didn't get as much sleep as everyone else, but that was okay. She plans to edit the photos, burn the collection onto CDs and send them out to other interested family members. If you are interested
in the photos, please let Marian know. While in California, Marian learned a new hobby from her
sister Kate - bead crochet - and has taught it to Emily and Becky. They all love this hobby and
have been busy making many colorful bracelets in the last few weeks.
Marian and her sisters |
The finished product - a bracelet (made by Becky) |
Becky |
| The Russells |
Home phone +43-2215-3178
|
| Propst Wittola-Strasse 28a |
Mobile +43-664-415-4225 or +43-664-526-1837
|
| 2301 Probstdorf |
Work +43-1-2600-22934 or +43-1-2600-26289
|
| Austria |
e-mail john@russell.at or
marian@russell.at
|
| Europe |
