Surprising Emma

When I was 14-years-old, my family took a trip to Europe.  We weren't rich by any means, but it  was important to my parents that we kids got to see a little of the world, and so we rented a cargo van with seats  and camped our way through 14 countries.  It rained almost every day and we were cold and wet most of the time, but it was a life-changing and unforgettable experience for all of us.

That trip instilled a burning within each of us to see more of the world and to experience foreign cultures.   My brother in the glasses and my sister in the pigtails, in the picture above,  have now been to more than 50 countries each.   The rest of us aren't quite that well-traveled (probably because we have a passel of kids between us), but we still daydream about traveling and occasionally find ways to make travel happen.   

When we went to Europe this past May, it was the culmination of a goal that Glen and I had set for ourselves when we were first married.   It was important to both of us and we really wanted our children to be able to experience a foreign culture before they left home.    We considered it a once-in-a-lifetime trip and did not even dream that in six months time, some of us would be back for another visit.   

Yes, Cami's on her mission in France and Emma's staying with my brother in England for a study abroad, but on October 27 Spencer, Adam, and I took off for Europe: Part 2!     This trip happened mostly because my sister, Kristina, was anxious for a trip before some busy new developments in her life make traveling impossible and no one in her family likes to travel.    She called me looking for a travel partner and was even willing to share her frequent flier miles with us to make it happen.  So we decided to make it Adam's 8th grade trip (a family tradition) and invite Spence to come along, since he hadn't been able to come with us in May.  

It all came together rather quickly (and we left only one day after we had returned from our trip to Utah), so I didn't have time to stress over this trip at all.   We met Kristina at the  Philadelphia airport.... 

and laughed at our matching rainbow of backpacks.    (this was all of our luggage!)

We flew through the night and arrived at our first destination of Lisbon, Portugal!

After arriving to Lisbon, we dropped off our luggage and headed to that big castle you see at the top of the hill there.

It's called Castelo de São Jorge (Saint George's Castle) and it marks the location of our big surprise of the trip!

In addition to boasting gorgeous views of Lisbon...

it also was the stopping place of my brother and his family on their fall break trip to Portugal, which meant that we got to MEET EMMA THERE!!!!!!   She knew nothing about our visit, so was completely surprised when showed up in the background of this picture!

This was her reaction after she realized we were there....

It was such a joy to see her and spend time with her again, especially because we got to be together for her sixteenth birthday, which was on Halloween.    

Stay tuned for more blogposts about our trip coming soon!  

Project du Jour

I like me a good project.   

I enjoy putting my heart into something and having some creative product at the end that didn't exist before.   Unfortunately, I don't often have the time I'd like to put into these kind of extra projects that almost always get in the way of daily life.  

So, when I found out that Cami's Christmas package had to be sent by mid-October, I got a little nervous that I would struggle to pull together meaningful gifts for her.   After all, it wasn't that long ago that I was shopping with her to buy all of her mission clothes and supplies.    And she is not the easiest person to shop for in the first place.   

Actually, though, it probably ended up to be better timing than I expected, since I didn't have the rest of the Christmas expectations to keep me distracted.    I bought a few things, but then got the idea to make her a day-by-day quote and photo calendar.  I had a very specific vision in my head of what it was supposed to look like and got very excited.    It took me many, many hours of work, but in the end, I am very happy with how it turned out.     I can't wait for her to open it and for us to be able to follow along with our calendars too.   There's something kind of exciting knowing that we will be turning the pages each day and seeing the same photo and reading the same quote.  

And since Cami can't look at my blog, here are some pictures of the finished product, which turned out every bit as cool as I wanted it to!  

Utah

What happens when you find a steal of a deal on tickets to Utah?    

You pack up and make it a mini-vacation!

Here's the recount of our trip, as I wrote to Cami and Emma in their most recent letters:  

We are having a great time here in Utah.  The weather has been exceedingly lovely.  The boys have been off fishing the last two days--Friday with Alex, Devin, Nicholas, and Daniel.   And Saturday with an old friend from Baltimore and his two boys.   Dad flies out today (on Sunday), so he can get back to work.    We leave on Tuesday.    

Here is the fish dinner that Adam prepared all by himself, so that he could finish up his Fishing Merit Badge.  

Today I took a break from the project I'm working on and went to SLC with Heather, Spence (who decided to skip fishing today), and Ellie.   We went to the Hogle Zoo, which was fun, but not near as cool as the National Zoo.   

We stopped by the SLC library, which ended up being a surprisingly awesome place.  

In addition to the beautiful building, it had very interesting displays.   We saw a copy of the Bible from the 1600's, an original folio of William Shakespeare, saw an "elephant size" Audubon book, and some amazing Shakespearean costumes.    We also randomly met a very interesting man from Lyon!   He was Native American, born on a reservation here in the US, adopted by the Catholic church and sent to Spain, then ended up in Lyon, and is now in the US.   He speaks 22 languages and knew absolutely nothing about missions, so I got to tell him a little about what you're doing there.  

Finally we went to "The Pie" for dinner.  The pizza wasn't quite as good as The Brick Oven, but the atmosphere was cool (except for the U of U decor everywhere).   

 Here are some random pictures from our trip....

And now we're off on our next adventure....

Happy Birthday, Adam!

It was Adam's 14th birthday last week!   

Celebrations included:    

Crepe breakfast made by Glen

Lasagna made by me

Breadsticks made by AnnaLisa

Carrot cake made by Ellie

And he got his one and only request as his gift....

a cool drone.    

And a dollar from Tim. 

 

Random facts about Adam:  

1.  He's grown A LOT the last year and is looking like he might end up the tallest one in our family.

2. Math and science are his favorite subjects

3.  Writing is his least favorite

4.  He loves taking things apart 

5. Most people would be surprised to know that he's actually quite talkative

6. He is very good at strategy games

7.   He wears a size 11 shoe now

8.  He loves to figure out how things work

9.   He makes a deliciously mean panini

10. He loves birds and all things nature

11.  He forgets his toothbrush more often than not when we go on vacations.    

12.  He loves to ponder the "what ifs" in life.     

13.  He willingly does all his own laundry and actually gets annoyed if I try to do any for him without his permission

14. He is the cookie making expert in our family! 

We love you, Adam!   

Happy birthday! 

Five Things

With the new school year in full swing now, life has felt a little crazier than ever.    We always have a gazillion thing going on, but here are five things that have been taking up more of my time than usual.  

1.  Cami's Christmas package!     It was due to the mission home on November 7, so I sent it off on October 15th to give it plenty of time to get there.   It was a crazy shift of mindset for me  to buy Christmas presents this early and pulling it all together really has sucked up a lot of my "extra" time lately.   

2.   The weather has been exceedingly lovely lately, which means we are trying to spend every moment we can outside!   

3.   I recently learned that I will not be released from my calling anytime soon, so I have spent the last few weeks re-immersing myself back into  the swing of things.   I was a little emotional at first realizing that my time as YW president is not yet finished after four full years, but I've  had some pretty amazing experiences the last couple of weeks that have really confirmed to me that I am right where I'm supposed to be and that, apparently, we still have a work to do with the amazing young women in our ward.  

This food was for a family history night that we had at our house, where the youth found over 100 names to take to the temple.   

4.   I am finding that supporting TWO kids,  that are far away from home, is a little more time consuming than I expected.    I try to write them a letter and a couple of emails each week, which is basically the reason why I haven't been blogging much recently.    Writing to them has redirected the energy that I would normally give to blogging and put it into letter writing instead.    I miss these girls! 

5.  I'm trying really hard to exercise and eat better.  After my little bout with pancreatitis this summer, I decided that I really needed to acknowledge that I'm not as young as I used to be and I need to be a lot more careful.  I've been eating a fairly low-fat diet and trying to up my exercise threshold.  I had been doing well and feeling a lot better, but I've been struggling more with the eating lately.   I am committed to stay on top of it though, because pancreatitis (and the requisite fasting for four full days) was not something I'd like to repeat.