Some of Prague

We went to Prague, Czech Republic from October 13th to the 15th.  It was such a neat experience. As soon as we stepped off the train we realized that Prague was unlike any other European city we had visited.  It was a third world country, reminding me to some extent of my mission to Brasil.  Poverty was commonplace and smokers were everywhere.  When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.  We stayed in a cheaper motel... it was really the only place on our whole trip that I was unsatisfied with.  Our tour guide did a fantastic job getting us good deals, but I would have gladly pain a bit more for a better place in Prague.  Even though the motel was supposed to be smoke-free, people would sit directly outside of our rooms and smoke!  Sometimes until 2-3 in the morning.  Again, I have nothing against smokers, but as a non-smoker, it was awful to be surrounded by smoke 24-7.  We saw many teenagers, some looking only 12 or 13 smoking.  

The shopping in Prague was incredible.  I really don't enjoy shopping, but it was so much fun to go around Prague and go into all the little shops.  We came back with some marionettes and crystal.  It was great fun to watch the marionette shop owners make their marionettes come to life.  

Prague was also a neat city to visit because in World War II it suffered considerably less damage than many other large European cities.  The city center is completely intact.  The city has approximately 1.3 million people.  I loved the diversity here.  Prague is definitely a city I would visit again!

MaeLynn

Some of you may remember my post last summer about my dear friend MaeLynn. She was diagnosed in June 2009 with terminal cancer. Things got pretty bad this last July. When I went to visit her, I was sure she was going to pass away any day. But amazingly, she pulled through.

This past weekend I went over to MaeLynn's home to stay with her kids while she and her husband went to dinner and spent the night in a hotel. It was so much fun for me and my girls to spend time with her five children. It also made me wonder how my own mother was able to handle 7 children! We had a great time and MaeLynn and Andy were able to have a nice break away from the kids.

Andy called me this morning at about 7 to tell me that MaeLynn passed away earlier that morning. She was surrounded by her husband and children. MaeLynn has been a great friend to me for about 10 years. She had so many friends and loved ones. My heart aches and yet I am happy for her. Her suffering is finished and now she can be at peace. Thank you for your lasting example and friendship. I love you, MaeLynn!

Left to Right: MaeLynn (pregnant with her twins), Sarah,

me (pregnant with Haili), Courtney, and Laura.

Cute kids

Haili and Kevin playing with playdough.

Little Laurie still has size 3 feet (infants). She's two and a half. I just love it when she walks around in those princess dress-up shoes... It's amazing she can even walk in those things!

Laurie also loves to wear necklaces and pretty dresses.

Let it snow... in our attic???

A little over a month ago, I saw this on our bedroom ceiling:

Not good. I called Kevin so he could tell me what to do! He told me to saw through the sheetrock. There was obviously a leak and we needed to drain it... ummm... me? Cut through the ceiling? OK.

So that's what I did. It was pretty painful. I think knowing that Kevin could fix whatever I did made it somewhat more bearable. After I cut through the sheetrock, a steady drip of water came down for about an hour. When Kevin got home, he headed up to the attic to figure out what was going on. This is what he found:

See that pile on the center right of the picture? Yes, that's snow!

Kevin filled THREE buckets with snow. Apparently during the blizzard we had in November (yes, it was a blizzard here!) the vents on our roof were defective and created a vacuum, sucking in all the snow. Since the temperatures had warmed up a bit, the snow had started to melt. Our builder replaced the vents and so far, no more unwanted snow.

One of our favorite Christmas Eve traditions is making gingerbread (or graham cracker) houses. We had my brother and his wife over as well.

Laurie preferred to eat her candy! What's the point of using the candy as a decoration?

My brother's house was pretty creative. He created a bunker with little army men.

I love my Haili. She decorated her house completely on her own. Her home was the "potty" gingerbread house. It was filled with potties. :)

I love this picture!

We also enacted the nativity. Kevin was Joseph.

Laurie was the angel. She recited her line perfectly, "Jesus is born!"

Haili was Mary. She stayed in character until she went to bed!

Hope you all had a crazy, fun, and memorable holiday!

Some of Dresden

Dresden, Germany was a neat place to visit. What I loved about this city is that there were hardly any foreign tourists. We ran into one other American while we were there. There were other tourists, of course... but they were German tourists! We knew we were in an awesome city if it is where Germans want to vacation.

If I could go back in time to prepare for our trip, I would definitely learn more German. I knew the basics - Hello, how are you, yes, no, etc. I think it definitely would have been helpful to have taken an online course or gone through a textbook or something. And I would have definitely taken a German-English dictionary! We had to get creative often times to communicate! The phrase I wish I would have known prior to arriving in Germany was, "Where is the nearest bathroom?" Public restrooms are quite the rarity in Europe. And free public restrooms were pretty much non-existent!

New Year's Resolution!

Hey everyone! It's been a while. I really don't have any good excuses for not posting very often this past year. There has been so much happening. Perhaps it's a bit overwhelming to try to document everything on the blog. However, I realize that I need to be better. My New Year's Resolution is to update this blog once a week. I can't promise amazing, thought-filled entries. But I will update weekly.

I realize that my last post promised pictures from our trip to Europe. We had such an amazing time. The hardest part of it all was leaving the girls for two weeks. We had only ever left Laurie with anyone overnight once since she was born (over 2 years ago!). She stayed with Kevin's sister, who is a nurse. Her husband is also a paramedic/fireman. It was a great fit! The trip was very healing for me. My life has been so absorbed in taking care of my two girls... Laurie in particular. It was great to have a break. It was so good to see the world and to have a breath of fresh air.

It may take several posts to document our trip. Here are some photos from our stay in England...

London, England LDS Temple

White Cliffs at Beachy Head - EXTREMELY scary for me - since I'm afraid of heights (but only when standing near the edge of a 530 foot cliff)! Terrifying. Especially when Kevin looked over the edge...

Me with a very big rock at Avebury

How in the world did they get all those HUGE stones out in the middle of no where???

This is the definition of Avebury as defined by sacredsites.com:

Ninety miles west of London and twenty miles north of Stonehenge stands Avebury, the largest known stone ring in the world. Older than the more famous Stonehenge, and for many visitors far more spectacular, the multiple rings of Avebury are cloaked with mysteries which archaeologists have only begun to unravel.

Similar to Stonehenge and many other megalithic monuments in the British Isles, Avebury is a composite construction that was added to and altered during several periods. As the site currently exists, the great circle consists of a grass-covered, chalk-stone bank that is 1,396 feet in diameter (427 meters) and 20 feet high (6 meters) with a deep inner ditch having four entrances at the cardinal compass points. Just inside the ditch, which was clearly not used for defensive purposes, lies a grand circle of massive and irregular sarsen stones enclosing approximately 28 acres of land. This circle, originally composed of at least 98 stones but now having only 27, itself encloses two smaller stone circles. The two inner circles were probably constructed first, around 2600 BC, while the large outer ring and earthwork dates from 2500 BC. The northern circle is 320 feet in diameter and originally had twenty-seven stones of which only four remain standing today; the southern circle is 340 feet across and once contained twenty-nine stones, of which only five remain standing.

More to come soon!

Ready or not... here we come!

I'm sorry for the delay in blog posts... Things have been rather busy around here! The biggest news is Kevin and I are headed to Europe on Thursday. We are traveling with Kevin's parents and will be visiting England, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. This trip has been a year in the making and we are incredibly excited! Well... I'm nervous and excited. Nervous to leave my girls. Excited to travel. Laurie will be staying with Kevin's sister, who is a nurse and Haili will be staying with our awesome friend, Diana. If I can just get over my anxiety with leaving the girls, I think I'll be able to have an enjoyable time! My sister-in-law's grandpa is a European tour guide. He made up our itinerary based on what we wanted to do and see and he'll actually be traveling with us. We are visiting 3 LDS Temples and seeing some Church history sites. We are also visiting some extended family in Switzerland. My mother-in-law is a photographer, so we are also focusing on landscapes and beautiful scenery. My next post will hopefully be full of fun pictures and stories from our traveling adventures!