David and Lisa's "Get Away Plan" or "The Italian Job"

ROME. We took a mid-morning flight from Warsaw to Rome. After checking into a Bed and Breakfast near Vatican City, we made our way, between rain showers, to meet up with our travel buddies--David's brother Tom and Pam. his fiance. We met at the courtyard in front of St Peters Basilica   (PiaS.Pietro)  We enjoyed a delicious dinner and scenic view of Vatican City while fine tuning David's "The Italian Job," itinerary. Even though we had several skype sessions and emails with Pam and Tom for planning, there were still details to discuss, like how we were going to see Rome the next day. Arriving a day and a half after Pam and Tom, Lisa realized there was much we would miss that they had already seen by the time we got there. (should've watched Roman Holiday for research beforehand)

Massimo, our Vatican tour-guide, was about 6'6". While other guides raised their hands holding flags, flowers or various items for tour-groups to follow, ours said in his very Italian accent, "I don'ta need a daisy or a suna flower." Pam must've quoted him  dozens of times during the trip--we got such a kick out his (and her) humor! Here in the Vatican Museum he poses. Which nose is more stately? His Italian or the Greek? Do you nose? 

 We spent our first full morning and early afternoon in the Vatican Cilty. We were very impressed with the artwork and architecture of all the facillities. The Sistine Chapel was much larger than we anticipated. We wish we had more to share on it and St Peter's Basilica. We were not able to take pictures. We learned a lot about the art froms used at the time. The frescos completed by Michelangelo were incredible. Lisa decided to read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" as it chronicles his life and struggles with the Pope and others to complete some of these great works.

We made it to the colleseum just in time to choose between waiting in line about 45-minutes for tickets or join a tour-group for 20 euros each to by-pass the lines. Ching, Ching. After a morning seeing the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica, we opted for another tour-group lead me, guide me, show me, tell me...anything but lines please. We zipped via metro subway from Vatican City to the Colosseum in 20 minutes. Not the way Pam and Tom suggested we tour, but hey we had to see Rome in a day! Plus we still haven't had a gelato!

David in the Coloseum

Inside the Colosseum was impressive.  The advanced engineering principles of the time were seen in much of the workmanship.  The structure would most likely be still in tact were it not for the systematic demolition that took place under the direction of several popes to salvage the stone and bricks for the building of the Vatican and other buildings in the city.  The demolition was stopped under the declartion that it should serve as a memorial to the Christians that were slain here.  Current data suggests that the stories of Christian's being fed to the lions is probably more fiction than fact.


Lisa in front of the Arch of Constantine.  No tour-guide here, just a quick picture and off to our third tour. 

Looking down from from one of the seven hills of Rome towards the remains of the Roman Forum.

                                                                                                      

We were so impressed with the all that we could see and learn from our third tour-group leader for the day.  Now as we review the pictures, a week and a half later, it may be best to google Roman Forum for factual information!  Note to self: next trip pack a tape recorder.

We loved the views, the tours, and thanks to pre-trip workouts our feet weren't sore yet.  Not bad for our first full day in Italy.  But we had to wait for Venice to taste gelato! 

The Great Flood - The Wisula at it's Worst

The beautiful flowers and lush surroundings of Lazienki Park came as a result of a wet spring.  This has been a winter and spring of record snow and rain.  The saturated land and heavy snow pack have combined with unprecedented rainfall to produce the biggest floods in over 100 years in Poland.  Poland is influenced by a few major river systems that drain into the main river artery, the Wisula.  The river runs from the southern boarder and empties into the Baltic Sea in Gdansk.  No City along its course has escaped the effects of its high water.  Thousands have been evacuated and the Poles have pulled together to fill sand bags and help each other out. (No Pun intended) 

Two of the adjacent pictures were taken from a bridge near our apartment in New Town in Warsaw.   The water level on the bridge piers is up about 3 to 4 meters from normal height.

We live well above the river and, it appears that for Warsaw, only the low-lying suburbs have been affected. We are happy to see that the majority of Varsavians have not been impacted.  However, many of the smaller cities have been significantly affected.

A walk through the city this afternoon found many visitors and residents enjoying the warm spring day.  On our drive home from Church earlier this afternoon we were pelted with grape sized hail balls.  Ten minutes later the sky had cleared inviting all to come our and risk another exchange with Mother Nature.  We accepted the challenge and found ourselves with hundreds of others enjoying a relaxing afternoon with the cool freshness that a spring storm brings.  

The sidewalk cafes and shops on our street were filled with families and young people standing in lines to enjoy Poland's delicious lody (ice-cream)  I will put it up against any ice cream we have found anywhere in the world .  So far it is at the top.   Tomorrow we head to Italy to enjoy the sights and flavors that are famous to that region.  However, we have become very fond and proud of our Eastern European home in Warsaw with all of its customs, quirks and color.  Rome's offering will have to be over the top to topple our current favorite.                                                                 

Even before the movie "NIGHT at the MUSEUM," Warsaw made it into real life experiences for Poles.  This year on May 15 all museums and art Galleries in Poland were staffed and opened all night (or at least until 3:00 a.m. we heard from one teen) so in this way we celebrated David's birthday (along with watching Robin Hood at a nearby theater with Polish subtitles. An easy BD present from Lisa as David likes R.C. movies)  People came out in droves and made it quite the evening.  Old Town with its numerous museums and gallaries was filled with people who were enjoying the social novelty offered for free to all those willing to venture out at the late hour.  It is really a neat event.  We took a couple pictures which didn't turn out too well, so we snapped these during daylight.                                          

 Lisa is standing in front of Madame Curie's museum which, "chronicles the life and work of Madame Marie Curie, a Polish chemist and physicist, winner of  two Nobel Prizes and pioneer in the study of Radioactivity."    We learned this online, because the film is in Polish!  It is about 4 or 5 blocks from our apartment.  It was packed to the brim during the Night at the Museum.

David is in front of the entrance to the Old Town guard towers that resemble those that once stood as a main entry to the gated and walled city.  A door that we pass by frequently, but didn't realize contained a museum about the walls, had a long line which we joined to tour the passage-way where we could see out the tiny windows shown in the picture. That night "if these walls could talk" seemed to tell the story from old drawings and maps of what previous walls looked like.

As we finished our walk we passed a few areas near our home that speak to the charm that is Europe.  Lisa is standing in a narrow street that is sometimes referred to as Hostel Alley.  It has two youth hostels that invite the young back-packers that migrate throughout Europe in all seasons.  Every high school graduate's dream, footloose with a backpack traveling to the major cities of Europe. 

The final photo is of our favorite little gathering place.  It is New Town Square in Warsaw.  It is just a few blocks from were we live.  In previous blogs you can see this square in the different seasons.  My favorite photo is the Winter scene.  However, the serenity of this Springtime setting is a close second.  We love the restaurants that surround this peaceful part of Warsaw.

Saturday in the Park

May 8th was a somewhat warm Saturday, which made this the nicest day for a stroll in our favorite--Lazienki Park. Missing the Spring flowering trees of North Carolina, this was the closest we've seen in Warsaw. People said to wait until the end of April to see flowering trees, but we may have waited a bit too long, as one young sister missionary said there were Magnolia trees. Hard too believe they could thrive in the cold climate of Poland.

Still there were some beautiful trees last week. Monday morning we had sloneczna pogoda (sunny weather) and I ventured to the mall wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt. But by afternoon it was pochmurna (cloudy) with some rain. The rest of the week weather was similar and I didn't leave home without a jacket and an umbrella that turned out to come in handy several days

The picture above was actually taken a couple weeks before.

Announcements from America!

A couple Announcements from Across the Pond:




Lauren and Aaron were excited to find out yesterday (we called first thing this morning as there is a 9-hour time difference) that she's expecting a......drumroll please......

BABY BOY!

   CONGRATULATIONS Lauren and Aaron who will become parents with the birth of this baby boy around September 17.  And of course for us that means we will BECOME GRANDPARENTS!!!!  We are so excited that they will be starting to raise a family and are residing near where we lived in Portland, Oregon!  Of course we will be returning for the birth of our GRANDSON and will enjoy many visits to the Great Northwest in the future! They are thinking of naming him Logan David--getting Lauren's Dad's name in there--isn't that sweet! 

Also, by way of announcements, our daughter Lindsay who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been much......

ENGAGED with/to Diego!!!  (last names eliminated for privacy purposes since this isn't a private blog)  Diego is also a student at UNC Charlotte. They both love student teaching, Lindsay in art at Ardrey Kell, and Diego in Engineering at the University.  Diego is a convert who was baptized last fall and they are looking forward to a December wedding in the Columbia, South Carolina Temple.  Speaking of Colombia, that's where Diego is from, and he and Lindsay will visit his family in Bogata this summer!

Needless to say, we have lots going on in the states with our kids these days giving us exciting things to plan for when we visit more frequently the second half of the year!   We're happy for our children as they celebrate their recent news!!!

Happy 30th Wedding Anniversary, David!

 On April 19, 1980, at 11:00 a.m. in the Salt Lake Temple we were Married!!!!

Hey, it’s 12:04 on April 19, 2010 and David and I have been married for 30 years!!!  That’s 10,950 days!  Impossible to count the numbers for things like how many movies we’ve seen, dinners we’ve cooked together, etc., but since 30 seems like such a momentous number and we’ve had some extraordinary experiences, I’ll try to name a few…say 30 things we’ve done together, many with our children, because out of those 30 years we’ve spent 27 of them with them. So here are a few memories of adventures we’ve had:

1.  Going on a bike ride before having children while living in King Henry Apartments, thinking after buying bikes for ourselves that life just doesn’t get much better than this.

2. Being the first couple in my family to buy a king-size waterbed and convincing a few sisters and husbands that waterbeds were wonderful so they bought them as well.  (Then being the first couple to get rid of ours!)

3. Buying a pop-up tent and taking our four little ones camping.  For some unexplained reason I got the reputation for being a non-camper (I admit I didn’t like the moldy smell of our used pop-up but was thrilled to support everyone else on their campouts!) oh and I did carry a vomiting child to the bathroom in the middle of a cold, dark night!

4. Taking our four children on a steep hike down a trail to Crater Lake because I wanted to touch the lake and then taking turns carrying Lindsay and Adrienne back up afterwards.

5. One hot, summer day when our kids were bored you built a rope slide in our backyard in Springfield, Oregon, and for several hours you assisted our kids and lots of their friends in “flying” across our backyard.

6. The time we took our kids cross-country skiing and skied about 500 yards where we stopped so you could set up our gas stove and heat chili and cocoa.  More important than trying to master staying up while skiing down hill was being the envy of other athletes who wished they had come so prepared.

7. Documenting our children’s lives with a video-camera in which you managed to capture sweet memories of our children laughing, playing, singing and showing off just a little bit for the camera.

8. The many planning sessions we had for Family Home Evening when we discussed options, planned and adjusted our schedule as we weekly updated our much anticipated East Coast Trip the summer of 2001.  So many laughs were shared as important moments such as, “Tonight we need to decide if we want to go to Philadelphia or Gettysburg.” The reply, Philadelphia, so you said “well I think we ought to go to Gettysburg, which was recommended by …”  By trip end we were Civil War buffs, Nate continued to chant, “Dad, look at that gun!” (a comment he heard in the Smithsonian that stuck), renting the two Buicks because it was “cheaper” than a van, Mom getting lost with Neverlost’s help in NYC, seeing some wonderful Church history sites and visiting friends at the highest roller-coaster in the world at the time amusement park, and learning that you really shouldn’t go on roller-coasters!

9. Being present at the most wonderful moments of my life--welcoming our babies!  With Lauren—“she has her eyes open already,” After  Nate, “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to go get something to eat.” With Lindsay I grabbed your ears and said, “stop making me hyperventilate, breath with me!” and after Adrienne, “what does our mailman look like?”

10.  Snorkling with our kids in Lanikai, where we swam with the flora and fauna many a quick morning or afternoon, the real reason we were willing to pay a huge mortgage to live in Paradise.  

11. Demonstrating a love of animals with heroic deeds such as once picking up a large turtle that was caught in tide pool in Maui and trying to resuscitate Magellan (our one-year-old cat) who unexpectedly had a stoke waking us one night.

12. Hiking up Teotihuacán with our kids and my parents and running with the Bulls in San Miguel DaJende (okay, that last one I didn’t know about until after the fact.) 

13. Discovering, while picking up pies for Thanksgiving dinner, that David has been more than occasionally pausing on the Food Network and proved he’s quite the gourmet finishing the dishes I started with delicious and artistic flair!  Forever after sharing in kitchen cooking for large, and often small, events!

14. Taking Adrienne on the Father/Son campout along with Nate as a reward for being potty-trained.  Ok, I wasn’t on that campout but after the difficult time we had in reaching that milestone, I needed the reward as well!

15. Working a deal with your employer to help ease the pain of having an empty-nest by accepting a job in Poland where we get twice weekly Polish lessons, and lots of time spent on adventures like deciding last-minute to go on an overnight trip and after deciding we’d had enough aggressive driving on country roads turning around and going home—we’re flexible like that!

16. Driving to the Outer Banks several times to make sure each of our children gets a chance to see Lighthouses and where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first flights. 

17. Going to Myrtle Beach with a couple kids who wanted to see the ocean then spending most of the time playing miniature golf because the beach was boring. 

18. Getting Mothers Days off to a great start with the ritual of playing the recording of our little kids singing “Mother Dear I Love You So,” and then working hard to make sure I had a day off. 

19.  Making your famous chocolate pancakes.  Famous after I sent in your recipe for a special Valentine’s Day feature in the Longview, Washington newspaper and they sent a photographer and reporter to our house who wrote a story about how I knew mornings would be wonderful once we were married after you kicked your roommates out one morning shortly after we got engaged so you could impress me—which it did!

20.  More than a few Saturday mornings going out for breakfast at Boots and Kimo  in Kailua for banana pancakes even Jack Johnson would wait in line for.

21.  With your fluent Spanish and adventurous nature you hired our own tour guides to take us on a snorkeling tour off the coast of Puerto Viarta for a catered boat trip!  No large tour group crowds for us—and cheaper rates too!

22.  Setting up a tent to “camp out” in the back yard and showing up in our bed after the kids were soundly asleep.

23. Remodeling our kitchen, then a bathroom, then building two fences, another kitchen and even installing a kitty-door to name a few handy-man projects.

24. Making many a birthday special by continuing the tradition of making artichokes for my birthday along with a few other delights like steak or shrimp cocktail.

25. Teaching each of our children to drive a car, because that was YOUR job.

26.  Singing with Lindsay and Adrienne in their teens and above years on road trips. 

27.  Watching many a chick flick such as “Titanic” just to spend time with me, not to mention, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Anne of Green Gables!” 

28. Sharing your Papa Son story and “I Comma Zimba Zimba Ziya, song at many a campout with family or scouts.

29.  Joyfully serving as a bishop twice, even though knowing the second time what kind of sacrifice would be required.

30.   Believing what you said with these and perhaps other “Davidisms,”  “you love those you serve and you serve those you love,”  “do hard things,” and “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

A Presidential Tragedy

Yesterday morning we were shocked at the news as we started our day. Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed along with his wife, several top military officials, and the head of the national bank when their plane crashed near Smoleńsk. There were 96 on board including many prominent polish leaders. As you probably have heard, there were no survivors.

Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski took over as acting president . The Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the country would hold two minutes of silence at midday today for the victims. Russia has declared Monday as a day of mourning.

Kaczynski had been traveling with the Polish delegation to Russia for the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers in Katyn during World War II. Kaczynski had been President since December 2005. Elections must now be held within 60 days. There is going to be a huge gap in public leadership in Poland. Needless to say, this will be a difficult week for the country as it sorts through this tragedy

Lisa and I ventured out down the street to join with thousands of Poles that came together to an evening mass at their local churches. We live close to some of the most historic churches in all of Poland. The one shown in the photo is famous for a number of reasons. To name one, it is the site for the signing of their new constitution.

We stopped briefly (we could not pass) and listened to a sermon and choir music.

A Warsaw Easter with Watering Day

We woke up to church bells ringing, fireworks and cannons (really?) on Easter morning at 6 a.m! All weekend long we've noticed an increase of pedestrians trailing past our apartment to the ancient churches in Nowe Miasto and Stare Miasto.

Since it was General Conference for us LDS folks all over the world we could've slept in (the first session, recorded from Saturday, began at 2:00 p.m.) but there were things for Lisa to prepare in the kitchen: potato casserole for 40 and a recent favorite tradition--morning glory muffins. Without muffin tins, they were "muffies," tasting just as good.

No longer kids' Easter baskets to fill, Lisa filled chocolate eclairs and cream puffs (baked the night before) instead and then hauled in one large white basket (purchased on our shopping spree Friday just for the occasion) to church on Sunday to enjoy with a few members (45-50.) Not bad for our first Easter being just a couple again!

David was warned that grocery stores are closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday in celebration in this predominantly Catholic country, so we "celebrated" Frantic Friday making sure that we had purchased enough ham, whipping cream, potatoes and treats for Sunday Dinner.

Our friends the Hardings (missionary couple) were in complete agreement that a last-minute thrown together pot luck at the church would be better than trying to squeeze a traditional Easter Feast in between conference sessions. The missionaries were especially grateful to have a few favorites--ham, funeral potatoes and some Easter candies. Also, the "inner bunny" in me enjoyed packing some Easter candies in the bottom of the basket to surprise those still eager for treats after finishing off the baked goods.

We lounged for hours Monday morning in a post carbohydrate coma, choosing to watch The Titanic movie, before heading out to capture these pictures. Hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend as well!

From wikipedia we learned that post-Easter festivities involved a week-long secular celebration, but this was reduced to one day in the19th century. Poland, celebrates Watering Day also called Easter Monday.

Since David (as well as many employees) had the day off, we set off Monday afternoon with the camera to capture this Polish holiday. It is celebrated, "dousing other people with water which traditionally had been blessed with holy water the day before at Easter Sunday Mass and carried home to bless the house and food." We only saw a couple people chasing each other with spray guns, but we saw lots of people carrying ice cream cones. With malls closed, many folks strolled in and out of churches and in lines for ice cream.

Much like April Fools for us, people play jokes "watering" others when they least expect it. We were warned by the security guard on our way out the door Monday afternoon, to watch for water being sprayed. The only spray we had during our walk and metro/tram ride was from "heaven water," as Piotr put it when we arrived home slightly wet, but invigorated, from the exercise.

Not only did we benefit from physical exercise, but from exercising our faith we feel we have been and can continue to be showered with heavenly living water!