August Travels



More photos here.

Labels: historical landmarks, photos, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 3:03 PM |

 
Photos from Ohio

Labels: family, photos, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 9:33 PM |

 
Home Again, Home Again (Jigetty Jog)
Wow, is Daniel a fan of Uncle Todd. We've all missed him, but Daniel's just plain devoted. Daniel's starting to form sentences ("I see cat!") and I'm pretty sure he even put a question together the day we left home (though I can't for the life of me remember it), but his pronunciation is age-appropriate, which is to say, not especially intelligible. Hopefully I've finally learned what "shasher" means now (Daniel gets very frustrated when he's telling me he wants to take his fork to the dishwasher and instead of releasing him from the high chair, I sit there like a fool saying, "What?"). Todd's name, though oft-repeated, does not start with a "T" sound (not out of Daniel's mouth, anyway!) I can't tell whether he's saying "Codd" or "Godd", but it's not quite right!

We ended up staying at a hotel for part of our visit, owing to the size of my family, and so when we arrived at my parents' house Sunday morning, my parents and Todd passed us in the driveway on their way to Sunday School. We got out of the car and went into the house, Daniel asking hopefully, "Codd?" After I had explained to him that Uncle Todd had gone to church and we'd see him there, he constructed a classic baby sentence: "See Godd church." :) When we came into the sanctuary, Todd was sitting with my parents and Daniel went up to their pew and hesitated just a second (he's been very shy recently) before proceeding to cling to Uncle Todd for the first half of the worship service. It was very sweet! The older boys did really well, too, having been not especially disruptive rght up until Communion, when Paul decided to take them out for a walk (we're not LCMS-approved, at least not yet). Daniel slept on my chest the second half of the service. It was little short of a miracle, how smoothly that all went!

We had a great time at the playground Saturday morning with some high school classmates of mine and their families as well. It was really nice catching up with Jen & Rita and meeting their small folks! We even had decent weather for playing outside (though Paul thought it necessary to buy a warm hat and gloves- he's clearly been living in the South too long to survive in his native habitat!)

Labels: boys, family, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 8:46 PM |

 
Travels and Stuff
We traveled to Ohio this past weekend to visit with my sister and her fiance, go shopping for her wedding gown and the bridal party gowns, sing "Happy birthday" to my dad, and visit the McKinley Museum and Memorial. We had a very pleasant trip, apart from the inevitable coughing (is winter over yet??)

On the drive up, Isaac said, "Oh wook at duh BEAUTIFUWW MOUNTAINS!" often enough that it was clear he was impressed. He also had to be coaxed out of the car for lunch, because he really wanted to eat lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's, which was still a good 4-5 hours away.

(Thank goodness we're still smarter than our 3-year-old. When slick explanations of how a stromboli is really Greek if it has feta cheese and black olives are no longer good enough, we may be in for some serious battles...)

Daniel was feeling less than tip-top, but the sleep in the car seemed to do him significant good. Jay continues to be excited most of the time, and can now read many, if not most, of the words posted around, which naturally adds to his natural exuberance. Meantime, he and Isaac like to quiz me on things like, "What rhymes with 'diaper pail'?" (sniper trail, in case you're wondering), "What do blue and green and yellow make?", and (the game consuming the better part of the first hour of our return trip) "How many syllables does 'trucks' have?"

We had to bring Daniel's two favorites on our trip: a soft cube with Eric Carle illustrations from "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" that recites six pages from the book (they fudged from the purple cat back to the brown bear) and makes animal sounds, and "I Touch", which he got at his last check-up. It's a simple, simple book, and he LOVES it. Daniel really is at an age where he's enjoying most books now. He likes to turn the pages. He is also a child with his own mind. Baby tantrums all the time... so far, he hasn't knocked out anyone's teeth with the back of his head. Let's pray we continue NOT to have a first time for that...

I don't think this is especially coherent, but I'm tired, and I'm not going to fix it! I'm actually also doing a little paying work tonight- we just can't seem to catch a break on that front. I know, I really should not complain- job security, after all!!

Labels: boys, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 10:08 PM |

 
Now THAT'S What I Call a Vacation Rental

Labels: trains, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 8:54 PM |

 
Been There, Done That
We returned Tuesday night from our trip to Ohio. The boys, Uncle Todd and I went to Grandpa & Grandma G's while Paul stayed home and worked. Grandpa and Grandma B were gracious enough to spare us the additional travel to Michigan (which snow threatened to disrupt) by driving down on Easter Sunday. A good time was had by all, and my whole side of the family made it out to meet Daniel. Grandma G took us shopping and got the big boys their adorable Easter outfits (in photo below) and some fancy flashing Lightning McQueen shirts, among other things.

Jay found out that even sitting on the floor and calling the cat won't work if you're three and call the cat "Smelly" [He was trying to follow my instructions which went something like, "Sit on the floor and say, 'Come smell me'" There were a lot of repetitions of "Come, Smelly" whenever Pedro and Jay were in the same room].

Daniel got to sample a bunch of different holders and changers, but didn't express a special preference (though Aunt Mindy's holding him in the smiley photo below).

Isaac had a good time reacquainting himself with everyone. Aunt Jan has toddler magic, and he warmed up pretty quickly to the grandparents. Isaac and Cousin Beka ran a race (the four-year old was a few laps up on Isaac at the race's end). Uncle Ehren still has some work to do, though ;)

Labels: baby talk, boys, cats, family, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 7:58 PM |

 
Wish I Were a Poet
Driving in to work this morning, I saw a low wall of clouds that looked remarkably like a long blue mountain ridge. It reminded me of the time we spent recently in the Blue Ridge valley, which made me sad I don't get there more, but happy that I could pretend to be there, driving towards the mountains. *Sigh* If I were a poet, I'm sure I could concoct some beautiful stanzas on that subject, but I don't even attempt country lyrics anymore. So if there is a bard out there, looking for inspiration, feel free to contact me for details ;)

Labels: mountains, Travel, Virginia

- posted by Lenise @ 9:48 PM |

 
Kids, We're Not in Kansas Anymore
While we were in Lexington, we had the quintessential Lexington experience. I was working on getting the boys out of the van, parked in the parking lot below/behind Lee Chapel, when a youngish fellow got out of his car and asked me in a genteel drawl, "Excuse me, could you tell me which building the General's buried in?"

I confess to a moment of self-doubt [not, to be sure, about which general], "In a building?", but only for a split second. As any good W&L alumna knows, "the General" is buried in the Lee family vault in the basement of the chapel. I so directed the traveler, and we went our separate ways.

Labels: Travel, W and L

- posted by Gary @ 9:26 PM |

 
Home, Safe and Sound
Our trip was about as uneventful as a trip to Ukraine sandwiched between a North Carolina-Ohio round trip can be. We left here on Thursday after my ultrasound, which was fine though uninformative, as we (I) opted to leave the baby's sex a surprise. Friday evening, we celebrated Jay's third birthday with the vast majority of my side of the family. Unfortunately, Todd was stuck in North Carolina.

Saturday afternoon, we celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary with a churchload of their friends and extended family. It was a very nice time, and Isaac even managed to get a nap in the midst of it, thanks to his father's patient ministrations. The following morning, after attending church with my parents, we left, dragging my sister with us, attended by Isaac's wailing *sniff* since our flight was leaving from Columbus and we didn't relish the idea of long-term parking. She was kind enough to take us to the airport Sunday (and miss her Bible study picking us up Tuesday night, in her pretty blue Mercury Milan!).

We made it to the airport in good time, and our flight out of Columbus was on time until we got to JFK. We then had to wait on the tarmac for an hour until our gate opened up. As we only had 80 minutes of layover, this was somewhat nerve-wracking. We eventually made it off the plane, and wore ourselves out (at least I was rather winded!) getting to the gate for our next flight, though it, too, was delayed, and there was really no need for haste. We had a fairly long layover in Madrid, providentially, so our late arrival there didn't distress us at all. If we had any idea what navigating the Madrid airport would be like, we wouldn't have been nearly so cavalier. After standing in lines for passport control, taking buses to the next terminal (and the one after that [oops]- a good 10-minute ride through the outskirts of Madrid), standing in a huge-mongous line to check in with our second airline of the trip, grabbing a quick bite to eat in one of the two McDonalds advertised in our terminal (this should have been a hint), walking what seemed like forever, only to find that we had to get on a subway train, getting off the train, and walking for another sizeable distance, we finally found our gate. We weren't late, but we didn't have much of a cushion leftover from our long layover.

By this point, I was so tired that I was able to sleep on the plane (which I wasn't sure I wanted to do, since we needed to be awake when we arrived in L'viv, since the same flight was bound for Kyiv afterwards). We were awake before we landed, though I'm sure if we hadn't been, landing would have woken us up! We managed to get through the passport control and customs with little delay (once we had our forms filled out), though our border officer had to give us a fake address, as we didn't know the real one ("Put 'Hotel Opera, L'viv'"). Sasha, our host, was waiting for us with a taxi when we came through customs, and we pushed past the men on the stairs in front of the airport offering something to us, or perhaps asking something from us (I have no clue). The taxi took us to a Baptist seminary in a nice old part of L'viv with a large iron gate. Sasha led us inside, where we were greeted by the doorman, who showed us to the third-floor room with its own bathroom (yay!!). That last flight of stairs was tremendously steep, and though I had nothing to carry but my purse and my very light carry-on bag (Sasha was lugging my luggage), by the time we got to the third floor, I was out of breath as well as being completely exhausted.

We had two twin beds with those lovely down comforters, a double wardrobe, a desk and two chairs, plus a small low table, a mini-fridge, a microwave and some dishes. Sasha promised to bring us food in the morning, and we went to sleep after bidding him a good night!

The middle part of our trip, though certainly the best part, runs together somewhat, since most of the days were very much alike. Each day involved at least a little walking in the lovely old city, some very little, some much too much for my comfort, as I hadn't brought any socks, and took a few days to rectify this. Thankfully, I had a first-aid kit in my purse, and was able to somewhat mitigate the blisters through the judicious application of band-aids! If we'd had a map the first day, or figured out how to read the one we borrowed by the second day, I'd have been in much better shape. By the third day, we'd figured out that it wasn't that hard to get to the spot where we'd been meeting for lunch by foot, and we did that for the remainder of our time in the city. Walking in L'viv's old city is a real treat for old-house junkies like me, so riding the bus, besides being crowded and (I'll admit) somewhat intimidating, just shorts a person of the opportunity to enjoy the scenery.

Unfortunately, we hadn't figured this out before then, and had a plan to meet up with an IP staffer at our lodgings at 12:30 on Wednesday. We took a nice long walk downtown to the opera, but got lost on the return trip, and had to hurry on aching feet (severely aching feet, in my case) back. We got there just in time to beat Sergei. After lunch was when I discovered the blisters.

Our lunch venue really deserves its own paragraph, so maybe I'll come back to that at some point, but not now! We were welcomed with open arms by everyone, not only those attached to the agency and church, but also the students in the English classes. Just as on our prior trip (to Kiev, in 2003), we developed (or renewed, in Paul's case) a strong affection for our Ukrainian friends (Paul had already known some of them from his trip in 2004).

We were blessed by getting to know the mother and teenaged daughter of a missionary family from western North Carolina a little bit, and were able to discuss some of the craziness of being an American in L'viv with them. Some things are obvious, like the apparent lack of traffic laws and the absence of a WalMart or comprehensive grocery store (Paul wanted to buy a watch, but couldn't quite stomach the thought of buying a watch in a watch store), but we didn't realize that the availability of water outside the hours of 6 to 9 (AM and PM) was an enviable amenity of the seminary until the American mom mentioned it in passing.

One of the more memorable taxi rides we took was the second day of classes. Yulia Timoshenko was in town, and the streets were jammed. Our taxi driver apparently had no interest in wasting her time, so sped down cobblestone alleys, climbed curbs, dashed into oncoming traffic, whatever it took to get us to our destination and out of her car. Maybe she wanted to go see Yulia as well!

Another interesting taxi ride was one of the nighttime homeward-bound drives (after our 6:30 class, usually it was after 9:30 by the time class had ended and we'd shared about the day and prayed). Shortly after we left, I noticed the low fuel warning light flashing on the dashboard. We had a church member with us to speak Ukrainian and make sure we arrived at our lodgings (for which I am very thankful!!), so I figured Katya had things under control, and I should not worry about it. Shortly thereafter, I noticed an oil pressure light alternating with the low fuel light. Intrigued, I kept watching, only to see a third light, one which looked (to me) for all the world like a bomb. It wasn't that long of a ride, so I just hung in there, and sure enough, we arrived at our destination safely without incident. I asked Katya about it the next night, or maybe two nights later. Like Paul, she hadn't noticed a thing. From then on, I should probably have insisted on sitting behind the driver so Paul could ignore any forthcoming warning lights, but I didn't notice any more anyway.

Well, it's ten o'clock, and I'm hardly done, though I am spent, so I'll have to write a part two at some future date. A thousand thanks to those of you who were praying for us. God took superb care of us, and the boys were in wonderful hands as well (His and my parents' and sister-in-law's). We really had a very pleasant trip, all things considered, but it is so good to be back home safely with our sweet, wonderful little boys*!!


* Isaac started grabbing at Jay's shirt this morning when I was holding him (Isaac), saying "Huck! Huck!" When he wrapped his arms around Jay's neck and started making kissing sounds, his meaning became crystal clear, and Jay returned his hugs at several points today. Though Jay was not reportedly a good big brother while we were gone, things seem to be back to normal- we have our same sweet boys back (At least until they both want the same toy *sigh*)

Labels: Travel, Ukraine

- posted by Lenise @ 11:24 AM |