I've decided that when I need a break from packing and cleaning in this last week before we exit Stockholm (SIX DAYS!!!), I can spend it blogging about Italy. A productive break, so I won't feel guilty. Note, these breaks are only possible because I convinced Nathaniel that I *must* hire a cleaning service to clean the flat after we leave. I laid in bed for several nights, mind spinning with how I could possibly get the flat adequately cleaned while we were still living in it, and had nightmare visions of trying to get out of the flat as we left for the airport, in a state of complete panic. We may still be in panic mode when we go, but at least it won't be because I'm trying to scrub the oven at the last minute. It's money we don't have, but sometimes you have to invest in your own sanity.
*****
Wednesday in Italy means the morning papal audience! Renee requested our (free but required) tickets months in advance, because she's amazing. Fr Rolling kindly picked them up and delivered them to us at dinner Tuesday. Also at dinner, he gave us some advice on what time to arrive, which security point to enter through, and which seats to head toward for the best views of the pope during his drive through the square. It is SO GOOD to know people in the know.
Nathaniel and I volunteered to go early, around 7am, with a couple of the bigger kids to save seats. Ruth and William volunteered, but come morning, William was still asleep while Henry was awake and fully dressed by the time my alarm went off. I was in awe! So Ruth and Henry accompanied us on a speed walk to the Vatican.
We circled all the way around to the far side to enter at the checkpoint Father had suggested, and waited in line for the gates to open. Unfortunately, just as the line started to move, about 15 minutes after we'd gotten in line and much longer for many of the people ahead of us, the security guards told everyone they had to go through a different entrance and sent us all packing! I have no idea why, but since they run the show and are not required to explain, we headed out with the masses to a different entrance, where we were much further back in line.
As we waited to get to the security point, I could see the seats, and watched people moving in. Father had told us not to bother with the closest two sections, toward which most people would run, but the third section, at the back corner, which the pope would pass twice on his drive. We were nearing security when I saw the first few people heading to that section and taking the seats we'd hoped to score. When we finally got there, there was no hope of being against an edge, but we got seats as near as we could. And we got lucky - someone in the corner had a beautiful baby girl, dressed up in a white christening gown, which was our obvious ticket to extra pope time. Father had even joked, after looking at our kids and noting that none were young enough to be good pope bait, that we should save an extra seat and ask someone with a baby to join us. Pope Francis loves babies!
We settled in for a lengthy wait for the rest of the family. Phil and Renee had a challenge getting to us, as security put them in on the wrong side. We spotted them negotiating with a security guard, trying to get him to let them cross the blocked off center aisle. No go. They had to walk all the way around the back of the square, all the littles in tow, but they made it!
At that point, Nathaniel decided to make a run to the restroom, despite my skepticism about the timing. It was after 9:00, with the audience beginning at 10am, and the pope's drive through the square sometime prior to that. He asked the security guards whether he could expect to get back in and they told him to go. We're not sure in retrospect whether they understood the question, because he did not make it back before they closed things off for the pope mobile. Oops. All that waiting time, and he viewed Pope Francis from much further away. He did still get a view, and he had our videos and photos to enjoy, but bummer.
Pope Francis did, indeed, drive past our corner twice, stopping the second time to kiss the sweet baby girl in front of us, and we all felt honored to be there, so near. A young lady in the row in front of me was in tears of joy. It was moving to see. Once the pope moved up to the podium, the sections were reopened and Nathaniel was able to rejoin our group for the audience.
The audience itself consisted of a reading, read in many (eight?) languages, followed by a short reflection by the pope, which was summarized in all those languages again. It was long and most of it was in languages we didn't understand, but it was an experience we're glad to have had. At the end, the pope offered blessings on all of us and our families and friends back home, so consider yourself blessed! He also offered a blessing on any religious items we had with us. Again, really glad Renee knew about that and tipped us off to do our shopping early. We usually put off souvenirs and gifts to the last minute. This way, we were able to get rosaries and gifts for our godchildren, blessed by Pope Francis.
*****
That was just the beginning of our day! After the audience, Nathaniel and Phil went back to the apartment to drop off all the newly blessed religious goods, while Renee and I found a tiny pizza joint and fed the kids lunch. Delicious! We met the guys at the subway and headed to the Colosseum. Renee had lined up a tour guide to lead us through the Colosseum and Roman Forum. We had a little time to kill, so tried to visit the nearby Basilica de San Clemente, but it turns out many of the church close from noon till 2pm, and we were there at just the wrong time. We spent the time eating gelato and chasing geckos instead. Not the worst swap. I also got stung by a bee - boo! But better me than a kid, or someone with allergies.
As with the churches in Rome, it's hard to adequately describe the ruins and antiquities. You can likely see better photos and get more information online than I can give here, so I won't go into much detail. Our guide, Agnes, was entertaining and great with keeping the kids engaged while still talking to the adults on our level. She walked us around and through the Colosseum, then up Palatine Hill, telling stories and pointing out fun details the whole way, allowing us bathroom breaks as needed (which is often, with nine kids). It was definitely a better experience than when I saw the Colosseum on a trip in college, and we just sort of peeked through a gate, said, "cool!" and moved on (though that's not a hard bar to raise). We happened to run into Agnes several days later, leading a tour at the Vatican Museum, and she was able to point us toward the Raphaels, so it was a good connection to have made. Ha.
I feel like I should have a lot more stories and anecdotes from this afternoon, but my mind is blank beyond the general coolness of the history and the unbelievable cutting edge technology they used in constructing it (they built the Colosseum in just eight years! and they think it had a retractable cover, like the baseball stadium in Phoenix but all manual!). I may have to add more as I remember it.
*****
Our crew (N's and mine) were pretty done by the end of the tour, while Renee's was still up for dining out, so we split up. We headed back to the apartment and sent Marianne and Nathaniel to the grocery store to find dinner food and more breakfast and snack supplies for the next day. A rotisserie chicken and some cold roasted veggies from the deli counter can never taste as good as they do in an apartment in a foreign country after a long day of walking.
Showing posts with label amazing grace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amazing grace. Show all posts
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Sunday, June 10, 2018
When in Rome (part 2)
Our first full day in Rome was not a take-it-easy sort of day. More of a jump-in-with-both-feet day!
Renee knew so much more about all this Rome stuff, having spent a semester in Rome during college, so I let her lead the way on planning (read: do it all). She started a google spreadsheet months ago to track our plans, so my heart was full - nothing give me the warm fuzzies like a good spreadsheet.
Tuesday's priority was St. Peter. And St. Peter's. But first, St. Peter himself, via the Scavi Tour. For those of you who don't know (like I didn't, till Renee told me about it), there are tours of the archaeological sights under St. Peter's Basilica available to adults, which include an opportunity to view the remains of the saint himself. Since you must be 15 to go on the tour, none of the kids qualified, so Renee scheduled us to go as couples, on separate tours, handing off the kids in between. (I asked the tour guide about the age restriction. He spouted something about the air not being healthy for children, and noted that guides were only allowed to lead two tours per day because of it. A different tour guide later in the week said that really it's just because Italian kids are so naughty.)
No photos were allowed on the tour, but it was really interesting and well worth the time and expense. As with most of the tours we went on and churches we visited, I really can't do justice to the subjects. You can get better info by googling the topic, and probably better images as well. But I can say that it was all incredibly impressive and educational and moving. Also, it was cool to watch the Swiss Guard up close while we waited for our tour time, telling people what to do and where not to go, all with such flair in those uniforms. And it would have been really cool, how the tour dropped us off inside the security at St. Peter's, except we had to exit to go meet up with our family outside of security, where they were midway through the picnic we'd helped pack before we left.
Oh, flash back on that a minute. We'd had some vision initially of all of us heading to St. Peter's together, all the grown ups and kids, at which point Nathaniel and I would branch off for our tour. However, that first morning (and every morning after) we remembered that none of us are particularly good at mornings or at being on time. So, as the time Nathaniel and I had to leave to make our tour approached, we - as a group - were nowhere near ready to leave. Instead, I made sure our crew was dressed and mostly ready, packed our lunch, instructed our kids to be really good helpers for Aunt Renee and Uncle Phil, and then Nathaniel and I headed out on the walk on our own. I felt all sorts of guilty about making Phil and Renee shepherd all nine kids to the Vatican that first time, especially as Nathaniel and I walked along the roads with no sidewalks and blind curves and I continually pestered Nathaniel to message Phil and about what they should be careful about. I'm not a paranoid sort of mom, but I have real issues putting my work on to someone else, and I consider my kids my work, you know? It's a legit issue of mine that I recognize I need to work on - letting other people help me. But that's not the topic of the day. Turns out they walked a slightly different way that had slightly safer sidewalks and they all made it to the square alive and well. Nothing to worry about!
When we found them post-tour, they were settled on some steps, eating salami and brie and crusty bread and really, does life get any better than that?! That is really just my happy place. Okay, maybe 20% lower humidity than Rome was offering us would have been my even happier place, but it was pretty fab.
Phil and Renee left to go on their scheduled tour, and we took over kid management. It was an hour or so of chasing pigeons, waving away souvenir sales guys, watching the same guys get chased off by the police, taking kids to the restrooms, and soaking up watching the cousins reconnect. It was lovely. We did lose Oliver one time, very briefly, but we found him again quickly. All's well that ends well and all that.
*****
The second item on the day's itinerary was a tour of St. Peter's Basilica by a North American College seminarian. Apparently they do this all the time, and you can just show up for it! We took all the kids to start the tour (along with 20 or so other English speakers), and Phil and Renee tracked us down and joined in when they finished their Scavi tour.
If you've never been to St. Peter's Basilica... there really are not words to describe the experience. Rome is filled with churches of unspeakable beauty, churches heavy with history, churches that literally take your breath away when your eyes adjust from the sunlight outside and first allow you to take in the grandeur within. (Heavy handed, I know, and I haven't even touched on the spiritual side of the experience.) St. Peter's in the epitome of all that. It's beyond my skill to describe, but I hope every Catholic has a chance to walk there one day.
Our seminarian gave an excellent tour. They have a system that's new since I was last there 20+ years ago - the tour guides have mics and everyone on the tour gets an earpiece, so the guides can speak quietly but reach their whole group. The overall volume in the Basilica was much lower than I remember, which was wonderful for a place where you can hope for prayer, even amid the chaos of tourism. It was an excellent visit. We hardly scratched the surface of all the beauty there was to see, and history there was to learn, but we basked in it all and gave our children a taste of it, and I'm grateful for that opportunity.
*****
After all that, we hit the streets near the Vatican for our first (of many) gelato stops. I don't know if it was because it was my first gelato, or if it really was an excellent little shop, but I had coconut gelato (inexplicably... I still can't figure out what prompted me to choose coconut, it's not like me at all) and it was heavenly! Maybe I was just really hot and hungry. It was so good that I was inspired to try coconut a couple other times, from other shops, and none of them lived up to that first taste.
We also did some gift shopping. I hadn't given much thought in advance to what we might purchase while there, but Renee pointed out that anything we bought RIGHT THEN, we'd have with us for the papal audience the next morning, and could have blessed by the pope.
Cue frantic shopping spree!
Kidding... mostly. We realized later in the week that we should actually have bought more, to have extras, as we kept thinking of people we wished we'd gotten rosaries for. Oops. Sorry everyone we didn't buy things for. We're not really souvenir people, though, so it's hard for us to think that way.
*****
We wrapped up this first, epic day with dinner with Fr. Rolling, a priest from Lincoln who is studying in Rome and who helped advise us as we prepared for our trip. None of us knew him previously, so it was nice to put a face to the email conversations. We had a little time to kill near the restaurant while waiting for him, so Nathaniel and Phil popped into a church across the street. It turned out to house the incorrupt body of St Philip Neri. Rome is crazy, man! You never know what you're going to find when you duck into a church!
Fr. Rolling had selected a restaurant with a lovely outdoor area, and room for the kids to run in an adjacent park, except it turned out most of the park was fenced off for renovation. It's the thought that counts. And the kids made good use of the narrow band of available park when they needed to run off energy, while we adults spent four hours enjoying an excellent Italian dinner. Father knew all the seasonal specials to recommend, including stuffed zucchini blossoms and fresh melon with prosciutto. Happy, happy, happy! Most of my kids were pleasantly adventurous, except Rachel, who kicked off her tour of Rome's best buttered noodles (or "white pasta", as they politely call it, to make it sound classier).
Dinner was divine, and ended with a complimentary round of limoncello, which was probably very unnecessary given the number of bottles of wine we'd worked through... but it was a fun treat anyway. Renee and I were both on the loud and laughing end of the spectrum by the end, which made figuring out the Rome bus system to get ourselves home HILARIOUS. It turns out Marianne is officially old enough to notice and disapprove when her parents are a few glasses in, but we were still totally functional. Sheesh. (Sidenote: We let Marianne and William have a small glass of wine each with dinner. So grown up!)
We found the kiosk to purchase our bus tickets where Father has pointed us, and our bus came fairly soon after. Getting on board the bus and validating our tickets turned out to be more challenging. Somehow, while a couple of us were struggling to feed our tickets into the little on-board machine, the bus door closed on Phil and he had to bang on it and pry it open... I don't know if it was mechanical failure or the bus driver not enjoying our humor, but it had us laughing even louder.
We made it home safely - after the kids spotted the first of MANY geckos on the walk - and called it a very good, very successful day. Phew. I'm exhausted again just thinking of it. But there was no real rest for the weary, because the next day was the Wednesday papal audience, which meant an early morning! To be continued...
Renee knew so much more about all this Rome stuff, having spent a semester in Rome during college, so I let her lead the way on planning (read: do it all). She started a google spreadsheet months ago to track our plans, so my heart was full - nothing give me the warm fuzzies like a good spreadsheet.
Tuesday's priority was St. Peter. And St. Peter's. But first, St. Peter himself, via the Scavi Tour. For those of you who don't know (like I didn't, till Renee told me about it), there are tours of the archaeological sights under St. Peter's Basilica available to adults, which include an opportunity to view the remains of the saint himself. Since you must be 15 to go on the tour, none of the kids qualified, so Renee scheduled us to go as couples, on separate tours, handing off the kids in between. (I asked the tour guide about the age restriction. He spouted something about the air not being healthy for children, and noted that guides were only allowed to lead two tours per day because of it. A different tour guide later in the week said that really it's just because Italian kids are so naughty.)
No photos were allowed on the tour, but it was really interesting and well worth the time and expense. As with most of the tours we went on and churches we visited, I really can't do justice to the subjects. You can get better info by googling the topic, and probably better images as well. But I can say that it was all incredibly impressive and educational and moving. Also, it was cool to watch the Swiss Guard up close while we waited for our tour time, telling people what to do and where not to go, all with such flair in those uniforms. And it would have been really cool, how the tour dropped us off inside the security at St. Peter's, except we had to exit to go meet up with our family outside of security, where they were midway through the picnic we'd helped pack before we left.
Oh, flash back on that a minute. We'd had some vision initially of all of us heading to St. Peter's together, all the grown ups and kids, at which point Nathaniel and I would branch off for our tour. However, that first morning (and every morning after) we remembered that none of us are particularly good at mornings or at being on time. So, as the time Nathaniel and I had to leave to make our tour approached, we - as a group - were nowhere near ready to leave. Instead, I made sure our crew was dressed and mostly ready, packed our lunch, instructed our kids to be really good helpers for Aunt Renee and Uncle Phil, and then Nathaniel and I headed out on the walk on our own. I felt all sorts of guilty about making Phil and Renee shepherd all nine kids to the Vatican that first time, especially as Nathaniel and I walked along the roads with no sidewalks and blind curves and I continually pestered Nathaniel to message Phil and about what they should be careful about. I'm not a paranoid sort of mom, but I have real issues putting my work on to someone else, and I consider my kids my work, you know? It's a legit issue of mine that I recognize I need to work on - letting other people help me. But that's not the topic of the day. Turns out they walked a slightly different way that had slightly safer sidewalks and they all made it to the square alive and well. Nothing to worry about!
When we found them post-tour, they were settled on some steps, eating salami and brie and crusty bread and really, does life get any better than that?! That is really just my happy place. Okay, maybe 20% lower humidity than Rome was offering us would have been my even happier place, but it was pretty fab.
Phil and Renee left to go on their scheduled tour, and we took over kid management. It was an hour or so of chasing pigeons, waving away souvenir sales guys, watching the same guys get chased off by the police, taking kids to the restrooms, and soaking up watching the cousins reconnect. It was lovely. We did lose Oliver one time, very briefly, but we found him again quickly. All's well that ends well and all that.
*****
The second item on the day's itinerary was a tour of St. Peter's Basilica by a North American College seminarian. Apparently they do this all the time, and you can just show up for it! We took all the kids to start the tour (along with 20 or so other English speakers), and Phil and Renee tracked us down and joined in when they finished their Scavi tour.
If you've never been to St. Peter's Basilica... there really are not words to describe the experience. Rome is filled with churches of unspeakable beauty, churches heavy with history, churches that literally take your breath away when your eyes adjust from the sunlight outside and first allow you to take in the grandeur within. (Heavy handed, I know, and I haven't even touched on the spiritual side of the experience.) St. Peter's in the epitome of all that. It's beyond my skill to describe, but I hope every Catholic has a chance to walk there one day.
Our seminarian gave an excellent tour. They have a system that's new since I was last there 20+ years ago - the tour guides have mics and everyone on the tour gets an earpiece, so the guides can speak quietly but reach their whole group. The overall volume in the Basilica was much lower than I remember, which was wonderful for a place where you can hope for prayer, even amid the chaos of tourism. It was an excellent visit. We hardly scratched the surface of all the beauty there was to see, and history there was to learn, but we basked in it all and gave our children a taste of it, and I'm grateful for that opportunity.
*****
After all that, we hit the streets near the Vatican for our first (of many) gelato stops. I don't know if it was because it was my first gelato, or if it really was an excellent little shop, but I had coconut gelato (inexplicably... I still can't figure out what prompted me to choose coconut, it's not like me at all) and it was heavenly! Maybe I was just really hot and hungry. It was so good that I was inspired to try coconut a couple other times, from other shops, and none of them lived up to that first taste.
We also did some gift shopping. I hadn't given much thought in advance to what we might purchase while there, but Renee pointed out that anything we bought RIGHT THEN, we'd have with us for the papal audience the next morning, and could have blessed by the pope.
Cue frantic shopping spree!
Kidding... mostly. We realized later in the week that we should actually have bought more, to have extras, as we kept thinking of people we wished we'd gotten rosaries for. Oops. Sorry everyone we didn't buy things for. We're not really souvenir people, though, so it's hard for us to think that way.
*****
We wrapped up this first, epic day with dinner with Fr. Rolling, a priest from Lincoln who is studying in Rome and who helped advise us as we prepared for our trip. None of us knew him previously, so it was nice to put a face to the email conversations. We had a little time to kill near the restaurant while waiting for him, so Nathaniel and Phil popped into a church across the street. It turned out to house the incorrupt body of St Philip Neri. Rome is crazy, man! You never know what you're going to find when you duck into a church!
Fr. Rolling had selected a restaurant with a lovely outdoor area, and room for the kids to run in an adjacent park, except it turned out most of the park was fenced off for renovation. It's the thought that counts. And the kids made good use of the narrow band of available park when they needed to run off energy, while we adults spent four hours enjoying an excellent Italian dinner. Father knew all the seasonal specials to recommend, including stuffed zucchini blossoms and fresh melon with prosciutto. Happy, happy, happy! Most of my kids were pleasantly adventurous, except Rachel, who kicked off her tour of Rome's best buttered noodles (or "white pasta", as they politely call it, to make it sound classier).
Dinner was divine, and ended with a complimentary round of limoncello, which was probably very unnecessary given the number of bottles of wine we'd worked through... but it was a fun treat anyway. Renee and I were both on the loud and laughing end of the spectrum by the end, which made figuring out the Rome bus system to get ourselves home HILARIOUS. It turns out Marianne is officially old enough to notice and disapprove when her parents are a few glasses in, but we were still totally functional. Sheesh. (Sidenote: We let Marianne and William have a small glass of wine each with dinner. So grown up!)
We found the kiosk to purchase our bus tickets where Father has pointed us, and our bus came fairly soon after. Getting on board the bus and validating our tickets turned out to be more challenging. Somehow, while a couple of us were struggling to feed our tickets into the little on-board machine, the bus door closed on Phil and he had to bang on it and pry it open... I don't know if it was mechanical failure or the bus driver not enjoying our humor, but it had us laughing even louder.
We made it home safely - after the kids spotted the first of MANY geckos on the walk - and called it a very good, very successful day. Phew. I'm exhausted again just thinking of it. But there was no real rest for the weary, because the next day was the Wednesday papal audience, which meant an early morning! To be continued...
Friday, May 04, 2018
Finland for a day
By now you've seen the photos and heard bits and pieces about the whole cruise-to-Finland mini-adventure on my birthday. There are some memories and observations I want to record that won't fit in an instagram post, so here we go:
~ First, let's talk about these cruise ships! We traveled on a legit, huge cruise ship, with several restaurants, bars, and a dance club. We had a pretty short time aboard, from around 8pm till 6 or 7am, so for us, with kids, it was just enough time to let the kids play in the ball pit area and then get everyone to bed, with a very early wake up call. I can hardly imagine who's taking advantage of the pricey dinner or breakfast buffets. LOTS of people, however, were taking advantage of the bars and clubs. ALL NIGHT LONG. People arrived and boarded in clubbing clothes! They were there for a night on the town, but on a boat. I imagine many of them only booked a ticket for passage and didn't even have a cabin, because they were still drinking as we got off the boat the next morning (gag). I can't really wrap my head around it. On the return cruise, since it was my birthday, Nathaniel and I figured we should go have a drink and listen to the band. It was PACKED with people, but the music was... I'll be generous and say "mediocre". It was some Finnish actor who the 50+ year old ladies in the crowd clearly adored, crooning some schmoopy songs with a live band backing him. There were loads of 20-somethings on the boat as well, but they must spend their night drinking in the disco instead. Too bizarre. I can imagine it all working out better on the slightly longer cruises to Estonia or Helsinki, when you're on board from 5pm till 10am, and have time to eat, party a little, and still sleep before reaching your destination.
~ We saw some familiar faces on the return boat the following night... but we didn't run into them at the museums around Turku. Where did those folks pass their day? Did they get a hotel somewhere to sleep it off so they could party again on the return? Interesting... and gross.
~ We packed minimally for the trip. Two nights and one day away, so everyone took one change of clothes, and one set of pjs, with the plan to put whatever we wore on to the boat Friday night back on for the quick journey home early on Sunday morning. We were able to get everything we needed for the seven of us into two carry-on sized suitcases. I also had one shopping bag filled with food for a picnic dinner and some snacks. I was struck by how little we were able to get away with taking (although two rolling bags probably still sounds like a lot to someone without kids). I'm grateful for the phase in life at which this whole sabbatical came. Having no kids in diapers, or even prone to accidents has been a godsend. I'd have had to pack six extra outfits for Rachel "just in case" if we'd taken this little weekend outing two years ago. Or a whole pack of diapers if it was a year before that. If I were home with a stroller at my disposal, there are likely times I'd have toted it along "just in case" for Rachel even now, but not having one has been totally fine! All the kids walk miles with us on our outings, and the distances have seldom been an issue. It's amazing what you realize you can do without when forced to do without it! I would never be someone to discourage anyone from taking a baby somewhere. Parents are super humans and babies are versatile. Taking a baby on sabbatical and on every one of the excursions we've made could totally be done, and the photos would be adorable. But I'm grateful not to be juggling that extra work this year.
~ Turku! Ever heard of it? Me, neither, till a couple weeks ago. It also goes by Åbo in Swedish. I did a little quick research after we booked our tickets to see how we should spend the 12 hours on shore, and thankfully there was more than enough to do. Meg remarked toward the end of our day, "If we lived here, it would have taken us at least a week to do all of this!" So true! At home here in Stockholm, we hardly ever cram more than one museum into a day. In Turku, we went to three museum and a Cathedral (plus eating, some brief park stops, and an extra bit of walking to pass by another church that wasn't open), all in one day! The fitbit wearers tracked us at OVER 12 MILES OF WALKING that day. That sounds like a lot for me, but when I look at the littler kids and realize they walked it all as well, I'm in awe of what rock star travelers we have!
~ Nathaniel's instagram post gave a good overview of the sites we saw. We started with a lengthy walk along the river, hoping to find a cafe open for breakfast, but nothing was open at 8am in that part of town. In fact, we scarcely saw another human being once we left the harbor. I had some snacks in my food bag that could have worked, but we grown ups were desperate for coffee, and I wanted to save the snacks for potential emergency food needs later, so we kept trekking along. We finally spotted a grocery store on the other side of the river with a little barge/boat that drove back and forth, carrying passengers for free, in lieu of a bridge! Fun! Finding food in the store itself gave me some flashbacks to the first grocery runs in Sweden, when I didn't know where to find things and couldn't read any of the signs... but it wasn't too hard to find pastries, and they had a coffee machine and some tables. Hooray!
At the start of our shopping, we noticed a pallet with a pile of buckets, and the few other patrons in the store all seemed to be carrying a bucket each, some loading their groceries into them. As we sat and ate our breakfast, it seemed like each person who checked out had a bucket... So as we were wrapping up, I saw the cashier with a free moment and asked her what the story was with the buckets, whether it was common here for people to use buckets in lieu of shopping of bags? She said, no, the store had just opened two days prior, and the first 500 customers could have a free bucket! I, of course, saw no need for us to start toting a bucket around as we began a day of sight seeing in Turku, Finland. My kids saw things differently. "Can we get a bucket?" "Can we EACH get a bucket?" Ugh. No for SURE to the latter. Nathaniel said yes to ONE bucket. So, if you look at our Finland pics, keep an eye out and you'll almost always be able to spot a bucket somewhere in the shot. (To be fair, the bucket came in handy for putting the kids' jackets in when they didn't want to wear them.)
~ We started at Turku Cathedral, both because it opened earliest, and because it was the far point of our exploration into Turku, so everything after that was moving us closer to boarding our return ship that evening. The River Aura runs through the city and nearly everything we wanted to see was situated along the river, which made for pretty walking. The second stop was Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, "the museum of history and contemporary art". There was a line forming outside the museum before it opened, which seemed impressive. When they unlocked the doors, however, nearly everyone but us headed straight to the cafe! As I was buying our tickets, I remarked that the cafe was very popular and asked whether it's like that daily. Turns out they have a special brunch with live jazz on Saturdays that draws a big crowd. The museum ended up busy enough, but the cafe was hopping!
Despite the odd combination of history of ancient Finland and contemporary art, it was a great museum! The history section was an area of actual excavations that you could walk through, with maps and information about what it would have looked like during various phases of Turku's history. They had an interesting section with skeletal remains of animals found in the dig - mostly livestock and domestic animals, but also seals, etc. There were a couple big doll houses representing what buildings would have looked like during different eras. Rachel could have played with those all day long! Other hands on displays were scattered throughout. Very cool. The contemporary art display was a new one that had just opened that weekend displaying the work of Maria Prymatšenkon - bright, colorful, cartoonish images of animals and imaginary creatures. Really interesting for a quick walk through.
After grabbing some lunch, we walked a few blocks out of the way to see St. Michael the Archangel Church. I had read online that it would likely not be open, and it wasn't, but it was beautiful from the outside. (Both the Cathedral and this church are Lutheran. I looked up whether there was a Catholic church we should hunt down, but there's only one in Turku, and it's modern architecture didn't inspire me to go out of our way for it).
A lengthy walk took us nearly back to the harbor where Turku Castle is located. This was probably my favorite thing we saw. It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but they have done a great job of restoring it and providing displays taking you through all the architectural phases of the castle throughout history. The people working in the castle are all dressed in period costume, and apparently put on little activities during the day. We stumbled upon a group of ladies in costume - in the chamber where ladies in waiting would have spent their days - dancing in a ring. When they finished and we applauded, they insisted that some or our group join them for a dance, so Nathaniel, Ruth and I danced while the other kids watched from a safe distance.
Our final stop was a Maritime museum, explaining the history of boat making in Turku, with examples of all sorts of boats, from very small to incredibly large. In the summer they have several large boats that you can explore for an extra ticket price, but we were still in the off season, and didn't have enough time anyway. We did get to climb in a few small boats, and see lots of cool boat and lighthouse and Finnish navy related stuff. The gift shop was small but fantastic. Everyone wanted all the things.
By the time we wrapped up and walked back to the harbor to check in for our cruise home, we were exhausted and collapsed on the floor of the waiting area till it was time to board.
~ Overall, this was a unique and cool experience. I'm glad we did it. Nathaniel is all jazzed up, thinking maybe he/we should do another one to a slightly more distant port. The short nights were definitely one of the most challenging part. Given our short remaining time in Sweden, I think it's very unlikely there's another cruise in our future unless he ends up going with Arthur while April and I hang out here in Stockholm when they visit in June. That said, he did rave about it so much that Liz and Whit, who arrived in Stockholm this past Wednesday, boarded a ship yesterday evening (Thursday) to Estonia for a quick cruise there and back. We'll see them again Saturday morning for the remainder of their visit!
~ First, let's talk about these cruise ships! We traveled on a legit, huge cruise ship, with several restaurants, bars, and a dance club. We had a pretty short time aboard, from around 8pm till 6 or 7am, so for us, with kids, it was just enough time to let the kids play in the ball pit area and then get everyone to bed, with a very early wake up call. I can hardly imagine who's taking advantage of the pricey dinner or breakfast buffets. LOTS of people, however, were taking advantage of the bars and clubs. ALL NIGHT LONG. People arrived and boarded in clubbing clothes! They were there for a night on the town, but on a boat. I imagine many of them only booked a ticket for passage and didn't even have a cabin, because they were still drinking as we got off the boat the next morning (gag). I can't really wrap my head around it. On the return cruise, since it was my birthday, Nathaniel and I figured we should go have a drink and listen to the band. It was PACKED with people, but the music was... I'll be generous and say "mediocre". It was some Finnish actor who the 50+ year old ladies in the crowd clearly adored, crooning some schmoopy songs with a live band backing him. There were loads of 20-somethings on the boat as well, but they must spend their night drinking in the disco instead. Too bizarre. I can imagine it all working out better on the slightly longer cruises to Estonia or Helsinki, when you're on board from 5pm till 10am, and have time to eat, party a little, and still sleep before reaching your destination.
~ We saw some familiar faces on the return boat the following night... but we didn't run into them at the museums around Turku. Where did those folks pass their day? Did they get a hotel somewhere to sleep it off so they could party again on the return? Interesting... and gross.
~ We packed minimally for the trip. Two nights and one day away, so everyone took one change of clothes, and one set of pjs, with the plan to put whatever we wore on to the boat Friday night back on for the quick journey home early on Sunday morning. We were able to get everything we needed for the seven of us into two carry-on sized suitcases. I also had one shopping bag filled with food for a picnic dinner and some snacks. I was struck by how little we were able to get away with taking (although two rolling bags probably still sounds like a lot to someone without kids). I'm grateful for the phase in life at which this whole sabbatical came. Having no kids in diapers, or even prone to accidents has been a godsend. I'd have had to pack six extra outfits for Rachel "just in case" if we'd taken this little weekend outing two years ago. Or a whole pack of diapers if it was a year before that. If I were home with a stroller at my disposal, there are likely times I'd have toted it along "just in case" for Rachel even now, but not having one has been totally fine! All the kids walk miles with us on our outings, and the distances have seldom been an issue. It's amazing what you realize you can do without when forced to do without it! I would never be someone to discourage anyone from taking a baby somewhere. Parents are super humans and babies are versatile. Taking a baby on sabbatical and on every one of the excursions we've made could totally be done, and the photos would be adorable. But I'm grateful not to be juggling that extra work this year.
~ Turku! Ever heard of it? Me, neither, till a couple weeks ago. It also goes by Åbo in Swedish. I did a little quick research after we booked our tickets to see how we should spend the 12 hours on shore, and thankfully there was more than enough to do. Meg remarked toward the end of our day, "If we lived here, it would have taken us at least a week to do all of this!" So true! At home here in Stockholm, we hardly ever cram more than one museum into a day. In Turku, we went to three museum and a Cathedral (plus eating, some brief park stops, and an extra bit of walking to pass by another church that wasn't open), all in one day! The fitbit wearers tracked us at OVER 12 MILES OF WALKING that day. That sounds like a lot for me, but when I look at the littler kids and realize they walked it all as well, I'm in awe of what rock star travelers we have!
~ Nathaniel's instagram post gave a good overview of the sites we saw. We started with a lengthy walk along the river, hoping to find a cafe open for breakfast, but nothing was open at 8am in that part of town. In fact, we scarcely saw another human being once we left the harbor. I had some snacks in my food bag that could have worked, but we grown ups were desperate for coffee, and I wanted to save the snacks for potential emergency food needs later, so we kept trekking along. We finally spotted a grocery store on the other side of the river with a little barge/boat that drove back and forth, carrying passengers for free, in lieu of a bridge! Fun! Finding food in the store itself gave me some flashbacks to the first grocery runs in Sweden, when I didn't know where to find things and couldn't read any of the signs... but it wasn't too hard to find pastries, and they had a coffee machine and some tables. Hooray!
At the start of our shopping, we noticed a pallet with a pile of buckets, and the few other patrons in the store all seemed to be carrying a bucket each, some loading their groceries into them. As we sat and ate our breakfast, it seemed like each person who checked out had a bucket... So as we were wrapping up, I saw the cashier with a free moment and asked her what the story was with the buckets, whether it was common here for people to use buckets in lieu of shopping of bags? She said, no, the store had just opened two days prior, and the first 500 customers could have a free bucket! I, of course, saw no need for us to start toting a bucket around as we began a day of sight seeing in Turku, Finland. My kids saw things differently. "Can we get a bucket?" "Can we EACH get a bucket?" Ugh. No for SURE to the latter. Nathaniel said yes to ONE bucket. So, if you look at our Finland pics, keep an eye out and you'll almost always be able to spot a bucket somewhere in the shot. (To be fair, the bucket came in handy for putting the kids' jackets in when they didn't want to wear them.)
~ We started at Turku Cathedral, both because it opened earliest, and because it was the far point of our exploration into Turku, so everything after that was moving us closer to boarding our return ship that evening. The River Aura runs through the city and nearly everything we wanted to see was situated along the river, which made for pretty walking. The second stop was Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, "the museum of history and contemporary art". There was a line forming outside the museum before it opened, which seemed impressive. When they unlocked the doors, however, nearly everyone but us headed straight to the cafe! As I was buying our tickets, I remarked that the cafe was very popular and asked whether it's like that daily. Turns out they have a special brunch with live jazz on Saturdays that draws a big crowd. The museum ended up busy enough, but the cafe was hopping!
Despite the odd combination of history of ancient Finland and contemporary art, it was a great museum! The history section was an area of actual excavations that you could walk through, with maps and information about what it would have looked like during various phases of Turku's history. They had an interesting section with skeletal remains of animals found in the dig - mostly livestock and domestic animals, but also seals, etc. There were a couple big doll houses representing what buildings would have looked like during different eras. Rachel could have played with those all day long! Other hands on displays were scattered throughout. Very cool. The contemporary art display was a new one that had just opened that weekend displaying the work of Maria Prymatšenkon - bright, colorful, cartoonish images of animals and imaginary creatures. Really interesting for a quick walk through.
After grabbing some lunch, we walked a few blocks out of the way to see St. Michael the Archangel Church. I had read online that it would likely not be open, and it wasn't, but it was beautiful from the outside. (Both the Cathedral and this church are Lutheran. I looked up whether there was a Catholic church we should hunt down, but there's only one in Turku, and it's modern architecture didn't inspire me to go out of our way for it).
A lengthy walk took us nearly back to the harbor where Turku Castle is located. This was probably my favorite thing we saw. It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but they have done a great job of restoring it and providing displays taking you through all the architectural phases of the castle throughout history. The people working in the castle are all dressed in period costume, and apparently put on little activities during the day. We stumbled upon a group of ladies in costume - in the chamber where ladies in waiting would have spent their days - dancing in a ring. When they finished and we applauded, they insisted that some or our group join them for a dance, so Nathaniel, Ruth and I danced while the other kids watched from a safe distance.
Our final stop was a Maritime museum, explaining the history of boat making in Turku, with examples of all sorts of boats, from very small to incredibly large. In the summer they have several large boats that you can explore for an extra ticket price, but we were still in the off season, and didn't have enough time anyway. We did get to climb in a few small boats, and see lots of cool boat and lighthouse and Finnish navy related stuff. The gift shop was small but fantastic. Everyone wanted all the things.
By the time we wrapped up and walked back to the harbor to check in for our cruise home, we were exhausted and collapsed on the floor of the waiting area till it was time to board.
~ Overall, this was a unique and cool experience. I'm glad we did it. Nathaniel is all jazzed up, thinking maybe he/we should do another one to a slightly more distant port. The short nights were definitely one of the most challenging part. Given our short remaining time in Sweden, I think it's very unlikely there's another cruise in our future unless he ends up going with Arthur while April and I hang out here in Stockholm when they visit in June. That said, he did rave about it so much that Liz and Whit, who arrived in Stockholm this past Wednesday, boarded a ship yesterday evening (Thursday) to Estonia for a quick cruise there and back. We'll see them again Saturday morning for the remainder of their visit!
Friday, December 01, 2017
Paris - the final installment
It's time to wrap this French adventure up, don't you think?
Tuesday was the final non-travel day of our trip. I'm so grateful our trip was extended beyond my original plan, or I'm sure this day-trip/pilgrimage to Rouen would have gotten scrapped after we lost time to the bed bug debacle of 2017, as it shall henceforth be known. Actually, no. That's not going to be the name. Probably it'll be something like, "Remember the bed bugs in Paris?!" in the vein of "remember the Alamo". On a recent quick trip for a conference, Nathaniel called me from his hotel and realized halfway through the conversation that he'd failed to immediately check for bed bugs! This will be a very real part of our travel routine going forward.
I digress. But let's be honest. I'll never talk about Paris again without digressing into bed bug jokes.
Tuesday! Actually back up a few hours to Monday night. On our way home post-Arc de Triumph, we had to wait ages for a train and learned that there'd been some incident and the RER (commuter train) line that serviced the station by our hotel would be heavily affected that night. The problem was at the far end of the line from us, so we were able to get home, but we knew there could be residual issues come morning. Sure enough, there were!
We waited ages for the first RER toward the city to arrive, the platform loading up with people, and when it did arrive, you could see it was PACKED to the gills. Nathaniel was encouraging me to move forward and just cram on, but I had terrible visions of only part of the family managing to get aboard and us getting separated. It hardly mattered, because I don't think more than one human body managed to smoosh itself into that sardine can when the doors opened. Ten minutes later or so, another train arrived. This time I knew we were dangerously close to missing our train to Rouen, so I grabbed the hands of two little people and shoved my way in. Happily, I managed to find a pocket of space off to one side. It was very... cozy, to be sure. But we all made it on. When we got off and half-ran the maze of the subway to the train station, though, we were losing hope. It was a few minutes past the departure time for our train and we didn't know how to find the platform we needed. We were just about to turn toward some ticket booths to ask for help when I spotted the train number on a sign at a platform with a train still in it! I ran toward it and flagged down an employee to make sure they saw us coming. Phew! We were late, but so were they. God is good!
There is nothing like starting your day with a mad dash through the Paris subway and train stations, believe me!
~ We stopped in the most beautiful bakery in Rouen to get coffees. Their display case was gorgeous, filled macarons and choux in rainbow assortments, as well as a huge variety of croissants with flavored fillings. It was dreamy!
~ We enjoyed our pastries and coffee at a park with a playground, so of course when it was time to move on, the younger crew burst into tears as though they believed we'd traveled two hours by train just to play at a new playground.
~ The Church of St Joan of Arc is just... really ugly from the outside. Inside, while it's still not to my architectural taste, it was wonderfully peaceful and simple. Stained glass and bright open space. And a beautiful abstract statue of Joan that I loved! I could have spent a long time resting in silence there (except, you know, kids).
~ A towering cross in the gardens outside the church marks the place where Joan was burned for heresy. The whole day was a strange mix of fun, touristy activity, and trying to wrap our heads around the beautiful/horrible story of this girl who died in the service of God and country. A lot of emotional highs and lows.
~ On the other side of the Church of St Joan there's a grassy park area with low stone walls that are the ruins of an old castle. The churches all closed from noon till 2pm, so we spent most of that time in this park, the kids running and leaping along the walls. Only one minor injury was incurred.
~ We walked through an open air market in search of lunch and were reminded that Rouen is near the sea - all manner of fresh fish and seafood were for sale! There was a tuna the size of Rachel in one ice chest. Also, a bowl of tiny, whole fish, battered and fried, for sale by the pound, beady little eyes staring out from under the breading. Hungry yet? We ended up ordering takeaway pizza from a restaurant and eating it in the park by the church. Nathaniel is always disappointed in the rest of the family's lack of gastronomic adventurousness.
~ The city of Rouen, from the little bit we walked through it from one religious site to another, was darling. It's "the heart of Normandy" or some such, so gets a lot of tourism. I wish we'd had more time to wander through the ancient streets and soak it up. The buildings and cobblestone streets are just so charming and old.
~ We were in Rouen on Halloween. Our kids were very chill when I told them we were essentially skipping Halloween this year. No one put up much of a fuss, though there was a lot of discussion of what they want to be next year. It was interesting to see, though, that there were kids trick-or-treating in Rouen, midday, through the shops! The costumes all were of a gruesome nature. Even the girls dressed in princess dresses tended to have ghoulish face paint. One small child, maybe four years old, dressed as a very passable Chucky from Child's Play cracked me up (and creeped me out) since obviously a parent had come up with that idea.
~ Oh boy, you guys. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Rouen... words cannot describe this church. I'm not usually a fan of overly ostentatious design, but you can't help but be in awe of the beauty of the Cathedral when you see it, and even more so when you go inside. Old Gothic, late Gothic, "flamboyant" gothic, indeed. I cannot imagine how someone could dream up this plan, and even less so how it could be executed. Around the exterior of the main church are numerous side chapels honoring various saints, including, of course, a large one for St. Joan. Nathaniel found the Cathedral especially moving, and spent a long time moving slowly through it after the kids and I had moved on to soaking up sun (three girls and me) and chasing pigeons (the little two) in the square in front of the church.
~ Our last stop in Rouen was the Historial Jeanne d'Arc, a museum housed in the archiepiscopal palace in which Joan actually stood trial. It's an audio/visual tour from room to room, with a presentation of projected images in each, telling the story of the trial from perspectives of various historical players of the time. We had to leave as the presentation ended in order to catch our train, so didn't have time to explore the rest of the museum, but it was a really interesting concept, and for the most part kept the kids' attention. It was very moving. Tears may have been shed...
*****
Since All Saints' Day is a holy day at home, in Sweden, and in France, we figured we'd better do our best to find a mass that we could feasibly attend before catching our airport van. I was ready to give up, after the first few nearby churches showed their only masses offered too late in the morning, but Nathaniel found one within a reasonable bus trip from our hotel, offering mass in a mix of Portuguese and French. Because, why not? It was interesting! There was a lot of processing with candles that I couldn't follow the meaning of. Then, when the gifts were carried up, several people also brought up baskets filled with sliced and torn pieces of bread, that were placed in front of the altar. After communion the baskets were retrieved, and on the way out of mass, women were standing at the door encouraging everyone to take some, I guess to eat right then? We took a few, and the sweet little women pressed the kids and us to take more. Grandmas are pretty much the same in every culture, no?
*****
The trip home was mostly uneventful. If felt good to get "home" to Sweden. It has made me appreciate how well we've settled into life here, and learned to navigate our surroundings, after a week of being newbies in a city again. Simple things like understanding how the cross walks work, and knowing where to find a nearby grocery store, are a huge relief.
There are a million small things about the trip to Paris that I'm sure I've already forgotten because it took me a month to take notes. The chiming music that played as a train approached, that reminded us of the Harry Potter theme from the movies. The way the recorded voice on the trains always changed tone from the "approaching" to "arriving" announcements, and Marianne and I would laugh about it and mimic it to each other ("Val de Fontennay" and "Bry sur Marne" among our favorites). The handfuls of "kaboom berries" the kids stuffed in their pockets to ambush each other with on the walk from the hotel to the train each morning. The bag of groceries Ruth left on the train ("the only thing we lost in Paris"), that a kind gentleman chased us down to give back.
We bought almost no souvenirs - just the kids' "5 for 1€" eiffel tower keychains, a Joan of Arc coffee mug for Ruth, and a rosary Marianne bought at Notre Dame (in Paris), but we have so many great memories that we'll carry with us always. "We'll always have (bed bugs in) Paris!"
Tuesday was the final non-travel day of our trip. I'm so grateful our trip was extended beyond my original plan, or I'm sure this day-trip/pilgrimage to Rouen would have gotten scrapped after we lost time to the bed bug debacle of 2017, as it shall henceforth be known. Actually, no. That's not going to be the name. Probably it'll be something like, "Remember the bed bugs in Paris?!" in the vein of "remember the Alamo". On a recent quick trip for a conference, Nathaniel called me from his hotel and realized halfway through the conversation that he'd failed to immediately check for bed bugs! This will be a very real part of our travel routine going forward.
I digress. But let's be honest. I'll never talk about Paris again without digressing into bed bug jokes.
Tuesday! Actually back up a few hours to Monday night. On our way home post-Arc de Triumph, we had to wait ages for a train and learned that there'd been some incident and the RER (commuter train) line that serviced the station by our hotel would be heavily affected that night. The problem was at the far end of the line from us, so we were able to get home, but we knew there could be residual issues come morning. Sure enough, there were!
We waited ages for the first RER toward the city to arrive, the platform loading up with people, and when it did arrive, you could see it was PACKED to the gills. Nathaniel was encouraging me to move forward and just cram on, but I had terrible visions of only part of the family managing to get aboard and us getting separated. It hardly mattered, because I don't think more than one human body managed to smoosh itself into that sardine can when the doors opened. Ten minutes later or so, another train arrived. This time I knew we were dangerously close to missing our train to Rouen, so I grabbed the hands of two little people and shoved my way in. Happily, I managed to find a pocket of space off to one side. It was very... cozy, to be sure. But we all made it on. When we got off and half-ran the maze of the subway to the train station, though, we were losing hope. It was a few minutes past the departure time for our train and we didn't know how to find the platform we needed. We were just about to turn toward some ticket booths to ask for help when I spotted the train number on a sign at a platform with a train still in it! I ran toward it and flagged down an employee to make sure they saw us coming. Phew! We were late, but so were they. God is good!
There is nothing like starting your day with a mad dash through the Paris subway and train stations, believe me!
~ We stopped in the most beautiful bakery in Rouen to get coffees. Their display case was gorgeous, filled macarons and choux in rainbow assortments, as well as a huge variety of croissants with flavored fillings. It was dreamy!
~ We enjoyed our pastries and coffee at a park with a playground, so of course when it was time to move on, the younger crew burst into tears as though they believed we'd traveled two hours by train just to play at a new playground.
~ The Church of St Joan of Arc is just... really ugly from the outside. Inside, while it's still not to my architectural taste, it was wonderfully peaceful and simple. Stained glass and bright open space. And a beautiful abstract statue of Joan that I loved! I could have spent a long time resting in silence there (except, you know, kids).
~ A towering cross in the gardens outside the church marks the place where Joan was burned for heresy. The whole day was a strange mix of fun, touristy activity, and trying to wrap our heads around the beautiful/horrible story of this girl who died in the service of God and country. A lot of emotional highs and lows.
~ On the other side of the Church of St Joan there's a grassy park area with low stone walls that are the ruins of an old castle. The churches all closed from noon till 2pm, so we spent most of that time in this park, the kids running and leaping along the walls. Only one minor injury was incurred.
~ We walked through an open air market in search of lunch and were reminded that Rouen is near the sea - all manner of fresh fish and seafood were for sale! There was a tuna the size of Rachel in one ice chest. Also, a bowl of tiny, whole fish, battered and fried, for sale by the pound, beady little eyes staring out from under the breading. Hungry yet? We ended up ordering takeaway pizza from a restaurant and eating it in the park by the church. Nathaniel is always disappointed in the rest of the family's lack of gastronomic adventurousness.
~ The city of Rouen, from the little bit we walked through it from one religious site to another, was darling. It's "the heart of Normandy" or some such, so gets a lot of tourism. I wish we'd had more time to wander through the ancient streets and soak it up. The buildings and cobblestone streets are just so charming and old.
~ We were in Rouen on Halloween. Our kids were very chill when I told them we were essentially skipping Halloween this year. No one put up much of a fuss, though there was a lot of discussion of what they want to be next year. It was interesting to see, though, that there were kids trick-or-treating in Rouen, midday, through the shops! The costumes all were of a gruesome nature. Even the girls dressed in princess dresses tended to have ghoulish face paint. One small child, maybe four years old, dressed as a very passable Chucky from Child's Play cracked me up (and creeped me out) since obviously a parent had come up with that idea.
~ Oh boy, you guys. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Rouen... words cannot describe this church. I'm not usually a fan of overly ostentatious design, but you can't help but be in awe of the beauty of the Cathedral when you see it, and even more so when you go inside. Old Gothic, late Gothic, "flamboyant" gothic, indeed. I cannot imagine how someone could dream up this plan, and even less so how it could be executed. Around the exterior of the main church are numerous side chapels honoring various saints, including, of course, a large one for St. Joan. Nathaniel found the Cathedral especially moving, and spent a long time moving slowly through it after the kids and I had moved on to soaking up sun (three girls and me) and chasing pigeons (the little two) in the square in front of the church.
~ Our last stop in Rouen was the Historial Jeanne d'Arc, a museum housed in the archiepiscopal palace in which Joan actually stood trial. It's an audio/visual tour from room to room, with a presentation of projected images in each, telling the story of the trial from perspectives of various historical players of the time. We had to leave as the presentation ended in order to catch our train, so didn't have time to explore the rest of the museum, but it was a really interesting concept, and for the most part kept the kids' attention. It was very moving. Tears may have been shed...
*****
Since All Saints' Day is a holy day at home, in Sweden, and in France, we figured we'd better do our best to find a mass that we could feasibly attend before catching our airport van. I was ready to give up, after the first few nearby churches showed their only masses offered too late in the morning, but Nathaniel found one within a reasonable bus trip from our hotel, offering mass in a mix of Portuguese and French. Because, why not? It was interesting! There was a lot of processing with candles that I couldn't follow the meaning of. Then, when the gifts were carried up, several people also brought up baskets filled with sliced and torn pieces of bread, that were placed in front of the altar. After communion the baskets were retrieved, and on the way out of mass, women were standing at the door encouraging everyone to take some, I guess to eat right then? We took a few, and the sweet little women pressed the kids and us to take more. Grandmas are pretty much the same in every culture, no?
*****
The trip home was mostly uneventful. If felt good to get "home" to Sweden. It has made me appreciate how well we've settled into life here, and learned to navigate our surroundings, after a week of being newbies in a city again. Simple things like understanding how the cross walks work, and knowing where to find a nearby grocery store, are a huge relief.
There are a million small things about the trip to Paris that I'm sure I've already forgotten because it took me a month to take notes. The chiming music that played as a train approached, that reminded us of the Harry Potter theme from the movies. The way the recorded voice on the trains always changed tone from the "approaching" to "arriving" announcements, and Marianne and I would laugh about it and mimic it to each other ("Val de Fontennay" and "Bry sur Marne" among our favorites). The handfuls of "kaboom berries" the kids stuffed in their pockets to ambush each other with on the walk from the hotel to the train each morning. The bag of groceries Ruth left on the train ("the only thing we lost in Paris"), that a kind gentleman chased us down to give back.
We bought almost no souvenirs - just the kids' "5 for 1€" eiffel tower keychains, a Joan of Arc coffee mug for Ruth, and a rosary Marianne bought at Notre Dame (in Paris), but we have so many great memories that we'll carry with us always. "We'll always have (bed bugs in) Paris!"
Friday, November 03, 2017
Paris - the traumatic
Well! We're over 10 weeks into this wild ride that is "sabbatical", and just completed the first of what we hope will be a few excursions into other parts of Europe. Destination one, as I assume you've all seen on instagram, was Paris! Meg had her heart set on Paris for no reason in particular, and it was one of the main cities I hoped to take the family, second only to Rome (which we'll do in the Spring, we hope). I did most of the travel planning in mid-September, lining up flights on Europe's super cheap airline, RyanAir, for a song, even after you added on the cost of the bus from Stockholm to the further-away airport RyanAir uses, and the Super Shuttle from the equally distant airport in France to the suburb of Paris we were staying in. I found accommodations on AirBnB. It was my first time using AirBnB, and I was a little nervous, but found an apartment with several good reviews that suited our family size and was quite affordable. So much so, that when I went to book the RyanAir flight and discovered prices had changed so it would be much cheaper for us to fly back two days later, the cost of lodging was low enough that I tacked on the extra time! In retrospect, I am SO GLAD we had those extra days! Because...
Well, I hardly know where to begin. We checked into the apartment and it was... fine. Really, it was a nice enough space for our needs. The neighborhood was, um, okay. Not great, but okay. But when we searched for groceries and restaurants to find some lunch (we'd been up since 3am, you'll recall, and we checked in around noon), they were all a pretty serious hike away. Through a park. Which sounds nice, until it turns out the walk through the park is lovely but is not actually real paths, and they're not lit, so my mind is racing with the fact that if we're coming home from Paris at night it's not a walk I'd want to make. But we're keeping our cheer up, and plotting our path to the "nearby" train station (per the ad) and figuring things out. We walked back after lunch along the road, rather than through the park, and it was loooonnng, and the road was sort of secluded and I was a little anxious about that at night as well. So I figured out some options for buses from a different train stop and we were still keeping our moods up and making our plans and Nathaniel was talking me down from feeling like maybe I'd failed at this whole planning thing. The kids were having fun playing with the huge playmobil collections in one room, then playing at the playground while I made some dinner and then we started getting everyone into bed.
After kids were settled, we talked through some plans for morning, and I took a quick look into the bathroom, mentally planning what time I'd get up to shower before we left. I saw a small bug in the tub and nearly ignored it. I'd seen cockroach poison under the sink, and while I hate the nasty things, this one was small and I get that they live in the world, you know? And in a big apartment building like this... it would be tough to avoid entirely. After a moment of hesitation, I went to get some tissue (the toilet was in a separate room from the bath and sink) and killed the bug. Then, on a whim and a funny feeling, I took it in and said to Nathaniel, "there was a cockroach in the tub. I killed it. It is a cockroach right, and not a bed bug or something? ha ha ha!" and showed it to him.
And that, my friends, is when the whole night went haywire.
Because it WAS a bed bug. In the bath tub.
Which, honestly, I consider a straight up gift from God to save us from so much potential additional trouble had we not spotted one so early.
Nathaniel was my hero through the entirety of this story. He took one look at the flat smashed bug on the tissue, said, "I think that is a bed bug.", hit up the image on google and was up moving in a flash. (Quick back story, because everyone we've told this story to so far says, "Wait. How did you know what a bed bug looks like?" A few years ago, there was a weird incident where Nathaniel found a bug in office at work that he thought was a bed bug. The university took it very seriously, sent the bug to UNL's entomology department, and it turned out to be a bat bug, which looks identical except under a microscope. Since there are bats in Nathaniel's building, that made sense. And Nathaniel is now very familiar with the look of a bed bug.) We grabbed a flashlight from my suitcase and headed into the little kids' room. It had a bunk bed and a trundle. We checked Rachel's bed on the trundle first, because it was easiest, and didn't see any bugs. Taking a deep breath, feeling relieved, we moved to Meg's top bunk. I cannot even express how awful this got you guys... We spotted one on the bed, then one in the indention where a screw head is set into the wood in the frame of the bed,
then another on the other side, then Nathaniel spotted one ON THE WALL. Not even on the bed, y'all. What's it doing on the WALL?! At that point, Nathaniel's grabbing Meg out of the bed and carrying her to the big sofa/bed in the living room where I'm trying to comfort this recently woken girl, and one FALLS OFF HER NIGHTGOWN onto the sheet on the sofa bed. So I'm stripping Meg to get her in clean clothes while Nathaniel's bringing the other littles in and waking the big girls to get them out of their bed. He killed several that had already, um, fed. Which is so gross to think about. And we're gathering clothes and shaking every little thing out. We didn't see any in the sofa bed in the living room or the bed in the older girls' room. They seemed primarily to be in the little kid room, but there were SO MANY. At very first we'd considered how we'd sleep everyone in other rooms till morning, but after what we were seeing we knew we just could not.
I texted the owner at 10:50pm for the first time, letting him know about this problem and that we were figuring out what to do. Nathaniel and I set to looking for hotels nearby that we could move to without blowing our entire budget. Nathaniel made calls to a few we found, and never did I know I'd be so incredibly grateful for the French he learned from his grandparents and during high school. Every where he called, they spoke only French (or at least, did not speak English) so he was having to strain to communicate, but he was able to get his message across. This became an even bigger issue once we had found a hotel with two open rooms (because of course none of them had rooms large enough to accommodate all seven of us in one) and he moved on to trying to find a taxi service. At this point it was midnight. He started calling taxis companies, asking for a van. But we're so far out of the city that no company wants to send a car that far for the short trip to the hotel without charging us loads extra to begin the trip. One company said no problem, but he had to input the request online. He did so, got a confirmation that it was all set, then 10 minutes later got a call saying nevermind, they couldn't find a driver after all.
While Nathaniel was making calls, the kids were all sitting up playing around on tablets and eating leftover baguette from dinner, whatever I could do to keep them calm. I was gathering all our belongings, shaking them out, looking them over for any sign of anything that might move. Everyone had changed out of their pajamas, and I tied up all the dirties and everything that had been in the littles' room in trash bags into one suitcase to be washed asap. We combed out everyone's hair and looked over bodies. I was beside myself. Not just for US but for the hotel we were headed to, for the owners of our flat in Stockholm. For a million reasons I was NOT going to take any hitchhikers with us from this apartment. Oh, and then I coached the kids on how they absolutely could NOT mention the words "bed bugs" where anyone else could hear it once we left the apartment. I could totally envision hotels denying us service if they knew why we were moving in the middle of the night.
In the end, after literally hours of calls and waiting, one cab company sent one car that took Nathaniel and three of the kids, then came back for me and the other two. By the time we got the hotel, figured out their automated check in system, and were able to rest our heads on pillows, it was 3:15am. We had been up nearly nonstop for over 24 hours.
And the fun didn't stop there. We still had to form a plan for the rest of our stay in Paris. If we were going to pay hotel prices, this was not the part of town I wanted to stay in - it turned out the hotel we'd found was in an air park or some kind of industrial area, as well as being in a fairly far out suburb. After a few hours of sleep, Nathaniel in one room with the three littles, me in another room with Marianne and Ruth, we reconvened in the breakfast nook to talk options. The gentleman running the desk was incredibly kind and chatted with us in broken English, helping us figure out how to get to the bus to the nearest train when we needed, etc. I hunted expedia and other sites for last minute hotel deals. Thankfully, I managed to find one in a different suburb that turned out to be so much better suited to us. We booked it, and by about noon we were waiting on a bus to a train to our third living space in Paris.
Of course, through all of this, I was also exchanging communications with our AirBnB host. I will say that he was courteous through all of it, and I feel for him, having to deal with this, but I was obviously frustrated as well. He admittedly openly, immediately, when I mentioned the problem, that he knew they'd had issues before, but that he'd paid a company to take care of it was very sorry to hear they were still there. Somewhat unbelievably to me, he held throughout the whole ordeal that we could continue to stay in the apartment, that the bugs were only in the one room, and he would have the company back first thing in the morning, and by the time we were done sight-seeing in Paris that day, the bugs would be gone and we could be safely back in?! I can't even wrap my head around that. Who would have magically laundered all the bedding? How would we have any assurance that more wouldn't show up?! Is it even theoretically possible that an apartment could be rid of bed bugs during a four hour extermination period?
I told him we would definitely make other arrangements and he agreed to refund all of the cost "except the AirBnB fee and cleaning fee", but by then I'd reported the issue to AirBnB as well, just to be safe, and they refunded me 100% of what I had paid almost immediately. The only lingering issue now is a 100 euro key deposit we paid at the time of check in, but he has agreed to wire that money as well, so I'm hopeful we'll end up with all our money back. I have not yet written a review on AirBnB and I'm torn... of course part of me wants to write a review, explaining how nice the host was but that THERE WERE BED BUGS. Because heaven knows if I'd read that I'd never have booked it. But then part of me hears him saying, "We thought it was taken care of. The woman who cleaned it the day prior saw nothing. We'll take care of it." and "Bed bugs, unfortunately, are epidemic in the Paris area". And I don't want to ruin his AirBnB career forever. Because it would, wouldn't it? I mean, how would he ever rent it again with a "bed bug" review on the link? I hope for his sake and his children's that he HAS gotten it taken care of... and I'd like him to be able to find renters once he has. Nathaniel says I'm being entirely too nice.
Throughout the whole crazy night and next day - and even the day after that when I was finally able to open my hermetically sealed, trash-bagged suitcase of clothes, shake them all out again and wash them on HOT, examining every tiny crevice of the suitcase, just in case - we were able to laugh. Because THIS! This will be a story that will go down in family lore. This will be a forever joke. "Remember the bed bugs in Paris?!?!"
"Good night, sleep tight, don't let..." "NO! I can't even say it now!"
This was memories in the making, for better and worse.
Do I wish we hadn't had the whole ordeal? OF COURSE. But, part of me thinks it was a godsend. The hotel we moved to was so much better for us! I didn't realize till we arrived that the hotel room that "sleeps 8" was actually an apartment in a long-term stay type hotel. It had three bedrooms on two floors, a living and dining area, a small (ill equipped but functional) kitchen, two baths/showers and two toilets. It was an easy five minute walk around the corner, on well lit streets, to the commuter train station. The trains were fancy double decker things, because it was a busy line (that ended at Disneyland Paris, though we never went that far), so the kids thought it was cushy and fun, and a nice 20 minutes to play games on their tablets at the start and end of each day. There was laundry on site. We even had a little gated yard in front of the apartment that the kids used daily to blow off steam, picking "poison berries" from the bushes and pelting each other with them.
So. Well. There you have it. The first two days of the trip were a bit of a nightmare. But by the second evening, we were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower watching it sparkle and we were back on track to enjoy our vacation. We got back all of our initial housing money, and though we spent more on the place we settled, it was much better suited to our needs. I have washed all the clothes and inspected everything we took with us. I take some comfort that we stayed two places between the infested apartment and our home-away-from-home in Stockholm, just for a little extra security. None of the kids who'd slept in the nasty room ever showed signs of bites. And since we'd extended out trip for cheaper airfare, we ended up with enough time still to make a good, long visit. I honestly can see God's hand in every step of the story, from the longer trip, to the inexplicable bug in the bath tub, to the nicer neighborhood/hotel. And now, we'll always have (bed bugs in) Paris!
We'll also always henceforth join the ranks of the paranoid - checking every hotel/AirBnB mattress before we lie down on it. We used to chuckle at our fastidious family members, who worried about bed bugs at every turn. But now... we get it! We're on board!
Coming up soon, the more upbeat stories from the trip.
Well, I hardly know where to begin. We checked into the apartment and it was... fine. Really, it was a nice enough space for our needs. The neighborhood was, um, okay. Not great, but okay. But when we searched for groceries and restaurants to find some lunch (we'd been up since 3am, you'll recall, and we checked in around noon), they were all a pretty serious hike away. Through a park. Which sounds nice, until it turns out the walk through the park is lovely but is not actually real paths, and they're not lit, so my mind is racing with the fact that if we're coming home from Paris at night it's not a walk I'd want to make. But we're keeping our cheer up, and plotting our path to the "nearby" train station (per the ad) and figuring things out. We walked back after lunch along the road, rather than through the park, and it was loooonnng, and the road was sort of secluded and I was a little anxious about that at night as well. So I figured out some options for buses from a different train stop and we were still keeping our moods up and making our plans and Nathaniel was talking me down from feeling like maybe I'd failed at this whole planning thing. The kids were having fun playing with the huge playmobil collections in one room, then playing at the playground while I made some dinner and then we started getting everyone into bed.
After kids were settled, we talked through some plans for morning, and I took a quick look into the bathroom, mentally planning what time I'd get up to shower before we left. I saw a small bug in the tub and nearly ignored it. I'd seen cockroach poison under the sink, and while I hate the nasty things, this one was small and I get that they live in the world, you know? And in a big apartment building like this... it would be tough to avoid entirely. After a moment of hesitation, I went to get some tissue (the toilet was in a separate room from the bath and sink) and killed the bug. Then, on a whim and a funny feeling, I took it in and said to Nathaniel, "there was a cockroach in the tub. I killed it. It is a cockroach right, and not a bed bug or something? ha ha ha!" and showed it to him.
And that, my friends, is when the whole night went haywire.
Because it WAS a bed bug. In the bath tub.
Which, honestly, I consider a straight up gift from God to save us from so much potential additional trouble had we not spotted one so early.
Nathaniel was my hero through the entirety of this story. He took one look at the flat smashed bug on the tissue, said, "I think that is a bed bug.", hit up the image on google and was up moving in a flash. (Quick back story, because everyone we've told this story to so far says, "Wait. How did you know what a bed bug looks like?" A few years ago, there was a weird incident where Nathaniel found a bug in office at work that he thought was a bed bug. The university took it very seriously, sent the bug to UNL's entomology department, and it turned out to be a bat bug, which looks identical except under a microscope. Since there are bats in Nathaniel's building, that made sense. And Nathaniel is now very familiar with the look of a bed bug.) We grabbed a flashlight from my suitcase and headed into the little kids' room. It had a bunk bed and a trundle. We checked Rachel's bed on the trundle first, because it was easiest, and didn't see any bugs. Taking a deep breath, feeling relieved, we moved to Meg's top bunk. I cannot even express how awful this got you guys... We spotted one on the bed, then one in the indention where a screw head is set into the wood in the frame of the bed,
I texted the owner at 10:50pm for the first time, letting him know about this problem and that we were figuring out what to do. Nathaniel and I set to looking for hotels nearby that we could move to without blowing our entire budget. Nathaniel made calls to a few we found, and never did I know I'd be so incredibly grateful for the French he learned from his grandparents and during high school. Every where he called, they spoke only French (or at least, did not speak English) so he was having to strain to communicate, but he was able to get his message across. This became an even bigger issue once we had found a hotel with two open rooms (because of course none of them had rooms large enough to accommodate all seven of us in one) and he moved on to trying to find a taxi service. At this point it was midnight. He started calling taxis companies, asking for a van. But we're so far out of the city that no company wants to send a car that far for the short trip to the hotel without charging us loads extra to begin the trip. One company said no problem, but he had to input the request online. He did so, got a confirmation that it was all set, then 10 minutes later got a call saying nevermind, they couldn't find a driver after all.
In the end, after literally hours of calls and waiting, one cab company sent one car that took Nathaniel and three of the kids, then came back for me and the other two. By the time we got the hotel, figured out their automated check in system, and were able to rest our heads on pillows, it was 3:15am. We had been up nearly nonstop for over 24 hours.
And the fun didn't stop there. We still had to form a plan for the rest of our stay in Paris. If we were going to pay hotel prices, this was not the part of town I wanted to stay in - it turned out the hotel we'd found was in an air park or some kind of industrial area, as well as being in a fairly far out suburb. After a few hours of sleep, Nathaniel in one room with the three littles, me in another room with Marianne and Ruth, we reconvened in the breakfast nook to talk options. The gentleman running the desk was incredibly kind and chatted with us in broken English, helping us figure out how to get to the bus to the nearest train when we needed, etc. I hunted expedia and other sites for last minute hotel deals. Thankfully, I managed to find one in a different suburb that turned out to be so much better suited to us. We booked it, and by about noon we were waiting on a bus to a train to our third living space in Paris.
Of course, through all of this, I was also exchanging communications with our AirBnB host. I will say that he was courteous through all of it, and I feel for him, having to deal with this, but I was obviously frustrated as well. He admittedly openly, immediately, when I mentioned the problem, that he knew they'd had issues before, but that he'd paid a company to take care of it was very sorry to hear they were still there. Somewhat unbelievably to me, he held throughout the whole ordeal that we could continue to stay in the apartment, that the bugs were only in the one room, and he would have the company back first thing in the morning, and by the time we were done sight-seeing in Paris that day, the bugs would be gone and we could be safely back in?! I can't even wrap my head around that. Who would have magically laundered all the bedding? How would we have any assurance that more wouldn't show up?! Is it even theoretically possible that an apartment could be rid of bed bugs during a four hour extermination period?
I told him we would definitely make other arrangements and he agreed to refund all of the cost "except the AirBnB fee and cleaning fee", but by then I'd reported the issue to AirBnB as well, just to be safe, and they refunded me 100% of what I had paid almost immediately. The only lingering issue now is a 100 euro key deposit we paid at the time of check in, but he has agreed to wire that money as well, so I'm hopeful we'll end up with all our money back. I have not yet written a review on AirBnB and I'm torn... of course part of me wants to write a review, explaining how nice the host was but that THERE WERE BED BUGS. Because heaven knows if I'd read that I'd never have booked it. But then part of me hears him saying, "We thought it was taken care of. The woman who cleaned it the day prior saw nothing. We'll take care of it." and "Bed bugs, unfortunately, are epidemic in the Paris area". And I don't want to ruin his AirBnB career forever. Because it would, wouldn't it? I mean, how would he ever rent it again with a "bed bug" review on the link? I hope for his sake and his children's that he HAS gotten it taken care of... and I'd like him to be able to find renters once he has. Nathaniel says I'm being entirely too nice.
Throughout the whole crazy night and next day - and even the day after that when I was finally able to open my hermetically sealed, trash-bagged suitcase of clothes, shake them all out again and wash them on HOT, examining every tiny crevice of the suitcase, just in case - we were able to laugh. Because THIS! This will be a story that will go down in family lore. This will be a forever joke. "Remember the bed bugs in Paris?!?!"
"Good night, sleep tight, don't let..." "NO! I can't even say it now!"
This was memories in the making, for better and worse.
Do I wish we hadn't had the whole ordeal? OF COURSE. But, part of me thinks it was a godsend. The hotel we moved to was so much better for us! I didn't realize till we arrived that the hotel room that "sleeps 8" was actually an apartment in a long-term stay type hotel. It had three bedrooms on two floors, a living and dining area, a small (ill equipped but functional) kitchen, two baths/showers and two toilets. It was an easy five minute walk around the corner, on well lit streets, to the commuter train station. The trains were fancy double decker things, because it was a busy line (that ended at Disneyland Paris, though we never went that far), so the kids thought it was cushy and fun, and a nice 20 minutes to play games on their tablets at the start and end of each day. There was laundry on site. We even had a little gated yard in front of the apartment that the kids used daily to blow off steam, picking "poison berries" from the bushes and pelting each other with them.
So. Well. There you have it. The first two days of the trip were a bit of a nightmare. But by the second evening, we were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower watching it sparkle and we were back on track to enjoy our vacation. We got back all of our initial housing money, and though we spent more on the place we settled, it was much better suited to our needs. I have washed all the clothes and inspected everything we took with us. I take some comfort that we stayed two places between the infested apartment and our home-away-from-home in Stockholm, just for a little extra security. None of the kids who'd slept in the nasty room ever showed signs of bites. And since we'd extended out trip for cheaper airfare, we ended up with enough time still to make a good, long visit. I honestly can see God's hand in every step of the story, from the longer trip, to the inexplicable bug in the bath tub, to the nicer neighborhood/hotel. And now, we'll always have (bed bugs in) Paris!
We'll also always henceforth join the ranks of the paranoid - checking every hotel/AirBnB mattress before we lie down on it. We used to chuckle at our fastidious family members, who worried about bed bugs at every turn. But now... we get it! We're on board!
Coming up soon, the more upbeat stories from the trip.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Kyrkan
Interestingly, that word starts with a "sh" sound. I've been saying it wrong, and I bet your first attempt in your head was wrong as well. Nathaniel corrected me recently - he's not hesitant about correcting pronunciation, I'm sure you're all shocked to hear.
The church!
We've only been here four weeks, so obviously I can't make any sweeping statements about the church here. I've posted photos on instagram a couple times, though, wanting to say more than I could fit in a caption, and gotten several questions from friends, so thought I'd write a little more.
The official Church of Sweden is nominally Lutheran, but more of a political body than religious at this point. I did a little interesting research for this post, to double check things we've heard anecdotally, and learned a few new tidbits. The Church of Sweden is the largest Lutheran denomination in Europe, and the third large protestant denomination after the Church of England and the Evangelical Church of Germany, with over 6 million members (over 60% of the Swedish population). Given the general lack of religion in Sweden, how is that possible? Because up until a few years ago, every newborn baby in Sweden automatically became a registered member of the church unless parents had actively opted out. That's one way to boost your numbers! The Church of Sweden is very liberal, and very politically involved. Per Fr. Mark at the church we attended last weekend, they'd just had the equivalent of parish council elections for the Church of Sweden the prior week, and it's all done with campaigning based on political party affiliation. Of the 6+ million members, roughly 2% actually attend church.
The Catholic Church came to Sweden in the 800s and endured a few monarchs past reformation till it was outlawed in 1599. Being Catholic was punishable by law, resulting in deportations and death penalties, until 1781 when the "Tolerance Act" decriminalized limited visits of foreign Catholics to the country. Actually living in Sweden as a Catholic was still a crime until 1860. Swedish citizens were not legally allowed to exit the Church of Sweden for Catholicism until the 1950s. This is likely similar to many other European countries' church histories, but is intriguing to me, having grown up in a land of religious freedom and never considered that in such recent history, in a European nation, this would have been an issue.
The Diocese of Stockholm is the one diocese in the country. The bishop, Anders Arborelius - the first ethnically Swedish bishop anywhere in Europe since the reformation - was named a cardinal by Pope Francis earlier this year! There are roughly 200,000 Catholics in the country, from a diverse background. (If you did your math up above, you'll note that that means there are more active Catholics than active members of the 6 million person Church of Sweden). Recent growth in the church is due primarily to an influx of Christian refugees from Syria, etc. Masses can be found throughout the city of Stockholm offered in a host of languages to accommodate the wide backgrounds of the faithful.
That's the end of my wikipedia based church history synopsis. Now on to our personal experience...
There are two churches offering English masses reasonably near us. Both are about half an hour on foot, or 20-25 minutes by bus-foot combo. We attended Marie Bebådelse (Annunciation of Mary) the first few weeks, because it was nearer to where we were sight-seeing, and I prefer the idea of a 5pm mass on Saturday night to 6pm on Sunday (our two options). As instagram photos showed, MB is literally in the basement of an apartment building. You could easily walk past it without realizing there was a church at all. Because Sweden seized all the beautiful old churches from the Catholics when they instituted their national church, the Catholic churches seem to have built back up in city buildings that blend into their surroundings. I haven't seen any suburban churches yet, so can't say whether they look more like I'd expect a church to look. MB had only a handful of people in attendance at the English mass. There has been a different priest each time we've attended, but I don't know whether there's always a rotation, or if we happen to have a hit an odd time at the end of summer. The first and third time we attended, there was an organist and cantor performing relatively traditional music, with the priest and an acolyte on the altar (a lay person in the white alb like our acolytes wear, but I don't know whether they have actual installed acolytes here or if it's just substituting an adult for youth altar servers). The second week was apparently the first attempt at establishing a "children's mass". We were met at the door by the priest, a Passionist (a new order to me), asking if any of the kids would be willing to read the prayers of the faithful (Ruth stepped up). They rehearsed some quirky music before mass that I assume was written with children in mind, but was hard to follow (even Father was looking askance at that evening's organist and way-too-quiet cantor), and at the end of mass Father took some time to address the small congregation and ask whether there were any other sorts of musicians who might like to play - guitars, trumpets, etc - as well as to request anyone interested in serving at the altar or reading to just show up 15 minutes early the next time to practice. It was all a little disorganized, but that's not surprising since it was their first time trying it. But it wasn't the sort of thing we (including the kids) found enticing. Since the new children's mass is to be on 1st and 3rd weekends, we took the opportunity this past weekend (the 3rd of the month) to try out the other English mass option. Overall, I think MB is a very sweet parish, doing an important service to the community. It's a mission parish. It leaves me feeling guilty not wanting to attend there, because it seems like such a ragtag crew, trying to do good work.
St. Eugenia, it turns out, is a much larger, churchier church. Inside at least. From the outside you could still nearly pass it by, although there is a large cross sticking out from the front like a restaurant would have it's sign, jutting out to catch the eye. Inside, however, it looks like... well... a church built in the 70s. So, you know. Is it to my taste in church architecture? No. But it felt so much grander and more reverent and lovely in comparison to MB that it was a bit of warm hug just to be there. The mass was standing room only by the time it began; the congregation was beautifully diverse. There was a choir of mixed ages, that sang traditional songs we were familiar with, though the mass parts were new. St. Eugenia is run by Jesuits since the 1950s, and must serve a university population because some of the announcements at the end were directed to students regarding a lecture series after mass. There were three priests on the altar, an assortment of altar servers assisting, and incense floating heavenward. Interestingly, there were a dozen people taking up the collection and carrying up the gifts which made me think it might be heavy on the EMEs, but only the priests distributed the Eucharist (love that!). If you weren't receiving the Eucharist, the priests gave serious blessings! I saw one of the priests blessing a man who'd come forward in the line and was starting to think it was a full spiritual advice session happening, given the amount of time they spent together. When I walked up with Rachel asleep on my shoulder - that's what a 6pm mass will get you, apparently - he gave her a lovely long blessing. It must just be how they roll.
As noted on the instagram post, it happened to be the feast of St. Eugenia, so the homily was about how the church came to be, how it chose it patron, etc. Interesting stuff, which can mostly be found on the church's webpage if you'd like to read more (there's a "translate" button on the bottom right). We had a chance to chat with Fr. Mark after mass. He was warm and welcoming. As we were exiting, we were also greeted by Amelia, a woman from Nigeria, who was boisterous and joyful and had the most amazing head wrap. Also, I'm full of respect for her because I had seen her stop a boy she didn't appear to know personally, maybe 12 years old, after he'd been hugely disrespectful in his treatment of the Eucharist at communion, and give him a talking to. Go, Amelia! She complimented us on the behavior of our own children - always something that warms a mother's heart - and hugged everybody a couple of times each with such exuberance that her headscarf was coming unwrapped by the end of it. I hope we see her again soon!
We do intend to attend mass at St. Eric's Cathedral soon, most likely in Swedish since they don't offer English and we don't speak any of the other languages they do offer. It does actually look like a church, albeit a church sandwiched between buildings in a shopping district. I'd like to try to find a time when Cardinal Anders will be celebrating mass, so we can... see him in action? That's a weird way of putting it, but you know what I mean. Not that we'll understand the homily, but at least we'd be not understanding a cardinal's homily instead of someone of lesser title.
A couple additional notes:
~ Many people here receive on the tongue, which I appreciate. My children have grown up doing so, and it makes them a little anxious when we attend a parish where it appears uncommon ("Will they let me receive on the tongue?" "Of course. They're required to allow that, and should even encourage it." "Okay... will you go first...?"). I'm glad they can see they're not alone in that extra sign of reverence here.
~ Many people, after receiving communion, go to the side chapels or transepts to light candles and kneel in prayer before returning to their seats or leaving. I think it's an interesting gesture. I can see it making sense, if you're offering your mass for an intention, to receive Christ then immediately go and light a candle for the same intention. However I find all the movement around the church distracting to my own meditation. Then again, meditation during communion (or any time, for that matter) has never been my strong suit, so I should probably try closing my eyes and focusing more on my own prayer rather than watching where the other communicants are going.
The church!
We've only been here four weeks, so obviously I can't make any sweeping statements about the church here. I've posted photos on instagram a couple times, though, wanting to say more than I could fit in a caption, and gotten several questions from friends, so thought I'd write a little more.
The official Church of Sweden is nominally Lutheran, but more of a political body than religious at this point. I did a little interesting research for this post, to double check things we've heard anecdotally, and learned a few new tidbits. The Church of Sweden is the largest Lutheran denomination in Europe, and the third large protestant denomination after the Church of England and the Evangelical Church of Germany, with over 6 million members (over 60% of the Swedish population). Given the general lack of religion in Sweden, how is that possible? Because up until a few years ago, every newborn baby in Sweden automatically became a registered member of the church unless parents had actively opted out. That's one way to boost your numbers! The Church of Sweden is very liberal, and very politically involved. Per Fr. Mark at the church we attended last weekend, they'd just had the equivalent of parish council elections for the Church of Sweden the prior week, and it's all done with campaigning based on political party affiliation. Of the 6+ million members, roughly 2% actually attend church.
The Catholic Church came to Sweden in the 800s and endured a few monarchs past reformation till it was outlawed in 1599. Being Catholic was punishable by law, resulting in deportations and death penalties, until 1781 when the "Tolerance Act" decriminalized limited visits of foreign Catholics to the country. Actually living in Sweden as a Catholic was still a crime until 1860. Swedish citizens were not legally allowed to exit the Church of Sweden for Catholicism until the 1950s. This is likely similar to many other European countries' church histories, but is intriguing to me, having grown up in a land of religious freedom and never considered that in such recent history, in a European nation, this would have been an issue.
The Diocese of Stockholm is the one diocese in the country. The bishop, Anders Arborelius - the first ethnically Swedish bishop anywhere in Europe since the reformation - was named a cardinal by Pope Francis earlier this year! There are roughly 200,000 Catholics in the country, from a diverse background. (If you did your math up above, you'll note that that means there are more active Catholics than active members of the 6 million person Church of Sweden). Recent growth in the church is due primarily to an influx of Christian refugees from Syria, etc. Masses can be found throughout the city of Stockholm offered in a host of languages to accommodate the wide backgrounds of the faithful.
That's the end of my wikipedia based church history synopsis. Now on to our personal experience...
There are two churches offering English masses reasonably near us. Both are about half an hour on foot, or 20-25 minutes by bus-foot combo. We attended Marie Bebådelse (Annunciation of Mary) the first few weeks, because it was nearer to where we were sight-seeing, and I prefer the idea of a 5pm mass on Saturday night to 6pm on Sunday (our two options). As instagram photos showed, MB is literally in the basement of an apartment building. You could easily walk past it without realizing there was a church at all. Because Sweden seized all the beautiful old churches from the Catholics when they instituted their national church, the Catholic churches seem to have built back up in city buildings that blend into their surroundings. I haven't seen any suburban churches yet, so can't say whether they look more like I'd expect a church to look. MB had only a handful of people in attendance at the English mass. There has been a different priest each time we've attended, but I don't know whether there's always a rotation, or if we happen to have a hit an odd time at the end of summer. The first and third time we attended, there was an organist and cantor performing relatively traditional music, with the priest and an acolyte on the altar (a lay person in the white alb like our acolytes wear, but I don't know whether they have actual installed acolytes here or if it's just substituting an adult for youth altar servers). The second week was apparently the first attempt at establishing a "children's mass". We were met at the door by the priest, a Passionist (a new order to me), asking if any of the kids would be willing to read the prayers of the faithful (Ruth stepped up). They rehearsed some quirky music before mass that I assume was written with children in mind, but was hard to follow (even Father was looking askance at that evening's organist and way-too-quiet cantor), and at the end of mass Father took some time to address the small congregation and ask whether there were any other sorts of musicians who might like to play - guitars, trumpets, etc - as well as to request anyone interested in serving at the altar or reading to just show up 15 minutes early the next time to practice. It was all a little disorganized, but that's not surprising since it was their first time trying it. But it wasn't the sort of thing we (including the kids) found enticing. Since the new children's mass is to be on 1st and 3rd weekends, we took the opportunity this past weekend (the 3rd of the month) to try out the other English mass option. Overall, I think MB is a very sweet parish, doing an important service to the community. It's a mission parish. It leaves me feeling guilty not wanting to attend there, because it seems like such a ragtag crew, trying to do good work.
St. Eugenia, it turns out, is a much larger, churchier church. Inside at least. From the outside you could still nearly pass it by, although there is a large cross sticking out from the front like a restaurant would have it's sign, jutting out to catch the eye. Inside, however, it looks like... well... a church built in the 70s. So, you know. Is it to my taste in church architecture? No. But it felt so much grander and more reverent and lovely in comparison to MB that it was a bit of warm hug just to be there. The mass was standing room only by the time it began; the congregation was beautifully diverse. There was a choir of mixed ages, that sang traditional songs we were familiar with, though the mass parts were new. St. Eugenia is run by Jesuits since the 1950s, and must serve a university population because some of the announcements at the end were directed to students regarding a lecture series after mass. There were three priests on the altar, an assortment of altar servers assisting, and incense floating heavenward. Interestingly, there were a dozen people taking up the collection and carrying up the gifts which made me think it might be heavy on the EMEs, but only the priests distributed the Eucharist (love that!). If you weren't receiving the Eucharist, the priests gave serious blessings! I saw one of the priests blessing a man who'd come forward in the line and was starting to think it was a full spiritual advice session happening, given the amount of time they spent together. When I walked up with Rachel asleep on my shoulder - that's what a 6pm mass will get you, apparently - he gave her a lovely long blessing. It must just be how they roll.
As noted on the instagram post, it happened to be the feast of St. Eugenia, so the homily was about how the church came to be, how it chose it patron, etc. Interesting stuff, which can mostly be found on the church's webpage if you'd like to read more (there's a "translate" button on the bottom right). We had a chance to chat with Fr. Mark after mass. He was warm and welcoming. As we were exiting, we were also greeted by Amelia, a woman from Nigeria, who was boisterous and joyful and had the most amazing head wrap. Also, I'm full of respect for her because I had seen her stop a boy she didn't appear to know personally, maybe 12 years old, after he'd been hugely disrespectful in his treatment of the Eucharist at communion, and give him a talking to. Go, Amelia! She complimented us on the behavior of our own children - always something that warms a mother's heart - and hugged everybody a couple of times each with such exuberance that her headscarf was coming unwrapped by the end of it. I hope we see her again soon!
We do intend to attend mass at St. Eric's Cathedral soon, most likely in Swedish since they don't offer English and we don't speak any of the other languages they do offer. It does actually look like a church, albeit a church sandwiched between buildings in a shopping district. I'd like to try to find a time when Cardinal Anders will be celebrating mass, so we can... see him in action? That's a weird way of putting it, but you know what I mean. Not that we'll understand the homily, but at least we'd be not understanding a cardinal's homily instead of someone of lesser title.
A couple additional notes:
~ Many people here receive on the tongue, which I appreciate. My children have grown up doing so, and it makes them a little anxious when we attend a parish where it appears uncommon ("Will they let me receive on the tongue?" "Of course. They're required to allow that, and should even encourage it." "Okay... will you go first...?"). I'm glad they can see they're not alone in that extra sign of reverence here.
~ Many people, after receiving communion, go to the side chapels or transepts to light candles and kneel in prayer before returning to their seats or leaving. I think it's an interesting gesture. I can see it making sense, if you're offering your mass for an intention, to receive Christ then immediately go and light a candle for the same intention. However I find all the movement around the church distracting to my own meditation. Then again, meditation during communion (or any time, for that matter) has never been my strong suit, so I should probably try closing my eyes and focusing more on my own prayer rather than watching where the other communicants are going.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
We interrupt this cleaning and packing frenzy for an update
I just wrote this update in an email to a friend and realized I should go ahead and share it more generally. If it sounds more like a casual email than a blog post - though even as I type that I'm thinking to myself that there's probably no difference in my tone for those two scenarios - it's because it is. Was. Whatever.
*****
Things are CRAZY here. Nathaniel and I head to KS tomorrow to pick up the kids. They've been at my parents' house for TWO WEEKS. I think we've officially found the length of time at which I legitimately miss my kids and am ready sweep them up into big hugs again! Not that I'm not sort of wishing for more time, just because I have so much to do and I know it's been a million time easier to plug away at the work around the house when I don't have to stop to provide meals or to clean up messes. But I really am excited to see them all!
Great news on the housing front. We lined up a group of 22 year old young ladies to rent our home. It's not what I was originally envisioning, but it should be pretty ideal. They asked for the living room and kitchen to remain furnished, which saves me some work. I still had to clean out all the kitchen cabinets to wipe them down and then decide what I was willing to leave for their use versus what I cared too much about and wanted packed away... but I could do that NOW, even though we'll be in the house a while longer, and we can manage with the pared down kitchen till we move out. Especially since that's coming soon. They're renting starting August 1! We'll be staying at Sherri and Andrew's for most of August till we fly out on the 23rd. It'll be complicated and awkward from time to time, sharing space (we're such a big group to invade someone's peaceful, clean home), but I'm actually really excited about how it breaks up the deadlines for me. We do have to think about packing for Sweden enough to bring with us to Sherri's anything we want to take, but I can focus on house packing/cleaning for the most part until 7/31, then once we're at Sherri's, i can turn my focus to shopping for any more clothes we need for Sweden, or reassessing what I can fit in suitcases, etc. I can't imagine the stress of trying to get the house cleaned to move out AND packing to fly out, basically on the same day. This is good!
ALSO! We lined up a flat in Stockholm and I am BEYOND excited about it. It's not huge, but it has three bedrooms and the location could not be more ideal. It's in walking distance to the kids' school and Nathaniel's university. I'm really excited, too, that it's a flat in the city rather than a house in the suburbs, because that will be such a more different experience for the kids, in a cool way. Plus, it's in a really nice area, not far from the palaces of the Swedish royalty. I'm a sucker for royalty! The biggest downside is that it's only partially furnished, so we're going to have to find a few cheap beds/mattresses-for-the-floor/whatever. There are some beds, but not enough. The kitchen won't be furnished, either. Thank heavens we're headed to the homeland of IKEA, so I'm confident we can get some basic plates and flatware for reasonable prices. I still have no idea how we're going to get our huge family and ALL our huge luggage from the airport to the flat (on the fifth floor of a beautiful old building with only one small elevator), but I'm excited for the experience once we settle in!
Given all that, as you can guess, I've spent my two child-free weeks almost entirely in cleaning and sorting and donating and throwing away and packing and cleaning some more. It has not been particularly restful, but I've squeezed in evenings out with friends and a few meals out with Nathaniel. It's been really good overall. Now I'll go get my kids, leave the parakeet with my parents, and say goodbye to my family for the year, then come home to more of the same sort of work. I'm not sure how the kids feel about the whole "We're moving to Grandma's house in less than a week" thing, but they'll manage. I imagine we'll spend a LOT of time in August at the pool or the zoo or similar, just to stay out of Sherri's hair during the days. They'll like that.
*****
That was the gist of the email. Don't you wish you got emails of that length from friends more often? Thanks for nothing, FB and Instagram, for making long, rambling emails nearly obsolete!
I have loads on my to-do list for once we're at Sherri's, but I'll try to post updates as we get ready to go, and I do hope to blog more while we're abroad. At a bare minimum I hope to post on Instagram regularly.
I cannot believe how quickly this summer is flying by! Pray for my sanity. Thanks.
*****
Things are CRAZY here. Nathaniel and I head to KS tomorrow to pick up the kids. They've been at my parents' house for TWO WEEKS. I think we've officially found the length of time at which I legitimately miss my kids and am ready sweep them up into big hugs again! Not that I'm not sort of wishing for more time, just because I have so much to do and I know it's been a million time easier to plug away at the work around the house when I don't have to stop to provide meals or to clean up messes. But I really am excited to see them all!
Great news on the housing front. We lined up a group of 22 year old young ladies to rent our home. It's not what I was originally envisioning, but it should be pretty ideal. They asked for the living room and kitchen to remain furnished, which saves me some work. I still had to clean out all the kitchen cabinets to wipe them down and then decide what I was willing to leave for their use versus what I cared too much about and wanted packed away... but I could do that NOW, even though we'll be in the house a while longer, and we can manage with the pared down kitchen till we move out. Especially since that's coming soon. They're renting starting August 1! We'll be staying at Sherri and Andrew's for most of August till we fly out on the 23rd. It'll be complicated and awkward from time to time, sharing space (we're such a big group to invade someone's peaceful, clean home), but I'm actually really excited about how it breaks up the deadlines for me. We do have to think about packing for Sweden enough to bring with us to Sherri's anything we want to take, but I can focus on house packing/cleaning for the most part until 7/31, then once we're at Sherri's, i can turn my focus to shopping for any more clothes we need for Sweden, or reassessing what I can fit in suitcases, etc. I can't imagine the stress of trying to get the house cleaned to move out AND packing to fly out, basically on the same day. This is good!
ALSO! We lined up a flat in Stockholm and I am BEYOND excited about it. It's not huge, but it has three bedrooms and the location could not be more ideal. It's in walking distance to the kids' school and Nathaniel's university. I'm really excited, too, that it's a flat in the city rather than a house in the suburbs, because that will be such a more different experience for the kids, in a cool way. Plus, it's in a really nice area, not far from the palaces of the Swedish royalty. I'm a sucker for royalty! The biggest downside is that it's only partially furnished, so we're going to have to find a few cheap beds/mattresses-for-the-floor/whatever. There are some beds, but not enough. The kitchen won't be furnished, either. Thank heavens we're headed to the homeland of IKEA, so I'm confident we can get some basic plates and flatware for reasonable prices. I still have no idea how we're going to get our huge family and ALL our huge luggage from the airport to the flat (on the fifth floor of a beautiful old building with only one small elevator), but I'm excited for the experience once we settle in!
Given all that, as you can guess, I've spent my two child-free weeks almost entirely in cleaning and sorting and donating and throwing away and packing and cleaning some more. It has not been particularly restful, but I've squeezed in evenings out with friends and a few meals out with Nathaniel. It's been really good overall. Now I'll go get my kids, leave the parakeet with my parents, and say goodbye to my family for the year, then come home to more of the same sort of work. I'm not sure how the kids feel about the whole "We're moving to Grandma's house in less than a week" thing, but they'll manage. I imagine we'll spend a LOT of time in August at the pool or the zoo or similar, just to stay out of Sherri's hair during the days. They'll like that.
*****
That was the gist of the email. Don't you wish you got emails of that length from friends more often? Thanks for nothing, FB and Instagram, for making long, rambling emails nearly obsolete!
I have loads on my to-do list for once we're at Sherri's, but I'll try to post updates as we get ready to go, and I do hope to blog more while we're abroad. At a bare minimum I hope to post on Instagram regularly.
I cannot believe how quickly this summer is flying by! Pray for my sanity. Thanks.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
A month later and a couple inches taller
I have been meaning to post an update on Marianne's surgery every day for the last three weeks. What better time to finally do it than when I really ought to be (and need to be) wrapping Christmas gifts! I'll type as quickly as I can and maybe I can get both things done during nap time today.
Bottom line: Everything is going great! Thank you for all your prayers, well wishes, care packages, meals, etc. We are so well cared for by our community of friends and family. People came out of the woodwork to brighten Marianne's day and lighten my load. I was and still am in awe.
The day of surgery was long and stressful. Although, as we sat in the lobby of Children's waiting for each update from the nurse, part of me dreaded the end of surgery when they'd wake Marianne up and I'd have to start caring for a child in pain. Does that make sense? It was a feeling I hadn't anticipated, the "don't let them be done yet!" feeling, because I was so nervous for how I would manage.
Marianne's week in the hospital continued to be long and stressful. Days were long. Nights were long. She was in a lot of pain when awake. But she was mostly asleep. I didn't feel like I could ever really leave except for a couple short breaks when my in-laws and Nathaniel popped in, and then I felt anxious to get back. The nurses and medical folks were almost all wonderful; some were even more wonderful than others. I did great for about two days then at some point very early one morning I just burst into tears and that day was especially long because the dam had cracked, you know? But I re-found my cool and we got through it.
They considered sending us home on Thursday but I was NOT ready to deal with Marianne on my own, and it turned out she couldn't get far enough through her physical therapy for the therapist to sign her out anyway. By Friday I think they were going to toss us out, ready or not, but I felt less panicky and more prepared.
The first week at home was still pretty long and stressful (notice a trend?), but, as noted, we were well cared for. I saw quickly that visits from Marianne's friends were a sure fire way to perk her up and get her motivated to get up and move (not that she was getting up and moving around them, but at least she'd work on it when no one was watching in the hopes of getting back to school eventually). We'd have good days, followed by days of terrible pain and soreness from the body's shock at the activity the day prior. Most nights around bedtime there were tears and "I'm never going to be able to be normal again" sadness and I spent a lot of time rubbing the sides of her back and offering soothing remarks that she'd shoot back at with anger and frustration. It wasn't fun, but I think it has been a bonding experience for us, so there's that.
A couple weeks out, things finally made a big turn. We'd been weaning off the prescription pain meds, and really I was in awe at how quickly she was able to cut back during the days (nights took longer). Suddenly, though she still spent most of her time in bed, she'd surprise me by walking into the room I was in without having called for help to get up. Or I'd pop into her room and find she'd rearranged her things, or brought books to her bed to do homework, or set up a nail salon and painted all her siblings nails (usually I'd smell that one before I saw it).
At three and a half weeks she made her first, hour long visit back to school. I saw her into the classroom and then bit back tears as I walked away. They were joyful tears, but also anxious tears, knowing that if she hurt, she'd never tell anyone, because that's how junior high is. As it happens, though, she did great. Last week, four weeks post-surgery, she started back to school for half days (really just over two hours a day), just in time to take all her finals. The teachers were incredibly generous with the work they let her off the hook from, and thankfully she kept up well enough that finals didn't cause her much stress. She made it to a couple of choir rehearsals last week so she was able to participate in the 5th-8th grade Christmas program, of which I took zero decent photos. This week she considered going back full days, as she spends the majority of her time on her feet, or at least upright, most days now, but opted in the end to stick to half days. She should have no problem going back to school full time after Christmas break.
If you'd asked me a week or ten days after surgery whether I thought that would be the case - that she'd be able to go back to school full time at the start of the new year - I'd have heaved a heavy sigh and said I just didn't know. She couldn't walk two houses down the block and back without leaning on me and crying from the pain. Now, she manages all sorts of feats I was not sure when she'd be able to again. She made waffles for dinner the other night, and asked to bake cookies another day. She sat on the floor and wrapped her gifts to her siblings, then helped Rachel wrap hers. She and Ruth (with a little assistance from Nathaniel) hung our outdoor Christmas lights in freezing cold temps, because they just felt like it. Every time she asks to take on a project like that it warms my heart, because there were many days of "No. I don't want to get up," in response to simple requests like, "Let's go take a little walk to the living room and back."
Because I find them insane and amazing and mind boggling, here are a few xray images. The first is the "before" xray of her spine from the front. The second is the "after" image taken at her one month follow up appointment last Friday. The third is also from the follow up, from the side, so you get a sense of the posture she's required to have now that her spine is fused. She's sits up very, very straight. All the time. Because she cannot slouch. How many utterances of "sit up straight!" have I saved myself? The world will never know.
So yes! She's doing great! We're doing great! I can't wait to get decent photos of her (and the rest of the fam, of course) over the holidays that I can share. She looks amazing and grew about two inches, which puts her firmly back in her rightful place as "taller than Ruth". These are critical things when you're a 13 year old.
Thank you again - I can't thank you enough - for all your prayers and help over the past month. I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead resulting from this surgery, possibly mostly in the form of teenage angst and attitude, but I'm grateful to be on the other side of it.
One minor prayer request as she approaches the end of this main phase of healing. There's a small portion of the incision on her lower back that hasn't healed as cleanly as the rest - the official term is "dehiscence", I believe. It should be and will be fine, but she finds it ridiculously hard to keep HER hands off of it because it itches like crazy (read: "quit picking at it!") and while it's still scabbing and opening, it's a risk for infection. Please say a little prayer that she can control herself and that the incision will finish healing without any additional challenges and without infection. Thank you!
Bottom line: Everything is going great! Thank you for all your prayers, well wishes, care packages, meals, etc. We are so well cared for by our community of friends and family. People came out of the woodwork to brighten Marianne's day and lighten my load. I was and still am in awe.
The day of surgery was long and stressful. Although, as we sat in the lobby of Children's waiting for each update from the nurse, part of me dreaded the end of surgery when they'd wake Marianne up and I'd have to start caring for a child in pain. Does that make sense? It was a feeling I hadn't anticipated, the "don't let them be done yet!" feeling, because I was so nervous for how I would manage.
Marianne's week in the hospital continued to be long and stressful. Days were long. Nights were long. She was in a lot of pain when awake. But she was mostly asleep. I didn't feel like I could ever really leave except for a couple short breaks when my in-laws and Nathaniel popped in, and then I felt anxious to get back. The nurses and medical folks were almost all wonderful; some were even more wonderful than others. I did great for about two days then at some point very early one morning I just burst into tears and that day was especially long because the dam had cracked, you know? But I re-found my cool and we got through it.
They considered sending us home on Thursday but I was NOT ready to deal with Marianne on my own, and it turned out she couldn't get far enough through her physical therapy for the therapist to sign her out anyway. By Friday I think they were going to toss us out, ready or not, but I felt less panicky and more prepared.
The first week at home was still pretty long and stressful (notice a trend?), but, as noted, we were well cared for. I saw quickly that visits from Marianne's friends were a sure fire way to perk her up and get her motivated to get up and move (not that she was getting up and moving around them, but at least she'd work on it when no one was watching in the hopes of getting back to school eventually). We'd have good days, followed by days of terrible pain and soreness from the body's shock at the activity the day prior. Most nights around bedtime there were tears and "I'm never going to be able to be normal again" sadness and I spent a lot of time rubbing the sides of her back and offering soothing remarks that she'd shoot back at with anger and frustration. It wasn't fun, but I think it has been a bonding experience for us, so there's that.
A couple weeks out, things finally made a big turn. We'd been weaning off the prescription pain meds, and really I was in awe at how quickly she was able to cut back during the days (nights took longer). Suddenly, though she still spent most of her time in bed, she'd surprise me by walking into the room I was in without having called for help to get up. Or I'd pop into her room and find she'd rearranged her things, or brought books to her bed to do homework, or set up a nail salon and painted all her siblings nails (usually I'd smell that one before I saw it).
At three and a half weeks she made her first, hour long visit back to school. I saw her into the classroom and then bit back tears as I walked away. They were joyful tears, but also anxious tears, knowing that if she hurt, she'd never tell anyone, because that's how junior high is. As it happens, though, she did great. Last week, four weeks post-surgery, she started back to school for half days (really just over two hours a day), just in time to take all her finals. The teachers were incredibly generous with the work they let her off the hook from, and thankfully she kept up well enough that finals didn't cause her much stress. She made it to a couple of choir rehearsals last week so she was able to participate in the 5th-8th grade Christmas program, of which I took zero decent photos. This week she considered going back full days, as she spends the majority of her time on her feet, or at least upright, most days now, but opted in the end to stick to half days. She should have no problem going back to school full time after Christmas break.
If you'd asked me a week or ten days after surgery whether I thought that would be the case - that she'd be able to go back to school full time at the start of the new year - I'd have heaved a heavy sigh and said I just didn't know. She couldn't walk two houses down the block and back without leaning on me and crying from the pain. Now, she manages all sorts of feats I was not sure when she'd be able to again. She made waffles for dinner the other night, and asked to bake cookies another day. She sat on the floor and wrapped her gifts to her siblings, then helped Rachel wrap hers. She and Ruth (with a little assistance from Nathaniel) hung our outdoor Christmas lights in freezing cold temps, because they just felt like it. Every time she asks to take on a project like that it warms my heart, because there were many days of "No. I don't want to get up," in response to simple requests like, "Let's go take a little walk to the living room and back."
Because I find them insane and amazing and mind boggling, here are a few xray images. The first is the "before" xray of her spine from the front. The second is the "after" image taken at her one month follow up appointment last Friday. The third is also from the follow up, from the side, so you get a sense of the posture she's required to have now that her spine is fused. She's sits up very, very straight. All the time. Because she cannot slouch. How many utterances of "sit up straight!" have I saved myself? The world will never know.
 |
| These were taken with my phone, from the computer screen at the doctor's office, so quality is poor. A couple notes - in the middle photo, the metal rods stand out starkly and made the spine look straighter than it is - if you look closely you can see there is still some curve, probably around 20 degrees. But the improvement is vast, and wonderful. Look at her collarbones, and how much better aligned and upright they are! |
So yes! She's doing great! We're doing great! I can't wait to get decent photos of her (and the rest of the fam, of course) over the holidays that I can share. She looks amazing and grew about two inches, which puts her firmly back in her rightful place as "taller than Ruth". These are critical things when you're a 13 year old.
Thank you again - I can't thank you enough - for all your prayers and help over the past month. I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead resulting from this surgery, possibly mostly in the form of teenage angst and attitude, but I'm grateful to be on the other side of it.
One minor prayer request as she approaches the end of this main phase of healing. There's a small portion of the incision on her lower back that hasn't healed as cleanly as the rest - the official term is "dehiscence", I believe. It should be and will be fine, but she finds it ridiculously hard to keep HER hands off of it because it itches like crazy (read: "quit picking at it!") and while it's still scabbing and opening, it's a risk for infection. Please say a little prayer that she can control herself and that the incision will finish healing without any additional challenges and without infection. Thank you!
Friday, November 11, 2016
Marianne's surgery - a smattering of prayer requests
Some background and updates and prayer requests, in case some of you haven't heard what we have going down around here...
I mentioned in passing back in July that Marianne was diagnosed with fairly severe scoliosis and had surgery to look forward to in her future. At the time, we thought it would be a couple of years out. After consulting with a pediatric orthopedic specialist at Children's Hospital, however, the plan changed. Good thing I didn't get her in for that brace fitting any sooner - saved ourselves some money and effort with that bit of procrastination!
This coming Monday, Marianne will undergo posterior spinal fusion surgery. The majority of her spine will be fused as straight as possible (still not super straight... but the doctor said it would be a vast improvement) and rods will be screwed to the spine to hold it in place as it heals. The surgery itself is expected to last around seven hours. There are, of course, a whole slew of risks when someone's whole back is opened up, but the doctor's biggest concern is the risk of infection. Please pray that the surgery goes smoothly and successfully and that Marianne comes through the recovery free of infection and with strong motivation to get back on her feet quickly.
The current expectation is that she will be in the hospital till Thursday or Friday, and then home but out of school recovering till at least her follow up appointment on 12/6. Please pray for all of us during this time - her, for her healing and for a positive, optimistic attitude; me, that I can assist her in the ways she needs to best heal, and encourage and serve her through this. It promises to be very different from my experiences in motherhood to date. Hopefully it's a bonding experience and not solely a battle.
After her follow up, she'll most likely return to school part time for a while before returning full time. Given the holiday break shortly after her return to school, I hope things will go smoothly and by January she should be on her feet and fully back to school with the exception of PE and sports. Oh, and band. She resigned from the trombone a few weeks ago, at least for the remainder of the year, because playing an instrument so heavy is off her options for several months. She was surprisingly bummed about it, given how much she complained about playing the thing every day since she first started in 5th grade. She also suddenly is disappointed that she's unable to try out Jr High basketball this winter. Nevermind when I suggested back in the summer that she might want to give basketball a shot, she scoffed at the idea. The grass is always greener, isn't it?
A few other surgery notes:
- SEVEN HOURS. We check in at 5:30am, and the surgery begins around 7:30, although the doctor said most likely the first incision wouldn't happen till 8 or 8:30 because of all the prep. That is going to be a loooooonnnnnnng day, folks. I think it's the part I'm dreading most for myself, because the waiting and wondering what's going on with my (teenage) baby, and just the WAITING. I don't like waiting. Say some prayers for our peace of mind while you're praying for Marianne's successful surgery. Thankfully, Nathaniel was able to take the day off to sit and wait with me, and my dear friend is planning to stop in for a visit, and my mom will be at my house holding down the fort so I don't have to give a second thought to that. Still, it's going to be long.
- The rods will be left in permanently, barring unforeseen complications. I had always assumed the rods were in permanently because they continue to be needed to support the spine, but I've learned that within the first year the spine has fully fused and supports itself, so the rods become superfluous. The surgery to remove them would be so invasive, however, and require all this recovery time again, so the doctors prefer to leave them in place unless complications arise.
- She'll come home on meds more impressive than any I've ever been prescribed. Please pray that we can manage her pain well, and that she'll be able to wean off the heavy drugs within a few weeks and continue to manage her pain with milder options. I have read a handful of horrible stories about chronic nerve pain after this type of surgery, but have been comforted by many counter-stories and by the surgeon we're working with. Still, I'm anxious. She is not currently in any major discomfort from her scoliosis, but two excellent orthopedic surgeons and a couple other medical professionals have all agreed that given the speed of development of her scoliosis and the specific way the curves are developing, THIS is the right time to move forward with surgery. The idea that I'm putting Marianne into significantly worse pain, even knowing it's for her future benefit, has weighed heavily on me. So, say a little prayer for Nathaniel and me as well. This is really no fun.
- Her surgeon said that she'll have full use of her arms and legs and therefore may have an "easier recovery than someone who'd broken his leg or arm unexpectedly". That seems overly simplified to me, but gave me great comfort, anyway. She'll need help getting up out of a chair for a while, he said, but once up will be able to walk and do stairs. She will not bend in the same way, but can look forward, I guess, to good overall flexibility? I say that with some skepticism only because I can't envision it. How does one bend over and tie her shoes when her spine can't curve? He tells us she'll learn to accommodate the stiffness. It's a bit of a mystery. For the past month, every time I think, "My back is stiff" and give a little bend-shrug-twist-stretch to ease it, I have the follow up thought, "Wait! Will she never be able to execute any of those moves?!" I'm curious to see how this all plays out.
- On a slightly humorous note, and one that surprised me, the doctor said one of the trickiest bits - and part of the reason it takes so long to make the first incision - is getting the incision straight. Because if he cuts a straight incision, then does all this work to her spine, when he goes to stitch her back up the incision will be crazy and curvy. He has to try to estimate how his spinal adjustments will affect akin around the incision, and cut accordingly, in the hopes that as he's stitching at the end, it's straight. Because while right now, today, I might not think I care much about that, he knows that down the road, Marianne will prefer the straightest, least noticeable incision possible. I'm glad I have other people to think about these things, because it never would have crossed my mind.
Thank you to everyone who's been praying since we first started investigating Marianne's scoliosis back in the spring! Your prayers have been a great comfort and I know we - she especially - has been lifted up and allowed to float through this on your prayers with significantly less anxiety and drama than I'd anticipated. Thank you, also, for all the generous friends and family who've sent care packages, or made plans to do so while she's in the hospital and after, to help keep her spirits high. I am forever in awe of the beauty of the community we live in and the family we are blessed with!
Deep breath. Here we go...
Friday, July 22, 2016
High speed catch up so we can get on with the latest!
Here's the thing. It's been something akin to three months since my last blog post, and as the days ticked by, the weight of all the things I felt like blogging about or felt I ought to blog about piled up and up and at some point, blogging didn't sound fun anymore so I just didn't.
BUT!
We've just returned home from a fifteen day adventure out west, and I can't wait to regale you with my photos and stories.
Before I force you onto the sofa, dim the lights and fire up the slideshow player, though, here's a quick run down of things you didn't get to hear about these past many moons:
~ I turned 39. It was one of the most amazing birthdays of my life, truly! 40 is destined to be a let down, but I'm okay with that. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends, who all chipped in and gifted me a large chunk of change so that I could refresh my living room with new slipcovers, a rug, curtains, fresh paint and, above all, throw pillows to my heart's content! You've likely seen some windows into the brightening up process via instagram, but you haven't seen official before and after pictures yet, because it's not yet done. The paint is still sitting by my kitchen door waiting for the right moment. I foresee that moment coming while the kids are in KC visiting my folks a couple weeks from now. I'll keep you posted.
~ There was a band concert in which both Ruth and Marianne played, on trumpet and trombone, respectively. There was also Ruth's piano recital, at which she performed a solo piece and two duets with our neighbor, Nicole. The duets were a fun treat to hear played, after hearing only Ruth's half of the piece for weeks. I have videos of the piano recital if anyone desperately wants to watch it. Or just ask Ruth to play her solo piece for you sometime. She's generally happy to oblige. She's looking forward to piano again in the fall. Meg will begin taking lessons then. Both the older girls will carry on (slightly against their wills) in band, too. Oh, there was a Spring Program for vocal music in the mix, as well! So many performances as the school year wrapped up.
~ Ruth finished the inaugural year of Chess Club at St. T's in last place, but with full marks for sportsmanship. Nathaniel is convinced, after watching the final tournament, that with a little training in strategy she could beat the majority of the kids in the club next year. We'll see how that plays out. I'm proud of her for sticking with it, enthusiastically even, despite never winning. That's a sign of true character.
~ Marianne and Ruth both played on extraordinarily successful (for any Y teams our kids have ever played on) recreational volleyball teams, and Nathaniel coached Meg's micro-soccer team. Our weekends were hopping for a few weeks, there!
~ Another year of school finished splendidly. Strong grades, happy kids, onward to summer! Peter "graduated" preK and will be in all day, every day Kindergarten next year. (Side note: he's learned to read this spring and summer, and it's such a treat! Just tonight he read his own bedtime story to me. I mean, it was "Bathtime for Biscuit", so he's not reading chapter books to himself like Meg was at this stage, but he's still rocking this whole learning thing!)
~ I almost skipped one! Ruth again! She had a birthday. Crazy kid went and turned 11. She's a joy, truly. Our running joke this summer goes like this - whenever Ruth heads outside to do something (climb a tree, roller skate, etc), I call out, "Be careful!" and she replies, "I always am!" usually just seconds before she tumbles down the stairs or falls from something high or the like. But she does always manage to jump back up and keep moving. I love that kid! For her birthday, we had a "Mario Kart" tournament in which all the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents participated. It was hilarious! I made Smitten Kitchen's "I want chocolate cake Cake" which was fabulous. And she got a "coupon" (made by me) to take a couple of friends to "Defy Gravity", one of those places where the whole floor is covered in trampolines. She was in heaven.
~ Marianne and Ruth each attended SKY Camp (Catholic Summer (K)Camp for Youth). It was the first sleep-away camp for Ruth, Marianne's second year. They explicitly asked NOT to attend the same session, so I jumped through some hoops to make sure they'd each have a few friends at different camps, but not the same one. Some siblings would want to go together, I suppose... I agreed with them that they'd be better off on their own.
~ Marianne has undergone a series of scoliosis testing, which will culminate in an absurdly long MRI next week to rule out anything the doctors haven't seen yet. What they have seen is some very severe curvature. Her spine is a crazy S shape with major curves that will require her to have surgery in a couple years to have rods installed. {sigh} On the upside, knowing that she'll have the surgery lightens our need to worry about bracing now, because it wouldn't do much good. She will get a brace later this summer that she'll have to wear part time, but we think it'll be mostly at home, rather than all day at school where it would be much more of a battle for us and an embarrassment to her. Keep her in your prayers as we continue in this process!
~ All the kids had eye exams and they've all got 20/20 vision or better. Mostly better. Hooray for that one genetic win that we've handed on to them! Don't ask about how their dental check ups went.
~ June came on strong and hot and we spent the majority of our afternoons at the pool. Peter and Rachel also took a round of morning swim lessons, so double pool time for them! Ruth got her choice of a floaty/innertube as another bday gift, and chose a wildly huge and hilarious pretzel. It's so fun she often chooses NOT to take it to the pool because she doesn't want to have to deal with all the kids there wanting to be on it non-stop.
~ The 4th of July was insane this year! Kids were planning and constructing fireworks-extravaganza-structures weeks in advance. Arthur's fam and Tom and Laura came to join in the craziness, and it was a party for the ages. There are videos that I took on Marianne's phone that I hope to share someday, but she accidentally deleted them while we were on vacation, so Nathaniel's having to research "deleted file recovery" and see what he can do. Poor Marianne. She was heartbroken as she watched the videos delete, when she'd been trying to "protect" them from that exact fate.
Okay! I think that's it! I'm calling myself all caught up. Prepare yourselves... the vacation post is coming!
BUT!
We've just returned home from a fifteen day adventure out west, and I can't wait to regale you with my photos and stories.
Before I force you onto the sofa, dim the lights and fire up the slideshow player, though, here's a quick run down of things you didn't get to hear about these past many moons:
~ I turned 39. It was one of the most amazing birthdays of my life, truly! 40 is destined to be a let down, but I'm okay with that. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends, who all chipped in and gifted me a large chunk of change so that I could refresh my living room with new slipcovers, a rug, curtains, fresh paint and, above all, throw pillows to my heart's content! You've likely seen some windows into the brightening up process via instagram, but you haven't seen official before and after pictures yet, because it's not yet done. The paint is still sitting by my kitchen door waiting for the right moment. I foresee that moment coming while the kids are in KC visiting my folks a couple weeks from now. I'll keep you posted.
~ There was a band concert in which both Ruth and Marianne played, on trumpet and trombone, respectively. There was also Ruth's piano recital, at which she performed a solo piece and two duets with our neighbor, Nicole. The duets were a fun treat to hear played, after hearing only Ruth's half of the piece for weeks. I have videos of the piano recital if anyone desperately wants to watch it. Or just ask Ruth to play her solo piece for you sometime. She's generally happy to oblige. She's looking forward to piano again in the fall. Meg will begin taking lessons then. Both the older girls will carry on (slightly against their wills) in band, too. Oh, there was a Spring Program for vocal music in the mix, as well! So many performances as the school year wrapped up.
~ Ruth finished the inaugural year of Chess Club at St. T's in last place, but with full marks for sportsmanship. Nathaniel is convinced, after watching the final tournament, that with a little training in strategy she could beat the majority of the kids in the club next year. We'll see how that plays out. I'm proud of her for sticking with it, enthusiastically even, despite never winning. That's a sign of true character.
~ Marianne and Ruth both played on extraordinarily successful (for any Y teams our kids have ever played on) recreational volleyball teams, and Nathaniel coached Meg's micro-soccer team. Our weekends were hopping for a few weeks, there!
~ Another year of school finished splendidly. Strong grades, happy kids, onward to summer! Peter "graduated" preK and will be in all day, every day Kindergarten next year. (Side note: he's learned to read this spring and summer, and it's such a treat! Just tonight he read his own bedtime story to me. I mean, it was "Bathtime for Biscuit", so he's not reading chapter books to himself like Meg was at this stage, but he's still rocking this whole learning thing!)
~ I almost skipped one! Ruth again! She had a birthday. Crazy kid went and turned 11. She's a joy, truly. Our running joke this summer goes like this - whenever Ruth heads outside to do something (climb a tree, roller skate, etc), I call out, "Be careful!" and she replies, "I always am!" usually just seconds before she tumbles down the stairs or falls from something high or the like. But she does always manage to jump back up and keep moving. I love that kid! For her birthday, we had a "Mario Kart" tournament in which all the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents participated. It was hilarious! I made Smitten Kitchen's "I want chocolate cake Cake" which was fabulous. And she got a "coupon" (made by me) to take a couple of friends to "Defy Gravity", one of those places where the whole floor is covered in trampolines. She was in heaven.
~ Marianne and Ruth each attended SKY Camp (Catholic Summer (K)Camp for Youth). It was the first sleep-away camp for Ruth, Marianne's second year. They explicitly asked NOT to attend the same session, so I jumped through some hoops to make sure they'd each have a few friends at different camps, but not the same one. Some siblings would want to go together, I suppose... I agreed with them that they'd be better off on their own.
~ Marianne has undergone a series of scoliosis testing, which will culminate in an absurdly long MRI next week to rule out anything the doctors haven't seen yet. What they have seen is some very severe curvature. Her spine is a crazy S shape with major curves that will require her to have surgery in a couple years to have rods installed. {sigh} On the upside, knowing that she'll have the surgery lightens our need to worry about bracing now, because it wouldn't do much good. She will get a brace later this summer that she'll have to wear part time, but we think it'll be mostly at home, rather than all day at school where it would be much more of a battle for us and an embarrassment to her. Keep her in your prayers as we continue in this process!
~ All the kids had eye exams and they've all got 20/20 vision or better. Mostly better. Hooray for that one genetic win that we've handed on to them! Don't ask about how their dental check ups went.
~ June came on strong and hot and we spent the majority of our afternoons at the pool. Peter and Rachel also took a round of morning swim lessons, so double pool time for them! Ruth got her choice of a floaty/innertube as another bday gift, and chose a wildly huge and hilarious pretzel. It's so fun she often chooses NOT to take it to the pool because she doesn't want to have to deal with all the kids there wanting to be on it non-stop.
~ The 4th of July was insane this year! Kids were planning and constructing fireworks-extravaganza-structures weeks in advance. Arthur's fam and Tom and Laura came to join in the craziness, and it was a party for the ages. There are videos that I took on Marianne's phone that I hope to share someday, but she accidentally deleted them while we were on vacation, so Nathaniel's having to research "deleted file recovery" and see what he can do. Poor Marianne. She was heartbroken as she watched the videos delete, when she'd been trying to "protect" them from that exact fate.
Okay! I think that's it! I'm calling myself all caught up. Prepare yourselves... the vacation post is coming!
Monday, April 18, 2016
Everyone needs to do this
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| Photo credit: Ruth |
Almost nine years ago, Renee grabbed me and a couple of other ladies after our weekly women's study and told us an idea she had for a couples' book club, reading whatever we wanted, then discussing it from a Catholic viewpoint. Also, it could be a dinner party! And because it's "couples" it would be a date night! I was all in.
We hosted last night and it was fabulous as always. I can't believe we've been meeting almost monthly for nearly a decade. The group changed a little, but we've been a firm group now for years. Even when I don't have the time (or energy) to read the book selection, I get almost giddy for our meetings because they are always filled with edifying conversation, delicious food and ample laughter. And I do make an effort to read all the book choices. They've been incredibly varied over the years! I've picked up books I'd never in a million years have thought to read on my own. Fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry!
I've heard a lot of conversation lately about the importance of mom-friends for stay at home moms, or the importance of friends in general, to make life richer! I am blessed beyond measure to have a small women's group that meets regularly, this book club, and one other book club that meets sporadically and reads mostly popular fiction. If you don't have a group or two like this in your life, I can't encourage you enough to CREATE ONE. I promise if you look around, at your close friends or at your larger circle of acquaintances, you'll see other women/couples who would love a book club or a bible study or just a "dinner party group" that meets regularly! My MIL is in one of those, and they've been getting together for multiple decades! Get crazy and start a new group. If the dinner party idea is the part freaking you out, make it a book club that meets at a local coffee shop. Make it whatever suits you best. Worst case, it tapers off at some point, and you had fun while it lasted. Best case, it becomes it a regular thing that lasts for years and every meeting makes you grateful you're a part of it.
If you need a reading list with a Catholic flair (but not all necessarily Catholic authors or subject matter), let me know. We've got a long one we're happy to share.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Ruth's Confirmation! (mostly)
We have a had a whirlwind couple of weeks since Easter and I sort of feel like I can breathe now, except that we've reached the part of the school year during which you get the impression you're rolling ever faster down a hill and things won't settle till summer is upon us. And probably not then. There are spring programs and birthdays (mine, for one!) and camp sign ups and on and on and on. Also, the breathing is being hindered at the moment by a lingering head cold that I cannot wait to be rid of. Ugh. I don't get sick often, so I'll try not to be overly whiny, but yuck. I hate snot.
A very quick catch up, most of which you'll already have seen on instagram:
Easter was wonderful and lovely and the photos were a wreck, as usual, due to the glorious sun. You'd think one of these years I'd just have them all face a different direction, right? This was not that year.
The following weekend we made a quick roadtrip to southeast Kansas to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday. It was a little crazy, all that time in the car for so little at our destination, but I'm glad we did it (even if I do blame Grandma for the cold I'm getting over). The party was planned by my aunt Carolyn and cousin Cari, and it turned out beautifully. The dazzling array of cupcakes didn't hurt!
Isn't my grandma lovely? You'd never know she was suffering a nasty cold in this photo. Now that I know first hand how badly she must have wished she could go home to bed, I'm in awe of what a trooper she was! Love you, Grandma!
We got home late Sunday, and my attention switched immediately to Confirmation. I only have a few photos of the party, but you can check out Renee's blog for those. She really did all the hard work of planning and decorating for the event. She left me to handle my preferred portion - the food. I baked a swirled vanilla and red velvet cake - a large layer cake for the main event, along with a few jumbo cupcakes for the folks celebrating their birthdays on or near the day of confirmation. Lunch was fairly simple - egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, veggies, chips, etc. Having swings and teeter totters in the building gave it more of a picnic feel than one might hope for at an indoor venue! (Originally the party was slated to be outside at Renee's, but low temps and high winds were cause for a last minute shift).
All that is jumping the gun, though! First, we got our girl confirmed!
Ruth commented after the retreat day, at which they rehearsed for the mass, that she was walking up with William and was glad of it. I said, "Because you walked together to First Communion, too?" She replied, "No. Not that. Because he's my cousin, so it's not weird. I wouldn't want to have to walk up the aisle with any other boys in my class!" I mean, eeeeewwww, no. Who would?! Love it.
Ellen is her sponsor and St. Joan of Arc her new patron saint. I think it was an inspired choice, on both counts. Bishop Emeritus Bruskewitz performed the confirmation ceremony. Ruth is looking downright shiny-headed in that last picture from the chrism rubbing she received.
THEN to the party!
My sweet Ruth Lauren Joan, opening her cards and gifts. I gave her little fleur de lis earrings for the occasion, since Joan of Arc had the fleur de lis on her banner. We are exceptionally proud of the young woman Ruth is growing into. "I am not afraid... I was born to do this" seems a wonderful, fitting quote for Ruth's approach to life. St. Joan of Arc, pray for her!
And while that would be a good end to the post, I must also include this amazing photo of the great use the kids put the party hats to while the adults were cleaning up.
A very quick catch up, most of which you'll already have seen on instagram:
Easter was wonderful and lovely and the photos were a wreck, as usual, due to the glorious sun. You'd think one of these years I'd just have them all face a different direction, right? This was not that year.
The following weekend we made a quick roadtrip to southeast Kansas to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday. It was a little crazy, all that time in the car for so little at our destination, but I'm glad we did it (even if I do blame Grandma for the cold I'm getting over). The party was planned by my aunt Carolyn and cousin Cari, and it turned out beautifully. The dazzling array of cupcakes didn't hurt!
Isn't my grandma lovely? You'd never know she was suffering a nasty cold in this photo. Now that I know first hand how badly she must have wished she could go home to bed, I'm in awe of what a trooper she was! Love you, Grandma!
We got home late Sunday, and my attention switched immediately to Confirmation. I only have a few photos of the party, but you can check out Renee's blog for those. She really did all the hard work of planning and decorating for the event. She left me to handle my preferred portion - the food. I baked a swirled vanilla and red velvet cake - a large layer cake for the main event, along with a few jumbo cupcakes for the folks celebrating their birthdays on or near the day of confirmation. Lunch was fairly simple - egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, veggies, chips, etc. Having swings and teeter totters in the building gave it more of a picnic feel than one might hope for at an indoor venue! (Originally the party was slated to be outside at Renee's, but low temps and high winds were cause for a last minute shift).
All that is jumping the gun, though! First, we got our girl confirmed!
Ruth commented after the retreat day, at which they rehearsed for the mass, that she was walking up with William and was glad of it. I said, "Because you walked together to First Communion, too?" She replied, "No. Not that. Because he's my cousin, so it's not weird. I wouldn't want to have to walk up the aisle with any other boys in my class!" I mean, eeeeewwww, no. Who would?! Love it.
Ellen is her sponsor and St. Joan of Arc her new patron saint. I think it was an inspired choice, on both counts. Bishop Emeritus Bruskewitz performed the confirmation ceremony. Ruth is looking downright shiny-headed in that last picture from the chrism rubbing she received.
THEN to the party!
Despite a kid or two getting bowled over, the swings provided huge amounts of entertainment!
Cake! And lots of it!
We were honored to have Bishop Conley make a cameo at the party and give us his blessing. He even thought to suggest a group photo, for which I am very grateful since I failed to take any other family pictures that day.
(My mom and dad were both in attendance as well, but my mom was taking photos with one camera and my dad was... missing. Huh. But you see the rest of us there! I joked that this photo will be prominently featured when Peter is ordained.)
And while that would be a good end to the post, I must also include this amazing photo of the great use the kids put the party hats to while the adults were cleaning up.
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