Driving and Bricks

I've been driving a lot this week. Mostly back and forth to Provo. Mostly because Carson decided to put his mission papers in and wanted to do it with our home bishop. 8 trips to Provo and back in 8 days (Saturday-1, Sunday-1, Tuesday-2, Thursday-2, Saturday-1, Sunday-1) and only one of those was not Carson-related. But I am not writing this to complain, far from it. I'm just sharing, just so you know :)

When the announcement came 3 weeks ago about the age change for missionary service, Carson suddenly had more options. He had been planning for a long time to go to two semesters of school, then come home to work for the summer, then be available for missionary service in August (when he turns 19). He could stick with his original plan, or make various tweaks to that plan, he just had to decide what was the best plan for him. He and I had several discussions for two weeks. He and I were both praying for him to know what our Father wants Carson to do. He heard lots of others talk about "being hit with a ton of bricks" and knowing they were supposed to go. He kept waiting for that ton of bricks. I reminded him that our prayers are not usually answered that way, in fact, I don't know that I personally have ever had that kind of an answer to prayer. Carson and I have had lots of talks about answers to prayers. I have reminded him many times that most often, our prayers are answered not by an angel visiting, a burning bush, an audible voice, or even feeling like a ton of bricks just hit us, but rather by other people who are in tune enough to offer needed service, ask the right questions, or even just listen.

Carson was having a discussion with his uncle, my brother, when Chris asked him a simple question--and that was Carson's answer. When he called to talk to me about it, I pointed out that that question was the "ton of bricks" that he had been waiting for, and he agreed.

The wheels were put in motion and everything has been taken care of on the application, so now he just needs to meet with the stake president before the papers can be submitted. He has put his availability date as January 7. We'll see where and when he goes sometime within the next month or so. I'm so happy for him--so much so that I don't even mind all those drives to Provo :)

More Harvest Dinner

I wish I had taken a picture of some of this... Oh well, you'll have to use your imagination. Maren and I had roast, farm-fresh corn, and bruschetta for Sunday dinner. OK, I didn't grow the corn, but some farmer close by did, and oh, was it tasty. (I didn't raise the steer for the roast either.) But I did grow the tomatoes and basil for the bruschetta. And it was extra tasty!! So simple too. Just peel, seed, and dice several tomatoes. Drain off excess juice. Mix in freshly grated garlic, chopped basil, salt, pepper, and olive oil. You can also add a splash of balsamic vinegar if you like. Slice a baguette, spread a little olive oil on, then toast in broiler or on the grill. Top the bread slices with the tomato mixture. Yum-O (for all you Rachael Ray fans out there)!

p.s. a pet peeve of mine is when bruschetta is pronounced incorrectly--it doesn't have a "sh" sound in the middle, it's "sk". Like as in school. JSYK :)

(Meager) Harvest Dinner

The past few years haven't really been conducive to extensive gardening, so we've mostly just planted a couple of tomatoes and been good with that. I expanded the plantings to include potatoes this year, but due to watering issues, I thought the potatoes had pretty much all died off. When Maren was weeding the giant weed patch (aka the garden area) this past week, she found some actual potatoes that had grown to a size that we could actually eat them. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't, oh well. The largest was the size of a man's fist, the rest were all ping pong ball size or smaller. Because I failed to get to the store on Saturday, we didn't have any salad or fresh vegetables for Sunday dinner. I was really hoping that the tomato plants would have enough ripe to yield at least a few offerings for dinner. We were in luck! We had just enough potatoes to roast up with chicken (along with rosemary from our patio pots) and several small garden tomatoes to turn into caprese salad (along with basil from our patio pots). It may be our only harvest meal this season, but it was tasty :)

Day 9--Paris (long post with lots of pictures)

After getting up early to be at the airport for our flight from Berlin to Paris, we were a little cranky when the check-in process was less than efficient and rather frustrating. Eventually, all was worked out and we were on our way to Paris.

I knew the weather was going to be much warmer than we had been used to in Berlin, and that was a bit of a concern for me. It did cause my legs and feet to swell over the day as we walked all over the city, and the next day, the 11-hour plane ride didn't improve the situation, only made it worse. Luckily, the swelling went away within a couple of days of being home and I felt like myself again.

The end of our day in Paris was a bit rough, but we managed to finally make it back to our hotel for a few hours sleep before heading back to the airport and getting on the plane for our long ride home.

Now, I know it sounds like our Paris experience wasn't much fun, but that's not the case. I just wanted to get all the bad stuff out of the way before sharing all that we were able to see while we had one afternoon and evening in Paris.

First up was Notre Dame Cathedral. We joined the long queue to go inside, but the line moved quickly. Inside we saw beautiful stained glass, heard an amazing choir, and were able to enjoy viewing the other sights. Next we walked around the outside (being sure to gaze at the famous flying buttresses) and took a few pictures before walking along the Left Bank to our next destination.

The kids in front of Notre Dame

And to prove that I was there too

Joan of Arc

The ceiling

The choir that was performing while we were there. It added so much to our visit to have the beautiful choir music in the background

Gargoyles!

We walked along the Left Bank, eventually coming to the Pont des Arts, a bridge known for all the love locks placed on the fence.

Institut de France

Pont des Arts

Thumbs up from Mom!

We were headed to the Louvre, hoping to be able to see some highlights there in our allotted few hours. We chose the main things we wanted to see and then headed to them, looking at the other displays along the way. Some of the main exhibits we were interested in were Durer's Self-Portrait, Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Code of Hammurabi, and the statue of Rameses II. We did see all of these, along with other wonderful paintings, sculptures, and antiquities. The kids took over a hundred pictures in just the two hours we were there. I won't include them all, but we do have them :)

Code of Hammurabi

Winged Victory

Mona Lisa

Cupid and Psyche

Venus de Milo

Rameses II

Next up--ride the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. The metro station we went to had these old Art Deco signs that I had read about, so, of course, we had to take some pictures.

cue the song "The Metro" by Berlin

Once we got to the Arc de Triomphe, we realized that we needed food pretty soon. Our original plan was to have crepes by the Eiffel Tower, but that was still a couple of hours away. As we started to walk down the Champs-Elysees, we found a McDonalds. So yes, we ate there. Partly to fulfill Carson's goal, partly because it was (comparatively) inexpensive to everything else right there, and partly because hey, it's kind of ironic. Then we went over to the island with the arch on it (via the underground path, of course). The boys climbed to the top, while Maren and I stayed behind at the base.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I don't know what I was doing with my hands

 

The underside of the top of the arch as seen from the base

View from the top

In the distance the Sacre-Coeur Basilica

The stairs up to the top of the arch

Once the boys came down, we realized we were running out of time. We headed over to the Eiffel Tower and hoped to be able to take a Seine cruise, but it was too late, we had missed out on that one. The Eiffel Tower only had one elevator working so the lines were extremely long. We knew this ahead of time and were prepared to just see it from the ground. Sure enough, the lines were hours long, so we did have to miss going up the Tower as well. We did, however, take lots of pictures, despite the sun going down and losing our light.

It was late and we needed to get back to our hotel, but first we had to eat crepes! We sat on the wall overlooking the Seine and ate our nutella-filled crepes. Yummy!

It was definitely an adventure getting back to the hotel, one that I wouldn't want to undertake again. But we had seen what we came to see in our brief layover in Paris and if we never make it back there again, at least we had our one day to see some of the most famous sights in the world.