Party in the U.S.A.

You'd think that having July 4th on a Sunday would be a drag, but this year it was the BEST!  We are visiting in Utah, which is probably the only state in the nation that avoided Independance Day partying on Sunday.  The beautiful thing was that not all cities moved their parades etc to the same day, so some were on Saturday, July 3, and others were on Monday, July 5.  The result was that we got to party all day with Brad's family on Saturday, and then party all day with my family on Monday.  Sunday was a quiet respite sandwiched in between all the BBQ's, parades, and fireworks, and I loved having a "breather day" in the middle of it all to calmly go to church where we sang all patriotic hymns. 

The cherry-on-top of all the July 4th celebrating was that Brad was here with us on Friday and Saturday.  He's been working in Mexico, and arranged to fly up to UT for the weekend before he had to return to Berlin.  This is the first Fourth of July he's been able to celebrate with us since the year Luke was born, and it's the first time he's been here to party with his family in almost 8 years.  I loved having him here to snuggle with me during fireworks.

Like I said, Saturday was spent celebrating with the Bitner clan.  We started at the Kaysville parade, which we'd heard was the best parade in Davis County.  Our reviews were not enthusiastic.  It felt like a two-hour-long commercial, as almost all the entries were just trucks driving by with signs for local businesses. There were lots of candy and prizes thrown (my favorite was the ties tossed out of the Missionary Mall truck), but that doesn't really flip my skirt.  I love a good marching band, and there were only two in the whole parade.  Blah.

After the parade, we went to Oakridge so the kids could swim.  All the Bitner cousins were there, and there were free snow cones, so of course we had a great time.

Adam, Pepper, Livvy, Ellie, Jess, Emma, and Brigham in the pool

Pepper was brave enough to jump from the diving-board. What he lacked in form, he made up for in enthusiasm.

Luke was kind of a chicken and didn't want to even get into the kiddie pool at first.  I finally just picked him up and plopped him in.  After the initial shock, he loved it and didn't want to get out.

After a wet afternoon at the pool, we all gorged ourselves on the barbeque at Oakridge.  There was SO MUCH food and lots of fun things for the kids to do.

Adam got his face painted with a dragon.  I love the mountains behind him - Home!

Lukie and Gabe were spidermen - obviously.  I was surprised Luke sat there and let the guy paint his face.  He usually hates stuff like this.  I guess the allure of looking like spiderman was enough for him to face his fears (get it?! "face" his fears?!  ...no?  ...sorry...).

This was actually Dave's idea - to have open eyes painted on their eyelids so they look like they are staring at you even when their eyes are closed.  I believe his original thought was to have it done for church the next day, so they could sleep during sacrament meeting and no one would notice.  This is a good example of why Dave and Becky make such a good couple - Dave has wacky ideas, and Becky is wacky enough to actually do them!

There was an area set up with a little track where kids could drive the golf carts.  I don't suppose it will come as any surprise that this was Pepper's favorite part of the whole day.  He waited in line and did this over and over again.

Luke - I mean Spiderman - had to have Dad's help, but it was still awesome!

Luke with his balloon Spiderman Shooter (he named it).

Adam was pretty happy with his Alien hat.

After the barbeque fun, we hunkered down in blankets to watch the fireworks show.  This was Luke's first time going to big fireworks in the sky (we usually just stay home and light a few fireworks on an old door on my parents' lawn), and he was blown away.  Everyone should have the experience of holding a four-year-old on their lap while he watches fireworks for the first time!

Sunday we had to say good-bye to Brad (sad) and then went down to Alpine in time for church in my parents' ward.  We were all pretty tired from all the partying the day before, so it was nice to relax for the day.  And, I liked singing patriotic hymns at church, even though standing and singing the "Star Spangled Banner" made me get kinda teary.  I really do miss living in America.

Good thing we rested on Sunday, because we were up bright and early Monday morning for another Independance Day Extravaganza.  Our day started with the Provo parade, which is HUGE and my personal favorite.  LOTS of high school marching bands, city floats with waving royalty, war veterans riding by on tanks (yes, tanks!), and even bag-pipers screaching and whining their way along University Ave.  We had a nice shady spot, and it was almost cold as we watched the parade (an Independance Day miracle). 

Here's our group getting excited for the parade to start.

Adam and Jayce killed time before the parade by setting off those little poppers, and Luke blew bubbles.

The Utah Provo Missionaries marched in the parade, led by the mission president and his wife in a snazzy convertible.  The crowd on both sides of the street stood and cheered as they walked by.  I thought of our missionaries in Germany, and how jealous they would be of all the positive attention!

This is why I love Utah - where else in the world would you see a several cities come together and cheer on a group of Mormon missionaries, followed by a temple float, marching in a parade?

After the parade, we came back to my parents' house for a KFC lunch and water games for the kids.  It was sunny and beautiful, but not very hot, so I'd say it was perfect weather.  Pepper confided in me that he'd prayed for good weather the night before, so we gave all the credit to him for the lovely day.

Jayce and Adam acting tough in the kiddie pool.

Luke and Austin show me their muscles.

Luke would throw the ball up and just giggle when it landed in the water and splashed him.  Ah, to be four-years-old again...

The "older kids" spent the afternoon in the shade watching all the water games. 

My mom had the brilliant idea to play water kick ball.  The "bases" were tubs full of water, and in order to get "home", they had to slide on the Slip-n-Slide.  The kids played this for a pretty long time - we were surprised at how much they liked it.

Luke knew it was fun to be wet and play with the kids, but he didn't really get the rules of kick ball.  Jess showed him the ropes, but after a little while he gave up and just splashed in the "bases".

We finished up the day with grocery store fireworks in my parents' backyard, which is lovely because we don't have to fight crowds or worry about traffic.  Jen had burned a CD with a bunch of patriotic/party/I-just-like-this songs to accompany the fireworks, and I think the music stole the show.  After the fireworks were over, we rocked to some Brooks and Dunn songs (my mother's favorite), and then put the kids to bed with "Neon Moon" running through our heads. 

Too bad we can't do a three-day July 4th every year!

Michigan Revisited

At the end of June, as soon as the school year ended (literally less than 24 hours after the bell rang on the last day of school) the kids and I boarded a plane for the U.S.A.  We decided that we should begin our trip home with a few days in Michigan.  Luckily, my sister Jodi and her family are still there, so we were able to stay with them and visit our good - make that great - friends in MI.

Fortunately, our visit coincided with the youth conference weekend at our old stake.  Jessica was able to join the youth conference on Friday night and participate all day Saturday.  When Jess and I drove into the stake center parking lot, where the youth conference dance was taking place, we were welcomed by some of the teenagers from our ward who were on the lawn watching for her to come.  It was such a great welcome!  Inside the church, Jess quickly ditched me to go find all of her church friends, and I got to see a bunch of my friends too, who were there chaperoning or whatever at the youth conference.  I just loved seeing the faces that have starring roles in my memories of our time in Michigan!

As I was caught up in greeting and hugging, my friend Brian caught my attention and gestured over to the center of the gym, where Jessica was standing in the middle of the dance holding hands with three of her friends as they swung their arms in time to the music.  Seeing Jess surrounded by those girls she has known for years, and obviously feeling like she "belonged", made me immediately want to break down and cry.  Our move to Germany has been very hard for Jessica, especially at church.  She went from being a part of an exceptional group of young women in our Michigan ward to feeling like an outsider in a very small, German-speaking Young Women group.  She told me once that every time the girls in our Germany ward speak German to each other, she feels like they are talking about her because she can't understand.  While my 40-year-old brain knows that is ridiculous, I remember how fragile a 13-year-old brain is, and I can understand her insecurities.  It breaks my heart now to see how miserable she is at the youth activities in Berlin, when she used to enjoy them so much in Michigan.  So, seeing her restored to her "comfort place" among her friends in MI was very emotional for me.  As I left the stake center that night, winding my way through groups of my old seminary students and friends, all smiling and glad to be together, I kept thinking we were absolutely CRAZY to ever leave this place!

That thought replayed over and over again over the next three days as I had the chance to visit friends, go to the good old Clarkston ward, and just drive around our old stompin' grounds.  I loved meeting friends over Diet Cokes and Mexican food to catch up on all the events that have happened in the year since we left.  It was great to sit in sacrament meeting and look around the chapel at everyone I'd grown to love in the six years we'd lived there.  I was even surprised to see how natural my friend Matt looked in his new seat as the bishop.  I especially loved sitting in Relief Society and yelling - reverently, of course - the answers to the game of Password that was part of the lesson that day. 

After church on Sunday, we drove to our Waterford house (how many thousands of times did we make that drive?) and the kids and I kept exclaiming over the little things we passed along the way - the phone store we watched get built and wondered what it would be, the ice cream shop that is never open, Pepper's old preschool, the road to Jessica's middle school, the airport, the restaurant that always goes out of business, the paved road that used to be dirt - and everything seemed way more magical than it ever had when we lived there.  When we got to our house, I was a little nervous to go inside.  It felt weird to stand on the porch and ring the doorbell.  There is a cute family renting our house while we are in Germany, and I'd asked them if we could come over to get some things out of our boxes in the basement.  Erin was nice enough to let us walk through the house and look around.  It was strange how unfamiliar it felt now that it is another family's home.  But, we had many great moments in those walls, and I am glad to see another family adding to them.

Being so soon off the plane from Germany, I was struck over and over again by how much SPACE there is in America.  The area where we lived in Michigan is pretty spread out, and it is common to drive along neighborhoods with what seems like miles of green lawn surrounding the houses.  And it is all so open!  Big, wide roads with plenty of room for both directions of traffic - what a luxury!  Driveways and front yards that are not closed off by gates - so friendly!  Parking lots that allow for more than six inches between cars - brilliant!  I kept thinking I felt like I could BREATHE again! 

Like I said, during our four days in Michigan, I kept thinking how crazy we were to leave.  Being there again, among some of the best friends I will ever have, felt like heaven on earth.  It occurred to me on this visit that I never truly appreciated what a blessing it was to be there.  I spent a good part of our time living there wishing we could be "home" in Utah, and now after a year away, I would give my right arm to be "home" in Michigan. 

As I thought this, I told myself that next time I move, I will be better at appreciating where we are.  Then I remembered that I have moved, and I'm doing a lousy job at appreciating Berlin.  Sometimes I think I am just biding my time until our "Germany phase" is done, and then I will be happy again.  Dumb, I know.  Hopefully, now that I've had my little epiphany, I can try to change my attitude.  I have a feeling it will take some prayer, but I can do that.

I am so glad that we took a few days to revisit Michigan before we headed off to Utah for the summer.  Thank you to Jeff and Jodi for spoiling us rotten and introducing me to Rock Band and unleashing the "Sister Spice" in me.  I am sad to think I'll never pull up to your Grand Blanc house again. 

Michigan is a magical, magical place.

Mom and Dad in Berlin!

This post originally included photos, but through my own stupidity, I accidentally deleted them. Despite repeated attempts to retrieve them, they are permanently gone. My heart is broken.

OK, so I already mentioned that my mother is a saint and offered to come stay with our kids so Brad and I could escape Germany for a while and go on the cruise to Alaska.  No really, my mom is seriously going straight to heaven.  She doesn't speak a word of German, yet she came and braved this crazy place and took care of my crazy kids.  She even took them downtown on the train to watch a movie (the movie was in English, but she got them all there)!  Pretty great!

After Brad and I returned, my dad flew in and joined us for a week of partying in Berlin.  I have to hand it to him, too, because after a 12ish hour flight (which included 2 hours 45 minutes of waiting in the plane to be able to take off), he was willing to come to my kids' school to watch the elementary Spring Pops Concert.  I had a hard time staying awake at times, so I don't know how he managed to keep his eyes open.  But, he was a good sport, and my kids were thrilled to look into the audience and see Grandma and Grandpa Larson there cheering them on.

One of the things my parents wanted to see was the castles in Potsdam.  So, one day when the kids were at school, my mom, dad, and I drove to Sanssouci to check out Frederick the Great's old digs.  The weather was perfect for walking around palace grounds, and we learned more about Frederick the Great than I think we really wanted to know. 

Mom and I outside the main Sanssouci residence.  It was surprisingly small, and a big deal was made of the fact that Voltaire lived here for 3 years.  Frederick the Great was apparently a big fan of French culture, but he never actually set foot in France.  Faker.

After a day spent roaming through Sanssouci, we were kind of Palaced-Out.  I had sick kids for a couple of days, so Mom and Dad used that time to ride the train into Berlin and take a bus tour and just wander at their leisure.  They came back smiling, so I assume they enjoyed themselves.  They have now seen more of the Berlin sights than I have, so I feel a little sheepish.

My mom was really interested in seeing Prague, which is only a 3ish hour drive from Berlin, so we used some of Brad's Marriott points (all that travel does have its perks), and spent the weekend in the Czech Republic.  When we were driving there on Friday night, there was construction on the highway, so we got detoured through some amazing countryside just inside the Czech border.  For once, we were all glad for road construction, as the detour afforded us the most picturesque part of our road trip.

As we were driving, this little castle just popped up on a hill beside the river.  We don't know anything about it.  Apparently, it is just a friendly neighborhood ancient hill-top castle.  Doesn't every town have one?

Saturday morning, we got up and took a day tour of Prague.  It was the exact same tour I went on last October when Brad's family was here - same guide, in fact - and it was every bit as delightful as I remembered.  Brad wasn't with us the last time we were in Prague, but he has had to listen to us imitate the guide's accent ever since October.  The first time our guide said "Wenceslas Squee-uhr", Brad turned to me with wide eyes and a huge grin on his face.  He finally got what we've been saying all this time! 

What's not to like about a boat tour?  You sit on a shady boat, enjoy a lovely beverage, and calmly float down a river looking at beautiful buildings that have been there for hundreds of years.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

After the boat tour, the guide took us to the Jewish Quarter of Prague, where we saw this old cemetary.  You have to look closely to see the grave stones; they are 12+  feet up behind that iron fence on the left.  This was the only cemetary for Jewish people for hundreds of years, so they had to get creative about fitting all the dead people into it.  People are buried in layers - up to 12 layers in places - so that is why it is so high above street level.

After a day of walking around Prague, we were pretty tired and hungry.  We found a stand selling Turtlenecks (no, that's not what they're really called, but it is something similar in Czech that sounds like "turtleneck", and they kind of look like turtlenecks, so that's what we called them).  They are like bread dough wrapped around a thick wooden stick and baked, then rolled in cinnamon, sugar, and chopped almonds.  Yes, they are fantastic.  Mom, Dad, and I had ice cream from a nearby stand that was absolutely To Die For.  I think the food was our favorite part of Prague Castle.  Bag all that art and architecture...

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed having my parents here to visit.  They are such great visitors because they are game for just about anything and so easy to hang out with.  It was hard to see them leave, but I was consoled somewhat with the knowledge that the kids and I would be seeing them in Utah in only about 3 weeks!  Yay!  Summer is almost here!

Alaska, baby!

Last week, Brad and I got to join his parents, siblings, and their spouses on a cruise to Alaska.  It was truly delightful! 

The nicest thing about this trip was, of course, the company. I loved just sitting around with Brad's family and chatting, playing cards, or rocking at Team Trivia. It was nice because it was all adults (except for John and Lili's baby, who is nursing, so she couldn't be left at home), so we were able to relax and enjoy each other without being interupted/worrying about kids.

And, of course I loved spending time with my Favorite Mann.

Look at us dancing at the club - how very Love Boat of us!

We traveled with Holland America Lines, and I must say, we were impressed with this cruise line.  We have taken two other cruises (brag, brag, I know), and this was by far the best cruise as far as clean entertainment goes.  Because Alaska is so big, we spent a lot more time on the boat than we have on other cruises, so we were very glad that the on-board entertainment was as good as it was.  There were shows after dinner everynight, and they were all completely within our standards.  There was no cringing at dirty jokes or covering Brad's eyes at the dancers' costumes, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Part of the entertainment was a karaoke competition that Brad's sister Becky took part in.  They set up judges like American Idol, and guests performed on stage for the passengers.  Becky was truly groovalicious singing "Cowboy, Take Me Away" from the Dixie Chicks.

And she won!  Yay Becky!

Another night, they did this trivia game show.  Haley got chosen to be a contestant, and she almost won (with Becky's help from the audience, mouthing the answers as big as she could).

Juneau, AK

The first port we stopped at was Juneau.  We all went on an excursion that took us to the Mendenhall Glacier and then whale watching.

Brad, Dave, and Cameron by Mendenhall Glacier.

Casey, Becky, and me by the waterfall.

On board the boat ready to watch some whales.

We saw this batch of sea lions sunbathing on a rock island.

A humpback whale disappears into the water.

We even got lucky and saw some orca.

Glacier Bay, AK

The next day we sailed through Glacier Bay on the cruise ship. I think that may have been my favorite day. We all just hung out, talked, played 5 Crowns, and drank Diet Coke while we were surrounded by beautiful scenery.

After all the whale-watching the day before, Dave favored us with his Whale Breaching Imitation.  It was stunning.

Sitka, AK

In Sitka, Brad and I joined Becky and Dave on a 4X4 Adventure that took us through a rainforest to a black sand beach on a little island.  It was awesome!

Dave and Becky in their rhino.

This is what we saw as we drove through the rain forest.  I wish the picture did it justice - it was really beautiful.

Stopping for a quick (and cold) break on a bridge over looking a river and meadow.  We saw some brown bear cubs playing in that meadow a few minutes later.

My favorite part of the ride was the time we spent on the black sand beach.  It was completely deserted, and we felt like we were the only people in that little corner of the world.

Ketchikan, AK

In Ketchikan, Brad went deep water fishing with his dad and brothers while the rest of us went on a zip-line course. If you think strapping yourself to a cable hundreds of feet above the ground and zipping along the top of a rainforest sounds fun, well, you are RIGHT! It was scary at first, but by the time we were finished with our morning of zipping thru a rainforest, we didn't want to be done. I loved it!

Lois and me on the ride up to the zip line.

Haley, Katie, Lois, Cam, and Casey getting ready to zip.

 The zip-line course was a series of cables strung through the top of a rain forest. I think we zipped along 10 or 12 different lines. So fun!
 

I didn't even know my picture was being taken - that silly grin is genuine.

Proudly wearing our zip-line medals.

Yay me!

 
Victoria, British Columbia

On Thursday, we finished up the cruise with a night-time stop in Victoria, British Columbia. Unfortunately, knowing that the cruise was almost over and we'd be returning to Berlin the next day kind of soured the whole evening. Oh well.

We only had a couple of hours in Victoria, and we weren't really in a shopping mood, so we went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

We learned that Madame Tussaud got her start making wax molds from severed heads of executed people (yeah, gross).  They had a wax mold on display that she made from the head of Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's ill-fated wives.  So, I'm guessing this display of all six of his wives is pretty accurate as far as showing what they really looked like.

We were surprised and delighted to see Brigham Young included in this display of prominant religious figures.

We owe my mom BIG TIME for coming to scary Berlin to stay with the kids while we went.  For a long time, we didn't know if we'd be able to go because we didn't know who we could ask here to watch the kids.  Mom saved the day by offering to come and brave the German-speaking world so we could go remember how it feels to speak English in America.  Thanks Mom!

And, of course, thanks to Mark and Lois for organizing the trip and giving us the cruise tickets for Christmas.  I loved every minute of it, and I am so glad we could go!  Alaska rocks!