What was THAT?

So that's what an earthquake feels like. Interesting!

Just in case the earth-shaking news isn't as big everywhere else as it is here, we had an earthquake last night. The biggest here since 1984, it measured 5.3 on the richter scale. Just before 1:00 in the morning, we heard a loud noise and the bed shook for about 10 seconds. I thought that the wash load downstairs was imbalanced, and I was grateful that it rebalanced itself nicely and we didn't even need to go downstairs to right it before going back to sleep.

Come to find out it was really an earthquake, not just an English appliance! Who knew? I always thought earthquakes would be, well, more dramatic or something. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't stronger...

You can read all about it if you want:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article851794.ece?CMP=KNC-powersearchSEM1&HBX_PK=earthquake

And the adventure continues! Cool.

Jessica's News and More About the U.K.

Our sweet Jessie is going to go to Scotland before any of the rest of us. She tried out for an international honor choir and was selected, and the concert is in Aberdeen, Scotland, in May (on Dad's birthday). There will be kids there from international schools from all over the world (Japan, Europe, etc.), and it was a real privilege for her to be chosen. She'll fly out on a Wednesday, spend Thursday and Friday in rehearsals, and then the concert is Saturday. She is busy learning her music and is extremely excited about the trip, and we're sure proud of her. Good job, Honey! (One pleased mom...)

(Jess says that I'm supposed to tell you that this picture of her was taken right after a play and that she doesn't usually wear this much makeup. Besides, her mother wouldn't let her past the moat that heavily made up!)

Our friend, Nelly, asked in an email a few days ago what it's REALLY like over here, what has surprised us, etc. So, here's my answer.

England's biggest surprises for this very American girl:

1. I knew it would be expensive, but I had no clue HOW expensive. I have no idea how people survive over here on regular salaries (which also explains the fact that there are no big families--you couldn't afford to feed more than a kid or two). The taxes are pretty surprising, too. The TV tax (which you pay just for having one in your house) is about $275 a year. Our council tax (the same as property taxes but whoever lives in the house pays it, owner or not) will be $4800 for the year, and everyday living expenses like utilities are about double. Gas is about $9 a gallon, so you drive as little as possible, but it also means paying about $100-$200 a month for public transportation. Our car was pretty reasonable (about $6000 for a minivan with about 60000 miles on it), but I hear that the inspection and annual renewal are pricey. We'll know the exact damage in May. Groceries are about twice as expensive. Our house is 2200 a month, which is approx. $4400, and it's certainly not a mansion. Etc., etc., etc. I just try not to think about it and move on.

2. It seems SO foreign here, even though everyone (theoretically) speaks English. I know, I know, it's a foreign country, but still... They even have a completely different vocabulary, and I have actually run into people who I'm pretty sure were speaking English but I had absolutely no idea what they were saying. Everything is on a much smaller scale, too. The cars, streets, houses, grocery stores, etc. are simply all MUCH smaller than what we're used to. They call it "English Scale," but I call it frightening when you're trying to drive down a street and not knock off the mirrors on your car on a "street" originally intended for carts and buggies with cars parked down both sides...

3. The actual logistics of everyday life are surprisingly different. The washer and dryer fit so few clothes that I'm constantly washing (no exaggeration) and always behind on wash. There is extremely hard water here and limescale builds up on everything, so you have to do crazy things like add salt to your dishwasher and anti-limescale tablets to each washload. It makes cleaning very challenging. The houses have overly-clever yet surprisingly-ineffective appliances (like the shower, which has a heater that is a box that just hangs on the wall and the water runs through it to be heated). But the houses also have hundred-year-old technology (our kitchen sink empties straight out a hole in the back of the house, into a PVC pipe, and into an open drain). I also never realized how convenient Walmart and Target are! You can't just go to one store here and get everything you need; you have to go to several little shops and get a few things each place and hope the next store has what you need. (And, don't be expecting any choices--if you need socks and you find some, BUY THEM, argyle or not!) Then you have the added challenge of getting whatever you bought back to your house if you took the train or battling the traffic if you drove. Also, you need to just buy and eat what is available in the grocery stores and shouldn't go searching for American products, even if another expat tells you where to find them. Chances are that if you drive the crazy distance to the store, there will only be a very few, extremely expensive products (the boxes of Lucky Charms I found Friday but did not buy were the equivalent of $16 a box--no cereal is worth that!). Then once you have your food, you have a miniature fridge and freezer (think dorm fridge) to try to find space to fit it in, which means you have to frequently repeat the food shopping trauma.

4. Nothing over here is designed for a family with several children--cars, restaurants, etc. Though everyone seems to think that our family is wonderful, they ALL comment on how big it is and how surprising they find it. I think it's funny, coming from a family with eight children and our five not seeming like very many, but I can see where they're coming from. It's true that nobody has big families, but again I think it's due to the cost of living more than anything. People in Italy were also equally shocked/impressed by the size of our family and kept telling us how beautiful our family is. Our cab driver was very happy with having seven people to charge for...

5. Church is interesting. It's completely the same (doctrine, meetings, etc.) but also totally different. The whole stake seems to be about the size of a ward needing to be split in the states. Our ward has around 100 people on Sunday. We've got members from all over the world, but a great deal of the members are actually from Africa. Because there are so few people, they are thrilled to have new families. They've been pretty friendly, but we haven't really made any friends in the two months we've been here. We spend Saturdays sightseeing and have been so busy that I haven't minded, but it would be pretty discouraging under other circumstances. We do have the missionaries over for dinner on Sundays, though, and that's been nice. The primary has about 20 kids, and there are around 6 young women and a few more young men. There also isn't any scouting program, which really bugs Kyle. He was just put in the young men's presidency, and I am teaching primary and am the "activity planner" for all primary activities. Strange. All in all, church is fine, but it sure is different.

6. Even the clothes are different. The women do not wear jeans, except the most young, hip, daring ones. (I'm mostly used to the staring, seeing that that's all I wear because that's all I own.) Most women wear polyester trousers (dress slacks) almost exclusively. They also wear a lot of leggings with boots and long sweaters and tunics. Always a child of the eighties, I think it's kind of fun, but I realize it would be less-than-fashionable in the states. Monica says that I'm not allowed to come back wearing leggings and long sweaters, but I'm holding out for the boots being acceptable. Even the names for items of clothing are different; pants are called "trousers" because boy's boxers are called "pants," and girl's panties are called "knickers." Even diapers aren't "diapers," they're "nappies." (I learned the names for pants because the school nurse and I had a tragically funny conversation during which we briefly couldn't understand each other when she called to tell me that one of our children had had an accident and needed a change of clothes; she was being very careful to phrase the problem in the most politically-correct way, and it made it so that I had no clue what she was saying the child needed.) Our next necessary clothing purchase (well, for the girls at least) is going to be a pair of "Wellies" for everyone. "Wellies" are "Wellingtons," basically irrigation-style boots that people wear here any time they need to do any walking in the sogginess, which is pretty much any time they need to do any walking. They come in interesting patterns, too, instead of only army green. Being from Idaho and having grown up wearing irrigation boots, Kyle finds it odd to see girls wearing irrigation boots as a fashion statement; go figure! If you want to go walking in the mud, I guess it's "when in London;" just don't necessarily plan on wearing your new wardrobe additions when you get back!

7. Soccer, er, football really is that big over here. People follow their team with enough enthusiasm to put even the most avid Cowboys fan to shame. Life revolves around the game, and not having a team that you're passionate about is completely incomprehensible to most Brits.

All that said, I'm still so grateful to be here. It's beautiful and exotic and amazing,and the child from Oregon in me even loves the weather. Every time someone finds out we're from the states and says, "Oh, you must not like our dreary, grey weather at all," I think, "I love it--so calm and serene and beautiful." I still feel like we've been admitted to a "Cool Life Experiences 101" course for a year. The adventure is exciting, and all of the new experiences we're having really are quite interesting. Even having a conversation with someone in which you completely don't understand one another teaches you something. It really does put your life into perspective to see what else is out there, to experience first-hand how other people live their lives, to begin to understand that your way is just one way and it's not necessarily "right," and to find out what does and what truly doesn't matter in life, despite what you thought you knew. I find myself thinking constantly about our ancestors that left this area to go to America and then cross the plains with the pioneers. What a shock they must have had when they got to our wild frontier!

Bella Roma 3

Day 3:

Our last day in Rome we went to the Pantheon and Vatican City.

The Pantheon has been on my "list of things to see before I'm dead" since I was a kid and studied Italy in geography, and this desire was renewed a couple of years ago when I read all of the Dan Brown novels. It is simply incredible to stand in this unique structure and experience the play of light from the oculus, the only source of light in the building, on all of the surfaces in the enormous room. Though everything about the building is impressive, from it's massive marble columns to its gorgeous sculptures, I found the walls themselves to be most interesting, massive slabs of multi-hued marble breathtakingly arranged as art in and of itself. Even after years of waiting to see it, the Pantheon did not disappoint.

And it triumphantly gets a 10 on the coolometer.

A completely awe-inspiring experience no matter your religion, the Vatican is breathtaking and worth the trip. Our children enjoyed being able to "visit different countries" by walking back and forth across the boundary line, and the actual tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica was just an added bonus.

Though we don't usually take guided tours, we were a little concerned about timing and not missing our evening flight, so we took a tour with a tour guide from Seattle, the bonus being that we got to skip the lines (worth it just for that) for both the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel and also heard some incredible information. The tour took about 2 1/2 hours, but it flew by in a wave of unbelievable architecture and artwork it would take a lifetime to describe. Suffice it to say that we spent the entire time with our mouths gaping open, muttering breathy oohs and aahs alongside every other tourist in Rome and loving every minute of it. One of the interesting things the guide told us is that there are so many pieces of art in the museum that if you were to spend only 45 seconds looking at each piece, even without stopping for anything trivial like eating or sleeping, it would take over 12 years to see everything. Pretty incredible. I'd love to go back just to get lost in the museum and have to have a guard help me find my way out at the end of the day.

Coolometer rating for the Vatican is definitely a 10.

Also filled with incredible artwork, St. Peter's Basilica was palatial and extremely impressive. The apostle Peter's body is supposed to be entombed beneath the alter. We enjoyed seeing the massive 98-foot tall baldachin (big canopy thingy in the middle of the picture) held by its four immense pillars (designed by Bernini in the 1600s). When the bronze for the baldachin ran out, it was completed with bronze from the Pantheon. Even without the ornate carving, it would be impressive due to sheer size, and it is the spectacular visual centerpiece of the building (complete with a carving of a dove with a seven-foot wingspan). Our children were both morbidly impressed or completely bothered by the four wax-preserved popes displayed in their glass coffins, depending on which of the kids you talked to. Their favorite part of the basilica was the statue of Peter that is supposed to give you good luck if you rub the right foot with your right hand--and, yes, we all rubbed it. In fact, so many people have rubbed it that the toes are worn off--can you say "hand sanitizer..."

On the coolometer, St. Peter's gets a 9 (simply because we saw the more-impressive Vatican Museum first).

The best part of the day was our time in the Sistine Chapel. You're not allowed to take pictures in the chapel, but standing in awe is a given. This room is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and it was even more impressive after hearing from our guide how difficult frescoes are to create. (She also told us that two of Michaelangelo's peers who REALLY didn't like him basically set him up for failure by suggesting to the Pope that Michaelangelo do the art in the Sistine Chapel, knowing that he was a sculptor and not a painter and had never done a fresco in his life and completely expecting him to fail. Guess they were wrong...) While in the chapel, you're so intent on taking in the palette of colors and images that time almost seems to stand still. Even Eryn simply stood and stared, only commenting on certain aspects of the paintings after already being in the room several minutes. After hearing about them from our guide, actually seeing Michaelangelo's sad self-portrayal on the front wall and the interestingly-scandalous images/ideas he subtly added to the paintings was VERY intriguing. The best part about the whole chapel is that even though painting wasn't his passion, Michaelangelo achieved an incredible amount of depth and realism in the frescoes--enough so that our children stood asking how in the world he did it. AWESOME!

Coolometer rating? 10, 10, 10!

Other memorable parts of Vatican City: First, the Pope is protected by his own honor guard--real Swiss soldiers who wear the most interesting, haven't-changed-for-hundreds- of-years uniforms on the planet. All I can say is that simply putting one on is an incredible show of courage. Second, the obelisk in the middle of St. Peter's square is great for the gee-whiz list. Transported it from Egypt to Rome in 37 AD, it's the only obelisk still in Rome. Being the only one of anything automatically makes you interesting. Third, the square itself is beautiful, with serene fountains and marble-topped buildings rimming the massive courtyard. And, fourth, meat and cheese thrown between two slices of bread as you hurry to catch the bus taste fantastic when it's three p.m. and you haven't eaten since breakfast.

So, that's it. The anticlimax was a bus ride back to the hotel, a second white-knuckle cab ride, and a long trip home. Everyone had a fantastic Roman adventure, and we all give the overall trip a resounding 10. Needless to say, we'd recommend this one to everyone--it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that truly is worth doing. Amazing.

More helpful hints/interesting anecdotes:
1. If you hire a cabbie to take you to your hotel, he may be willing to pick you back up on your day of departure for a reduced rate. It's very common for the cab companies to make deals like this; and if you mentally average the two trips, it makes the first one a little more bearable.
2. Never, ever, ever go into a restaurant in Italy and inform the already-attitudinally-challenged person who seats you that you would only like dessert. If you're lucky enough to get a waiter as charming as ours, he will snippily pack up your serious-customer menu with the already-excruciating prices and bring you a dessert-only menu that is more than double the price for the same items. If you've had a very long day and your children are giving you the puss-in-boots look from the Shrek movies, you foolishly stay and order only half the amount you would have ordered off the regular menu, not really satisfying anyone. If you're lucky, your server will even stand there and glare disapprovingly at you until you humor him by leaving the premises.
3. In Europe, "milk shake" does not mean "a thick, creamy ice-cream dessert made from large quantities of ice cream mixed with just enough milk to make a smooth and dreamy glass of goodness," it means "a thin, not so creamy, child-disappointing, almost-dessert made from tons of milk and a trace of ice cream." If you want a milkshake, you should probably just make your own or wait until you get back to the states, but if you order one in a restaurant, you're going to basically get weakly flavored milk--quite painful off the "dessert only" menu, by the way.
4. If you ask for water at a restaurant, make sure that you specify "tap water." If not, even if you tell the waiter you want "still water" (non-carbonated), you will get extremely expensive bottled water. If that happens and you realize your mistake, be very careful not to let the waiter open subsequent bottles of the investment-priced water and refill glasses as they empty. If this happens, you will get to visit a local coronary unit upon receiving your bill.
5. All Roman statues used to have glass eyes, which have (thankfully) fallen out and been lost over the centuries; some of them still do. Just don't look straight at them, and you'll be fine.
6. If no one else is on the grass in a huge courtyard even though it's filled with people, you probably better look for the Italian equivalent of a "keep off the grass" sign before you go tromping across the grass without thinking to take the perfect picture. The Vatican guards can be very excitable.
7. Have lots of Nutella (but if you're going to eat it on anything but bread, don't let the Europeans see you doing it)!

Bella Roma 2

Day 2:

The Colosseum is truly one of the most phenomenal structures I've ever seen. The only way you can describe it is, well, COLOSSAL. The Colosseum was used for gladiator contests and other "public spectacles." Standing inside, you can imagine swords clashing and lions roaring while the gladiators battle, what life must have been like in the living quarters beneath the floor, and what it might have been like to be a spectator. It could seat tens of thousands and is an architectural masterpiece.
It even still has the cross where they martyred Christians for the crowd's entertainment. We repeatedly heard "this is so awesome" from the kids throughout the entire walking tour, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. An incredibly interesting, truly impressive structure, it is a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it experience.

This one gets a 10+ on the coolometer!

The Roman Forum, or Forum Magnum as the Romans called it, is the heart of ancient Rome. The area around which Rome was built, it was the center of government, commerce, and daily life, and everything in the city pretty much revolved around it. In the ruins you can still see government buildings, temples to several gods, basilicas, meeting halls, mansions, massive carved arches, marble columns no longer holding anything up, etc., etc., etc. Walking these grounds inspires you, offering the perfect background to imagine life in ancient Rome from a daily-life perspective--philosophers speaking from marble steps under ornately-carved arches, government officials hurrying to court, and citizens from every walk of life going about their business amidst the bustle. All in all, the forum is extremely impressive. The forum is free, and your Colosseum ticket gets you onto Palatino Hill, adjacent to the forum. More ruins similar to those in the forum, on Palatino Hill you get a bird's-eye view of where the massive chariot-racing stadium used to be (the largest stadium ever built, by the way), Mussolini's house (now a museum), and beautiful courtyards. People watching was great here--my favorite was an elderly lady having lunch with her cat resting next to her on her shawl in the middle of Mussolini's courtyard.

Final coolometer score is an 9 (not as much to see and lots of walking, but still impressive).

Helpful hint: We learned while at the forum that the guide book warnings about public restrooms being scarce are 100% accurate. There was only one public restroom (single occupancy) for this entire area; the women's line was incredibly long as usual, but even the men's had a line! We spent more than half an hour waiting to use the facilities! Also, make sure you pack some toilet paper in your day pack, because if you actually find a restroom and are patient enough to wait in line to use it, your chances finding it stocked are extremely slim.

La Bocca della Verita is "the mouth of truth." Legend has it that if you put your hand in the mouth and are asked a question, if you lie in response the mouth will bite off your hand; if you tell the truth, it will let you keep all your body parts. (A couple of thousand years ago, the priest would give the word every once in a while for a servant standing behind the stone to actually chop someone's hand off, just to make sure people kept believing.) The stone face is against a brick wall inside a church now, so you're pretty safe to actually stick your hand in the mouth, liar or not, if you want to stand in line an hour or two for the privilege. The kids also dubbed this stop "awesome." Unfortunately, a Japanese tour bus arrived right before us and joined the already enormous line, so we decided, by unanimous vote, that seeing the mouth was fine and we didn't need the actual experience of sticking our hands in it. Besides, we already know that nobody in our family is a liar (big grin)! The walk to the church sure was pretty, though.

Coolometer rating for this one is only a 4 (interesting minor historical spot but too long of a line to make standing in worth it).

So now for the story behind ending up at the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains (Basilica San Pietro in Vincoli). One of our friends in the ward who lived in Rome for several years told us before we went that the best sight in Rome, in his opinion, is the prison where Peter and Paul were held. He told us that visiting the prison was actually a spiritual experience for him, and we decided we wanted to see it, too. The problem is that you can't find it in guidebooks, and our Italian is a little rusty (pronounced "nonexistent"). So, asking Italians for directions worked well enough to send us to several different interesting spots but not to the prison. At one point, however, we ended up in the church where the chains used on Peter and a really beautiful famous marble statue of Moses are displayed, but that's as close as we came. So we had a nice time strolling all over Rome looking for a prison that we're sure is there somewhere but never saw, and then we gave up when the children got hungry enough that requests for gelati increased to several a minute and the pigeons began to look like entrees. Our quest did take us into several incredibly beautiful areas (like the spot where we took the above picture of the forum) that we wouldn't have seen otherwise, so I'm kind of glad we were lost, er, adventurous.

Final verdict on our quest for the prison of Peter and Paul also a 4 (because we never actually found it but saw other cool things instead).

The other significant thing about our day is that we were MUCH smarter about eating. We went to a grocery store first thing in the morning and packed ourselves a surprisingly-tasty picnic lunch, and then we went out for pizza for dinner at the local pizzaria (around the corner from our hotel). Lunch was filling and much more convenient, and dinner was, in some ways, more satisfying than the expensive meal we had the night before (delicious but less expensive is always more satisfying in my opinion). The cost of the pizza was actually determined by weight, and you just had the server lop of a piece of the huge rectangular pizza the size you wanted and weigh everyone's order together. I had an extremely delicious tomato and fresh mozerella, and we all enjoyed the potato pizza we ordered just to try. AND our food total for the day was a fraction of what we spent the first day. My new mantra--try the pizza!

Overall, day two of our adventure was every bit as interesting/exciting as day 1. We fell into bed every bit as exhausted as the first night but also excited about our third day.

Bella Roma 1

Wow, wow, wow! Who knew there were places in the world that are so impressive?!!? We had a fabulous time in Rome! It was a quick trip--three full days in the city plus travel time--but it was phenomenally worth it, and we used every minute. (Just ask the children how their feet are doing to hear a little grumbling about walking for days on end to see really cool things but with only occasional gelati--fantastic ice cream--to sustain you...)

We booked our hotel with our flight and subsequently didn't know quite what to expect from our "three-star Italian hotel," the Hotel de Artistes. The exterior wasn't much to look at--a small sign on the side of an old brick building down a side street in the Northeast section of Rome, but it turned out to be quite nice. The hotel was a collection of a few rooms on several different floors, a small check-in counter and sitting room, a very old metal-cage lift (elevator), and a roof-top dining area. That's it, but our rooms were right next to each other and were comfortable. They even both had bathrooms "en suite," though the children were a little confused about the extra toilet in each one... Even in this old building, both the stairs and the bathrooms were completely marble, and it felt like you were in Rome even inside. They served simple but fabulous breakfast (complete with the best sweet croissants [pronounced "candy"] on the planet--so good it was hard to stop eating them before you were actually in pain--and we ate on the roof of the building in the cafe-like setting complete with heaters to make it a little more comfortable for the crazy Americans eating outside in February. The pigeons we couldn't convince the kids to stop feeding added to the ambiance and offered endless meal-time entertainment. The best part was that the hotel was about half a block from a subway station and central to most of the sights, and it made for a great home base for our Roman adventure.

So, here is what we ended up doing in Rome:
Day 1: Ostia Antica
Day 2: Colosseum, Roman Forum, the hand-eating-mouth (La Bocca della Verita), and St. Peter in Chains Cathedral (plus some major wandering, which doesn't really count as a destination but is significant, looking for the Prison of Peter and Paul, which we never found but also which afforded us a look at back/side streets we never would have seen otherwise)
Day 3: The Pantheon & Vatican City (including the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica)

Day 1:

Ostia Antica must be one of the least-known, just-plain-cool spots in the world. It is a port city about 30 miles from Rome that was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii but is much better preserved and significantly easier and less expensive to get to. With this port city in such great shape, I'm not sure why Pompeii is the more famous of the two cities; I'm going to just add it to my "Go Figure" list and move on... We spent all day wandering the ruins of this beautiful city, complete with necropolis, churches, merchants quarter, political/city center, amphitheater, bath houses, mill, tile mosaic floors, aquaduct tunnels, frescos, etc., etc., etc. We were surprised at how huge and well-preserved it is, and it really did take all day to see it. Visiting a place like this really gives you a flavor of what life must have been like in a thriving city like Ostia Antica, getting a glimpse of life for the ridiculously wealthy down to the least well off. Even though it was so long ago, I don't imagine that life was much different for them than it is for us, everyone just going about their business and attempting to survive with dignity and happiness. The verdict? Everyone decided the day was "totally awesome" (tired feet excluded), and after some fabulous Italian food that we paid way too much for we all fell into bed happily exhausted and looking forward to the next day.
By the way, Ostia Antica gets a score of 10 on the coolometer!

Next stop...

I'm so excited! We are going to have two fantastic experiences this week. Friday night and Saturday morning we're going to the London temple (staying overnight). Saturday morning the youth are doing baptisms, then it's our ward temple day, during which I'm in charge of an activity for the primary children. Then we leave for, drum roll please, Rome. Next week is the kids' mid-winter break from school, and Kyle's going to take some time off, too. It will be a long few days, but I'm pretty sure it will be phenomenal. I probably won't write again until we get back because I'll be busy preparing, but I'm going to talk your ears, er, write your eyes off next week...





Nope, these pictures don't have anything to do with this entry--I just like them.

Wocket the World Traveler

(Funny story about Jess...)

When we were in Orlando a year ago Christmas, one of the only "souvin-ears" Jessie wanted was a small stuffed Ewok from the gift shop outside of the Star Wars ride. After acquiring her treasure, she jokingly named him "Wocket" (because he's pocket-sized, and, well, you've all read the Dr. Seuss Book), and he became her favorite treasure ever. Wocket has since half-jokingly become a permanent fixture in our family, accompanying us on many adventures. The "funny story" part comes in because Jess has decided to take a picture of Wocket "visiting" every famous place we go in the U.K. and Europe. She's even taken his picture sitting on the tube, for the full London experience, of course. It's amusing watching she and Kyle orchestrate exactly the perfect photo for the little guy each time we go somewhere. Who knew that a humble Ewok from Florida would have such a grand adventure?

Kyle adds: Our plan is for Jessica to build a slide presentation of Wocket's adventures and all the places he has been. This way Jessica can have her own set of slides for all of her adventures without her being the central figure in all the photographs. (You know how she is about taking photographs of her...)

Wicked

About a year ago, Bon gave me the music from Wicked, the current hugely-popular broadway play. A delightful semi-prequal to The Wizard of Oz, the gist of the story is that the good witch and the wicked witch are actually college- roommates-turned-friends and the talented and good hearted but very naive "wicked" witch is framed by the wizard. The music is fun to listen to with interesting lyrics and creative word-usage (which both seriously appeal to me), and our kids fell in love with it. They like it so much that someone is constantly singing from the score, and I actually took the CD out of the van and hid it a while back to try to turn off the perpetual soundtrack (which was in vain).

Kyle and I have been talking for months about how fun it would be to take the family to see it "some day," but we missed it in Denver and certainly weren't going to L.A. or New York any time soon. Wait! London is a big city with broadway plays; big grin! So when we were trying to figure out what to do for Jessica's birthday (seeing that we hadn't really been here long enough for her to have a group of new bosom buddies to invite over), going to the play was the natural solution. Twist my arm about that far...

Jess was very "ho hum" about her birthday and agreed ahead of time that a family party would be just fine this year, consigning herself in advance to the lameness of it all. On her birthday, after wading through a huge box of nothing but wadded copies of the ticket stubs and then finally realizing what the papers meant, she simply sat in shocked silence. Then the room erupted with Jess in the center of five children, all of them shouting and jumping up and down. Now that was good reaction!

Then the waiting began. Since the play was the following Friday, five whole days later, the children spent the week "not being able to wait another second" and "barely able to stand it."

When party night did finally arrive, we all dressed up and rode the tube into London--quite a production in and of itself that time on a Friday night. To add to the London-ness of the experience, we were actually approached by a pan handler who called Kyle "gov-nuh."

After we arrived at the theater and found our seats, the children were barely able to sit still with anticipation, but then they sat in amazement through the whole production, enormous grins on their faces and oohs and aahs when something was portrayed differently than they expected. Eryn even sat still for most of the 3 1/2 hours; that's saying a LOT. (It's rumored that even the biggest kids in the party were spellbound, and apparently one of them even teared up from excitement over all the coolness and then bawled like a baby during "Because I Knew You.") The play definitely didn't disappoint!

Afterward, I asked a very nice random lady to take our picture. When she asked if it was a special occasion and we told her it was Jessica's birthday, she said that her son played the main flying monkey, Chistery, and that if we hung around she would introduce us. I don't think Jess could have grinned any bigger as she was ushered over to the stage door to have her picture taken with one of the cast as an added birthday bonus.


Dragging into the house at 1 a.m., everyone was still singing, talking about their favorite part, etc. What am I saying? They still are!

Happy fourteenth birthday, Jess Honey! Thanks for letting us come to your party!!!