Christmas in Provo, without people

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Caucasus trip 2019, part 1

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Dad (Jon) and I are roughly three weeks into a month-long trip around Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. We started in Armenia, made our way through Georgia, across the Black Sea to Ukraine, through Moldova and now to Kyiv, Ukraine. We have one more stop, Lviv, and then it’s back home to Idaho. I’ll cover our first two weeks(ish) in this post, from the start to the Black Sea ferry. This trip may sound familiar, as many of our destinations match up with a trip Dad and Phin took in August 2013. They wrote about their trip in several posts: Let sleeping dogs lie in Kiev Kiev Pechersk Lavra More Kiev churches and sights Ukrainian miscellany Tbilisi, Georgia Enlinking the Caucasus from Tbilisi to Yerevan Yerevan, Armenia sights Burning rubber in Yerevan, Armenia Garni & Geghard, Armenia Ejmiatsin, Armenia Dad and I have been interested in Eastern Europe for a long time, so this trip has been a great opportunity to see a lot of new places in the east. A lot of plac...
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House Rules: Video Games and Music

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Home Schooling Dream vs. Reality Our initial home schooling dream had the kids studying Latin and Greek, speaking German fluently, finished with Calculus and starting college courses by the time they were 14, and running their own successful business selling artisan cheese made from the milk of our goat herd. Also, they would never watch TV or play video games. Then the kids were born. It turns out that, in the interest of maintaining my sanity, I’m more of a Relaxed Home Schooler. This is also why I’m a Relaxed Housekeeper. We didn’t even teach the kids German, which both Jon and I speak fluently, although I maintain that the main reason for this is not laziness but our reluctance to give up our secret language. The kids are on track to do Calculus before they start college at or near 18. We never got the goats, although we have plans to get some when we return to the US, and we did have chickens for a long time. The chickens laid eggs for us, but we didn’t sell them. We just ...
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Our Rome visit near Vatican City

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Erin found us a nice apartment in Rome near Vatican City, with a view out the back to the dome of St. Peter's basilica in the Vatican. That wall contains the Passetto di Borgo which was an escape route for Popes in danger. Our apartment was just a few meters down the street through the gate. St. Peter's Square in the Vatican is a really impressive place, and very busy even on a not particulary busy day: I came upon the Spanish Steps by accident while walking around, which lead down to the Piazza di Spagna: The church is the church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti and the Egyptian obelisk is a copy, but itself a very old copy. According to Wikipedia, “It is a Roman obelisk in imitation of Egyptian ones, originally constructed in the early years of the Roman Empire.” All this is not too far from the H&M department store where Mira was shopping for clothes to replace those lost in her checked bag that Air France and/or Air Malta lo...
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