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...
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 ...
This past Monday our friend Jeff Walsh from the York 2nd Ward took Phin, Lillian, Seth, and me on a hike in an amazingly lovely part of the North Yorkshire Dales: Gordale Scar and Malham Cove near the village of Malham. Later I found this description of the walk that closely matched the route we took. We started at Janet's Foss with a small waterfall and pool: Phin did some kind of abortive breakdancing routine by what looks like a farmhouse ruin: After a short walk we were already at the amazing Gordale Scar, climbing up the left side of the waterfall up the canyon, back down to where the waterfall goes through a hole in the rock, then up some stone stairs to the best grassy hills these sheep could ever hope to live in: Up top we walked to a pool that fills from a stream out of Malham Tarn, farther up, where the pure waters flow: Then we started heading down the other side over scattered stones, past stone walls: And then we came to the top of Malham Cove ...
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