Somusing

Photo by our good friend Chad Roberts .* This is what I wrote in my journal not long after we saw totality in our front yard for about 2 minutes 19 seconds: That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I’m afraid that I’m so tired my brain is going to forget how it looked – black circle surrounded by glowing white flames, sunset colors along all horizons around us, very bright red planet to the south, very bright white planet above, dim star next to the sun, nearly dark, shadow bands along the sidewalk just before and after, the diamond ring as the totality ended. It was awesome and beautiful and amazing. When it hit totality, everybody started exclaiming and shouting like a much louder response to fireworks or something. The response almost seemed involuntary. Everyone said the animals would freak out, but it seemed like it was just the humans who freaked out. Really, it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. So beautiful and awesome and...

Vera and Glen brought a cotton candy maker that Mira really enjoyed. She is forbidden (by me) from eating cotton candy unless it's freshly made and she witnesses it. (That's just how cotton candy is supposed to be!) So being able to actually make cotton candy herself was pretty great. Also, please enjoy scrolling through these photos of Mira jumping on the rocket launcher thingy that Vera and Glen brought.

I realize that I'm nowhere near my twenties anymore, but this book is fantastic and has joined my short list of required reading for my kids and anyone who has anything to do with young people. I read it. Then Jon read it. Then I sent copies to my sisters who have older kids. I made Zed and Phin read it and Jacob is partway through it. Even though my kids aren't working dead-end jobs or trying to "find themselves" while we support them, the book resulted in some good decisions for one kid in particular. He knows who he is. Here's a Ted talk by the author to get the gist. I highly recommend both the book and the talk.

Shortly after arriving at our rented house here in Plovdiv, I heard some of the kids getting very excited to find a ladle in one of the kitchen drawers. "Look! We have a ladle!" someone said, and there were general exclamations of celebration. This illustrates perfectly the challenges we've had with various kitchens during our Home School Field Trip. With each new residence, we get to find out what the kitchen has and doesn't have and then figure out if it's workable or if we need to beg for something from the landlord or buy something. This is not our kitchen. It's a replica of a medieval kitchen (I think) at the Prague City Museum. Here's what I now consider to be essential in a kitchen: a big soup pot, a frying pan, a couple of wooden spoons, a large bowl, cutting boards, knives (including a bread knife), pancake turner, something for baking in (this was two roasting pans in our first Prague apartment; here in Plovdiv, it's one cookie sheet ...

Even under normal circumstances, I don't decorate a ton for Christmas. I love other people's well-decorated houses and trees at Christmas time, but I haven't ever put in the time or money to do anything outstanding at our own house. It was pretty much the same story here in Plovdiv, but with less pressure and guilt because 1) we don't have any Christmas decorations and 2) the level of Christmas ornamentation here in Plovdiv is much less than we're used to seeing at home in the US -- there are beautiful lights and a small Christmas market on Glavnata (the main pedestrian shopping zone in the middle of Plovdiv) and many stores have modest decorations, and we saw small Christmas trees and lights in some apartments, but nothing like the Christmas markets of Germany or the sometimes amazing light displays of American houses. Anyway, here's what we did for our Christmas decorations, in a short series of extremely mediocre photographs. (Is it possible to be extreme...

On Saturday, October 19, Mira was baptized by Jon at the LDS church building in Prague. We tried to talk her into getting baptized in the river, but she didn't find that idea appealing. We were happy to share the event with another American family, whose daughter Maleia is Mira's age. Maleia's dad works at the US Embassy here in Prague. Even though they weren't in the river, the girls said the water in the baptismal font was really cold! When they tested it beforehand, they were confident that it was plenty warm, but I guess it felt quite different when they actually got in. I hope Maleia and Mira remember their baptism day and stay long-distance friends and someday become roommates at BYU or something. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? Anyway, here are pictures! Jon and Mira outside the church building. Maleia and Mira. Aren't they cute? They both have dimples! Maleia's mom Monique took these pictures and I'm so glad she did! The leaves on th...

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 ...

After leaving Pocklington on July 31, we spent a week in London before flying to Prague for our second stay. Various groups of us went on a walking tour, watched boats on the Thames, went to the British Museum and National Gallery, went on the London Eye, went to the LDS church in Lewisham, "saw" the Prime Meridian, walked under the river, bought cheap clothes at Primark, rode trains and the Tube, went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, walked over the river on the Millennium Bridge, walked on a bridge over the train tracks on the Railway Children walk, and saw hundreds of feral parakeets around our apartment and in a nearby cemetery. Looking over the River Thames. Some of those feral parakeets from the bridge over the railway at sunset. Awesome Assyrian wall carvings at the British Museum. (There is so much cool stuff there! Like the real, actual Rosetta Stone!) Really old stuff (up to 5000 years old) the kids were allowed to touch...