Thanksgiving 2009

We had another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner here in Holland. We had about 20 people here for dinner. We did the whole big typical "American" dinner. It was so fun to have one last big event with our dear friends. Every one seemed to find enough to eat and enjoyed visiting. It was a tender sweet evening since we will be heading back to the US.

Alyna was able to come spend a week with us. It was wonderful to have her here. She was responsible for the pictures.



Elders Burton and Morrow - making apple pie. Yum!

The Tall Thin Man Who Rarely Smiles

Many years ago, Mindy did a school assignment where she had to describe her family. While we don't remember most of the descriptions she gave us, one really stuck. She described her father as a tall, thin man who rarely smiles. We were quite surprised at that description and although he is usually a rather serious guy, we never noticed that his smile was missing. Through the years we've joked and chuckled about that description. So this last weekend I just happened to get a great picture to prove that, yes - he can and does smile.

Alyna's Home

On Friday we picked Alyna up at the airport in Dusseldorf. We are so happy she is here.


We took her friend Suzanne with us so that if I needed to do business stuff with Dennis for Medica, Alyna would still have someone to hang out with. After picking Alyna up, we drove to the big convention center where the Medica conference is always held. Dennis came and helped us get train tickets so we could go into the city and then he headed into his day of business and work and the girls and I headed for our day of sight seeing, shopping and eating. We got into the center at about 9:30 so killed a little time drinking hot chocolate at Starbucks while we waited for stores to open and such. We spent a lot of time wandering the city, looking at the Christmas markets, the old buildings and statues and of course the stores.

(Although Alyna is actually sitting up in this picture, I liked it this way because I didn't get a good picture of her when jet lag finally
kicked in and everytime we sat down, she fell asleep. She was a trooper to go all day after having traveled for 24 hours.)

That evening, the girls and I stayed at Krienbaums while Dennis went with them to dinner. I could have gone also but I was so exhausted and the girls were all very tired so we were all asleep by 10:00.

Saturday morning we drove down to the Rhein River Valley. We went to St. Goar and the Reinfels castle. Here is a little information about it:

The castles which are today such an unmistakable feature of the Rhein landscape date back to the Middle Ages. Their founders were feudal overloards, who, so far from cherishing any romantic notions, built them with one simple aim in mind: to protect their lands from marauders and predatory neighbours.
Since Roman times the Rhein valley has been a line of communication of vital strategic importance. In the Middle Ages the German emperors used it for their frequent progresses into Italy, and rich merchants sent their goods to and fro along it. Obviously anyone owning a castle overlooking the valley was in a powerful position, since he was able to survey and regulate the flow of traffic across this particular territory and levy tolls on merchants. This accounts for the large number of castles along the Rhein from Mainz to Bonn, particularly in the narrow gorge connecting Bingen and Koblenz. Along this stretch of river, which has a length of only thirty-five miles, there are more castles than in any other river valley in the world.

Rheinfels Castle was built above St Goar in 1245 by Count Dieter von Katzenelbogen. Thanks to the Landgraves of Hesse, it underwent conversion in the 16th century into an impressive Renaissance mansion, and again in the 17th and 18th centuries into the most formidable fortress on the Rhein against which all enemy attacks failed. Not untill 1794 was Rheinfels captured by the French troops and blown up. But even in its destruction, the huge mass of ruins covering the top of the hill is still one of the most noteworthy sites along the Rhein.



We had a wonderful time and it was a fun area to see.

Missionary Opportunities

Kathy, Wendy, Cheree and a lady from Englang that joined us for the day.

A week or so ago, I went to the Nijmegen market and to lunch with my American sewing group friends. It was right after we had gotten home from Rome so I had lots of questions for a couple of them. (There is a lot about the Catholic church I don't know much about. While in Rome, we had spent quite a bit of time seeing various famous churches and then did the whole Vatican tour thing. We sat in on several masses and a vesper service and on our tour the ladies were all excited about the plethora of rosary beads at the Vatican gift shop.) My friends are all "regular" church attenders andvery religious. (As opposed to those who maybe attend Easter and Christmas services.) Two are catholic and the other is Methodist so we've had some interesting brief conversations in the past about religion and I have had several opportunities to share a little info about the gospel and some of our beliefs. This is really a first in a long time for me so it was very exciting and scary. I am not very good at doing it and I get really nervous because I want them to understand what a wonderful religion it is and why they should want to know more.

Cheree having hot chocolate on her front porch.

My friend Cheree and I have had several opportunities to talk about religion and so a couple of weeks ago I got an English Book of Mormon from the missionaries. Several weeks ago, I had given away a bunch of novels in English to the group and I just happened to pull out The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrel, thinking Cheree might find some comfort or councel to some struggles she is dealing with. Cheree loved the book and read it in a day. In the back there is a whole page of scripture references that the book uses, including some scriptures that "weren't in her bible." This last Thursday, I went and we spent the day together and had a great time. She took me out to little places in the eastern part of Holland that I hadn't been to, like Broekhurst - the smallest town in the country. Anyway, we had lots of great opportunities to talk and before leaving her that day I gave her the Book of Mormon. She is planning on coming to Thanksgiving dinner so it will be fun to see if she has had a chance to read any of it or not.

I have one more Book of Mormon in Dutch that I need to give to another friend. I'm a little worried that there won't be a really great opportunity to give it to her since our time is running short here but I'm sure if I pray about it then it will happen.

Trying to Make Each Other Happy

This past week, we took two trips. The first half of the week, Dennis had meetings down along the French Riviera. We left on Saturday so that we could have a couple of days to see the sights in and around Monaco and Nice. We flew from Eindhoven to Marsaille where we rented a car and then drove out to Monaco. With Lisa's help we had booked a room at the Marriot that is just over the border from Monaco so we drove in and were going to try to find the hotel and drop our things off before going out for the evening to see the sights. We couldn't find the hotel and ended up on the big touristy area of Monaco so we spent the evening walking around town and seeing the sights.

The famous Monte Carlo Casino with the sky ball.

Some of the luxury cars outside of the Casino - not a VW, Peugot or Mercedes among them.

The sunrise view from our Marriot hotel room just outside of Monaco.

On Sunday morning, we got up at drove into Nice for church. The church there was really beautiful and in a perfect location. It was fun to attend a large ward and see the diversity that they had.

LDS Church in Nice, France

We spent the afternoon walking along the beach boardwalk and taking the little tourist train around to see all the sights. That evening we drove down the coast to a small city just over the boarder into Italy. We saw some amazing scenery - between the blue of the Mediterranean and the houses and large villas built on the sides of steep mountains and the many long tunnels, it made for an interesting drive.

One of the statues in Nice situated in a beautiful park across from the boardwalk.

The boardwalk, beach and city of Nice.


One of the Bays along the coast line. It was really beautiful. Two big cruise ships are anchored in the bay

A quiet street and church in the town of Ventimiglia, Italy.

Monday, we checked out of our hotel and drove to Toulon were we spent the next several days. Dennis left me at the hotel while he went up to his meetings. Although his meetings were up in the hills a half-an-hour drive from Toulon, he thought I would enjoy being down near the beach and a town more. It was so sweet of him. I took a nap and then went out and explored the beaches and the town - probably walked 4-5 miles.

The beach and park in Toulon.

I ate lunch at a harbor cafe and had this beautiful view to look at.

The next day, I took the little tourist train around to the main sites in town and did some shopping. I bought a really cute little coat which was an experience in and of itself. The shop girls didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any French but we finally managed to find the perfect coat that was the right size.

The coat

When Dennis got back from work, we walked back into the town and explored some more and had dinner at a harbor restaurant.

The Tower Royale at sunset in Toulon

Wednesday morning we headed back to the airport and arrived just as they were making the final boarding call for our flight. We arrived back in Eindhoven, drove the hour home, spent a couple of hours unpacking and reloading our suitcase and then headed back to the airport.

We flew into Rome and got to our hotel at 11 PM. The next morning, Dennis had a business call to make and after that, we headed into town. We took a tour of town on the double-decker bus to get the lay of the land. Then we walked and walked and walked. It wasn't ever very boring - there are more ruins and old buildings around the center part of town than the Romans know what to do with. We had heard a lot about the pick pocketers but didn't have any problems.

The Colosseum

On Friday, we spent the day in Vatican City with a very knowledgeable and interesting tour guide. I learned more about the Catholic church than I had ever known before and more than I wanted to know about the early popes bad behavior. It made me extremely grateful to our founding fathers who realized the importance of separating church and state. I was intrigued by the mosaic floor of the Vatican but I won't put up most of the pictures that I took. They reminded me of some really great quilt block patterns.

A Ceiling

One of the paintings on the walls

Several of the floors - Marble mosaics

Vespers in St. Peters Basillica

Saturday we went to the Borghese Museum which has some of the finest Rubens paintings and Banini statues. We went to the astronomy exhibit in the Vatican museum where I learned more about Galileo and other great Italian astronomers and their instruments and discoveries. We spent the rest of the day just seeing all the rest of the sights that we wanted to see.

Trevi Fountain - such a beautiful place and very popular.

The Pantheon

Sunday morning, we went back to the airport and flew home. It was so nice to be home. That evening Dennis and I were talking and we came to find out that we took this trip to Rome because we thought the other person wanted to. I had said I wanted to go to Italy but I had never really ever wanted to go the Rome but I thought that Dennis really wanted to go to Rome so I went along to make him happy. He thought that when I said I wanted to go to Italy that naturally meant Rome so he planned the whole trip for me even though he had a lot of things going on at work and it wasn't really a convenient time for him. So - we got a trip to Rome that neither of us particularly wanted but thought we were making the other person happy. After the initial frustration of the discovery we were finally able to chuckle about it. Ahh, the joys of love and marriage. All in all, it wasn't that much of a hardship or sacrifice at least on my part.
We may not look really happy in this picture but this was about the 7th try to take a picture of ourselves in this beautiful location. We actually had a lot of laughs trying to get a decent picture.