Brugge 2009

Yesterday, Jessica and I went to Belgium with the Smith family. Geoff served most of his mission in Belgium so we got to see some of the cities he served in and the places he lived. It rained all morning as we drove to the various cities were he served. By the time we got to Brugge, our site seeing destination for the day, it had stopped raining but it was still cloudy.

One of the places were Geoff lived.

One of the things I love about Europe is that there are all kinds of old churches and great architecture that is tucked in with all the other building around. You are driving down a seemingly normal business street and all the sudden there is a beautiful church or castle.

The Smith family planning our day in Brugge. (Garrett is off taking pictures around the town square.)
Garrett, Becca, Jessica and Jamie outside a Choclatier looking at all the scrumptious chocolates.

Peggy is ready to see the sites.
It was so wonderful to get to see a beautiful city with a great friend!

This is probably the only place in Bruges where you don't have to pay to see a famous and rare piece of artwork. The marble statue of Madonna by Michelangelo at the right wing of the Church of Our Lady. The Madonna is the only Michelangelo sculpture that can be found in Benelux and the only artwork that has left Italy when the artist was alive. Originally made for the cathedral of Sienna, it was later bought by two merchants from Bruges (Jan and Alexander Moscroen) who apparently had lots of spare change.


The Cathedral also had beautiful stained glass windows, an amazingly intricately carved wooden dais and beautiful arched ceilings.

This lacemaker was sitting in the doorway of her home working with her bobbins and making beautifully delicate lace. She sold a few small items there from her home.
You have just got to love the canals of Belgium and Holland. They add such a romantic ambiance to the area. We didn't take a boat ride this year but we recalled with fond memories the sites and experience we had last year when Ivan was our tourguide and we did the canal tour.

The Smith family at the canal. So cute.

Yeah for mothers and daughters and time spent together. We had a wonderful day!

Fun with family and Friends

Our month of fun with friends and family began on Sunday with the arrival of Jessica and Tina followed by the Smith family and Kevin Mullen. We had a great evening with all of them and some friends from here.

Arrival at the Dusseldorf airport. (June 7)

Everyone visited and we sang some Dutch and American songs.

On Monday morning, Jessica and Tina took off with the Smith family to head to Austria. They had a great time. This picture was taken at the Cathedral in Cologne (Koln).

The Big Birthday Celebration

I recently celebrated my 50th birthday, which is a big thing here. I told Dennis and Alyna that I really didn't want the whole Dutch thing, with the dummy in front of the house and signs and banners all across the front. Of course they didn't listen to me and went ahead and planned a nice party. When a person celebrates a 50th birthday here, they say that they have "seen Abraham" or "seen Sarah". Something about being old and wise.The "dummy" that is put in front of the house is suppose to indicate the person's talents or interests. I guess Alyna and Dennis worked on my dummy a week before and did a good job of keeping it hidden until the day of.

I spent the morning at the market in Arnhem while Dennis was at work and Alyna was at youth conference. It is always an interesting adventure to go to the market and so I had fun. The textile stalls are really interesting - lots of different kinds of fabrics and expecially a lot of elaborate silk type fabrics for the plethera of Middle Eastern women in the area. I bought some quilt fabric and batting and a bag to carry it all home in.

That evening we had a bunch of neighbors and ward members come by. We had lots of food and drinks and it was nice to sit and visit with people for a while. I had never met some of the neighbors so it was fun to finally get a name and a face put together. After we cleaned up from the party, Dennis brought the "dummy" in and put her on the couch. We laughed and laughed because she looked so wiped out - much more like me than the version of her sitting out in the chair.

A Busy Month

This past month has been full of so many fun and interesting experiences. I'll briefly highlight them and then if time permits, I will add some more thoughts and details.

Ralph and Lola visit us in Holland. It was wonderful to have them here!!


Alyna's 16th birthday.

It's not very exciting with just Mom and Dad to celebrate with.
It's hard to stay sad when you get some fun shoes and cute clothes.

Fun with missionaries.

Elder Delpais, Elder Wells and Elder Bell - we got to take them to dinner!We spent the day with Elder Van der Stek and Elder Black and Lydia as we traveled to the volleyball tournament and spent the day in Gronningen.

The Church All-Nederlands volleyball tournament.
All the wards in Holland as well as some from Belgium and Germany came for the day. Our youth took second place. Alyna was not happy to be there but it was an interesting day.

Diane Siegfried and sister Kay came to visit.
We visited Keukenhof and Amsterdam and had such a fun time. It was sad to see them leave.

Fly home
On our international leg of the trip, Dennis got "bumped" to first class and let me have his seat.
He/It was so sweet!

Junior Prom

The shoes were a little tricky to get into around all that dress.

Brandon Netzly and Alyna all ready to go. So cute.

Lisa's Bridal shower
Carol, Peggy and Michelle were sweet enough to host a shower for Lisa at a time I could be home to attend. What great friends!
Emily, Michelle, Kimberly and Nedra at the shower.
It was a lot of fun to see a lot of Lisa's good friends and catch up on what they are doing.
They are all so darling.

Mindy and Jeran, Kara and Lori arrive in Providence.
A happy reunion.

Peggy, Trish, and Cheryl brought us lunch before the Providence reception.
It was a nice moment to sit and visit before all the fun of the next few days.

Lisa and Cameron get married (along with all the related festivities.)
Lisa and Cameron at the Manti Temple.
The happy couple with the proud parents.
Both families.

Dennis, Alyna and I fly to Madrid.
Dennis and Alyna enjoyed playing a game on the subway where you can't hold onto anything and you can't move your feet. Dennis eventually won.

Our first view of the temple as we arrived.
The city of Toledo - made me want to sing songs from Man of La Mancha the whole time.

It was so nice to visit with our friends, Garry and Lanell Moore. They are currently serving as temple president and matron of the Madrid temple. They were wonderful hosts.
Alyna in front of the Royal Palace. We were not able to go in because the King was greeting the International Olympic Committee as Madrid is bidding for the 2016 Olympics. There was lots of police activity going on around the palace and even sniper guys up on the roof. All very interesting.

After seeing this, I wasn't sad that we didn't get to see any bull fights.
In the park, there were all these interesting statues. This was the one I though best represented Alyna. She is a good learner and has a big heart. She has a very orange personality - at least if you believe facebook which says she is yellow or red, depending on the test. At least she is always lively and ready for fun. She loved being in a big city park at night with all the night life.

One of many monuments in the park.

Flamenco dancing. Very Spanish!

Being "home"
We had a wonderful couple of weeks but it was so nice to get back to our peaceful home.

A Week of Sightseeing with some of the Briscoe Family

This past week we've had the opportunity to have Ralph and Lola visit as well as Tom and Sandi, Diana, Emmy, David and Daniel. They were all here to enjoy dinner and a session of General Conference with us on Sunday night. (We get to view, via the internet, the 10 AM session at 6 PM and the 2 PM session at 10 PM.) Tom and Sandi and kids left Monday morning for a trip to Paris and Ralph and Lola headed to Germany and Switzerland to visit the temples there.


On Thursday, Dennis arrived home from his trip to Utah and Ralph and Lola returned from their travels. On Friday we drove to the other side of the country and met Tom and Sandi and crew at Keukenhof Gardens. The temperature was perfect and the gardens were breath-taking. We all enjoyed the two hours that it took to stroll through the gardens. Afterward, we drove to Delft for dinner at a good Indonesian restaurant.



Saturday morning, Tom's family headed home and Ralph and Lola, Dennis and I did a little local sight seeing of places of interest to us - Alyna's school, Dennis' work, etc. We also spent some time grocery shopping and preparing some of the food for Easter dinner.

Easter Sunday was really nice. We had a really nice church service and then in the evening we had about 20 ward members here for dinner. It was fun to have some time to sit and visit. Luckily for me, they all speak fairly good English.

On Monday, or second Easter, Dennis and I and Ralph and Lola took a car trip to Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and France. In Germany we went toTrier.
Trier is the oldest ancient Roman city north of the Alps, and has many well preserved ruins. Most notable of the Roman remains here are the 1500 year old Port Negro (Black Gate) - the old city gate, a well preserved ampitheater, and a wide array of underground baths. There are also two very old churches which were built together, the oldest of which was built by Constantine in 300 A.D. This is a great place to spend a day or two, and if you're up for seeing another country, the Luxembourg border is less than 30 minutes away.

We went to the American cemetery in Luxembourg were one of Ralph's cousins is buried. From there we went to France and found the Maginot Line which is a set of bunkers that were strategic in WWII. It was an area Dennis remembered from a film, The Major and the Minor starring Ray Moland and Ginger Rogers.

Ralpn sitting on top of one of the bunkers.

On the way home, Dennis showed us the place that he lived when he fist came to Holland in the town of Heerlen. It wasn't far from there to Castle Hoensbroek so we also visited it.

The Highs and Lows of a Week with a Teenage Girl

This first week of April has been busy and full of highs and lows. It was the first week since we've been here that it was sunny and fairly warm all week long. The daffodils and forsythia are now in full bloom and the magnolias are just beginning to open up.

Alyna had several tests and big assignments due as well as trying to prepare to take the ACT test. She studied hard but also found time to watch some sitcoms and enjoy the sunshine. She did well on all her tests and assignments so that was good. She had one day where she only had one class so she skipped it and stayed home and studied. That day, she also got a special delivery.

For several weeks now she has known that she was going to get asked to Mountain Crests' Junior Prom which just happens to be the weekend we came home for Lisa's wedding. We had been wondering how Brandon would ask since we are 8 hours time difference and many thousands of miles. On Wednesday afternoon the doorbell rang (which doesn't actually happen here very often unless we are expecting someone.) It was a floral delivery service. The pictures will tell the rest of the story-
It was our great luck that Dennis was heading home to Utah the next day so Alyna hurried and prepared an answer. Dennis took home this card and a picture of her with the flowers and a little wooden shoe keychain and Dennis, Andrew and Lindsay delivered it to him on Friday night. It was a really fun event for all of us.


(The YES! is written using the petals from the flower.)

The next big thing for Alyna was the ACT test which we signed up for in January before we knew that Dennis would be out of the country. It caused a bit of stress for all of us becasue the test was being administered in the American school in the Hague. I haven't driven in any of the big cities here and was very nervous. Alyna was nervous about doing well on the test and taking it in a very unfamiliar place. Dennis helped us out a bit by driving over there the Sunday before so we could see where the school was and mark it on the car GPS system. Anyway, so we got up at 5:30AM Saturday morning and drove the hour and a half to the school. We went in and as we were waiting for the test administrator to appear, Alyna remembered she had forgotten to print out the admission form. She went and talked to the administrator when she got there and the lady was a bit grumpy about it but finally said that she could make it work. I was the only parent there so Alyna finally said I could leave. About half an hour later she called in tears and said she had forgotten her wallet and they wouldn't let her take the test. She was so upset with herself for not double checking the web site and frustrated that after all her preparation time she wasn't going to be able to take the test. It was a good learning experience for all of us.

That evening Alyna came into the kitchen while I was finishing cleaning up and said something like, "You are sure ready to be a grandma!" I was a bit confused. We hadnt been talking about babies or siblings or anything. I asked why she said that and she said that I had just decorated the bathroom like a grandma would. I was quite taken aback. I had finally decided this week that the downstairs bathroom needed some kind of decorations in it besides the bottle of liquid soap so I had gotten a little rug, some flowers and a colored towel and put in it.
I guess that it may look a bit "grandma-ish" but it looks a bit homier. Any suggestions on how to not make it look a little younger and funner?