Saturday, October 10, 2009

Gaze Into My Crystal Ball...



I just ate a fotune cookie and my fortune says: "Take a trip with a friend."...So,where are we going and who's coming????

Also, I had some friends over the other night who have never been to my house. As we were sitting in my living room chatting, one of them said, "It kind of looks like a fortune teller's house in here." So...does anyone need their fortune told??? I think I'll start doing readings.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Part 2: 172 Martroshka Dolls Later...

Email Update #2...


Hello again. We had the best email update all typed out to you and then when we hit send, we lost it all and we've been sitting here crying and debating whether or not to try to recapture all of our wit into a remake of what we tried to send before or just do nothing... We're going to send an abridged version of what we just lost thanks to reliable/typical Ukrainian Wi-Fi.

We have really loved Kiev and can only really describe at magical, beautiful, or as Matthew says, "totally too legit! parlez vous!!!!" Actually, that's about it right... but, it would truly take a poet to come up with the right words to do this city justice in written word. We've been to so many amazing churches -- some from the 10th century that have been beautifully preserved. We went into the catacombs underneath on of them yesterday and saw a bunch of entombed saints that were several hundred years old and a couple of them had their hands sticking out of their robes and they looked like really old raisins, but the people say that it's proof they really were saints because their skin hasn't turned back to dust.... hmmm... I dunno... I'm a skeptic I guess, because we saw some really old mummies last year that looked about the same and no one was saying they were saints, so yeah -- that whole thing is still up for debate if you ask me.... But, it was quite amazing, you just have to make sure you keep your candle really close to yourself and under control because it's really dark and crowded in there and with a distinct stench of burnt hair, and an occassional flash burn of light from someone getting their candle too close to the silly big-mullet-headed tourist in front of them. After a while of being in there, the typical claustrophobia unique to our family set in, along with the boredom of being in the same place for more than 10 minutes, and we frantically started scanning tunnels looking for an escape route... at which point we also suddenly felt like none of us could breath (typical panic attacks for our family), yet all the other tourists were still just fine -- burning hair and all... We did escape the catacombs and emerged into a beautiful torrential rainstorm with flashfloods, mudslides and nuns running through it... but, just as soon as it started, it stopped and the city was once again beautiful, fresh, and green.

After the catacombs we went to a World War II memorial... again, a very moving and heartwrenching experience. We saw lots of pictures of Ukrainians who sacrified their lives for the cause and also, perhaps the most horrific display, was pictures of Jewish children escaping to Soviet lands (apparently about 2.5 million of them). It was very educational and we think all American kids should be required to visit places like this and see what has gone on and is still going on in a lot of places on our planet. It's changed us for sure. Fortunately, there's this thing on top of that museum that is called "The BIG MAMA" and she's about fifty times bigger than Lady Liberty, and about 100 times scarier, pointing the way to the Motherland (ol' USSR) with her sword and shield raised high above her already cloud-reachin' man-head (Megan and Matthew were very concerned that she looked more like a man than a lady). You can see her from about 100 miles in any direction and she is OMINOUS! Eli calls her "the statue of oppression" and says he thinks it would be a fantastic idea to put a soundtrack into her head that went off at 3 p.m. every day for 10 minutes straight, with no breath, and was just a brutal blood-curdling scream (rrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!!!!!) to keep everyone in line ("just to make sure"). We're positive it would work.

So, after dancing around Big Mama and screaming for about an hour, completely cracking ourselves up, we decided to trek out to the LDS Temple site and track down our cousin Lane Steinagle who is currently the Kieve Mission President. We found him and he sends his love to everyone -- he looks great, is doing great, and so are his wife and kids. The temple site is amazing -- it's going to be so visible and beautiful -- tall and white (like all the other temples we love to see), and the most beautiful building for miles and miles. We're so excited that the church will have a temple in Eastern Europe. What a great blessing for the members here. We all want to come back for the dedictation next summer, but we'll rethink that after our long flight home... it takes a LONG time to get over here!!!

Now, we're just about to head to the airport to catch out flight to Paris, where we'll spend about 32 hours rushing Megan and Matthew to all the sites we feel it's so important to see. After Paris, they'll be able to say that when they were teenagers they went up the Eiffel, through the Louvre, inside Notre Dame, and to a midnight show at the Moulin Rouge!!!

We love you and and will be home Sunday!!!

Matthew, Krishelle and Uncle Will (the others are out shopping for more matroskas...ugh)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Not So Miracle Train

Here's an update on our trip. Written from Uncle Will. Thought I would share like always. Pictures to come later.


Hello everyone. Sorry it's taken so long to get out our first email update about this adventure -- but, just so you know, it's nothing personal....it's just that nuthin' aint' convenient over here!!! And that's an understatement. We are now in a hotel in Kiev (Hotel RRRRRrrrrrus!) after making a brutal pioneer trek back and forth across two giant Eastern European-Post-Soviet-Block-Radiation-Drenched Countries, and finally we have reliable internet! We're a couple of hours south of Chernobyl -- don't worry, we haven't seen any two-headed pigs... well, just a one-headed pig with two bodies... and that was earlier today (at a museum). And now, we'll back up our story to the beginning -- Moscow... well, let's back up a bit further to the flight... Andrea says it was one of the worst top ten flights of her life (we're not sure exactly why, but that's saying something because we think she's flown about twice a day since 1970). The flight was just fine for the rest of us.



Moscow. What to say. It's just HUGE! EVERYTHING is HUGE! Red Square -- HUGE! Kremlin -- HUGE! Chandoliers at the supermarket -- HUGE!!! Apartment -- extra-tiny! Rat-tail and Mullet hairdos on every other person -- HUGE! I remember mullets being okay in 1968, but it's style that never should come back... Eli kept trying to point out mullets that he thought didn't look so bad and trying to get us to agree that, "hey, yeah, Eli -- when you get the States, that style wouild probably look real good on you" since he hasn't cut his hair once since January. We had about 36 hours in Moscow and did about 72 hours of stuff and it was great. Things we loved -- Eli's friends Kimberly and Acia, Red Square, St. Basil's, a bunch of other church's we can't remember the names of, the bread, the palace, the Vafly (sugar wafer cookies, but that's a real pale comparison). Things we found interesting -- the military setting up roadblocks everywhere for no apparent reason and when asked why, they say "just makin' sure...." Also, one night when we were trying to get into a restaurant to eat borsch, the head waiter ran up to us (another roadblock) and just yelled, "NO!!!!!" We're not exactly sure why... but, Megan almost cried. Before we knew it, we were cramming our 37 pieces of luggage into two of the four taxis we accidentally ordered and were doing it as fast as we could, so as not to create a HUGE scene when the second two taxis showed up. We got to the airport and checked in to our flight to L'viv and as we were going thru security, Andrea started yelling at Eli for some help with a translation... Eli ran over and discovered that Andrea was being accused of smuggling raw eggs and a specific kind of cold cuts in her checked luggage. It all seemed very normal at the time, because we're always freaked out on border crossings over here... (recall last year's Jordan/Israel border extravaganza). We didn't realize how odd it really was until we landed in L'viv several hours later and also realized that the security officer making the accusation climbed over 14 other security station agents to target Andrea and Andrea alone. And, as far as we know, she did not have eggs and cold cuts in her checked bags. We still keep asking ourselves -- "who would pack eggs and meat in their luggage???" Oh well... we move on...



The flight to L'viv was on an airplane that pretty much looked like a magic schoolbus -- a schoolbus with wings and propellers, circa 1938. It actually kind of looked like a whale that was trying to swim higher and higher, but just couldn't and it was soooo loud!!! Then, as Megan describes, our crash-landing where the belly dragged along the tarmac for three miles, sparks flew, eggs cracked (or did they? we'll never really know, but Andrea did have scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning).



Flashback to Moscow... Krishelle was being chased pursued by a "Bob" (aka Babushka = grandma...they run the country) in the metro, yelling at her in a different language and Krishelle just kept running and shrugging, but the lady wouldn't leave her alone. Finally, standing within the Metro car, staring out the dark window, the lady worked her way to Krishelle, grabbed her arm and yelled some more, which Eli interpretted as being, "Hey! Why are you ignoring me! Why won't you help an old woman!!!!!" To which Krishelle said, "Sorry" and shrugged... A lot of those kinds of encounters happen daily to each of us, everywhere.



So, in L'viv, we discovered that if you stand anywhere in the city for more than four minutes, a drunk man will approach you and explain in explicit detail everything he's ever learned or made up about the history of the city in no particular order and with no invitation. This of course already began when we got to our apartment and were standing outside waiting for someone to let us in and one man, making googly eyes at Stacee, found us in a dark alley and said a lot of words that we all thought sounded a lot like "prostitute" and asked Eli about this several times which he confirmed was not the case. This was preceeded by a staring contest with the creepiest man any of us has ever seen (we think he was straight from Transyvlania. . . that is just right down the road you know) who walked into the alley and glared at us with his beedy eyes for about 7 and a half minutes. This was the only 7 and a half minutes of the whole trip where Megan and Matthew weren't complaining loudly about cigarrette smoke, B.O., or Vodka (bless their innocent little hearts).



We walked a few marathons over a short period and bought every art and craft ever created within the L'viv district and still had time for the "Miracle Train." It seemed like a good idea at the time as we thought "Hey, that Disneyland looking 2 box-car contraption bouncing along the 700 year old cobble-stone road would probably be so much fun for the kids (and relaxin'! for the adults). 2 minutes later the man sitting next to Uncle Will and Megan (who we now think may have actually been an old wet horse blanket in human form) and the rest of the crew who hadn't showered since before the Cold War got to be a bit much within the ride which would have put your jerkiest roller-coaster to shame. Even with the bumps and the Ukrainian speaking intercom which was up loud enough that we were sure a couple of you could probably have heard from home, Matthew was "miraculously" able to nod off to sleep for the entire hour as the rest of us were planning our escape plans. In fact, every time the "Miracle Train" slowed enough to reasonably jump out without breaking too many bones, Megan had her right foot heavily dragging across the cobble-stone asking as sincerly as anything has ever been asked, "Now Uncle Will? Can we get out now?!" Between all the craziness going on around us, we somehow felt trapped, like we could never get off, even though the train circled the same city block 30 times, just a few feet from our apartment. So we sat in there and fermented for 1 hour and 7 minutes (we were falsly promised it would only be one hour).The only thing we hadn't seen yet on the tour that we really wanted to see was an old consentration camp and the tour seemed like it was going to be all worth it when the intercom mentioned it but then followed by saying in Ukrainian "that consentration camp is down the road that way" as the "Miracle Train" briskly turned the oposite direction and started blasting horrific pop Ukrainian music. After all that, there were a few encounters with some gypsies -- one, in particular, who made a whole lotta empty promises regarding our posterity.



L'viv was gorgeous!!! Amongst my top ten favorite cities in the world (and that's saying something, cuz we've been a lot of places). Lots of beautiful churches, but more than anything, the people were so nice and beautiful -- in complete contrast to the unique Russian experiences we had... We got to meet some of Eli's peeps from his mission and when we said goodbye to them at the train station last night, we were all bawling our eyes out for some reason -- it was a strange and extremely emotional connection we all made in the few hours we knew these Ukrainians. I don't know what words could describe that goodbyes we made -- like an old movie where long lost friends meet at a train station and then have to say goodbye again and the ones who stay there chase the train down the tracks, while the others are waving and wiping tears. The most amazing thing -- Eli's peeps sang several beautiful songs to us as our train departed. Krishelle was sobbing (makeup running), even me (stoic Uncle Will) was bawling... the end of that part... it was precious and we're grateful it happened... but, it was overwhelming, in a very spiritually good way.



So, that train we got on and felt so wonderfully emotionally enriched to be on.... well, within about three hours into our 11-hour journey, that spiritual high was long gone, as it was replaced by overwhelming stench of recycled air in a closed cabin. Hot, hot hot. All I can say -- if you ever come over here -- FLY from L'viv to Kiev... except you would NEVER want to miss the opportunity to see the landscape go by your windows... so, although it was painfully hot at times, the scenery more than compensated. The train seemed modern enough to have A/C in the sleeping compartments, so at about 3 a.m., when I had absolutely had enough of the McGyvering situation with Matthew and sheet hanging out the side of the train and trying to create a wind-tunnel in our sleeper car, I decided to try to reason it out with the train hostesses who didn't speak a word of English (or Spanish -- I tried that, too). So, I resulted to sign language for "it's hot in this car" and they looked at me, looked at each other, looked at the switches on the wall, looked at me again (I made some more hot-flash movements, afraid they didn't understand that I was really, really hot), looked at each other again, looked at the switches, pointed at the switches, spun one finger, picked a switch, flipped it, and sent me back to my cabin...where we continued to roast for the next five hours.



Now, we're in Kiev. It's beautiful. We've shopped, and we're going to bed now. More later.



We love you all. We're having a blast. Not sure how long we'll have good internet... but, we'll be home this weekend.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Song of the Week

OK so I thought for sure the song of the week would get me to blog at least once a week...but here we are 3 weeks into it and I already missed a week.

The song of the week is Duseldorf by Reina Spektor. I absolutely LOVE Regina Spektor. For any of you who don't know who she is, you should definitely check her out. Her best album is Begin To Hope.

I love this song about all the places she has traveled and all the things she has seen and done. Eli found it and it has become our traveling theme song! It makes me think about some of the AMAZING and CRAZY thing that I have been blessed to experience...

- Riding a camal in Egypt.
- Riding a stand up gondola in Venice.
- Climbing the Eiffel tower in the middle of the night (with it's beautiful flashing lights).
- Climbing to the top of the Vatican abd looking out over Rome.
- Taking the "snorklin" tour in Puerto Angel, Mexico.
- Hunting through head stones in Switzerland with my grandma.
- Seeing the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, The Venus De Milo, The Sistine Chapel, King Tuts belongings and other amazing paintings and sculptures.
- Experiencing Eli's crazy mind at work while he writes his first song..."como se Dice". It's definitely a hit!
- Climbing the Great Wall.
- Seeing the Chinese Acrobats in Beijing.
- Snake Charmers and people selling teeth in Morocco.
- Swinging from vines in the forest in Palenque, Mexico.
- Riding in a Gondola over the top of the Costa Rican rainforest.
- Ciao blondie and the "fish flips free"...(you know what I mean Bridgette...and don't forget "it's hard to walk like a pigeon..they have 2 legs and we have four.")
- Sitting and thinking at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.
- Witnessing an almost suicide in Shanghai...scary!
- Eli passing out on the plane to Amsterdam.
- Having our sweet sweet Nona with us!!
- Being sold to a Moroccan rug salesman for 270 camals by Uncle Will...thanks Uncle Will...I'm glad you changed your mind!!
- Being forced to purchase a Jade braclet in Hong Kong because I couldn't get it off my wrist after the shop owner lady soaped up my arm and forced it on.
- the delicious meal in "cat pee cafe."
- Crossing the border in Jordan by gunpoint.


And the list goes on and on...I am sooo blessed!

25 Random Things

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, please write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. Be sure to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs (+) on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1- I have been tagged 78 times to do this note...I finally gave in.
2- I love all kinds of music even music in different languages. I have 592 albums on Itunes (I love Itunes...I spend way too much time and money there).
3- I LOVE Shakira...AND...we have the same birthday! (we are kindred spirits for sure)
4- I have worked for the same company for 10 years...Wow...I feel old!
5- I have visited 17? different countries.
6- I LOVE anything pumpkin...ice cream, cake, pie, bread, you name it...I LOVE it.
7- I have 3 beautiful neices and 1 handsome nephew who I adore.
8- My newest neice is named Krishelle...aren't I lucky?? It's because I'm the favorite.
9- I love watching Ghost Hunters...Wednesday nights are the best night ever because it's on 4 times.
10- I love to sew...I just wish I was as good as my mom...she's amazing!
11- When I worked at Artic Cirlce in Logan, I was robbed by gunpoint...scary!
12- I LOVE my family...all of them, as strange as they are. I hope to grow up to be just as cool as my mom and dad.
13- I love sudoku...I am such a dork.
14- I have a small collection of purses....at one time it was over 120, but thanks to Eli my obsession is under control at the moment. (I still have too many but it's at least under 100)
15- I also have a small collection of chopsticks, silk bedding from China, and Russian Nesting Dolls...Once I find something I love I just can't stop.
16- I have a HUGE crush on Justin Timberlake...I know, I know...I'm not 12 years old, but I still LOVE him!!!
17- I can't stand it when there isn't a candle, a scentsy, or some kind of something running to make my house smell good.
18- I love getting mail...as long as it's not bills...I mostly love little notes and cards.
19- I have OCD with my alarm clock...I check it about 192 times each night before I go to bed, and sometimes wake up in the night to check it...I am soo worried it won't go off.
20- I love going out to see movies...I could go every night!
21- I love to sit around with my cousins, uncles, aunts, parents, brothers, sisters etc... and tell crazy stories about the family. And am happy to go through scary/horrible/embarassing experiences just to have a great story to tell later!
22- I love to read. My favorite books are Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
23- I love having my toenails painted...I just hate doing it myself.
24- The strangest place I have been is called Salvation Mountain...it's nuts!!
25- I can't go in Bath and Body Works or any fabric store without spending at least $100. So...I just have to stay away (unless I can't)...

OK...that was hard! I am going to tag anyone who hasn't done this yet...

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Song of The Week

OK...so obviously it's "a lot" hard for me to keep up on this whole blogging thing. So I have come up with an idea...actually I kinda stole it. Anyway, I am going to start doing weekly posts with the song of the week. (Now don't worry...I am still going to try to post normal things too.) These songs might tell a story...like how my week went, be related to something that happened, be a tribute to one of my readers, or just be my favorite song of the week (or maybe even my least favorite).

So here's the first one - with a shout out to Uncle Will.

Song Title: Ruby Tuesday
By: The Rolling Stones

This weekend Uncle Will took me to Mexico for my birthday! It was awesome, I am such a lucky girl! We arrived in Rosarito Mexico on Friday night. When we pulled up to our hotel there was some really loud live music playing...it sounded horrible! While Uncle Will was checking into the Hotel I set out to investigate. Well...lucky for us, it was Karaoke night! I peeked in the Karaoke bar and there he was...an elderly man singing Ruby Tuesday...now of course he was singing the wrong words, and of course he was aweful and monotone, and of course he had no rythm, and of course he was not moving or dancing at all, and of course he was wearing his winter parka all zipped up (cause it was 60 degrees). I almost died laughing!!! Now, Uncle Will and I are both those type of people who never want to draw any extra attention to ourselves so we snuck in the back to watch. What a night! There were only about 10 people there including us and everyone was taking their numbers so seriously!! (one of which included "How Do I Live" by Leann Rimes...whoa nelly!) So, because of this Karaoke night, Ruby Tuesday will be my first Song of the Week! Enjoy!!!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Baby Kate!









I just wanted to post a few more pictures of my new neice Krishelle Kate. I feel so lucky to have such a precious little girl named after me! Thanks Jeff and Krisanda! Sorry it took me so long to post these! I will try to get some new pictures soon...she has already changed sooo much!