Author: Jen

31.8 pounds, 35.38 inches.

Oh and speaking of toilets…Jonah has decided to potty train himself. I bought a little potty almost a year ago, and he uses is sometimes when he first wakes up. But in the past week or so he has been telling me when he needs to pee and has even pooped on the potty five times!!! I have been kind of dragging my feet on training him because Europe is not potty friendly, you have to pay to pee. And I really like the convenience of changing his diaper when and where I please. (Is that bad??) I just don’t want to deal with trying to find a potty around here the minute he tells me he needs to pee cuz sometimes they are hard to come by, or scarey (i.e. the hole). But Jonah is taking initiative on this one and it looks like we are on our way…

So I’m getting a little behind on my blogging…we just got back from a trip to Germany to see some friends and some sites. It was tons of fun and I promise to eventually post about it.

Speaking of behinds…this is a public bathroom. I call it “the hole”. This particular hole is special, it has little islands for your feet…usually you just have to straddle the hole. Not all public bathrooms are like this, but I dread the ones that are!

Saturday : we drove
Sunday: Bernardkatel-kues cute town and traben-trabach wine festival
Monday: idar-oberstein castle and ram stein
Tuesday: Straussburg cathedral, and natzweiler-struhof concentration camp in France stopped in molsheim for dinner
Wednesday: trier (oldest church, sushi, porta niagra, h&m, baths, Karl Marx house
Thursday:Brussels waffles, palace, atomium,
Friday: heidleberg, castle,
Saturday: Josh, Bacharach biked to St goat walked up to burg rheinfels
Sunday: breakfast, drive home

We rolled back into town after our scuba trip just in time for a fourth of July BBQ. Here’s my man with the (difficult to photograph) kiddos at the gathering…

We decided we were too exhausted to go on post and watch fireworks. (They had a big party going on and invited Italians to come on post and see what 4th of July is all about, followed by the first fireworks they’ve had in a few years.) Sounds like we didn’t miss much though, the fireworks didn’t go up high enough and everyone on base saw only the very top of each display due to a building being in the way. LOL. We saw the fireworks great from our deck, 8 miles away.

Nick and I have always talked about getting Scuba Certified. When we got here to Italy we found out that they have an awesome and affordable NAUI scuba program through the base outdoor recreation, so we signed up. Last week we had class every evening learning how to scuba and practice in the pool. Then for the weekend we went to Pula, Croatia where we stayed at the Stoja campgrounds and spent about 4 hours under the water during 7 training dives. Jonah stayed with friends and we had a nice adult vacation!

Nick had the brilliant idea to ask if his work would like him to do a piece about the scuba class, they said yes and gave him some TDY money (covers expenses when they have to go somewhere for work…) it helped offset the cost of our trip and he got to use the underwater video camera, awesome!

Pula Croatia is home to a few fun sites including the coolest “tiki bar” you’ve ever seen. It’s in the tall grass and you wander through the little paths in the grass to areas that open up for tables or different things to play on, including this big rolling barrel, some giant swings, a merry go round, and other random things.

In downtown Pula there is a roman amphitheater (like the Colosseum). It is the fourth largest roman amphitheater in existence and has been very well preserved. Did you know that they have found 230 roman amphitheater remains??? I always thought of the Colosseum as the one and only, but it’s just the biggest!

We enjoyed a Croatian Coke…it was pretty good.

Our accommodations at the Stoja campground were great. Little mobile homes by the beach, complete with a fridge and stove and even a/c. The only pic I got of the mobile homes is this one of Nick doing the wetsuit dance, man I hated getting into those things. Actually, I have to admit, all of the equipment for scuba is a major pain to haul around and get set up.

On this Father’s day I want to tell you why I am so proud of Nick as of lately…

As I sit writing this post I can hear Nick reading the “pirate book” to Jonah for about the millionth time, with his awesome pirate voices and all. It is Nick’s job to put Jonah to bed every night, that is their one on one time. Nick is so patient and will read as many books as Jonah wants before bed. I guess I’m mean because I only read one and then toss him in bed!
Since being here in Italy Nick has had to work a lot harder then he did back in Maryland. He works for AFN, which is the Armed Forces Network. AFN provides about 15 channels that are provided for all military overseas to have something to watch that is in English, the government provides everyone with satellites to pick up the channels and everything, it’s nice. There’s a sports channel, a movie channel, a kids channel, a news channel and several others that play a lot of popular TV series too. He is in charge of a show called APS 120 (which stands for all points south 120 seconds…basically a two minute news spot of clips from all over southern Europe bases.) Anyways Nick’s show airs like a commercial on pretty much all the channels, to keep people up to date on this area. He is sometimes assigned to go different places and get footage of different things going on as well. For example, he went to Rome (I tagged along) to film a spiritual retreat for a wounded warriors group.

Want to see some of Nick’s videos? Search for APS 120 on facebook and watch any of the recent videos. It’s pretty fun to see him on TV! People have started recognizing him around base too.

Nick has committed to riding his bike to and from work so that I can have the car and not feel stranded out here where we live (there is nothing out here). Since we have been here I think he has taken the car once or twice and only because he had to. And we’ve had a lot of rain too. He works long hours and then tacks on an extra half hour getting to work, and a half hour getting home, and he never complains.

THEN, to top it all off, when he gets home from work he spends time with Jonah and I until Jonah goes to bed, then he locks himself away to work on his never ending schoolwork. He has committed to finishing his degree in the next few years, it is not the degree that he wanted but it is a stepping stone to other things.

There are so many things that I could go on and on about this man…like how I proud I am of him for everything he did to serve his country during deployment. And as a father, he left this: (on the verge of crawling….)
And came home to this: (walking!!!)

Most fathers get to be there for the first steps, first words, all the little moments. This father didn’t have that privilege. And yet when he got back from deployment, he jumped right back into his fatherly duties without missing a beat.

I am so proud of you Nick. I know that things are not easy for you right now and I appreciate your awesome attitude and how you continue to be a great father and husband regardless of everything else on your plate. HAPPY FATHERS DAY! We love you so much!

So we still do not have internet. Partly because of the laid back Italian culture and their three hour lunch break (reposo), and partly because we live in the “boonies”. So our neighbors a few floors down have been kind enough to share with us but it’s not the greatest signal. When we get internet I will be posting more about how we visited here:

Got blessed by this man:

Played in lot’s of these:

Ate lot’s of this:

And made best of friends with these two:

Sunday was a more relaxed day as we wound down our visit. We went to church next to the temple. It was Russian speaking (Kiev and east of there is pretty much all Russian speaking, west of Kiev is Ukrainian speaking) they had little headphones so that the senior missionaries and visitors could listen to an interpreter. (Who was Ukrainian speaking and couldn’t quite get all of the Russian translated, every once in awhile he’d go silent and we would look over to see a very confused looking missionary).

Jonah of course loved the fountain on the temple grounds. In this picture you see the church that we attended on the right and on the left is a hostel for members coming from Russia, Romania and other surrounding countries to be able to afford to stay there, very cool.
After church we headed back to Maydan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) for a leisurely stroll. On weekends they close down the main road and people are walking, break dancing, playing soccer, doing yoga, performing music and enjoying themselves in the middle of the road.
Independence square, the curved glass thing in the distance is a mostly underground mall.
I happened to snap this photo while we were strolling. Apparently Ukrainians are very superstitious people. They believe that a cross breeze will make you sick, so even in the hottest summer months they prefer not to open more than one window and they bundle their babies up like you wouldn’t believe. (One old lady yelled at us for having Jonah outside in pants and a t-shirt!) Anyways, awhile back this guy invented these plastic things that hang off your car in order to ground it so that when the static electricity builds up your car doesn’t suddenly explode. Well, people still use them and believe that their car just might explode. Pretty funny.

We wandered our way down to friendship arch (a memorial commemorating the union of Russia and Ukraine, it lights up in rainbow colors at night). The view from there was gorgeous. (Jonah had just lost his balloon, it came untied from the string so he was very upset in this photo…)
We retired early to put all our pictures onto my computer and just sit and talk for a bit at the hotel. The elders left that night (sleeper train) but my flight did not leave until Monday evening. So they arranged a taxi for me and gave me some money to buy food and I was on my own!

Right after the Elders left I realized that Jonah was not feeling too good. He was starting to get a fever. I really wanted him to be able to get some sleep but we had some very noisy neighbors in the hotel that had just moved in (gypsies I think, their kids ran wild until 1 am the previous night) so I requested to move rooms. We got settled into our new room and slept peacefully all night. When morning came, Jonah continued to sleep. I put him in the backpack and walked to the grocery store where I went up and down the aisles about ten times trying to figure out what to buy based pretty much on the pictures since I can’t read Cyrillic. At 12 I checked out of the hotel and went down to my waiting taxi. Jonah was still asleep and his fever was getting worse.

We got to the airport and I decided to try to find a pharmacy (they have them everywhere in Europe). I pulled my luggage behind me and pushed the stroller in front of me. No one spoke English so I kept walking. Finally I found someone who spoke English and she told me there was no pharmacy near by. So I did the only thing I could think to do, I bought the kid some ice cream, walked back to the airport and put cold wet wipes all over him. I asked several airport employees if they had a first aid kit or medical help of some kind, they all said no. So I held my breath and my tears and waited for my flight. People had started to notice that Jonah was really sick and were talking to me in Ukrainian, Russian and Italian. I have no idea what they were saying, only that they were concerned. I was worried that he would start having seizures because his fever was so high, and he never really woke up. We made it through the flight and when I got off the plane everyone wanted to help me. The passport line was long and everyone from my flight kept telling me to cut (in all different languages of course) but I felt bad. Finally the woman who had been sitting by me on the flight started yelling, the only word I understood was “mama” I assume she said something like “let the mama through!”. And the sea parted. I was allowed to the front of the line and rushed Jonah out to Nick. My luggage was the first one to come out and we were off. We got Jonah some tylenol and a cold bath. He is doing much better now. I am so grateful to all those people for being so kind to me, even though they knew I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, they still tried to comfort and help me.

On Saturday we headed to Center Kiev. First stop was the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra, which means monastery of the caves. It was founded in 1051 after orthodoxy became the official religion. The Lavra includes almost 70 acres and many beautiful buildings which over the years have been burned and destroyed many times but they always rebuilt them. Beneath the beautiful golden domed buildings of the church are a series of caves which were built by the original monks, they studied, worshiped and lived there. When they died their bodies were naturally preserved by the cool temperature and dry air of the caves. These mummies are still there today in the caves in glass cases, mostly covered but a few of their hands come through the covering. We went down into the caves and by candlelight viewed these mummy holy men and watched as those who still worship them kissed the glass of their cases repeatedly while saying what I assume were prayers of some sort. Women must be modest and cover their heads, legs and shoulders to enter the caves. (Because it is considered holy you can’t take pictures of the creepy mummy hands poking through otherwise I would have! But check out the awesome church…) The first picture is the gate to the church, when originally built it was used as a watch tower to protect the church.




A giant egg made of wooden eggs or pysanka (which means “to write” because they are not painted but rather written on with beeswax, at one time they represented the sun and the rebirth of nature, but now that Ukraine is officially Christian it represents Christ’s tomb and the rebirth of man.) It was about five feet tall and was on the church grounds.
The view from the upper Lavra. You can see all the gold domed buildings, they are all part of the Lavra, it’s huge. On the right you can see what the missionaries call “Big mama” which is where we headed next…
A WWII monument as you approach Big Mama.
Rodina Mat, translation: ‘Nation’s mother’ (the missionaries call her Big Mama) was built in 1981 to honor Kiev’s defenders during the ‘great patriotic war’ or WWII. She measures 203 ft from sword to foot. (The Statue of Liberty stands at 151 ft from torch to toes.)
Her sword was cut shorter once. The Elders thought it was because of airplanes but the truth is that it was higher then the cross on the Lavra, so they made them cut it to be shorter.
Beneath Big Mama is a WWII museum. It was very dark inside and difficult to get good pictures. But the one picture that turned out was of possibly the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in a museum. Gloves made of human skin.
Dome above the museum, below big mama.
The view from Big Mama’s feet. Kiev is HUGE by the way. (almost 3 million!)
Another interesting tid bit, you used to be able to go up on her shield but they no longer allow it due to the number of people who jumped off.
Next we got on the Metro to head to center Kiev and explore there. A word on the metro. There are lot’s of cute Bob’s selling flowers and shops where you can buy all kinds of things for very cheap. I got Nick a tie for $2 and a plug converter for $1.

Our first stop when we got off the metro at center Kiev was food…Ukranian food! Puzata Khata is a chain in Ukraine that serves traditional foods. I couldn’t tell you what all of it is called, but it was pretty good, sort of bland and lot’s of vegetables thrown together. Those potsticker looking things are filled with different things, we got some with potato and some with cherry. We drank berry juice that is made by boiling dried berries, it tasted just like dried berries. Jonah liked the borscht (a beet root based soup).


Graffiti from the Orange Revolution found at Independence square.

St. Sophia’s Catherdral is Kiev’s oldest standing church. It has a very pretty blue watch tower.

Walking down Andriyivsky uzviz in the shadow of the awesome St. Andrew’s church, there are TONS of little stands with every souvenir you could ever desire. It is on a cobblestone hill which winds its way down to the Dnipro river.

And a word on my stroller/backpack kelty child carrier. Awesome. That’s the word. They no longer make these babies…I purchased the only one I could find for sale anywhere on ebay.

Whew! I think I covered everything….tomorrow I will tell you about Sunday!