Naomi in Oklahoma

We arrived in Miami, Oklahoma the middle of August and loved the little town. It is on Historic Route 66. It is quite a bit smaller than we thought but there is a WalMart and a Dollar Store so we are fine. Chris really likes working with Dr. Scott at the Indian Health Servies clinic. He comes home and tells me all the funny things they've joked about and it seems they laugh a lot but still get a lot done. It's another adjustment moving to another town. Our ward is very small but so amazing! We got invited to dinner at the Downum's home and we had a lot of fun. The people here are very nice and have a wonderful southern accent. We also make trips to Joplin, Missouri which is a bigger city so we can do more things. It's about 40 minutes away and costs $1.25 on the toll roads.

Anyway, one night after dinner, Naomi and I went out before sunset to get some pictures! We had a really great time together! When I asked her if we should do her hair in a bun she said, "Yeah, a Mia bun!"

I can't believe she's growing up so fast. Where did the time go?

 

   

Home Sweet Home

We left our hotel at 5:15am, turned in our rental and got to the check-in with some time to spare. We checked our bags but didn't think we'd make the flight. As we quickly went to the next terminal we found a huge line to the gates. So we stood in line and thought we're going to miss this one for sure, a gate agent came through the dividers and said, "You all can come with me." and took us to the front of the line. It was a tad embarrassing because others were wondering why we were chosen but we were too! It might have been because we had two kids, or we looked so raggedy and disheveled they felt sorry for us, or we won a contest with the gate agents behind the scenes... I don't know but this kind act made us get to our gate on time!! We talked to the gate agent and he said we probably wouldn't make it or just a couple of us would. So we divided up bags and made plans to who would take who and they started closing the flight. I was so sad, we were so close! Then the gate agent yelled to us that we had made it and to hurry and board. Miracle #2! It was a bit frantic then and we just grabbed bags and kids and ran on the plane like crazy people. Chris and Naomi sat in front of me and Fiona and a nice gentleman.

This flight was perfect as a sunny, summer day. The gentleman guy was so nice and understanding. Fiona was mostly happy and slept easily when she was tired. Naomi played with toys and watched hours of Frozen. Chris and I tag-teamed and we landed with tired-smiles :) We had landed in Michigan and went straight to Chipotle. Ahhh, Mexican food! We didn't make the next flight to Salt Lake so we were preparing to stay a night after trying the next flight. It didn't look great either but then the gate agent called our names and we ran on again! Miracle #3! We all sat together this time and it was a smooth-ish flight. Only because we were so jet-lagged and tired of flying.

 

We got off in Salt Lake and was greeted by Mia and Scott. It was so nice to be able to speak English to everyone and to hear English spoken by everyone. We had been in a little 'language bubble' for so long.

After being home a few days, Chris and I drove to Oregon to interview with a doctor in Washington. It was a great interview and we'll see what happens with it. We stopped off and stayed with the Goodfellows and saw their house and saw some sights near them. We had a really fun time! The next day there were huge fires in Oregon and Washington and it took a few hours longer to get to Cour De-Alene, Idaho to see our friends the Chariton's. It was so nice to visit them and chat like old times! Cour de Alene was beautiful!

When we got back to Utah we visited family and friends and had a blast! Family time is the best time!

We left the next day, bright and early at 5 am to head to Miami, Oklahoma to start 2nd rotations.

Amsterdam: We Came Full Circle

We arrived at our hotel in Amsterdam, got food and ate lunch under the shade of a windmill! Then we went to a flea market and enjoyed all the knick-knacks of the Netherlanders. We wanted to go see Anne Frank's house but there were so many tourists we couldn't really get close. We didn't get tickets ahead of time so we couldn't go on a tour and I truly wished we could have. Amsterdam was very different in August than it was in May. There were a million tourists everywhere. We ducked into a cheese museum to get some relief from the tourists and it was really great! They had samples of every type of Gouda imaginable and we happily tasted them all with little toothpicks.

We found an awesome drawing of a windmill. It is a sketch that says, "Molen, Amstel" on the bottom. It was so neat to find it because Amstel is where we stayed when we first came to the Netherlands.

Glorious cheese!

A delicious calzone biger than Naomi's head! Chris and the gang in front of the Anne Frank house, also being blinded by the sun's reflection off a trash can. 

Chris and Naomi playing a game in the grocery store. Also, notice the eggs on the shelf to the right. They aren't in the refrigerated section. No eggs were put in a fridge, that we saw. And these eggs are soooo good! They are so creamy and cheesy that it took a minute to get used to them but they are definitely more tasty than the ones in America.

After touring the city for a bit we wanted to go to Haarlem and see Corrie Tin Boom's house. I put the address in the GPS and it took us 45 min in the opposite direction. By the time we got to wherever it was we were, it was too late to drive back to Haarlem and get in a tour. We were pretty upset but it couldn't be helped. So we grabbed dinner near our hotel. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to try and pack our bags smaller and get rid of unneccesary weight. One funny story: when we arrived at our hotel the room had trash on the desk and the beds weren't made like a maid had done it and towels were on the floor in the bathroom. When we were heading out to get food we mentioned this to the front desk and they said, "Oh, ok." When we got back the room was all clean and perfect. It was funny because, in America they would have been very apologetic and may have given us a free stay or something. Europeans aren't too big on customer service we noticed. Just differences in culture :)

Kettwig, Essen and Friends

Our home for the night was incredible! We arrived and Christianne showed us the house and left us to ourselves. She was so nice and hospitable and we saw her husband and their children playing in their yard when we pulled up. Cute family!

We changed and freshened up from our long drive and drove in to Essen to meet Akayleia Frehner (Potter) and her two boys Presley and Milo. Since we got in to town late we missed seeing the manor house that Akayleia recommended so we just met up and went to dinner. Naomi and Presley played and chatted like old pals and we had a great time catching up with Akayleia. And we wished she would have been with us for the last 3 months, she spoke perfect German! It was so easy to order with her as our translator. Dinner was delicious Italian and for dessert we had ice cream. It was getting late so we had to say good bye, but it was so much fun to see her and her family!

 

Akayleia, Milo, Presley, Me, Fiona and Naomi. Naomi had just spilled raspberry sorbet on her shirt for the 2nd time within 2 minutes of the first spill. I thought this shirt was a gonner but we got the stain out no problem thanks to fels-naptha soap. Actually, we sorta forgot about the wet shirt with soap on it, wadded in a plastic baggie until a day or two after being home. I opened the bag and the stain was gone!

Crazy, cute kids! Presley was hilarious! I wished we lived by them the whole time we were in Germany.

As we drove through Essen we thought we should've planned to stay there longer because it was the most peaceful, tree-lined town with tons of shady paths to walk. If we ever get back to Germany we'll have to go to Essen for longer than a few hours.


The next morning we headed out to Amsterdam for our final destination before heading back home.

Burg Eltz

We separated our journey home into two days. We drove the first stretch from Stuttgart to Kettwig and saw Burg Eltz on the way.

Eltz Castle (German: Burg Eltz) is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier,Germany. It is still owned by a branch of the same family (the Eltz family) that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. Bürresheim Castle (Schloss Bürresheim), Eltz Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles on the left bank of the Rhine in Rhineland-Palatinate which have never been destroyed.

This castle was incredible. It was our favorite medieval castle because all the furnishings, paintings, artifacts were original. Most castles have rooms that are exhibits of someone or something unrelated to the castle or they have furniture that doesn't match the period of the castle or the other furniture pieces. That's why we really liked Burg Eltz! The interior was so rustic and built for harsh weather and candle light only. You really felt you were in a proper castle. There was a tour of the castle and I felt we were able to see a lot of rooms and wander through the castle at our own pace.

"The Rübenach Upper Hall with its murals by a Burgundy artist, the dainty Gothic chapel oriel and its colourful windows is also referred to as the Bed Chamber because of the large carved four-poster bed in this room."

The wall murals are incredible! They have been freshened up over the years but it is the same artwork. The mural is of flowers from the seasons except winter because there are no flowers and because they didn't want to remember the harshness of winter because it was a really hard time. The bed is built up to get as much heat from the "rising heat"as possible and the curtains are for added warmth. The chapel is in the bedroom because they were very religious back then and it was said that no one is above God and they couldn't put the chapel anywhere else so they put it at the top floor, in the bed chamber. 

"This small chamber is referred to as Countess’ Room or Children’s Room because of the paintings of children and young members of the House of Eltz or their relatives of the 17th and 18th century. Here you can also see the probably oldest surviving painted Renaissance bed in Germany, which was made around 1520."

This room was really interesting! There were other children's toys on display here and those skinny stairs in the back were for the nanny/governess. There were portraits of children and the tour guide pointed out that the proportions were off because usually the painter had already painted the body and just added the head when he was with the subject.

"This late medieval hall of the early 16th century was used for festivals and negotiations by all three branches of the family on Eltz Castle. Remarkable are the original heavy oak ceiling and the heraldic frieze as well as some beautiful suits of armor."

This was a fun room because there was a face of a court jester when you entered the room to symbolize you could say and talk about any topic without fear. However, there's a rose at the top of that red door on the right to symbolize a "rose of silence" and nothing that was said in this room left the room.

"The 15th century Rodendorf Kitchen is one of originally four kitchens in Eltz Castle. The objects displayed here date from the 15th to the 19th century."

What an incredible kitchen! I can't even imagine cooking for large groups in here. That big wooden tree stump in the right of the picture was a chopping block used for hundreds of years! Incredible! I gave it a loving pat as I walked by, what stories it could tell. Can you imagine the smoke and heat that would have filled this room? That would have been great in the winter but suffocating in the summer.

 "This was the living room of the Eltz-Rübenach family. It was built in 1311 and houses the famous painting "Madonna with Child and Grapes", a masterpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder."

The picture-perfect medieval room. All furnishings and tapestries are original. Furniture was hard to get and expensive so they had limited furnishings. The trunk in between the two tapestries doubled as a table back in the day. What functional folks! The light coming in from the left was from two large windows that had cement benches underneath the windows. The family could sit and read, knit, chat, etc. as there was really great light. The fireplace at the back was an open fireplace which would have been hazardous but necessary for such cold winters.

We toured the castle and had lunch and decided to walk back instead of take the bus. About a minute later we regretted our decision because it was so baking hot! However, we did get this amazing view of the castle and so it was very much worth the heat. 

   

Driving through the towns near Burg Eltz we noticed a lot of the buildings were made out of lava rock and stone which was very different from half-timbered or brick in other towns. After the castle we headed to our home for the night in Kettwig. Our Airbnb was in a half-timbered home and we were so excited to see the inside of one!