Paris the Beautiful

After a good night's sleep, we took a lovely walking tour of Historic Paris, went up the Eiffel Tower with Ben, our adorable tour guide. He is an English, French History major so told us lots of interesting French stories and gave us an easy way to remember the King Louis'. We went back out after dinner to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 11:00 PM. We feel surprisingly safe even at that hour which speaks well of the French people.

Spring is just starting to spring here so it is a little bit chilly, but sunny which is perfect for all the walking we are doing. We are getting pretty good at navigating the Metro which provides excellent people watching! My favorite was a blind man with his seeing eye dog. Paris has the most complicated Metro so the courage he must possess to navigate it with his canine helper is nothing short of amazing. I'm also intrigued by the French language that is so beautiful to listen to and there's nothing cuter than small children speaking French! My French consists of Merci, Bonjour and my new word, Bon Soir which means good evening.

The French have definitely mastered the are of lingering. They love to sit and chat while sipping on wine or coffee and not just women, men too! The cafes are jam packed at all hours of the day and night with chatty happy people. I'm not sure when they work. We tried it out and sitting in a café in the middle of the afternoon sipping tea since I don't like coffee was slightly guilt inducing, but I got over it! Fast food places are noticeable absent here but are replaced by creperies and pasteries on every corner. They love carbs here and I think the reason they are not over weight is because of all the walking and the smoking they do that is still in vogue here.

Today we went to The Louvre, saw the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the huge Avenue des Champs des' Elysees. There is beauty everywhere you look from trees lining the streets to the amazing architecture of Notre Dame. We were there for the twelve o'clock mass so got to hear the bells ringing and the organ playing while the chorus sang. I almost wish I was Catholic so I could've taken communion! This year marks the 850 anniversary of the Cathedral which is hard to believe.

Tomorrow it's renting a car and on to Normandy.

Bonjour!

Eric and I made it safely to Paris early this morning after an arduous 8 hour flight with a miserable toddler two rows up. I'm pretty sure neither one of us slept a wink with the uh,uh, uh, cries coming forth from m.t.  but it didn't stop me from enjoying my alone time! My heart actually went out to miserable toddler as she had no seat of her own and could find no comfortable position. I know the feeling! I really felt bad for her  exhausted mother, not to mention  the innocent woman sitting next to them! I said a prayer for m.t. and vowed to tell Laura never to make an 8 hour transatlantic flight with Lucy while she is still wearing footy pajamas! Bad idea.

The immigration line was circuitous, long, hot  and composed of cranky people. I did my very best to remain or at least appear cheerful and took the opportunity while dragging my back pack along to observe the fashion of Parisians, especially males. Let me tell you, they have fully embraced the man bag, skinny jeans, slim shoes and even capris! Eric even noticed this as he looked down at his chunky Merrell hiking shoes and said that his orthodic shoe inserts would never fit into those sleek shoes. He hasn't even pulled out his Eddie Bauer fast drying, combination pants/shorts!  Those Parisians are fashionistas!

After finally getting through the line, we decided to take the train to Paris which meant a serious learning curve that involved several stops, 2 different train lines and carrying our suitcases up several flights of stairs. Just three hours later we were at our room! that was not ready. They took one look at us and gave us a different room. Yay! We promptly got into the shrunken elevator and went up one flight to our floor. Europeans are much more conservative with their accommodations. Everything in the hotel is American Girl size. The bath tub is miniature with half a shower door. In this room, one is either in the bed or in the shower. Regardless, we are happy to be able to recline tonight when we go to bed. One never appreciates reclining at bedtime until one has to spend an entire night not reclining and not sleeping.

Somehow once I got unpacked, I was re-energized and we walked to the Eiffel Tower, took a  boat cruise on the Seine River, had  two delicious meals at out door cafes. So far, the French people have been very gracious and by that I mean don't look disgusted when they find out we do not speak French. I only made one faux pas so far, I took the fork from a place setting next to me instead of waiting for my special Salmon fork. Who knew!

Until next time...

Upward Basketball

With our first batch of kids, I was more inclined to expose our children to countless sports, activities in the effort to make sure they were well rounded. This resulted in the many afternoon practices, games, mainly in the cool and wet Northwest. There is a reason the state of Washington is green. Our girls tried at least one season of every sport including Lacrosse, Softball, Soccer, Basketball, Volleyball, to name a few. Don't get me wrong, we have great memories of those times and we made great friends watching those games.

This go round however, I am much more relaxed in the area of extra curricular sports, not feeling the need for all that exposure. Our last child in particular had never participated in a team sport. In a moment of weakness, I asked her if she wanted to play Upward Basketball this winter. She enthusiastically responded that yes, she would love to play. Her personality is not the most competitive and this was fairly evident when she started turning cartwheels at her evaluation which is not the most coveted basketball skill. This was going to be a long season. As expected, she was fairly intimidated by the roughness of the game the first couple of games, especially since she is on the small size compared to the other players. I don't think she touched the basketball for the first 4 or 5 games and would always get the good sportsmanship award for not fouling! I've come to learn that fouling is a good thing in basketball. Despite this, she always had a great attitude as she went to practice week after week as well as the games.

This past week, as I was watching my optimistic daughter play, I noticed that she was getting rebounds and looked like she actually knew what she was doing. She was guarding and passing and even dribbling which is not the easiest thing to do when you are being chased by bigger, faster players. All of a sudden she found herself with the ball under the basket, took her shot and made her her first basket! The moment still makes me smile as I think of her happy, proud self running down the court with an extra spring in her step.

She demonstrated just how far a positive attitude will take you. Despite being the smallest player on the team, she kept giving her best effort week after week. Finally it paid off and she made her basket. I hope she remembers this season and the lessons of perseverance and working hard. Her last game of the season is this week. I hope she makes another basket and has a great game. I'm almost sad for the season to end since she is just now getting the hang of the game. Oh well, there's always next year!

Keeping Lucy

The day had finally arrived when I would be keeping Lucy, my seven month old adorable granddaughter, for 2 1/2 fun filled days. I was expecting this to entail lots of work which it did, on not much sleep. Towards the end of her visit, my younger three were begging for mercy as they each took a turn entertaining her while we tried to encourage her to eat her peas and carrots. Not to mention lifting Lucy while in the baby carrier in and out of the car and the buckling of clueless Lucy as to when it would be highly beneficial for her to bend her arms and legs. I do loathe car seats! I was also severely out of practice in regards to the best time to undress her for her bath. It is not before you start running the water while holding her as this prompted her to pee all over me!

However, I was completely unprepared for the memories and emotions that without warning came flooding back to me while I cared for little Lucy. I didn't even mind the 3:00 A.M. feeding. In fact I loved it! It transported me straight back to 1985 and 1988 to the middle of the night feedings with Laura and Kristen, to the quiet precious time just the two of us. If possible feeding Lucy was even more special as I held the child of my child. Gone are the concerns of wondering if I was doing everything right as a young mom and the horrible realization that I could be doing something terribly wrong. According to the book, The First Three Years of Life, those first three years are really important and you had better get them right. Instead, I could simply enjoy Lucy's wonderful sweetness as she slowly relaxed and fell asleep in my arms. I am beginning to realize that my love for Lucy is an extension of the love I have for my daughter Laura who is a precious gift from God and who I love with all of my heart.

When the time came for Lucy to leave, I had the same lump in my throat that I had when Laura left for college. I couldn't believe it! I think it's Gigi love and I have a feeling it's only just begun.

Courageous

When I think of courage, I think of a soldier going to war. Of course going to war is courageous and I admire all of our men and women who have chosen to serve in the military. But I was recently reminded again of another kind of courage, the courage of my children to accept and love us as their parents.

We recently arranged a visit with one of their older siblings who they had not seen in 6 years. Our younger two didn't really remember him as they were ages barely 3 and 4 years old when they last saw him. We had exchanged pictures, but they had not seen him in person. I was honestly apprehensive about how they would react to seeing him. Would it upset them? Would they want to go with him? This was unknown territory.

They were very excited when we told them that they would be seeing their brother. My children are very outgoing and friendly with everyone so I wasn't surprised when they hit it off immediately. They started out talking about school, sports, silly things, their favorite subject, and proceeded to really enjoy being together, hugging each other a lot, dancing and laughing as they bowled. The time came for us to say good-bye. We all hugged good-bye and then came home. They came home to their family. 

While we have not always been their family, we became their family because they allowed us to be their parents. They left everything they knew to come start a new life with us. They opened their hearts and chose to accept our love and accept us as their family.  They did not have to do this. This has not always been easy on either of our parts, but we are a family. 

Their courage astounds me. It always has. It's supernatural courage that could only come from God. 

The Happiest Place on Earth

Our younger kids had a few days of vacation after the New Year and we thought it would be a good opportunity to get away with just them. We were thinking Washington D.C or New York City to show them some new sites, but after talking to them decided that they weren't quite ready to appreciate a trip to either of those places. They determined that Disney is where they wanted to go! What child doesn't want to go to Disney, right? It's the Happiest Place on Earth after all.

 Our first stop was the Magic Kingdom. We were greeted by grumpy, a Senior Citizen parking lot attendant. On the whole I was impressed with the stamina and cheerfulness of all the other Senior Citizens who apparently run the park during the winter months. I'm not sure if this is always the case or just since our current administration has been in office.

We rushed over to the Newly expanded Enchanted Land and stood in line for 70 minutes to experience the new Beauty and the Beast ride. We were behind a family whose members continued to grow to a rather large number in front of us. The family spent most of our time together trying to pacify the toddler in tow with food and anything else they could think of. I was trying very hard to keep my testimony in tact and think I succeeded! I actually liked the ride and thought it very imaginative and our youngest was chosen to play a part for the audience participation! Our teenager who was experiencing extreme tiredness the entire day, commented that it wasn't worth the wait. This was going to be a long day.

We then proceeded to completely traumatize our youngest thinking she was ready for Space Mountain. She was not. She was riding in the car in front of me and when I  could no longer see the top of her head as the ride wore on, I knew she was not having fun. She came off saying that she wanted to yell, "stop!" but the only thing that came out was "sob, sob, sob..." Not exactly what we were going for. I also had to bail her out later on the Star Wars: The Adventure Continues Ride at the last minute because she had a terrified look on her face. Thankfully the much tamer Aladdin ride and the Carousel was more to her liking.

The next day we headed to Hollywood Studio in the rain. Rain or no rain, we were there to experience Disney. All the other people in Orlando were of the same mind and were with us on the tram. My son thoroughly enjoyed the Special Effects show where cars and things exploded. Unfortunately he found the 3D It's a Bug's Life experience a little too realistic. He kept saying, "I don't like this!" over and over until it was over. Meanwhile the kids kept asking to go back to the condo to swim, despite the rain! We put in a good 8 hours at the park before leaving although I had no luck persuading them to stay for the Fireworks.

Animal Kingdom was our last park to visit and it proved to be our favorite. The crowds were still bad, but not terrible and it was a beautiful sunny day. We loved the safari ride and spent most of our time in the petting zoo and the Dinosaur playground. I thought it interesting that the playground was packed with kids and their parents. There is nothing kids love more than climbing and running around! We also made it back to the condo for them to swim which I am sure was the highlight of their trip. I know it was for me! We are seriously considering just taking them to a hotel with a pool for our next vacation.

Vacations seem to get better when one looks back on them.  I think it's because one is just remembering standing in the rain, not actually getting wet. It's not as bad. On the way home, our daughter  told us this was the best vacation ever! The selective memory phenomena was already working, terror all forgotten! I am left with the happy memories of my kids so excited to drive those cars on the tracks. Our youngest exclaiming, " People make driving look so easy!" Priceless!

A Wedding, A Graduation and a Grandbaby

Once upon a time I had time to write a Christmas letter on beautiful Christmas Stationary. Some years I even made it out before Christmas. I love receiving Christmas letters so I took the time to compose one, but no more. Lately, my days are consumed with working part time at our church, learning Shurley Grammar with my two youngest children (If you don't know about Shurley Grammar, count yourself very fortunate), and most recently a Science Project about the absorbency of Charmin vs. Kirkland brand toilet paper. So the Christmas letter never rose to the top of my to do list. For my own historic purposes and just because, I decided to write a short Christmas blog post.

Among years at our house, 2012 turned out to be quite eventful. After a whirlwind romance, Kristen and Ben were married in a beautiful Spring outdoor wedding in March. They played the odds on the weather and won! An angel from heaven disguised as my dear friend Greta swooped in at the last minute to save the day after a wedding planner debacle to make everything beautiful and perfect. Thank you Greta! The ceremony was performed by my sweet Father who married them with powerful and heartfelt words from God's word. My sweet girl never looked more beautiful and I had a really good hair day too!

May brought the graduation of our family's very first doctor, when our son in law Jason graduated from the Medical College of Georgia to become a Physical Therapist. We were honored to be in attendance as not only Jason but other young people received various health degrees to begin practicing medicine, proving there are some fantastic millennials in the world!

One month later in June, Lucy Marie made her dramatic entrance into the world to make Laura and Jason first time parents and more importantly making us grandparents. The whole grandparent scene took me completely by surprise. It seems that my love is exponential where Lucy is concerned. I haven't quite figured out why this is except that I love watching Laura and Jason parent Lucy. Even better is how crazy Eric is about Lucy! It all stacks up way more fun than I thought it would be.

In October we celebrated 5 years with our little kids who aren't that little anymore. One has surpassed me in height and the other two are gaining fast! Can't believe it's been 5 years. Can't believe God entrusted us with three more children to train up in the way they should go, three more children to love, three more children to teach us more about God's love for us all.

Speaking of love, Eric and I celebrated 30 years of marital bliss in December. Saying yes to Mr. Jakstadt was the best decision of my life! We celebrated 30 perfect years together in the beautiful city of Charleston and stayed in a very nice hotel. The hotel was a far cry from the one that was still under construction we stayed in for our honeymoon in Dallas, Tx! No matter, I loved the company then and still do.

At Christmas time more than usual, I am filled with thankfulness. I thank God for the gift of his son Jesus. I came into the world not knowing that I would need a savior, but He provided one in his son Jesus. Thank you God for Jesus.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6