Christmas Eve 2012

I am extremely exhausted, so won't be spell checking this at the end, and my 'c' button is missing on this computer, so fair warning that this post might not make sense, but I have to get it down while it's all fresh in my head.
The morning: It couldn't have started out more perfect. By some miracle, Maddix slept in until almost 8am. I found myself awake before him! We watched a few little Christmas cartoons and then began cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! Oh, and Travis gave Maddix a much needed haircut, then a bubble bath.
The afternoon: The Elders came over for a day of games and food. We put Maddix down for a nap and Travis whipped out the goodies we had made. It was his first ever cheese ball and it was fabulous. The sugar cookies weren't too bad as well

We played a few rounds of our favorite game Settlers and then we heard Maddix crying quite intensely. He brought Maddix in and on the top of his right eye lid he was bleeding a little. It looked as if he'd been attacked by a large bug, or pinched it in something tight; we concluded he had messed around, fell, pinched it, and cut it open :( Poor boy has one more mark on his face to add to his colletion of scrapes on his nose from eating it yesterday. Then he was monkeying around after we let him skip the nap and he climbed up the side of his high chair, lost balance and fell backwards, pulling the highchair right onto his head; yet another bruise.
The evening: The Elders stayed all day, and eventually helped us make cookies to take to the nunnery tonight where we would be having dinner; random I know. Travis's classmate Seena is Catholic and invited us to a traditional Polish-Catholic dinner with all the nuns, so we accepted and got ready to go. When Seena and Akshatha showed up we tried to call a taxi and kept getting told, "no taxis," then they would hang up. Over and over each company said this. So we caught a bus over to the middle of town and prepared to wait for the next one to take us to the outskirts of town. Akshatha was messing around and pretending to hail a cab (which is illegal here) because she is from NY, when all of a sudden one pulled up; it was insane. We joyously climbed in, not knowing what was to come. This man was crazy. He talked and talked and talked, knowing we didn't understand. He kept pulling over and rechecking the address and muttering things like, "why I ask you, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know what I saying." And then out of nowhere he pushed a button that made our taxi fare jump up. Then he got lost. We kept trying to get out of the cab but he kept telling us to sit and he'd find it. Well we ended up being quite late, but we eventually made it. And we made it broke. He charged us 50pln~ $19.

The Night: When we first walked in we were introduced to a Polish tradition. We were handed a piece of 'bread' that resembled a lasagna noodle/rice paper and were told that we go to someone, wish them any good tidings, and then break off a piece of their bread. They do the same, then you kiss each other's cheeks three times. So we did this, over and over again until we were taken to our seats.

Sister Magda, from Warsaw. I really liked her

Dinner was very interesting. We once again started with the beetroot soup with pirogi and then were served several fish dishes. I said I was allergic because I DON'T EAT FISH and didn't want to be rude, but Travis ate it... he ate raw fish... carp, fried fish, and all sorts of nasty stuff and is now feeling so sick. Maddix and I stuck to the potatoes, bread, and fruit. There was also this traditional drink where they candy and dry several fruits together and then put it in a warm drink, and for dessert Seena brought rice pudding with glazed pears. During dinner I had an interesting conversation with a sister that inquired of my religion. It was the first time I have ever said I was 'Mormon' and had them look so confused. She had no idea. she asked about it and with each answer she seems more and more confused about whether this was a fad religion, a cult, or some hippy thing because of how few members we had, and it just blew my mind. She asked it was a protistent based religion and when I told her we were a Christian religion just like the Catholic's this just blew here away. She thought i was joking. But she was never rude or insincere about it. Just seems to be internally piecing it together, but was confused because we seemed so normal, and Maddix was so cute. Funny.

After dinner the guitar, tamborine, and a bunch of shaky maracca things were whipped out. We sang songs in Polish, English, and Veitnamese for one of the nuns. This was the funniest part of the night. Maddix was not paying any attention and when the first cord of the guitar strummed and we started singing he looked up and started to cry. Everyone bust out laughing and couldn't even sing. He thought the attention was the best and smiled, and eventually was given and instrument to play. Everyone LOVED him... I mean LOVED him. They kept saying how he looked like baby Jesus, and was so reverent; I kid you not:) Thanks Maddix, you sure fooled them, jk. He was really well behaved.

No more overly long hair

So Maddix stole their hearts, the room was full of music, and eventually he walked over to this sister who had a tamborine and took it, however he found a maraca that was free and took it to her as a trade. Everyone thought it was the cutest thing that he traded. They all took turns chasing him around the room, telling him he looked like baby Jesus, putting him on their laps and kissing him silly.

Trying to get home: As dinner wrapped up and everyone prepared to move into mass we realized that time had grown very late. As we tried to have Sis. Magda call us a taxi, my phone died. We grabbed Seena's and received the news that there were no taxi's from this company. Quickly the nun's helped us look up the bus schedule and he found that we'd missed the bus by two minutes, and the next bus wasn't for two hours. So we looked up more taxi numbers. Four companies said there was nothing, then on the fifth one, she found us someone; we were saved. While we waited Maddix grew slap stick happy and started chasing Akshatha around a pole and laughing hysterically, which made the sisters laugh and continue on with what a beautiful baby he is:) Eventually, the taxi came, charged us half the price that the crazy guy charged us, and we got inside. We put Maddix in new pj's, read him the bible, and the night before Christmas and here we are. I'm falling asleep typing this, and Travis is trying not to hurl; poor guy.
Moral of this story is: NEVER hail an unmarked taxi, and NEVER eat Sushi... even if it's blessed by nun's!!!!!
Merry Christmas!