Time To Play Catch-up!

So much has been going on in such a little time!
        I'll do my best to recall it all, without doing a picture overhaul!
Thursday: While Travis was at school Anna and Arek picked Maddix and I up and took us to a museum here in Lublin. It is an outdoor museum set up just like the old villages used to be set up. We really enjoyed being outside in the beautiful spring weather with such great friends.

Old Postal deliver cart that hooked
up to the horse

Arek said his grandpa lived in a home
just like this one. You have to change
those thatched roofs every summer

Even I could touch the roof! 

An old Greek Orthodox
Catholic church

Maddix enjoyed the view from this
very old canoe by the pond

These are the crests of the Polish
cities; I wish Provo had it's own
symbol. 

When they took us home I put Maddix down for a much needed nap, took one myself, and then that night Travis joined Maddix and I and we rode the bus to their home for dinner.
Friday: Was a GREAT day! As many of you know, since January we have been illegal citizens in Poland. I can comfortably say that now because our Residency cards FINALLY came!!!!! It was an amazing feeling to go with Anna and Arek to receive them and know we could finally look the cops in the eyes, and even better, TRAVEL! From there we traveled on to the lake to celebrate this job well done of fighting to become legal. We first fed the ducks and then enjoyed walking the path all along the perimeter of the lake.

Feeding the ducks, who were not so easy to convince to come to us! 

Loved watching these two together

Maddix chased Arek all over

Maddix was so excited to "be at the beach!"

On the way home we stopped at Anna's parent's garden and met her father.
While we were there Maddix  kept bringing me all these wonderful flowers:) 

Saturday: We woke up extra early and drove to Kashmir Dolne (a beautiful old town just over an hour away). James was sweet enough to ride the bus so we could fit in the car. While we were there we toured, went through some churches, stopped for some brunch, and they bought us a rooter shaped sweet bread that the town is famous for. 

Ruin on the hill

3 Crosses on the hill

Brunch and our bread rooster

Stroll through the gorge

Rooster! 

Cool guys wear sunglasses

Maddix's favorite part of the trip
was the Pirate ship! 

After we explored through the town we made our way over a near by town that was a LEGITIMATE old Polish town with thatched roofs, chickens roaming everywhere, guys chopping wood, and men moving their fishing boat to the river on logs that they'd roll and rotate; it was crazy! We hiked up a hill and ate lunch and enjoyed the view before going back to the car. 

So pretty

Can you see the windmill on the other hill?

Moving of the boat to the river with logs

Maddix and I feel right to sleep on the drive home; we were beat. 

When we got home we called the Johnson's... little did they know we had a little surprise up our sleeves. 

Happy Birthday Surprise! 

 Our little Nala turned 4 years old this week and after seeing an article on yahoo about special cakes for dogs... we enlisted the help of Travis's Grandma Eileen, who loves Nala just as we do, and agreed to make a cake for her and take it over while we were video chatting with the family; she even went above and beyond with candles:) 

She held still for the
song then devoured
the cake! :)

And then Bryce, who is serving his mission in Slovakia right now sent Nala a pair of sunglasses! 

Look at that face?!

Sunday: This morning the Elders showed up to take our keyboard to the church... seeing as our church was broken into an robbed yesterday! They broke in through the Branch Pres's Office window, trashed the room and stole the T.V. They then moved on to the next office and stole the computer systems and trashed that room. They unpacked the Christmas tree to use the box to carry everything, while neatly organizing the oranaments so they didn't break, then moved into the kitchen where they carefully stacked all the dishes, and finally stole the keyboard and stereo :( Oh and to add insult to injury, they stole the vacuum so they couldn't even clean up all the broken glass from the window so we just had to shut the door and keep everyone out of it. On our way home from church we missed our bus and had to walk home. On the way it started to downpour. We looked insane as we ran through the storm, just laughing our heads off, all of us without coats. The Poles were appalled that we had Maddix out in the rain, but we just did what we had to to get home! 

Then tonight we had our final dinner with Elder Peacock who is being transferred up to Warsaw District; Maddix will miss him for sure! 

Good luck in Warsaw!

~Our Family Walk~

As the sun rose early, so did my boys.... all three of them actually. With so much sunshine and extra time we decided to take a family walk into town to run some errands and pick up a morning pastry. While Travis paid the internet bill Maddix and I waited for him at the park; it was far more enjoyable, I think:)

Loving some sandbox time

"Hello down there!"

He almost got me. He just
giggled the entire time!

Taking life one step at a time

SUCH a cutie

Once Travis showed up from the post office we continued through the park and on to the Pedestrian Zone of our Old Town:)

I couldn't resist of shot of these old
men chatting in the park, just
enjoying the morning

Our City Center park

Pedestrian Zone

Our tower to the other side of Old Town

On our way we found a quaint little bakery and went in to purchase of few pastries.


   We walked a little more then decided to settle near the castle grounds to eat our goodies before the rest of our walk home.

Such a view

Decided to stroll through
the markets that are really
coming alive in the Spring
weather:) 

                When we got home we straightened up the house a bit while we sent Travis off to school, ate lunch, napped, and enjoyed the late afternoon together before I went to the gym with Anna. When I came home I found my boys cuddled together on the couch watching Dumbo. When I walked through the door Maddix exclaimed, "Mommy!" and came running towards me with wide open arms and gave me a giant hug, then he said, "I love you so much." Oh man I like when he is sweet and cute SO much more than the tantrum times... go figure.

A little of this+ A little of that= One busy weekend!

Well it has been an extremely busy weekend; just like I used to have all the time, but not here in Poland, so it seemed extra busy. 

Friday: I had to meet Arek at the clinic at 6:50am so we could be the first ones there to do some blood work and begin my Glucose Test. I'm sure many of you know about and/or have taken this test; however here in Poland it's done a little differently. You have your levels tested when you first get there, drink the drink of disgustingness, then (if you don't throw up) you take a number and sit for two hours so they can process your test, and you then get your levels checked again. Since I've been depending on Arek to translate every time we go this caused a bit of a problem since he would need to leave to work; hence we wanted to be there first to get it done!

Ignore the mess, but isn't that a beauty? 

However to our surprise, I was blessed to receive a nurse I had never seen before (she's only been there a month) who spoke beautiful English and had been working in England; the Lord never fails to leave me unattended or alone. So Arek comfortably left me in her bi-lingual hands and went to work. I had my first levels checked in my left arm (which has built up a tolerance since I get my levels checked so often) then my finger was pricked, and then my right arm was where they took the updated level tests... She did quite a number on it, eh?!

So I was at the clinic from 7am-10am, ran home to pick up my boys and go to the grocery store. As we finished and were waiting for a taxi, I received a call that we were having a practice for a song I was performing in with a few of Travis's classmates for his school's Culture Night. So, I left Travis on his own to get Maddix and all the bags of groceries up to our apt by himself, and I ran over to the girl's apartment. I left the practice a few hours later feeling more confident about our song and ran home to get cleaned up for a concert I was attending that night with Anna and Arek (they only had one extra ticket).

Waiting for the concert to start

 The group was a french group from Madagascar who spoke to the audience in french (so everyone knew what it felt like to be me and not understand what's being said:). It was quite the experience I think.

The band

Then Saturday came so early and it was time to head over the school for our dress rehearsal.

The Culture Night was a big success I think. There are over 1,000 students from 90 different countries attending this school so the acts ranged anywhere from a Traditional Filipino Dance, to Japanese sword fighting; and from Indian bollywood/Bangra numbers to an American song.... sang by me, one of Travis's classmates, and three other girls in the program that I was fortunate enough to meet.

We sang the Island version  (with a few variations) of
Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Kossi's number from all parts of Africa

This was the ending Bangra performance.
They had their outfits made by family in India
and shipped to Poland just for the performance
so they were as authentic as it comes!

After the performances there was food that had been catered in; and overall the whole evening was such great fun, and a wonderful experience I will never forget. It was so enjoyable to see all the different cultures in their traditional robes, and outfits all coming together to celebrate everyone's heritage. Travis was also excited because on his class website they did a feature on our musical number, as well as several students had posted the video all through their pages; it makes me so happy that he was so proud (all I could focus on was I messed up on one spot... but I think every act messed up that night)!

So then Sunday came and the weather was gorgeous for our Branch Conference. We really enjoyed seeing all our friends from Warsaw that were in town for the conference, and we were quite surprised when they released our Branch President and called the son of the Gladun family who just got home from his mission as the new Branch President. Good luck to ya'! 

P.s. here's a random beauty of Maddix. He told me to find him and when I came in my room I could NOT find him until he rolled out and popped out from underneath the mattresses on our bed:) Clever Son, clever! 

~When Daddy's In charge, and such~

When daddy's in charge mommy walks in to find:

Maddix watching a movie
in the Nude (just after his bath)

He takes us out for dinner when the fridge is empty

Exercises the boy with a long walk

Helps us create Memories

Then last night while I was teaching Institute Travis took Maddix to dinner with his classmates and when we all got home I was in such a hurry to run to the next place I needed to be I didn't see the state in which Travis put Maddix to bed; however, when he woke up this morning I could see he was still in his shirt from dinner, and COVERED in his food from their meal together.

This would be dried Ketchup all behind is ear, and
on his shirt. 

Then he had sticky food under his chin and the fur from
his stuffed animals was stuck to it. 

This morning Maddix and I decided to quickly catch a bus into the middle of town and went to the park. Maddix did extremely well while we were there: he shared all his toys, took turns on the slide, chased some boys around, etc.

Trying to sleep it off

Then we walked home, ate lunch, and as I thought he was going down for a nap I heard a LOUD thud from his room followed by an immense cry of pain. I ran in to find him not breathing from shock and the couch he'd been leaning unbuckled and fell flat into a futon, causing him to smack his head into the window sill from what I can tell from the giant mark across his neck; I don't know how it all went down but when he opened his mouth to cry blood just poured out. Once we both calmed down,  and got all cleaned up I surveyed the damage. He bit through his top lip, and took a big chunk into his tongue; they both keep bleeding on and off, but neither need stitches. He has a giant bruise across his neck, his finger began swelling like a balloon so we iced it, and his hands, arms, and cheek are covered in little blood bruises :( It could have been MUCH worse, but this is one of the worst accidents he's ever had and I feel so bad. I wasn't sure if he should sleep right away so I snuggled him into my bed and turned on 101 Dalmations while I rotated ice packs. Travis came home and inspected him as well and assured me he didn't have a concussion so when he dozed off we just let him stay asleep.

I hoped he would sleep it off but just a few minutes ago he started to wake up and his mouth was bleeding again. He just kept crying and rubbing his mouth and then crying more from the pain :( Finally Travis and I moved him to the couch and opened the balcony window to cool the room down (he was extremely sweaty). We got him hydrated, set up with some pillows and stuffed animals, and now he's happily watching Aladdin... I think the rest of the evening will be a down evening. And Travis just left back to school.

On a random note, here is a quick update photo since I didn't get one done in time for the pregnancy blog, as well as a photo of Maddix from the other morning. He was BEGGING me to put him in his Woody Pj's; when I finally did he wore them all morning and walked around repeating, "Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, my names Woody.... hey! Give me my hat back!" (line from the 1st moive). It was too cute to pass up.