The Adventures of the Johnson Clan: 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!