I have definitely been busy the past three weeks, but also I have completely been putting off this blog update because I really don't know where to start...
... nor do I want to leave anything essential out.
Well to start off while my Grandmother and Cousin Kara boarded a plane to fly to Poland, we desperately cleaned, bought food, prepared agenda's and waited in severe anticipation. They landed Friday evening and Arek and Travis were kind enough to drive to Warsaw to bring them to the apartment. I had a late dinner waiting, they settled in, and we went to bed.
SATURDAY:
The jet lag played a toll on Grandma and Kara so they slept in, got ready then we went to a luncheon over at the Gladun's before touring through the Lublin Castle and then playing at the park with Cody for the last time, ever.
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| Farewell Gladun's |
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| Lublin Castle |
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| Our Old Town |
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Last time to the park, and last time
meeting with Cody |
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SUNDAY: Started with a walk to church where we enjoyed a spiritual and emotional last testimony meeting; even my grandma and Kara bore their testimony's. Cezary Gladun gave us a ride home where we prepared to go catch a train to Krakow.
Unfortunately when we arrived we learned all the tickets were sold out and there was only standing room left
. After some panic of finding the right areas to be in Grandma and Kara settled in on the floor for the next 5hrs while I was moved into a Mother's cabin; I felt SO BAD. Fortunately I was put in a cabin with a couple and 2yr old son from England. She was pregnant also. Maddix played so well with their son and when we got to Krakow they were staying on the same street as us so they carried one of our bags and walked us to our door; such a blessing.
MONDAY: We started the morning with an hour and half bus ride out to Auschwitz Concentration camp. Maddix napped the way there, and was happy until we had to turn in the stroller because they're not allowed so I had to carry him for two hours; eventually I just skipped the rest of the tour and waited outside so he could run around a little. Kara and Grandma said it was surreal to see the amounts of shoes, clothing, etc that had been confiscated.
On they way home the bus was packed we got stuck on the very back bench, which is the WORST spot to sit; it sways uncontrollably, and there is no breeze from the windows (no a.c. of course) so it's a terrible ride. Maddix started by spilling a giant bag of gold fish all over the floor, then laid across my lap and told me his tummy hurt. Moments later he began gagging. I grabbed the bag of dirty gold fish as he began throwing up. As soon as someone hopped off I moved to the front has he threw up all down the front of me. The poor boy finally fell asleep covered in his puke and a bag under his chin that smelled like vomit and goldfish. When we finally hopped off the bus we tried to scrub me clean and Maddix slept in the stroller while we explored the town, ate, and shopped a bit.
At the very end of the night we boarded our night train to take us to Prague and Maddix once again found himself getting motion sick... however I think we all (minus young go-with-it Kara) were getting sick with as much as that train bounced us around all night, and it was a LONG night.
TUESDAY: We placed our luggage in the lockers at the train station, set out to find Breakfast, and then sat out to exploring Prague's Old and New Town, as well as the Charles's Bridge, and the Castle area.
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Loved the pink flowers that were
planted this year |
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| Charles's Bridge |
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| The infamous Gold Porsche |
After a long day... well two days when you consider we didn't sleep a wink on the train we went to check into our hotel, had Grandma and Maddix take a nap, and then that night we went back into town to ride Paddle boats, and get dinner. Funny moment on the paddle boats: Grandma wanted to go in early and no one was there to help us tie our boat up and the effort Gma was putting in trying to pull us into the doc ended up gathering a crowd that was laughing, filming, and cheering us on:) Then that night we asked a waiter to call us a reliable taxi and he really thought he had, however as soon as we got in the car the driver decided to take us for a ride! He went in an entirely opposite direction from the hotel and took us into neighborhoods where I had no idea how I'd get us back to the hotel from. Finally he stopped and asked another taxi driver for directions! Eventually he got us back and I refused to give him anymore money than I'd given the first taxi driver, at which point he looked at the coins in his hand and said, "That will work," in ENGLISH. Ugh
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Favorite part was Maddix waving up
at all the people and they were
waving back at him. |
WEDNESDAY: First thing we wanted to do was take my brother-in-law's package (that my m-in-l had sent) and drop it off at the mission home and finally be rid of that heavy thing. When we got there my Grandma asked, "could we just stay here? Do we have to go back out there?" It was quite humid out there. But I think she was glad we went back out there because the views were outstanding, and I know Maddix and Kara enjoyed it when we wondered onto the bird sanctuary and got to hold the birds.
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| Holy Water |
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| View of Prague |
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| Maddix LOVED holding the owl |
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| Survived the walk to the Cathedral |
Then that night we took Maddix and Grandma back to the hotel so Kara and I could go see Prague by night. We enjoyed seeing the city all lit up, but at some point we both had a feeling that it was time to get home. As we hopped off our last Subway and were taking the extremely steep escalator to the top I had a prompting, "turn around" just after a man in front of us turned around and went behind us in such a way that it put me on my guard. I turned around to find the arm of a woman who looked like the real life version of a haggard, snaggle-toothed, drugged up Esmeralda from the Hunch Back shoved deep into Kara's bag. Instantly I grabbed her wrist and ripped it out and yelled at her. This instantly triggered Kara to shove her and scream. Needless to say we caught her off guard and caught the attention of some people passing by so they stopped the girl while we checked our bag then told her and the guy to get lost. When we reached the top I told Kara we should peak around before we just went outside; low and behold there she was leaned up against the wall delicately holding her wrist. Moral of the story: NEVER MESS WITH A PREGNANT WOMAN'S HARMONES! She threw us some sass and I threw it back and as soon as we were out of sight I turned to Kara and said, "Want to run the rest of the way?!" When we got back we did NOT tell grandma, and we tried to calm down.
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| This did bring me some joy after that event |
THURSDAY: We took a train to Dresden (scariest moment: there were SO
many people that we all got separated and I thought my grandma had
Maddix. When we all reached our cabin they had no idea where he was. I
went running back yelling his name through 3 full cars before I finally found
him trying to get off the train! He was just smiling and I was almost
in tears!). The only problem is the train was delayed an hour so we were
SO CLOSE to seeing the beautiful sights Dresden had to offer, but we
fell short. Instead we ran through the rain and past groups of drunk
youth (due to the holiday) yelling into bullhorns and mooning passerby's
:)
Almost as great as the buildings I was trying to run Gma and Kara to
see, but not quite. Highlight was making them get Bratwursts before we
went back to catch our train.... which was miss marked by the way. On
the boards, on the website, and according to the lady walking by we were
supposed to hop on train 19 to reach our destination, however, thanks
again to a prompting I quickly asked a young girl as we took our seats
and she frantically pointed us to the train across from us. In a split
second we had to choose between trusting her over everyone else and I
did, so we rushed back off the train with all our luggage an onto the
next train. She was right and about 15mins later we were picking up our
rental and on our way to Rothenburg!
When we got the rental we found out
they were all out of the Mercedes we had ordered and we were bumped up
to a BMW; everyone was quite happy, and that night we checked into our
amazing hotel and took the night watchman's tour before bed.
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This really captures how the
tour went for Maddix and I |
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| Our hotel in Rothenburg |
FRIDAY: Started with a wonderful breakfast, took Gma and Kara over to the Katy Wolfhart Christmas Museum, left them there and took Maddix to the teddy bear store, and then took him back to the hotel to unwind before traveled to the next town. As soon as we got there I needed to use the bathroom and instantly it got quiet. I opened the door and yelled for Maddix and got no reply. Yep, he'd opened the door and ran down the hall! Such a fart! So then we checked out and stopped in Heidelberg for lunch and a tour of the castle before continuing on to stay the night at the Frankfurt Temple Housing.
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| Picking up some goodies in the morning |
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| View from our window |
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| Heidelberg |
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| Heidelberg Church |
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| View from the castle |
BEST PART OF THE NIGHT: Travis found a cheaper flight and hopped over to Germany with plans to tour around with us Saturday and fly home Sunday. When he showed up to the temple housing Maddix saw him and went running, arms outstretched yelling, "DADDY! I'm just so happy to see you!" Travis scooped him up and Maddix pulled us in for a family hug and said, "I just love you guys."
SATURDAY: While Gma did a session, Travis and Kara went to buy some breakfast and I bathed Maddix. Then Travis took a much needed turn behind the wheel of the car that looked so good on him and drove us through 3 of his favorite towns: Wetzlar, Brauhnfels (spelled wrong), and Limberg. Despite the down pouring rain while we out and about it was really the best day. And the highlight for Grandma and Kara was trying the Schnizel and Spetzla (spelling) at Braunfels; BEST EVER. Then that night we drove the car back and spent the night at a hotel across from the airport.
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| Getting poured on |
SUNDAY: We had to be to the airport by 5am for our 6:30am flight so we woke up extremely early. When we got there we went to check in and came to find out I wasn't allowed to fly. Nope. Because I was over 28 weeks along I could not fly. Panic. Anger. Fear. Anxiety. Disappointment. Everything came rushing at once and it was all I could do to keep from yelling at this woman who awarded me a typed up letter stating I could not fly.
Travis and I tried to talk Grandma and Kara into going to London but they refused so Travis skipped his flight to keep us safe and we waited an hour for a bus to the train station. Purchased tickets from there to the Berlin Train staion, and then purchased tickets from Berlin to Poland....................
................ Well $1,000 later, 12 hrs of trains (and that money didn't even get us reserved tickets!), heat stroke for Maddix, and a lot of floor time for Travis and Kara, we finally made it to Warsaw where he couldn't handle anymore traveling so we got a hotel and spent the night. Back up early as could be the next morning we went to catch the bus to Lublin and 3hrs later we finally made it to my apt!!! I kissed the ground!
MONDAY: We re-cooperated.
TUESDAY: Travis took them to our concentration camp while I packed, and then I took them shopping at the mall before going to dinner at Anna and Arek's that night. Arek volunteered to take us to Warsaw the next evening and I'm SO glad he did!
WEDNESDAY: I took them to one more mall to look around and then that evening Arek drove us to our hotel, arranged everything for us in Polish because the guy spoke no English, and bid us farewell.
THURSDAY: I virtually never went to bed, but we had to be up by 3:15am to catch our taxi at 3:50am. Thank the Heavens that this day went as smooth as possible. We took a 1hr 45min flight from Warsaw to Frankfurt, had a 3hr layover where Maddix had a MAJOR melt down because he was beyond tired, then we boarded our long 12hr flight to Las Vegas. This flight went smooth. Maddix napped the first 3ish hours and was a pretty big angel the rest of the trip. A German woman even complimented us on how well he was... so you know he was good. So eventually we made it to the Vegas airport safe and sound, and in one piece; however swollen and dehydrated that piece was:)
So in St. George we stayed for a few days as we tried to acclimate and turn our brains on; I honestly don't remember most of being there, and then we came to the Johnson's on Sunday to set up shop. We were overwhelmingly surprised with the amazing news that they had set up a separate room for Maddix and Nala to share! It is extremely cute with a yellow sports mat on the floor and wooden toy cubbies. Maddix loves it. And he LOVES having his dog back! They have been together since the minute we arrived. Yesterday morning I heard him stirring and then I heard Nala so I peeked in the room to find him somewhat awake leaning over the bed and she kissed him (not really licking much) while he just laid there smiling and saying, "that's my good Nala." I am just in heaven watching them together. And every time he wakes up from a nap or in the morning and doesn't instantly come bet me because he's in his room playing with toys just makes me extra grateful for the extra room the Johnson's have opened up for us!
