Grateful Friday

 Last night, Mark and I made dinner before Adam got home because Mark was going to institute.

I put meatballs in the air fryer and Mark started water boiling for pasta.  I pulled Olivia's ragu sauce out of the pantry.  It is so good and I've been saving it.  I don't know what I was saving it for, but I guess a Thursday in July.

While we were waiting for the meatballs to cook and the water to boil, we sat at the table and played golf with Star Wars cards.  

He won the first round and then the second round and we tried to remember the points so we could keep a running tally.  Mark said, "We aren't actually competitive."

I said, "I don't care about the score."

So we kept playing, getting up occasionally to check on things.

At one point, Mark got up to make a salad (Caesar, from a kit, sans croutons) and commented that he is more competitive when it is a contest of skill.  And I agreed.  I care much more about word games.

When the meatballs were cooked and the gluten free pasta was al dente as the package encouraged, we poured over the ragu sauce.  It was delicious!

I told Mark that was the taste of my childhood.  My mom and grandma made the same sauce.

When Adam got home, he had some dinner too.  He said, "What's in the sauce?"

I didn't know.

I've helped make it and I have a recipe somewhere, but I don't know what alchemy makes it so good.

It was a simple summer evening, a slice of this life we are sharing together.  Nothing really happened. It's the kind of evening that makes me grateful for what I have and who I share it with.

Today something is happening.  Liliana and Josh are getting married!  A new eternal family is being created.  I am looking forward to celebrating with them.  It's the kind of day that makes me grateful for what I have and who I share it with.

Lessons from nature

 I got a moth orchid last year on the last day of school from a student.  I thought it was beautiful and I enjoyed the pretty flowers.  I had never had a moth orchid before so I researched a bit how to take care of it.

The blossoms eventually fell off and I was left with two sticks above some greenery.  One of them shriveled and died.

I watered it very minimally (following my research) and kept it in the kitchen window, where it seemed happy.  I didn't know if it would ever bloom again.

Sometime in early May, it got buds on the stick!  It was going to bloom again!

Except it didn't.

The buds got fatter and fatter, but they didn't bloom.  Another small shoot started up and it had some tiny buds on it.  Things were happening.

Except they weren't.

The buds did nothing for about 6 weeks.

They finally bloomed mid June!

This is how it looked after our trip:

And this is how it looked yesterday:

I was telling Braeden about it (he is after all my shaman and we talk about things like this) and I told him that I couldn't rush it.  It bloomed when it was ready.  He said I could have killed it trying to make it bloom faster.  He said, "You could have given it too much water or plant food."

It reminded me of this quote I have on my desk by Beth Moore:

Give it time.  God is at work underground. Quit trying to force fruit that is not yet due.

I am no one's idea of a patient person so I appreciate my moth orchid teaching me to wait. 

Aarhus and home

 

I took this picture while we were eating our hotel breakfast.  I loved the aesthetic of everywhere we went in Scandinavia.  

We explored a bit in Aarhus.  I had seen a record somewhere that Adam's great grandparents got married in the Aarhus parish (Domsogn).  When I googled that, I got this building.

It was beautiful and had the most amazing doors:

I have no idea if they got married there or in the church across the way or what, but the building was pretty.

After that we went to the infinity bridge.  They rebuild it every April and take it down every October.  (I don't know whose basement they store it in!  It's pretty big.)

It is this big continuous circle out over the water and the water was completely clear.

I found some pretty rocks and sat down on these rocks to write in my little notebook.

I wouldn't even include these pictures because I look goofy, but it was so funny.  The ferry arrived across the bay and a big wave came along and soaked me.  I made a run for it!

I was soaked from my knees down and Adam thought it was hilarious and I thought it was slightly less hilarious, but still pretty funny.  It was very surprising.  Of course then I had the story to tell our children about the rogue wave that almost killed me.

From there (after I changed my shoes) we went to a big department store, Salling, which has a rooftop garden.  I think rooftop garden doesn't quite capture it though.  It has a skywalk and lots of little paths and ambient music and it was just beautiful.

different shoes, but pants were definitely still wet....

We took the ferry back to Zealand and drove to Copenhagen and bid Denmark a fond farewell.

This little guy was directing traffic at the security checkpoint in the Copenhagen airport.

We flew to London, stayed at a hotel right by the Gatwick Airport.  The only thing we did in London that time was go to Mark's and Spencer's.  (Adam bought me some chocolate pudding on the sly.  It was the same thing he always used to bring home from London for me and I was thrilled when he produced it in Los Angeles).

Yum!

We flew to Los Angeles the next day.  We stayed in this cute retro hotel in Long Beach.

We walked to California Pizza Kitchen for an early (late? our bodies didn't know what time it was) dinner and friends, I was flagging.  It was well WELL past my bedtime.  I went to bed around 6:00 PM and Adam went to the pool.

I woke up VERY early and in the 6:00 hour, Adam and I took a walk along the beach.

The waterfront was empty and we had the beach to ourselves (besides the homeless people still sleeping).  

We went to Newport Beach and had amazing fish tacos and ice cream at Salt and Straw.

It felt kind of like we were re-toxing rather than detoxing from our trip.  There were homeless people and litter and lots of marijuana smoke in LA.  Also, so much gum on the sidewalks.  Do Americans just walk around spitting out their gum and leaving it?  Still, it was nice to be home where we understood everything.

We flew back to Provo that afternoon and Mark picked us up at the airport and it was great to see him and great to be home.

It was a trip of a lifetime and I'm so grateful that I got to do it with my husband of a lifetime (and beyond)!

Roskilde and Danish roots

Mark and I have been having an enjoyable time together.  Yesterday we weeded at Olivia's a little (our tiny contribution to her beautiful yard for the upcoming wedding). Then, we stopped at my parents' house and helped pick cherries.

What an aesthetically pleasing fruit cherries are to pick!

After picking about three buckets, we sat in the sunroom and visited and pitted the cherries.  My mom was closest with her estimate.  She guessed we had 30 cups and we had 29.  My mom overpaid Mark for helping with the cherries then she fed us lunch.

So it was a pretty good deal for us. (Also we will get some of the cherry pie!)

We came home and Mark cut the grass along the brook and I raked it out of the water, which was a satisfying job.  

Today we will go back to Utah.  It's been so nice being here.  All good things come to an end.

Back to the travelogue:

June 23

Roskilde

We left Copenhagen and drove to Roskilde to visit the Viking Museum.  It was fascinating.  Over 1000 years ago, five Viking ships were sunk in the harbor to better control the seas.  More recently (I think in the 1960s), they were discovered and excavated.  Once the wood dried, it crumbled so they had to keep it wet for years before they came up with a solution (the injected it with something to protect the wood).

Rebuilding the ship fragments into the five ships, gave a lot of information about how the ships were built.

Looking at a map of where the Vikings were, they were in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Normandy, Scotland, Ireland and England.  My places!

I've learned about other ancient cultures, but this is the first time I've learned about my very own ancient culture.

They had a workshop where they were working on boats, plus a finished replica.

On our boat tour in Copenhagen, the guide commented that the weather was going to turn and we were going to experience "Viking Summer."

If by Viking Summer, he meant rain, we did indeed get that.

It was such enthusiastic rain, the cars on the road pulled over for a few minutes.

We took a ferry from Zealand (the island Copenhagen is on) to Jutland (the peninsula Aarhus is on).  It was a 90 minute ferry and very pleasant.  When it was raining so hard, I asked Adam, are we going to capsize on that ferry?  (I am never dramatic.)

He pointed out what we had just learned at the Viking Museum about how long they'd been sailing in those waters.  He said, "I think they have the kinks worked out."

They have indeed been at it for a while.

While we were waiting for the ferry, I sketched pictures of some of the houses we were looking for where Adam's people had lived.  

I texted a picture of my sketches to our kids and said we were ready.  They were, of course, very supportive of my efforts.

I had them on my phone, I just had time on my hands and a notebook so I sketched them.

We went to Vinkel, where I think Adam's grandma's family lived right before emigrating.

Adam's great grandpa, Simon Simonsen was christened and his great great grandparents are buried at this church in Vester Velling.

The grounds were beautiful!  Some of the best we saw (and all of the churchyards were very nice.)

The Simonsens worked at cutting peat moss in Denmark and here's a picture of the family in the peat bog.

Less than a ten minute drive from Vester Velling was Øster Velling.  Vester = west, Øster = east.

Karoline Lang was christened there.

Down the road was Helstrup, where Karoline was born.

Despite all my doubters, my little sketch helped me find the house.  (Sketching helped me pay attention to the details.)

(Besides my sketch), these are the pictures of Karoline's house that were on Family Search.  And I think this is the house!  The windows in the roof are different, but I'm calling it the same.

So that was exciting.

We went back to Aarhus from there.  

We had zero expectations, but ended up loving it.  We went to a pita restaurant for dinner (delicious!) and the bishop used google translate before drinking this so he could make sure he wasn't about to drink alcohol.