The Rollins Rundown

Ski racing

2012-01-24T19:09:00.004-02:00

Fiona really surprised me with a helmet cam this year for Christmas. Here is the first video... I took Nuala and Bran up skiing to a little beginners ski hill on Vitosha behind our house. They don't really like to carve or slow down at all, they just like going as fast as they can and stopping at the very last minute. They have helmets, and bones heal, so here is our first race...

India: Jaipur

2012-01-15T20:47:00.006-02:00

Since it's been a while since the last installment of our India series, let me refresh you. We arrived in Delhi, went to Agra, and now (um, then?) to Jaipur. The last point in the "Golden Triangle". And this is the last post! Yes! That's a typical Indian truck above. Nice and colorful.

On the way to Jaipur, we stopped at a place called, "annoying temple". Actually, that's not its real name, shockingly, but I can't remember what it's called and so have dubbed it thus in my mind. Soon I'll look it up, but for now... Okay, looked it up. It's called Fatehpur Sikri. And it's not a temple. Not overall. It's the "former imperial capital of the Great Mughal Emperor Akbar," but WE were in the little temple/tombs area. And we didn't even go to the palace.

Anyway, it was foggy and beautiful. There were so many steep stairs up to the entrance. It was only annoying because soooo many people tried to get us to buy things, and they were very...annoying... about it. We buy as much junk as we can, truthfully. Well, you know. We try to balance out not buying too much "junk" and buying enough to help out the sellers here and there. Anyway, we bought some stuff, and some stuff we didn't, and those people just would NOT leave us alone. Well, eventually they would sigh disgustedly and walk off, making us feel like jerks. And then. Sigh. We knew better, we did... one nice fellow attached himself to us inside the gates and, even though we told him over and over that we didn't want a guide, insisted he would show us around for free. Yeah, right. We knew there was a catch, but we honestly couldn't shake him. He was really nice, but did eventually lead us to a little corner where his "family" marble goods were set out. They, shockingly, looked EXACTLY like all the other marble elephants and boxes and candle holders that everyone else's families had lovingly carved. People think we're suckers, because we're American and nice. They are so wrong. We shut down when someone tries to sucker us like that and no matter how much they fawn over our kids, we're not paying triple for a paperweight. We did buy a couple of things, but for good prices.

The temple, though... that was beautiful! Several goats were just hanging out on the steps up. Bran and Nuala really liked them, especially the ones wearing sweaters. This one is not, obviously, wearing a sweater, but they liked him, too.

Just look at that.

Bran took this picture. Hmmm, I wonder what he could have been looking at? Answer: the guns.

A cool lattice-work marble wall somewhere inside. Very pretty.

A pig family hanging out.

Riding the tuk-tuk back down towards our van.

The food cart we stopped at. This stuff was really good, and really cheap. When we went back to the van and told Casey, our driver who was waiting there, what we'd had, he was shocked. "I don't even eat at those places! They will make even me sick!" he said. Oh. BUT, we did not get sick. So there! Well, we (Z) did, but not until a couple of days later and almost certainly from the hotel's papaya.

Jaipur! They call it "the Pink City," because, well, the walls are pink...ish.

One night while we were there (we were there for 3 nights, I think?) we took the kiddos to a cultural-type park place, called Chokhi Dhani. There were rides and performances and a dinner, etc. Here are Bran and Nuala riding the man-powered ferris wheel. As the wheel goes around, this fellow will dangle by his arms, pulling it a bit harder with his hanging weight. Then when his feet are on the ground, he runs as fast as he can, getting it going more and then hops on. Maeve and I rode it, too. Worked fine and dandy!

N and B on the camel. Poor Nuala. She reminded us afterwards that Bran got to be in front the last time they rode a camel. Life is so unfair.

Maeve and I riding the other camel. Maeve LOVED it. Even today, a month-and-a-half later, she still talks about it. Seriously, literally today. She's said at LEAST 4 times, "My ride a camel with Mommy!" and then usually that's followed by, "it be weally fun!" or "it be weally big!" So, yeah. That camel made quite the impression. Camels are cool.

We went to Amer Palace... Or "Fort." Apparently, the British folk called them "forts," and the Indians called them "palaces." It was up on top of a hill... and I see we have no really good pics of it up there. Just take my word for it. Or google it. Aha! I just copied a picture from Wikipedia, from a fellow named Michael Hoefner. This is the view of it as you drive along the road by the river. Also, it's sometimes called the "Amber Palace." I think "Amer" sounds better... more Indian. so, that's what we call it.

We waited for about 15 minutes in the elephant-riding line. Some of us didn't wait in line, but frolicked and lounged about on the grass.

Nuala, Maeve, and me on our elephant. We rode in those little box things. It would be cool to just ride an elephant bareback one day, but this was fun, too. This was very touristy. A whole line of elephants (just females, because the males get too irritated and aggressive. And the females are all only allowed to do four trips up and back to the fort, to keep them happy.), just moseying up the hill, dropping their riders off. But it was fun, and the kids loved it!

Bran and Zachariah, heading out... look at Bran's face! He was really, really excited. Their elephant's name was Lateemay Baby (surely spelled differently, but that's how it's pronounced), and Bran sure loved her.

Sigh. It's so hard to say goodbye.

In the courtyard where the elephants dropped us off.

Up in the fort, lookin' down. I just like their little matching pigtails. And look! Their little ponytail holders actually match their shirts! That is rather rare.

Looking down on the courtyard.

The garden. This was a really fun fort/palace to run around. Lots of places to explore. Bran and Nuala even found a bottle of pee! Well, it totally looked like that, we didn't actually investigate further to confirm it...

Fun walls to walk along, too. Poor Maeve was taking this very seriously, and was ticked when Bran and Nuala hopped on. They obviously did not respect The Wall like she did.

Monkeys hanging out at the fort.

On the way back to Jaipur, we stopped to look at this palace, out in the middle of a lake. Someone lives there still.

Oh! This place! In our picture folders, I have dubbed it the "cool place," since I can't remember its name exactly. Looking it up, Z tells me that it is: The Royal Gaitor, and it's a funerary complex... marble mausoleums of the ruling family of Jaipur. A long time ago. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and we loved it. We were alone most of the entire time.

See the monkey behind Bran? See the steps behind Bran? Well. About 5 minutes before this picture, Nuala, Maeve and I headed up those steps to get a closer look at a mommy monkey and her baby. Not too close, mind you, but closer. The mama monkey did not think that was cool, and started screeching. That monkey behind Bran must have been the daddy, or her bodyguard, or something, because he came galloping along the wall, running down along the steps, screaming bloody murder at us. It was quite scary. Two thoughts flashed through my mind: 1. Ack! My face is going to get ripped off by this guy! and 2. I really don't want to be bitten by a wild (though really I wouldn't want a tame one to munch me either) monkey in India. I'm sure many shots would be involved. Though I would prefer that to my face being ripped off, it's true. I wasn't worried about the girls, because obviously I would protect them (I AM awesome), plus I'm sure the monkey would feel most threatened by me (I AM huge, compared to Nuala, Maeve and the monkey). Anyway, I footballed Maeve, grabbed Nuala by the scruff of her neck and we raced down the stairs. Z was a bit confused, he said, because he just saw us high-tailing it down those skinny steps. Then he saw the monkey chasing us and understood.

Bran and Nuala got to stamp their own elephant at a textile factory. We asked Casey if he knew a place we could get a little dress or sari for the girls, and he brought us HERE. As soon as we pulled up, we felt ourselves droop. It was a big carpet place, with a little shop for clothes on top, and it was soooooo (of course) touristy. As usual, the guy is super nice and friendly, lets the kids do all this stuff, then boom! Into the big room with tons of carpets that cost way more than we ever plan on spending on a carpet. Plus, we didn't want a carpet. We aren't carpet people. We don't really care about them. We told him that, over and over (well, not that we "don't care about them." That would just be insulting, don't you think?), but it didn't stop him from saying, "but, if you WERE going to buy a carpet, which would it be?" etc., etc. Finally, as it was approaching 6:30pm, the kids were bouncing off the walls, and Z was just baaaaarely feeling the first twinges of the stomach bug that would be his constant companion for the next few weeks, the guy realized that we were not, in fact, going to buy a carpet, and up the stairs we went. We got a little outfit each for the girls, and neither has worn them since. I should go make them wear 'em. The little elephant-stamped fabric squares were my favorite part of the visit. I actually really like those.

We girls all got henna tattoos in Jaipur. It was fast, cheap, and pretty.

Maeve stayed sooooo still for hers. It was amazing, how focused she was. Then about 72 teenage girls came by and all tried to hold her and take her picture. Then they saw the other two little blondies and went even more beserk. Then the henna lady asked us to leave. Really, she did. We were blocking the view to her business.

Here are our arms, while the henna was still drying. It's a paste, and she squeezed it on like it was icing, in bird and fish and abstract designs. It took about 20 minutes to dry, and then we picked/brushed it off.

While it was drying we went to Jantar Mantar, a collection of architectural astronomical instruments, from the 1700s. There were "fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars' location as the earth orbits around the sun," etc. It was an interesting place. It was hot. Here we are by something having to do with the sign of Leo. Since I'm a Leo, I thought I should stand by it. And Bran really likes lions. The henna is still a-drying.

Zac and Maeve stuck in the center of a picture-taking crowd again. Hehehee... :) I always found it way more humorous when HE was one who was captured with the kids. He tried to cut down on that by putting M on his shoulders. Then people couldn't try to hold her, but apparently they still wanted pics.

It was so cute... at one point at Jantar Mantar (isn't that fun to say? You know you like it.), Maeve only wanted Bran to hold her. She kept saying, "My hold you, Bran!" That's how she asks to be held: "My hold you!" He tried to oblige as much as he could.

One of the devices... for something...

An elephant statue at Jaipur palace. Maeve was running out of steam. Well, out of nice steam. She had plenty of grumpy steam left.

Bran and his monkeys! He was always so excited about the monkeys. There's a monkey there to his right, and he and Nuala got to feed it! And get pretty close to it! I just didn't get a picture until afterwards. That was a pretty fulfilling monkey experience. Bran was happy.

Maeve was done being happy. As we walked back past the henna lady, she motioned us back over. She wanted pictures of Nuala and Maeve for her portfolio. And she gave them a free henna design on their other arms. She did not want my picture, and I did not get free henna. Nuala loved pointing that out to me, over and over. "Mommy, are you SAD that you did not get a free henna tattoo? And that she did not want your picture?!" she would say, giggling gleefully. She is such a sweetie. Anyway, Maeve was soooooo done. There are both her little henna-d arms. The one already picked off, and the other drying. I thought they'd be darker after they dried, and they did darken more than it appears, but not as dark as I thought they'd be. I bet it was fairly diluted, "tourist-version" henna. It was fun and pretty, though.

Oh, man...! Oh, UGH. Z was almost full-blown SICK by now, so what did he crave? A vanilla milkshake from McDonald's, the poor guy. The least Indian thing he could think of. So we just all got lunch there. The kids were excited to have something different (plus they got happy meals. Hello, toy!), and Z and I got these. The Chicken Maharaja Mac. They were the most disgusting things ever. And the milkshakes were NOT milkshakes. Well, they were milky. And a bit frothy. But poor Z... I'm pretty sure he about died from the disappointment, not to mention his poor stomach.

The pool at our hotel! This hotel was beautiful. And, like I said, it had a pool. Now, it was warm/hot in India, but not quite hot enough to enjoy swimming outside. Unless you're a four-almost-five-year-old. Even they didn't last all that long, but much longer than I wanted them to. They had a lot of fun in that cooold water.

There's Z, buying some stuff for his bug friend at a pharmacy. He was so sick. I almost had to take him to the hospital one night, but thank goodness he perked up a bit. That would have been a huge pain, in many ways.

A cheery group of truck-riders. They were totally staring into our van while we all waited in line at a toll booth. We got started at a lot. Well, the tiny blond ones, especially.

And that's that. We went back to Delhi, but that, my friend, is in the Delhi post. Anyway, there were ups and downs, but overall it was a good trip. Especially as time continues to dull the bad memories...aka, the horrible stomach issues. In fact, tonight Zac said, "Huh. I'm actually beginning to look back FONDLY on this..." Definite progress. I'm so thankful we have the opportunity to do all this traveling. It's really is a major perk of Z's job. Soooo, goodbye, India! See ya later! Maybe.

The Germany post

2012-01-05T18:11:00.005-02:00

I know. We travel a lot. Trust me, if you were in this profession, you would, too. We popped up to Germany for the weekend in the middle of December (I know, right?! "Popped up to Germany!" We are spoiled. In some ways.). It was fabulous. I'll tell you, we were all traveled out, after our adventure in India, but Germany was actually quite rejuvenating. It was calm. Traffic was orderly. Everything... worked. The above picture is Maeve watching the luggage belt work. These little tigers in cages kept going 'round and 'round... advertisements for a car rental place... and Maeve would trot along beside them, chatting away. It was rather cute, I must say. And many other people said so, too. Not just her mom. Ha!

We flew into Munich and then stayed in Garmisch, a lovely little town a bit farther south. We were in the coolest hotel. It was geared towards families, and had several playrooms, a heated pool, FREE stuff in the bathrooms (like diapers and lotions and, um, feminine products, etc.). The people were super friendly. We loved it!

This is the playroom adjoining the dining room. What a super idea! Z and I could linger over the yummy German buffet breakfast and drink cup after cup of hot cocoa while the kids dashed off to this room. There were little ride-on toys dotted throughout the hallways of the hotel, and it was perfectly acceptable and encouraged for the kiddos to just ride around. Through the dining room. Probably sounds horrible to some people, but it was wonderful for us and the other families. Speaking of other families, we met a lovely German lady staying there with her children who was up visiting from South Africa. Turns out we have a mutual friend/acquaintance here in Bulgaria. Small world. I'm sorta used to that happening in church settings, but just totally random? Pretty cool. (It's Nina, in case you're reading, Kelly.)

Ahhhh, how beautiful. And handsome.

We took the bus (free bus passes with the hotel) into town to go to the teeny tiny Christmas market, but we accidentally went too far and "had" to walk through a good bit of the town to get back. Poor us, forced to stroll past all those lovely buildings!

Made it! The market! Many a bratwurst and mug of hot chocolate and/or kinderpunch was enjoyed...

The drawing bug bit them hard one evening. Those are N&B's great bunk beds.

We also went up to Neuschwanstein Castle one of the days we were there. Really, it was such a short trip... We arrived Thursday night (on ONE flight... NO layovers! yay!) and left early afternoon Sunday. Anyway, Saturday we went to the castle. We were there years ago... TEN years ago! But in the spring. So, the snow was a new one. It was gorgeous in the snow, too. And colder. Go figure. This place is sooo beautiful inside. It wasn't intended for the public, just as King Ludwig's private retreat, and the paintings covering the walls inside are just spectacular. You're not allowed to take photographs inside, unfortunately (for us, but obviously good for the paintings). Oh, also we ran into a bunch of friends from the embassy (the Ryan family, the Lopez fam, and Chad :) who were heading up to the castle when we were leaving. It was fun and strange seeing them there, even though we knew they were going to try to go, too.

We hiked up behind the castle to get the next picture. That's Bran and me. We were behind because Bran had to pee. It's better than Nuala needing to pee in the freezing snow, but still not pleasant.

Ahhh... this picture. Z pretty much dragged us all up to this bridge. It was windy and freezing and we trudged through piles of snow, but obviously it was worth it. The sobs from our littlest one's frozen lips faded eventually.

We rode in a carriage down. Too bad we didn't ride one UP. But then we wouldn't have been able to enjoy all the whining, so it worked out for the best, I suppose. Wow. Nuala was in a terrible mood during/after the castle tour. So terrible it was almost funny. As soon as we got in the carriage, and the man put her and Bran in the front beside him -- poof! Happiness.

She got to be in charge of the camera on the ride down from the castle. We're all about rewarding bad behaviour. Except she didn't get to buy a souvenir from the castle, while Bran got an awesome helmet. She kept saying, all huffily and I-don't-care-ish, "well, that's too bad, because I was going to buy THIS for you, Mom..." and other such stuff. "Oh, really? Well in that case..." Yeah, nice try, girlie.

We now have several shots of horse bums...

And several of these.

That day was quite snowy. It was beautiful, actually, but made me a bit nervous to be driving around in the dinky little car we were in. Especially driving on the road beside this lake. Thankfully, Z is a super good snow driver, and very careful. He loves this lake. It's in Austria, and we always have to stop and take his picture by it. Okay, so that's three times. I like this shot, so pretty. And (again), handsome... ;)

Walking through Garmisch at night.

Catching snowflakes.

OUR table at the hotel. It had our name on it. Isn't it so nice and Christmas-y?

Annnnd, catching more snowflakes on the way back to the airport! For our short, easy, gloriously bathroom-break-free flight home!

The kids had fun. Z and I had fun. It was fun. Speaking of fun, here is our annual Christmas video that Zachariah puts together. He does a really great job on them! This is long, and no one is obligated to watch it, but here it is:

Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T19:00:00.011-02:00

Merry Christmas! A tad late. This is Nuala's drawing of the Nativity for this year.

Now, my lameness has reached new heights, because I took ZERO pictures of my children in their Christmas outfits. Not that they had special, matchy outfits, but it's kinda the thing to do, and I forgot about it until after church on Christmas day, when 2 of the 3 had already changed. The thought flitted across my mind that I should re-dress them for a family photo, but common sense quickly shoved it away. Nuala and Maeve do have cute little matchy dresses that they wore at other times during December... like above! See? Cute and matchy.

And Santa Claus. Dyado Koleda, in Bulgarian. This is the fellow from the embassy party. Again, I didn't even think to dress my kiddos Christmas-y. Nuala did it on her own. Then, as usual, there were so many cute children there, all in their special outfits! Sigh. I have other strengths. Maeve was not a bit disturbed by the big guy. Well, okay... she was a bit wary, but not enough to keep her from tromping up there after Nuala and Bran. I did think she might not want to go up by herself, but it totally seemed to me that she was just steeling herself, watching her big bro and sis, and then headed right up as Bran slid off Santa's lap. She didn't pretend to enjoy it, but she put up with it to get her goodies.

Nuala drew Santa a picture. There've been a lot of Christmas pictures popping up around the house. I like this one of Daddy and Nuala. He has cool gloves on, AND his name is mirror-image. I think it's so funny when she does this! It doesn't happen often, but when it does she's always paranoid for a few days: "Mommy, did I write it backwards?"

Top: Bran's Santa, Nuala's tree, Nuala's picture of Baby Jesus. These are mini-drawings. Bottom: Nuala's Santa, etc.

Bran and Nuala versions of elves...

And some reindeer.

Z and I took Bran and Nuala to The Nutcracker. That's them, in their seats, and the statues memorializing the "liberation" of Bulgaria by the Soviet Army. They looked pretty cool on our way downtown.

So, yes. Their very first ballet. It would be great if I could say we all loved it, but... I can't. It was lovely, but also somewhat boring. The dancing was beautiful and mostly fun to watch, the costumes were nice...but it was long. And poor Nuala, who loves ballet and beautiful things, had it in her head that the Swan Princess was going to make an appearance... I'm not sure who put it in her head, but it might have been me. I honestly don't remember. All I know, is she kept asking, "when does the Swan Princess show up?" and I said, "I don't really know... soon probably..." And then I thought, "hmmm... I'm pretty sure there's no Swan Princess in the Nutcracker..." Yes, I know, I should know the story better. I've never been before, though that's not really an excuse. I did get invited once, at BYU, but luckily I was already going to be on my way home, because the guy was strange and I'd already "broken up" with him, as much as you can do that when you're not even officially going out, but I probably would have gone just to see the performance, and that's not fair. (So, obviously, it wasn't Zac. I know the "strange" bit had you convinced for a moment.)

Gingerbread-ish men. And Ikea gingerbread houses! Next time we're hot gluing them together, like our friends did.

Annnnd... sugar cookies! Wait, no. These are actually salt dough ornaments. Still fun, just not (so) edible. We had a lot of fun this year cranking out the ornaments. Lots of watercolors and lots of glitter. Oh my... LOTS of glitter. Also, I had the grand idea that the Primary kids (I'm Primary president now, but we only have 8 or 9 kids, plus 3 or 4 little nursery-goers, but a small, sometimes-bilingual Primary is a challenge all in itself) should make ornaments for all the branch members. So, two Sundays before Christmas I brought 60 ornaments and the kiddos painted them. And glittered them. Then I mod-podged pictures of the Savior on them. We had plenty for the branch. THEN we found out on Christmas Eve (don't even get me started on the "miscommunication" that led to this) that our branch and the other branch here in Sofia were meeting together the next morning, so I had to make MORE. Late on Christmas Eve. It was okay, though, just kinda wished I'd known beforehand.

We took the kiddos downtown to the German Christmas Market that was set up by the Nevski Cathedral. It was fun, and pretty authentic!

The kiddos liked the big Christmas tree roaming around. The little one is not Maeve. Just a random child. Actually, Maeve did NOT like the Christmas tree. She saw there were no goody bags involved, so no need to cozy up to it. They all liked riding the Bulgarian merry-go-round. They seem to just attach any sort of toy car or little bike or whatever. Great fun!

We also ran into a bunch of missionaries, out on P-day! It's always fun seeing these guys.

We've had a fair amount of snow, so of course we've been sledding! Just at the end of our street (2 houses down) is a great little driveway-ish slope. The kids love it, and we pretty much always have it to ourselves. Maeve's lucky that Bran likes to pull her around. Actually, that makes me pretty lucky, too.

Christmas Eve we had six missionaries, two families from church, and our friend, Maria, over for a late lunch. That's when we did the turkey and ham and all the fixin's. It was a lot of fun. The kids all ran wild ("kids" includes the missionaries ;) and had a blast. Elder Wheat is a good sport and gives lots of shoulder rides. They all do. I did pull Nuala off the poor guy so he could eat, though...

Here's Maria with Maeve. She's our friend/babysitter/photographer. The kids love her!

The whole gang -- minus Ivy, Maeve's little buddy, who was sleeping, and me. Because someone had to take the picture.

It was a fun Christmas Eve, but despite starting the get-together intentionally quite early (2pm), it still went long. We didn't get to have a nice, slow night with the kiddos, like we had planned to. They were pooped from playing so much, there were no taxis out so Z needed to drop off some friends, and the kids DIDN'T EVEN put out cookies for Santa. Sigh. Luckily Zac and I did, and it was good enough for Santa! We all got some lovely things. And, as seems to be the case with little ones, the smaller presents were the biggest hits. Know what had earned "favorite" status by Christmas night when I asked them? For Nuala, her harmonica. Bran? A small Clone Wars figure and a Playmobil catapult from Ebay.

After opening the first gift, which is the picture of the Saviour and the story of His birth from Luke, it was time for other presents. It is so much fun having Christmas with little kids. Seriously, the best. Here's one of the two pics of Maeve from Christmas.

The one pic of Bran-man. With his Wicket backpack.

And Nuala. Tired after church. It was nice, actually, having church on Christmas. We heard two lovely talks about Christ, and sang lots of Christmas songs. Bulgarian or English, Christmas songs are beautiful. So, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to you all! Vesela Koleda i Chestita Nova Godina :) May we remember the special gift that is our Saviour all year long.

India: Agra (the Taj Mahal! And a fort. And an old guy. And stuff.)

2011-12-22T15:47:00.000-02:00

Still cranking out the India posts... Here are some more pictures, and hopefully not a lotta talking... writing... Anyway. This is one of our favorite pics to come out of the trip. Ahhhh... the Taj Mahal. Ahhhh... the cute kids. And of course at least ONE of the three has to be grumpy. I mean, it only makes the picture better, doesn't it? So, here is the AGRA post. That's the city where the Taj Mahal is. We drove there (well, Casey drove us there) from Delhi.

On our way...

They were telling "secrets." It was pretty dang cute.

Looking out my window...

We stopped for lunch along the way, and of course there were people waiting for tourists to come by so they could perform. These cute boys and their pet snakes (one cobra, one other type) were no exception. The kiddos and I got to pet the snakes. Even Maeve needed to.

Yummmm... the delicious, and still-cheap-yet-over-priced-for-India-because-Casey-probably-got-a-kickback-for-taking-us-to-this-place food. It was really, really, really good. BUT, even though I am well over my illness, and Z has been completely recovered (we think) for about a week, I still have no desire to eat that. It was soooooo yummy at the time.

Alright, I loved the trucks in India. I forgot to to fix this pic, so the light was better, etc., but they were painted all colorfully, and they all said something like you can (maybe) see above: "Horn Please -- Use Dipper at Night" Dipper is the indicator. And the horn... everyone was honking ALL the time. Not rudely, but just like, "hey, I'm here and I'm coming up next to you..." It was actually kinda cool, and friendly seeming. Such a flow to the traffic there.

Camel traffic!

Bran walking unwittingly through the doorway being decorated with marigolds for a wedding. At least he didn't step on the flowers, my clueless (in this instance, not in general) little fellow.

Petting a brahma bull. After this, some guy told us not to, and at first I thought it was because they were considered sacred, but then Casey told us that only cows are sacred, not these guys nor water buffalo, so perhaps the man just thought it wasn't the wisest move, letting your small children pet a strange bull. Weirdo. (kidding!)

Our first tuk-tuk ride! It was fun. Also, two guys -- friends of the driver -- hopped on randomly and there were four guys squished very humorously in the front seat, haha! ha... Never mind. Sigh. I guess you had to be there...

We met this fellow one morning having breakfast at our hotel. He's American, his name is Roy. Or Ron. I think Roy. He was 72 or something. He was on his last couple of days of a 6+ week adventure that began in Nepal. He was really cool. Usually his wife goes with him, but not this time, so he was just on his own. Tooling around Asia. Well, he was with a group when he was trekking in Nepal. Interesting and sad story: Another group that was trekking near them had one of their members die on them, so since Roy's group was headed back, they stretched the poor guy's body out on one of the bench seats in their van and took him back, too. So Roy's group was all crammed in the van with a blanket-covered-body. The poor fellow was older-ish, also, and had a heart attack or something. It was fun talking to Roy.

It was super, super foggy in Agra the mornings we were there. We were going to go to the Taj Mahal in the morning, but the views wouldn't have been as nice with all that fog, so we went to Agra Fort instead.

Another mobbing, with Maeve at the center.

Bran really wanted his picture taken by the tomb of the last Englishman to live/"rule" at the fort.

Happy Bran, grumpy Nuala...

Annnnd, switch!

The tower behind Z is where Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the Taj Mahal, was imprisoned by his son for 9 years after he overthrew him. Did you know Shah Jahan's wife died while in childbirth with her FOURTEENTH child? I didn't know that's how she died. But that's a lotta kids... You can read a short and interesting bit about it all here.

Maeve was/is quite into photography.

Some pretty little girls and their little bro. And an old guy hovering in the background. Doesn't he look like a monk? He's not. These children and their parents took about 20 pictures of/with our kiddos, and they were real sweeties. Cute, huh?

Nice... architecture. Just try to look past the death glare.

That afternoon we went to the Taj Mahal, after the fog cleared out. We passed these schoolboys on the way.

Ta-daaaa! This is the view from our hotel room. Not what we actually saw after the schoolboys.

This is pretty much what we saw next: The entrance gate. There are 11 little dome-y things directly above the entrance, and there's another gate like this one on the other side of the Taj, also with 11 little dome-y things. That was on purpose. They represent the 22 years it took to build this beauty.

And there it is! That's me, looking at it. I'm probably saying, "Wow..." Or, "where's Bran?!"

Ha! Our favorite picture again :D There's actually a whole series of these, but I'll spare you.

The backside backs up along the Yamuna River. It was really pleasant, up on the "back porch." Z and I had blue shoe covers to put on over our sandals, but the kiddos had to just take theirs off, so they were running around barefoot. Not exactly what I would've chosen for my kids to do in India, but hey, they survived.

Hehehee... This was pretty dang funny. This lady was holding Maeve, and Maeve's eyes kept straying to the bindi (the dot) on her forehead, so what did the lady do? (Rhetorical question, since the answer's obvious.) Maeve HATED it. She was quite perturbed and kept saying "ge-it off!" Even after it was back on the owner's forehead, it was like she could still feel it there, poor girl. Kept trying to grab at it, saying "off!" Later I faked her out and pretended to put one on her. It was funny.

This is Bran's shot. Already with an eye on the pretty girls! Really, they were taking pics of him and Nuala, so he was just getting them back.

Fake grumpy shot.

These two little fellas... Man. They were sweet, but they followed us around the WHOLE time we were in and around the Taj Mahal. They kept trying to help keep the kids safe and stuff. Like running after Maeve if she got too far ahead (in their opinions). It was slightly annoying, but it's not like I could just shoo them away. They weren't after money, they were just really fascinated with us. Can't blame 'em, really... we ARE pretty neat-o. Especially because we use words like "neat-o."

See? Keeping an eye out...

There was lots of good frolicking space there.

Or you could just stand, if you wanted to.

Maeve loves piggy back rides, and Bran loves to give them! It's really quite adorable. Usually he just tries to hold onto her little arms instead of putting his arms under her bum, so she just slowly oozes down his back until he can't walk and her arms are juuuust about to pop outta their sockets... This time he took my advice, though. They both look much more comfortable.

I love this picture.

And the family. With the Taj Mahal behind us! Wow. We went there. It was gorgeous and we loved it. And no one was sick yet, so that really WAS a good time. I'm not sure why I'm bending over. I sometimes do that in pics with the kids, just to get closer to them, but then when I do it and Z's beside me and he doesn't do the bend-thing, I look all weird... like I'm about to keel over or something, using my last bit of strength to smile for the photo while almost doubling over in agony. THAT wasn't until the end of the trip... (and it was mostly Z...poor Z.)

Just some other Agra pics. More camels moseying through the street.

Feeding the local monkeys popcorn...

A bunch of water buffalo and a tuk tuk, cruising down the road.

And next... Jaipur... I'm actually enjoying India again, doing these. I can somewhat relive the experience, but from the comfort and sanitary conditions of my own home. Really, though, India was a rewarding experience, with its ups and downs -- but that all helps make it memorable. Quite memorable.

Man alive... now they're FIVE!

2011-12-19T19:33:00.012-02:00

Five years old today! Cliche, but true: Time FLIES. Wanna see? Here we go...

New babies. Bran on the left, Nuala on the right.

And then they were ONE!

We blinked and -- poof! Energetic, adorable TWO-year olds...

(Two-year old Bran, because you can't really see him above. Ahhh... Uruguayan beaches.)

Three. That seemed to sneak up, too.

Four skipped along behind three...

And NOW they're five.

They had a fun day. We all did. Z took the day off and we went to a movie (TinTin) that was being shown in English as a special showing. Animated movies are always dubbed in Bulgarian, while live-action ones are subtitled, so it was definitely a treat for them to go to an English movie. Maeve didn't come. It was for the best. Trust me.

Then they got to open their presents in the middle of the day instead of waiting until evening, woohoo!! They got some fun stuff.

Maeve loved their Ewoks, that we got off Ebay. We always give the other child/children one present on the other bdays, so when Maeve was opening hers, she kept saying, "my Ewok! my Ewok!" all full of excitement. Nope. Not an Ewok. Luckily her birthday's coming up soon (Did I say "luckily?" Sigh. Didn't mean it. Slooooow down, slow down!) so if she still loves 'em, maybe she'll get one, too.

Bran dressed his Ewok up. This is just a cute picture. Oh, they loved all their gifts, but a big hit was their stomp rockets, which some of their friends have. They love them. I don't know why we haven't gotten some before! They were blasting those suckers off all evening. Maeve is getting good at it, too. Good thing they're foam, since we've been using them inside. Anyway, just a little plug for stomp rockets. Great entertainment, folks... great entertainment.

They each got their own little birthday cake this year. We bought them, and they didn't care, but I was a little bit sad to stray from the wacky cake tradition. The poor kiddos were too full from all the pizza they ate while watching ANOTHER movie to finish them, but do not worry... Z and I helped them out. Oh, and they wore those little paper crown/headbands all day, even all over the mall. It was cute how much they liked them. Hmmm... I think I'll make Z one for his next birthday. I'm sure he'll love it just as much as Nuala and Bran... Anyway, the tykes (are they getting too big to be "tykes?" Nah.) are pretty excited to be five! We love you, Nuala and Bran, our funny, smart, kind, cute, adventurous five-year olds! Happy birthday!

"I LOVE your light saber right there! You look so modest!" and other gems...

2011-12-08T17:21:00.011-02:00

As usual, I've been jotting down things that Nuala and Bran (and Maeve, but she'll get her own toddler-talk post, lucky lass) say that I find cute, and after collecting various scraps of paper from around the house, I realized that they go back to FEBRUARY. That's almost a year. Yikes. Anyway. Here you have: More things-they-say-that-their-momma-thinks-are-worth-remembering... Also, they both used to always say "him, her, and them" when they should've used "he, she, and they," but Nuala's over that now. Bran... not yet. (ALSO, I'm not sure what's up with the different fonts, but hey... it's late (as usual) and my caring threshold is crazy low. Or is that my NON-caring threshold? Huh. Well, you know what I mean. P.S. I think I fixed it, but just in case I didn't, I'm leaving allll this in here...)

Bran (on the way back from ski class): If you stand on your toes you will fall down.

Me (thinking this was ski advice imparted to them by their instructor): Oh, did Martin teach you that?
Bran: No! If YOU stand on your toes YOU will fall down because you are huge and your toes are little.

(Thanks, Dude... Feb 2011)

--------------------
Me: What’s your baby’s name?
Bran: Too-too!
Me: Oh, like a ballerina’s outfit?
Bran: Um….no... His name is DRAGON LEG!

(Much more manly. Feb 2011)

--------------------
Nuala: ...them didn’t even know it was blowed away! But them had faith and builded it again on a rock.
Bran (whispering to me): That is Heavenly Father. (Feb 2011)
--------------------
Me: I wish we had a kitty!
Bran: I wish we had a kitty AND a doggy!
Nuala: I wish we had butterflies and a giraffe. (Feb 2011)

Bran: Nuala, why do you always say, “this is not my favorite”?
*conversation about this ensues*
Bran (very patiently): Nuala, you know I love you, I just don’t like you sayin’ that...
Me: Awww, that’s nice.
Bran: And I love YOU, Mommy Ninja. (Feb 2011)
--------------------
Nuala: Did you know girls command boys to do everything for them?
Bran: Did you know boys are in charge of our family?
Nuala: Nuh-uh. I’d rather have a nicer brother... like Blake!
Bran: Did you know him is going to hit you with a stick? (Feb 2011)

--------------------

Bran: It’s an alien and a heart. It means I love you! (Feb 2011)
--------------------
Bran: AaaaAAAAHHHH!
Me: What happened?
Nuala (looking murderously defiant while both of them are in the boat swing): I was nursing Bran's baby and my baby and there was not room for his baby, so I throwed him over!

(I promise, this is not indicative of some repressed traumatic experience from her nursing days! Neither of them were ever tossed over. Even when they were huge and never stopped moving and I felt like I was a sow with piglets vying for the best position. Okay, they were actually rather well-behaved. But still. Feb 2011)

Nuala (very irate): Bran got in the car and did not EVEN TALK to Belinda! (her doll.)
Bran (defensively): I thought her was asleep! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Me: Bran, move your toys!
Bran (highly offended): Them are NOT toys, them are babies! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Me: Oh, Maeve, you got a baby dollie...
Nuala (also highly offended): Her is NOT a doll, her is my REAL baby, like Maeve! (Mar 2011)

--------------------

Bran: Mommy, did you know that when Daddy blew up my tires, it went “eek, eek, eek!” like a mouse?!
Me: Cool!
Bran: I want to find out if there is a mouse in there because I want him to be our friend! (Mar 2011)

Bran (excitedly, about a caged bird): Him tweeted at me! I think that means him loves me! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Bran (concerned about eating lamb and wanting to believe the little guy wasn’t dead): I think the baby lamb is still alive. Him just does not have one of his legs... (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Nuala (talking about my sister’s family. She was expecting, and has now had, baby #7/boy #5): They have two girls, and a LOTTA boys... (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Brains!
Me: What about them?
Bran: They tell us what to do... mine is telling you to tell scary stories. (Mar 2011)

Nuala: Our ears protect us!
Me: How?
Nuala: They hear if a car or a lion is coming. (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Me (mumbling to myself after church while Z was out of town): Who knows if I’ll even get a nap today...?
Bran: Jesus! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Can we please watch a movie to celebrate Daddy being gone? (Mar 2011)

--------------------

Nuala (while talking about making good choices): Satan will get SO angry! Maybe he will stomp his foot!
Bran: I do not like Satan. (Mar 2011)

Nuala: Don’t even TELL me poking me in the eye was the funnest part...
Bran (sincerely): That WAS the funnest part. (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Nuala (playing "Hot or Cold"): Cold... cold...COLD... COOOLD!! You’re in... WATER! COLD water!!! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Me: I guess your castle and your house could be for ANY of the baby warriors.
Nuala: Mine will SURELY not! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Nuala: They are called HIGH heels.
Me: Why are they called “high heels”?
Nuala: Because they have “highs”.
Me: What are those?
Nuala (looking at me like I'm a tad slow): The things that make you higher! (Mar 2011)

Nuala: I’m drawing a black turtle...
Me: Oh, it looks a lot like a turtle!
Nuala (exasperated voice): That’s because it IS. (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Nuala, to Bran: I’m not mad at you, why should you be mad at ME?! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Nuala: Mommy, know what I will name my real baby when I grow up? Bageea. I will name my boy baby Boogawooga. I hope he is a good baby and will not want to nurse all the time... (Mar 2011)

Bran: Hey, I see the heavens! Actually, I don’t think it is the heavens. It is the mountain with snow. Now I can see the heavens! It looks like a monster puppy dog jumpin’! (Mar 2011)
--------------------
Bran: If you see a white kitty with black spots, that is a FIREFIGHTER kitty. (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Daddy! You helped me to remember something from Conference! When the Spirit tells us something, we have to do it!
Me: Why?
Bran: Because otherwise, him will make a lion or a bear come get us. (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Usually I do not cry, but this time I did because you could almost see my bones and my blood. (Apr 2011)

Bran (when we were at the circus): I am sad for the lion. Him looks sad... (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Nuala (about our cherry tree): Mommy, look! It’s getting even blossominger! (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Poor chocolate!
Me: Why?
Bran: That it has to be eaten.
Me: Well, don’t eat it...
(later)
Bran: Mommy, did you know that the chocolate animals’ home is in my tummy? So them are going back HOME!

(Suuuure, Bran... whatever helps you sleep at night... ;) Apr 2011

--------------------
Me: Bran, how many cashews did you have?
Bran: One! (then very softly) ...again, and again, and again... (Apr 2011)

Bran (about a baby warrior, which is what he calls action figures, etc.): I will bring him to church so him can learn a little bit about Jesus! Actually, him already knows about Jesus because him is a good guy. Him just wants to hear what the prophet says. (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Daddy: Maybe if you clean up really well you can have one more Easter egg...
Bran (thinking it over): ...But how ELSE can we have an Easter egg? (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Me: Y'all are being big babies!
Nuala (highly offended): We are NOT babies!
Me: No, you're BIG babies!
Nuala: Oh. Yes. We are. (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Did you know Maeve has so long arms, like a monkey?! (Apr 2011)

Me: ...well, kids don’t usually go to war...
Bran: But which ones do? I mean, I know that Peter Pan fights in wars with Captain Hook, but which other ones do? (Apr 2011)
--------------------
Bran: Eighty-ten-eleventy-twelve!
Me: That’s SUPER old!
Nuala: Super duper older than Daddy?

(Just baaaarely...) Apr. 2011

--------------------
*Okay, this next one was perhaps one of my favorite conversations. Bran was just so super matter-of-fact about it all... like, why bother disputing? She's the cutest. Nuala was defensive because she thought her baby doll was pretty cute, too.

Bran: Our baby is the cutest baby ever. The other mommies that have babies just THINK their baby is the cutest in the whole wide creation. But ours is the cutest!
Nuala: Everyone’s baby is the cutest!
Bran (pointing at Maeve): THAT baby is the cutest.
Nuala: You are saying mean things, and Jesus does not like that!
Bran: I’m not saying mean things, just that our baby is the cutest in the whole wide creation.
Nuala: All babies are the cutest in the whole wide creation, even mine!

*big argument continues...* (Apr 2011)

--------------------
Bran: Mommy, did the doctor tell you any stories to make you not panic when you got your blood taken out? (May 2011)

Nuala: Mommy! Do not let Maeve play with matches! Even in a box! I learned that on Seymour's Playhouse. (May 2011)
--------------------
Nuala (telling me about a nightmare she had): ...and they were going to shoot my finger!
Me: Why?
Nuala (the "for real?" look again): Because they are BAD guys! (May 2011)
--------------------
Nuala: Daddy’s hair is red.
Bran: Nuala, Daddy’s hair is orange!
Nuala: It is REDDY orange. (May 2011)

--------------------

Nuala: Bran, put your toothpick in your nose, it’s kind of tickly!

(Great plan, Nuala, great plan... May 2011)

Nuala’s story, May 12, 2011
Once there was a princess who was stuck in a tower, who was Sleeping Beauty. Then the prince climbed up one of the vines and rescued Sleeping Beauty. And they were going to get married. Then he heard a girl named Molly saying, “what a beautiful day it is!” and he walked over to her and said, “what’s your name?” “My name is Molly, what’s your name?” “Prince Charming.” And then he wanted to marry both of them, but he did eenie meenie miney moe and picked Sleeping Beauty. So they went along to the castle and got married and Molly went back to her cottage and layed down on her face and cried. Then she came out and said to him, “I’m never going to live near you again!”
--------------------
Bran: Mommy, you don’t often play with my baby warriors!
Me: I do play with them!
Bran: Not with ME...

(Busted! I DO usually wait till he goes to bed and THEN play all night... ;) May 2011
--------------------
Bran (admiringly): Nuala, you make one HECK of an Autobot! (June 2011)
--------------------
Me: Nobody thinks it’s funny. Nuala, do you think it’s funny?
Nuala: No.
Me: Neither do I.
Bran: ...but if BLAKE were here, HIM would think it was funny... (June 2011)

Me: Where’s a little ball that’s round...?
Bran: ...all balls are round...

(Huh. Actually, the dictionary says a ball is "round or round-ISH." So there! June 2011)

--------------------
Nuala: Bran, let’s do that game where we elbow each other!

(Again. GREAT plan. June 2011)

--------------------
Bran: Mommy, I don’t want Maeve to be so commanding!
Me: Well, I remember having TWO babies at the same time who were just as commanding as Maeve...
Bran: Well, if her is going to command me, I’m going to command her!

(He quickly discovered that you just cannot command an 18-month old. Aug. 2011)

--------------------
Nuala: Are there trees in Japan?
Us: Yes...
Nuala: Do they have shade? (Aug 2011)
--------------------
Nuala (about my BYU running cap): When you’re an old grandma and that does not fit you anymore and you are dead, can I have it?
Me: ...sure, honey...

(All of the above, or would just one of those options work...? Sep 2011)

--------------------
Bran: Nuala! I LOVE your light saber right there! You look so modest! (Sep 2011)
--------------------
Bran (while playing in our boat swing with a friend): Cort, if you are worried about how high it is, just say a prayer or put out the anchor! (Sep 2011)
--------------------
Nuala: Bran cutted some of my hair off!
Me: Where did you cut it? How much?
Bran: Well, it was only OLD hair... (Sep 2011)

India: Delhi Days

2011-11-30T18:20:00.018-02:00

Hmm. Well, to start with, I should just put this out there: This was probably our least favorite trip ever. Not necessarily India's fault, unless you feel that nurturing, and then gifting to us, some sort of bug that pretty much made us want to just remove our stomachs for a week, give or take a day or two, is, indeed, due to the fact that we were in... India. So, yes, it is India's fault. Even now, being home for a few days, it's difficult to want to blog with joy about our adventure. And that's not really fair, because as the ickiness fades, the good parts start to stand out more. So really, I should wait (like I normally do, haha) a good couple of weeks or more before I blog. But this semi-detestment towards our trip makes me want to just get it done with. So, here you have...

INDIA: It could've been better... it could've been worse.

Our flight out of Amsterdam was delayed for several hours, so we didn't get into Delhi until about 2 in the morning. I think it was around 4:30 or so that we collapsed into our beds and conked out. We slept until 11-ish (WE had to wake the kids. It was strange.) and then headed to Delhi's Red Fort, where the Mughal emperors lived. It's a fort, and it's red. Honestly, it shouldn't take long to walk to the entrance. Maybe a 10-minute stroll along the moaty area.

Unless you are us. Or anyone else with small, cute, blond children. We were basically movie stars there. I think I'll do a whole post later with pics of people taking pics of the kids. It was amazing. We took the twins to Peru when they were 11-months old, and they got the star treatment there in Cuzco, and Turkey's been quite enamored by our little blondies, but India... Wow. This was unreal.

Here no one had discovered us yet, except for a pair of fellows who took turns passing Maeve back and forth for pictures. But Bran stole a moment to ponder on the beauty of the walls of the fort. Actually, I think he was looking for crocodiles in the moat. He really wanted to see a crocodile.

Before we went into the fort, we popped back out on the street to see if we could find a snack. We hadn't eaten breakfast, and the fort visit was taking a lot longer than we had anticipated, seeing as how we couldn't walk 15 feet without people stopping us for pictures. There was this little boy out begging, with this tiny baby. The babe couldn't have been more than a month old. The boy said the baby had no mama, but I think he was trying to get more sympathy, and in turn, more money, of course. Whatever the situation was, it was sad, even if there was a mama who needed to send her tiny one out to earn more. The little one was hungry... not crying yet, but he kept rooting around on the little boy and trying to suck on his chin. I kinda wanted to just nurse him, right there. Poor little kids. So many have such a tough life.

We found some big crispy bread, and then went in. Bran loved seeing the guards all over the place, because they had such nice boots. I mean guns.

The fort is now run by chipmunks. They were everywhere we went. The kids loved them, of course. They have kinda long tails, huh?

The pooped kiddos hanging out. Poor Bran was sick the first day or two, but it was something he brought with him (totally different than what we ended up getting). He was a little trooper, though. He did throw up in the hotel lobby, mostly in the trash can. Then he kept having poop false alarms, so we got to spend lots of time in stinky bathrooms, trying not to touch things.

Here's the front entrance of the Red Fort. It was a pretty cool place. And the weather! Ah, now here's some enthusiasm! It was great to dig out our sandals and summery clothes again! Yes... lovely, lovely weather... sigh...

After the Red Fort, we just went to the Delhi Zoo. We ate in the cafeteria-type place there, and it was soooo cheap. And soooooo delicious! (It's difficult to say that, because right now the thought of Indian food makes my stomach turn, but I clearly remember loving the food there before I got sick. And this stuff at the zoo was amazing.) It was spicy and perfectly seasoned, and did I mention sooo cheap? About 50-cents for a big plate of food. And we got a couple of mango lassis (shakes) that did NOT make us sick even though I stood there and watched the guy make them with ice (you're only supposed to drink bottled water/drinks, and avoid ice because it's made with non-bottled water) but didn't give it a second thought until that night when Z asked me about it... anyway. DEEElicious food.

Walking into the zoo. Running, I guess. It was a nice zoo, if you weren't an animal in it. There were some neat ruins right next to it, and you can see a bit of them poking up above the trees there in the middle.

N and B loved the trash cans. They were shaped like animals. Hippos, monkeys, rabbits...

Maeve fell asleep and I got to wear her for the one and only time the entire trip. Unless she's extremely tired (and she was...she was already asleep when we popped her in the mei tai.), she's much too busy to be confined like this. Of course. She IS almost two... But this was great, not just because I got to snuggle her like so, but because I could cover up that glowing hair with her hat and we attracted a bit less attention! Yay!

Bran is a very serious little photographer. We gave our old point-and-shoot to the kids (mainly Bran) and he loves taking it places and getting his shots. Maeve does too. Anyway, here he's got his eye on a monkey. I felt extra badly for the monkeys, because all over the zoo FREE monkeys were running around. Rub it in, fellas... rub it in.

Like this guy. Bran is also taking his picture. There were a whole bunch right here, and all of them except for this guy started to take off when we got kinda near. This one came closer, which Bran thought was awesome. Then he started hissing and jumping around all threateningly and Bran thought it was less awesome.

We got ice cream. Yum! It cost less than a dollar for four cones. Sanitation... price... it's a trade-off.

Sunday we went to church (just Sacrament Meeting) and then drove the 4 hours to Agra. Oh, we hired a car and driver, by the way. It worked out well, except for the whole not-being-able-to-talk-freely-while-traveling thing. But it was actually cheaper than renting a car, we didn't have the stress (which would have been high) of driving in India, we didn't have to figure out where to go, we didn't have to pay for gas... it was great. Trains would have been another option, but not really with 3 little kids, price-wise, schedule-wise, rigidity-wise... We looked into all the options quite thoroughly, and this driver thing was definitely the way to go for us. Anyway, Mr. Casey was really nice. He picked us up around 8:40, so we could get to church by the 9am starting time. However, we couldn't find it. This pic is of Z and Casey looking for it. Finally, we were about to just head out when Casey said, "we will check over here." And whaddaya know? He found it! AND, it didn't really start until 9:30, which was perfect because it was just before that time.

The branch was really nice. Bigger than ours here in Sofia, and it was in English, so that was great. Everyone was very friendly. The people in India were really friendly, in general. But we really enjoyed going to church there. Unfortunately, I got wrangled into playing the piano for the opening and sacrament hymns, so I didn't get to entirely relax. Not ones I knew really well, either, and it was on a keyboard that I wasn't familiar with so I couldn't find the sustain/pedal function quickly enough so I didn't even have that going in my favor... But it's always kinda fun to make a contribution, however small it may be. The missionary who normally plays the piano came in late, so he got to take over, and he was an amazing player. Good for them, kinda stinky for me... ;)

Then we went to Agra and saw some stuff. Then we went to Jaipur and saw some stuff. But I'll hit on those later. Then we went back to Delhi to fly out. Our plane left at 2am Saturday morning, and we got back in the early afternoon on Friday, so we went to Qutab Minar, a minaret built in 1199 and surrounded by other ruins. It was awesome! I'm so glad we went there! We almost just went straight to the hotel because we weren't feeling well and everyone was tired, but this place was really lovely and interesting.

See? Tired.

Super, super, super, super tall minaret. It's actually the tallest free-standing stone tower in the world, at 237.8 feet. Yep, pret-ty tall.

Cool pillars.

Bran posing with a gun. Just because.

Lots of fun ruins to clamber all around. It was a rambly sort of place, with lots of nooks and crannies and chambers and stuff to explore. Right up our alley.

Here's Casey, leaving us at our very last hotel. The kids really liked him. Maeve especially. He was her special helper buddy, who'd always come and get her out of the the car.

Nuala did not like the milk at that last hotel. She saw me looking at this pic, and said, in a very pained voice: "I did NOT like that milk..." So it's been verified. You can see her henna tattoo in this pic. This is when I got sick. Right when we got into our room, I headed for the bathroom. Then I slept until 10:30, got up and puked violently, and then we left at 11. Nice start to the trip home! Luckily I didn't throw up again until Sunday night. I had other issues. It's great that I'm putting this on the blog, huh?

Oh, and here are both her henna tattoos. All us girls got it done in Jaipur.

Yikes! Bran looking "really, really scared" in the Delhi airport. And then we went home. And the 7hr50min flight to Amsterdam was SO AWESOME since it was the middle of the night and Maeve wanted to be asleep on my lap and Zac and I both had to keep hopping up to use the lovely facilities with very little notice. Oh yeah... the Delhi Belly was keeping us on our toes!

Up next... Agra...

'Round about these parts...

2011-11-15T14:38:00.003-02:00

I'm just trying to catch up... get some of the random, everyday happenings up here. Bran's speech therapist left the kiddos some styrofoam balls the other day, and we had fun building mazes for them. Also, any activity that uses straws is fun. Did you know that Nuala (and Bran to a lesser degree) collects straws? Oh, yes... I've cleaned upwards of 20 of those suckers out of her backpack. Straws from all sorts of places and drinky-things (yogurt, juice, sodas now and then), and they go waaay back. I show her the gunk left inside, and how some of it is turning black, etc., etc., and she is grossed-out and logically recognizes the need to discontinue her collection or at least manage it better... but then the realization fades.

Luckily Maeve was sleeping, or these wouldn't have lasted long.

Not the best picture of her little ear, but on a recent trip to southern Bulgaria we visited a bear reserve where Nuala was doing her Nuala thing... not especially watching where she was going AS SHE LEAPED FROM LARGE ROCK TO LARGE ROCK. She slipped and fell on her ear. You can see the remains of her bruise there at the top. It really didn't photograph well, but I had to try. I mean, how often do you have a bruise on your ear?

A little bit o' dress up.

I just like Nuala's face. So princessy :)

Bran asked me to make them some grappling hooks. A few popsicle sticks... a little bit of hot glue and some red yarn and, voila! Grappling hooks! Here they're using them not to grapple, but to pull up/lower stuff. Kept 'em busy for quite a while.

Potion-making! These are some tame ones. Just a variety of liquids, and some sprinkles. Usually more stuff is involved. And of course, Mom always "gets" to taste the concoctions, and then turn into something. Juice + milk + strawberry syrup + pickles + soy sauce + sprinkles + vinegar + baking soda = YUMMMM...

The babe's still lovin' pockets...

And her pony. And her shoes that were too small for her (2-months younger) friend Emily so my little peanut lucked out! She insisted on sleeping with them the first night she had them. I forgot to take them off of her and when Z brought her in to nurse early in the morning, I got kicked in the eye. A few times. It was on purpose. And I'm serious, it was.

One of Maeve's favorite hangouts! The sink! She looks so big and cute here. And stripey.

more Grandma Buttons pictures...

2011-11-14T17:48:00.007-02:00

Zac's mom came out to stay with us for about 10 days before the rest of the gang arrived for the Romania trip. In those 10-ish days, we had a lot of fun with her! Just, my camera wasn't invited to a lot of it, apparently... Here she had painted the girlies' nails. Maeve stayed nice and still the whole time, a feat she has yet to accomplish when she asks ME to paint her nails. Nuala was thrilled to add Grandma Button's nail polishes to her collection.

While the nail painting was happening on the porch, THIS was happening in the yard. Bran (and me) versus Daddy! This was really fun, and really good exercise. And probably kinda dangerous, when you get right down to it. Just whacking each other with whatever weapon was on hand. And frisbees. And dart guns. Well, the darts.

Then the little girls joined in. Isn't Z just the sweetest daddy ever? Look at him, hurtling towards his innocent little toddler... mace extended... battle cry almost echoing off the screen...

We took GB to the park. We had lovely weather (end Sept./beginning Oct.)! Weather I'm kinda missing about now. Almost ALL the leaves are off our trees! Yep. I bet you're shocked to hear that, since it's only the middle of November... haha.

Maeve found a little friend there. Isn't he a cutie? Yep.

We went to Pancharevo, the nearby hot springs pool, twice. Well, I only went with them once, the second time GB wrangled all three of them while I drove ALONE to pick Z up from work. The car was really, really quiet. N&B had been working on their swimming skills during the summer, and had been able to ditch the life jackets in the deep (for them) end and doggie paddle/flounder around pretty darn well. Grandma helped them fine tune some skills. They had so much fun! Maeve toodled around in her little life jacket, too. She also had fun, and was also cute.

We took a little walk up our mountain. And, look! Shorts and sandals! (Can you tell I'm pining just a tad for that lovely weather? I like fall, but now it's getting coooolllld...)

Bran, itty bitty on the left, and Nuala, not so itty bitty on the right, climbing up a very rocky (more like "boulder-y") stream. Bran is NOT peeing, though it kinda looks like it.

Me and Maeve, when she got tired and wanted to be worn. Doesn't happen so much anymore.

Grandma Buttons on a cute little bridge. And then everyone else arrived and we gallivanted off to Romania. It was terrific to have Grandma all to ourselves for a little while, though!

Presenting... Nuala aaaand her eyebrows!

2011-11-07T10:31:00.007-02:00

Just the other day, Nuala came rushing into the room and said, "Mom! I can move my EYEBROWS!" Apparently this was a new discovery. The pic above shows her, well, moving her eyebrows. But to fully appreciate the focus it takes, I have provided a video below. I don't know...maybe I'm weird, or her mom, or something, but it really makes me laugh.

And, just for fun, two of her Halloween pictures. The first is of herself and Maeve, as witches. Witches who would excel at the long-jump. The second is a little ghost on a fence. Pretty cute, if I do say so myself! And... I do...

Halloween 2011

2011-11-05T14:24:00.000-02:00

Happy Halloween!

This year, Bran was a ninja werewolf (but really he ditched the werewolf head pretty much right away all the time, so was mostly a ninja. And his teeth look gross because Z painted them with zombie teeth paint.), Maeve was a little witch, and Nuala was Izzy, from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If you don't know who they are, and you WANT to, click here to see a picture of her, with her pirate buddies. Nuala has, shockingly, never been a princess for Halloween. Well, two years ago, she was a fairy warrior princess, but that's not a PRINCESS princess, you know? Just kinda strange, seeing how much she likes princesses and looking soooo beautiful. But, I'm not complaining! And, honestly, I don't care what she wants to be, whether it's stereotypical or not, as long as she's having fun and is happy. She can be pink and girly and into fluff and princesses, or she can go the tomboy-ish route. And, like most little girls, she's a bit of both. Aaaand, I was about to keep going about princesses and little girls and yada, yada, yada, but then I remembered this is a Halloween post, so I'll try to stay on-topic here...

Pumpkin carving! They all always like to taste the pumpkins, and, like last year, Maeve wanted to keep eating them. Yum.

Every jack-o-lantern wants a finger poked in its nose.

Bran's on the left, Nuala's on the right. Hers was supposed to be a bit princess-y (ha, back to princesses!), so that's hair on the sides... I'm sure you could tell that was a princess.

They also had fun decorating some paper jack-o-lanterns.

Maeve working quite diligently on hers...

We made these very neat haunted houses, from this blog. I planned on making more for them to decorate, but I couldn't find my exacto knife, and my patience was wearing quite, quite thin trying to cut out all the tiny windows. But they turned out pretty cool! Nuala and Bran had fun drawing little witches and pumpkins and zombies and stuff peeking out.

We had a little Halloween playdate/party. We had lots of yummy treats, and Nuala and Bran were good helpers. Of course. They especially helped make these little spiders. PB/chocolate mixture on Ritz crackers with pretzel stick legs and M&M eyes. I was doling out the M&Ms, and Bran... a boy after my own heart... Bran was making HIS spiders be one-eyed ones, and eating the other eye that was designated for the little arachnid. Can't blame him! My mom sent us a box-full of Halloween candy and stuff, so that was really, really nice... Thanks again, Mom! :)

This picture is totally out of order, but I refuse to invest the amount of time it takes to move it to the right spot, change the HTML code to make it get bigger, etc., etc... So you get it here. This is from the embassy party, right after trick-or-treating at the offices, which were awesomely decorated, by the way. These are our good friends, Tyler, who's 5, and his little sister and brother, Emily and Jakob, who are twins, just 2-months younger than Maeve. They were Minnie and Mickey (obviously) and were super cute! We love hanging out with them! Amy, their mom, is just great! Very fun to be around... and their dad's neat-o, too, if we get right down to it ;) (Bonnie, if you're reading this, you should know that they totally make me think of you, since they've got almost your exact set-up kid-wise.)

Back to our little shindig. We had 20 kids there, including our 3. Luckily the weather was nice, so the chaos could be released outside, too. Here they're playing a game called Witches Brew, which was pretty fun. N and B and I drew a bunch of little spiders, bats, eyeballs, lizard tails, flies, etc... You know, stuff you'd obviously put in a witches brew. Then you sprinkle them all over and the kids have to use a straw to suck them up and then deposit them in a bowl. Suck them up just so they're stuck flat on the end of the straw, not suck them UP up. I thought it was really fun, and I liked drawing all the little thingies. It received mixed reviews from the kids... N&B really liked it.

Maeve did not nap at all before the party (she's so cooperative. Ha.), so she conked out at about 5pm and we put her on the couch. She slept till everyone left, except Amy and her kids. Emily and Jakob helped poke and prod and shoot her awake, so that she'd actually sleep later that night. Z got home from a week in Portland (his cousin Ben's wedding) and Prague (for work) the following day (his 34th birthday), and the Halloween festivities just continued.

Here he is, with Maeve, before going to the school's halloween party (we kinda crashed, were kinda invited...) and then the church's party.

Here are Bran and Nuala playing musical chairs at the church party. They both lost, but this time did NOT dissolve into wailing puddles of tears, so that's progress.

Galia and Doncho, from our branch, trying to hold an oozing Maeve.

Bobbing for apples. I asked another boy if he was going to do it, and he looked at me very disgustedly and said, "No way! Everybody's spit is in there!" Good point, dude, good point.

Our children do not yet mind everybody's spit.

Maeve and Ivy, her little church buddy. She was a bee. :)

Bran and Nuala and their good little friend, Mia, who also is Ivy's big sis. She was Hermione.

Us (minus Z) with Ambassador Warlick at the embassy party. He used to go paragliding with us, but it's been a while. I was super green, by the way, because Nuala did my makeup, for the most part. She's into bold use of color.

Nuala and her little friend, Sloane, after getting their faces painted. Sloane was Pippi Longstocking.

We didn't play our Pin/Stick the Cats on the Fence game during our party, so Bran and Nuala played it by themselves later. This picture just totally captures the essence of the Nuala-Bran relationship. Their expressions say it all. They do get along really well a lot of the time, but the rest of the time you can count on Bran getting this mischievous look and doing whatever he can in order to trigger this sorta response from his sis. Soooooo entertaining! We ALL love it! Ha.

Me: Nuala, are you peeking? Nuala: Nooooo.... Hmmm. I'm pret-ty sure I was onto something. (And she DID want the cat to be flying, so that's not an indication of her innocence.)

Double broomstick ride! Comfy for all. Hope y'all had a happy Halloween, too! Bring on November! (Um, yeah...I know it's already here.)

Roooomania!

2011-11-03T14:45:00.010-02:00

Zac's parents, sister, Heidi, her hubby, Doug, and their little guy, Preston, came to visit at the beginning of October. It was a quick trip, and we headed up to Romania to do the whole Transylvania thing again. Fall is the perfect time for that. The changing leaves, the corn fields, the misty coolness... (well our first two days were lovely, clear weather, and the last two were lovely, misty weather... just perfectly Halloween-y!)

First stop: Bran Castle.

(For more pics of almost the same stuff, but knockin' almost exactly two years off all of us, see this post.)

Our hotel had a great view of the castle, from these cute little balconies.

Bran liked seeing his name all over the place. Makes a cool dude feel even cooler.

That evening we had probably the best doners/gyros ever. They were sooooo delicious. I think the addition of pickled beets pushed 'em over the edge into super awesomeness. There were lots of dogs around and they really liked the doners, too.

The next morning we headed up to the castle.

Bran's favorite display.

Poppie channeling his inner dracula. Maeve was not too worried.

I love this one. Strong little dude, that Preston.

Just like the last time we were there, Z and the kids, and Doug and Presto, and Grandma Buttons headed up the hill behind the castle. Last time, I was pregnant with Maeve, and had no desire to go up there. Also, I think Z just kinda left me. Hmmm... Anyway, this time, I DID want to go, but alas, Maeve had other plans. Isn't it such a beautiful view from up there?

This is what M and I were up to. She was tired and needed to nurse, but ya can't even tell can you? If she's NOT tired and needs to nurse, she has little (which really means "negative") concern for discretion.

Afterwards we grabbed some doners again, and also these little sausages and braided cheese for lunch. Yummmm.... Then it was off to Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the "original" dracula, who is really quite different. Terrible in his own way, though.

He was born in that yellow building on the right, in front of the clock tower.

I liked these little guys up in the clock tower. You can see "Sunday" and "Monday" looking at you, so it must have been Saturday facing out... Yep, would've been Saturday.

We went to the somewhat creepy graveyard there. It was even creepier because there were little piles of leaves burning, so there was smoke drifting between the tombstones.... Also, there were chestnuts in the piles of burning leaves, and they were exploding now and then, so that added to the somewhat spooky atmosphere. Bran had been fixated on getting a crossbow when we went to Romania, and whaddaya know? He found one! He and Nuala and Preston were hunting zombies...

The great thing (one of them) about traveling with other people: you get more pics of the whole family!

Maevesters in the graveyard. She's actually grinning it up for some people passing by, our oh-so-friendly little one...

Then we headed to the Saxon lands, to the town of Biertan. This was a pretty intense lock on a room in the cathedral... wonder what they kept in there...

Nuala started this race when Bran wasn't ready, and thus began a long saga of Bran refusing to move from the end of this corridor, in silent/not-so-silent protest of the unfairness of life.

Grandmas make Maeve happy.

Bran got over the unfairness thing and emerged just in time to climb the walls of the fortified cathedral for a while.

As we drove from Biertan to Sibiu, we stopped at another castle. This one was pretty neat to walk around in.

The kids were especially thrilled because the guy manning the entrance apparently lives there, and he had loads of rabbits and chickens running all over the place. Maeve pretty much spent the entire time chasing the rabbits, yelling "bunny wabbit!" Nuala was ultra-pleased to have actually gotten close enough to pet one. She's quick and sneaky.

Sibiu was a neat city. It had a German feel to it, probably because it was founded by German settlers and was a pretty important ethnic German city. I can't remember why we stopped there, but I'm glad we did. I think it was mostly just on our way to somewhere else, but the streets were cute, the town square was nice, the pastries were DEEElicious, and the food... oh, the food was divine.

We went to a little underground restaurant, which unfortunately did not have a "no smoking" rule. Ugh. We sacrificed all the children's tiny lungs, though, for the short time we were there. It was really late. The food was sooooo good. And the restaurant was really cool, except for the smoking -- gag!

The next day it was on to Vlad the Impaler's REAL castle in Poenari. Bran castle is always touted as "Dracula's castle," but Vlad never lived there. He might have stayed there when he passed through the area, but no one knows 100% for sure. I did read that his grandfather, Mircea the Old (great nickname), lived there for a short time. Anyway, look at the ruins of Vlad's place, perched up to the left above tough-looking Z, mists swirling about it...

It's about 1480 steps to the top, which is why we didn't go up to it last time, being pregnant with Maeve and all. And the twins were asleep. I remember it well. This time, Poppie watched Maeve and Preston, and the rest of us got to go! We had run out of cash by this time, since the three ATMs we found on our way did NOT work. One almost kept our card. Anyway, we scraped together allllmost enough, and the entrance keeper took pity on us and let us all in. Phew!

To change things up from all the stairs, we decided to drag ourselves up by tree roots and stuff. Not the whole way. That would be unpleasant.

At the top! The view was superb. It was overcast and misty, and the hills were beautiful with the autumn colors.

Less beautiful were the little "reenactments" of Vlad the Impaler's famous torture/death by impaling. See the two poor fellas there, that you'd pass heading up the stairs? It was pretty grisly and icky, actually. Bran was quite disturbed, poor little guy, and kept asking questions about it. He was worried that somehow, in some way, that might happen to him :( He got over it fairly quickly, though.

We just tromped around the ruins. Old, deserted, crumbling castles are quite fun to explore.

The next morning we headed home, stopping in Bucharest for a couple of hours. It was a great, but quick, trip! We're so glad the fam came out, and not only because they gave us an excuse to go to Romania again! Like we needed an excuse... ;)

Count(ess) Maeve

2011-10-30T15:59:00.004-02:00

2011 (October) Maeve Singing and Counting from Fiona Rollins on Vimeo.

Here's a little video of Maeve counting to 13 on our trip to Romania earlier this month. About a week or so before this, I discovered her randomly counting to ten while doing something else. I had no idea she could do that. Obviously she's a genius baby. That or she has an older brother and sister that she picks stuff up from... whatever. (From my totally unbiased point of view, I'm gonna have to go with BOTH scenarios ;) She does skip 6 every single time, and I've found that she can actually go up to 13 in the right order, but also skips 12. I wonder if she'll have a problem with 18? We think it's pretty cute. You get to hear her rendition of "Twinkle, twinkle little star" before you get to the counting, though... Luckies!

chop-chop hair. and a little bit o' snow.

2011-10-24T18:02:00.009-02:00

I did it! I got my hair cut! I've been meaning to do it for a while now, but it takes a little work, or rather just coordination, to go do anything without the kiddos, but Tara getting hers cut gave me a little kick in the rear, and off I went! I actually meant to get it a bit shorter, but I really like it. And I was happy to give bangs a shot again, since I bid them an excited farewell back in '99. (The title: Anybody play Chop Chop Ninja on their iTouch/Phone/Pad? Bran likes it, and that phrase always, always, pops into my mind. Okay, only sometimes. But it did just now, and ya know? It kinda works... say it fast, it's fun: chop chop hair!)

Here's the back. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to tell you that. If I did... poor me.

And another from the front. I don't know why. It's pretty much the same as the first one, but you can't see my teeth. I think I was doing the "this is what I look like with kinda dangly earrings" thing. I think I need funkier, longer earrings with short hair. I was always slightly worried that, with my not-so-girly clothes (okay, these two shirts are definitely GIRL shirts, but I purposely was trying to look more put together) and my not-so-out there chest area that I'd look a little more boyish than I wanted to if I had short hair. I mean, I'm not in kindergarten anymore, when Eugene became my instant best friend because he asked me on the first day of school, "are you a boy or a girl?" Honestly made my day. Anyway, I now am thrilled to be a girl. Not a girly girl, but a girl nonetheless, and I think I still look like one. On that note, let me relay a conversation with Nuala:

Me: So, do you like my haircut?

Nuala: Yes! It's beautiful!

Me: Awww, thank you! Would you like your hair to be like this?

Nuala: No, I don't want to look like a boy.

Hmmm....

Kinda the other side of my hair. It's really easy and dries quickly. And now my 20-month old has longer hair than I do.

In other news, it snowed last Sunday. We woke up and started getting ready for church when we noticed the light flurries. Those light flurries just kept a-comin' and added up to a nice little amount. Looking back on it, I am more accepting, since it hasn't continued, but I was quite perturbed at the thought of winter starting in the middle of OCTOBER. And yes, Maeve is out in the snow in her diaper. She's hardcore. And was brought in quickly.

We were slightly late to church, but it was just a little too exciting for the tykes.

Buckets! There were buckets of snow!

Here's Nuala, on her "snow seat" the following day. Actually, it was still outside this past Sunday, though I haven't noticed it since, so it did pretty well, lasting a whole week.

Luckily, autumn was ashamed of itself for cutting out so early and came back to reclaim our mountain. For now... dun dun dun... These pics illustrate the absence of snow on our walk the other day, but also they are cute. No wipeouts occurred.

Nuala did try to fling Bran into the pokey bushes on the side of the lane, much to his delight, but he escaped, much to her annoyance.

Seattle: Rollins Time (with friend time randomly in the middle)

2011-10-23T14:28:00.005-02:00

And, the REST of the Seattle part of our SUMMER trip back to the States. Please don't judge me. Unless you judge me to be a long-winded procrastinator, because you would be correct. That is a bad combo when it comes to blogging. Anyway, above we have Preston and Bran, buddy-buddy watching something on TV. Probably Phineas and Ferb.

A few of the cousins gathered around Maria's cool, tall-ish table. This was birthday cake for Lilly, who turned the big SEVEN while we were there!

Tired Maeve getting Auntie Maria snuggles. Awwww....

We went whitewater rafting with Z's family. The big people did. Well, except for poor Heidi, who broke her foot skateboarding before we got there and was out of commission for the summer fun. She was a good sport and came along anyway, even though she was itching to do everything. The rafting was awesome! Especially when Grandma was ejected from our raft and rode some... intimidating... rapids solo. It was really funny, actually. One of these days we'll get the pics from that trip and this grandma part is well worth revisiting.

We went to Leavenworth on the way back from rafting! Yay! I've never been and I've been wanting to go forever. Or at least since I've known about it. So maybe 7 years. Close to forever. It's a Bavarian-esque little place, and we had fun walking around and going in all the cool little shops and eating DElicious ice cream and buying candy. Abe was really excited to be there, too, as his froclicking about on posts made obvious, hehehee... No, but really, the flowers everywhere were gorgeous.

Here's Heidi, runnin' Z down on her little scooter. Okay, I'm laughing right now. Honestly, that scooter was hilarious. Isn't her cast cool?

Poppie and his pal, outside the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I got some yummmy peanut brittle there... I know! I didn't even get chocolate! I don't know what was up that day. That's just weird. And, actually, that bear was stinky and kinda gross.

We got to see our friends from back in Virginia again! Oliver and Kristin are out in Seattle with their two girls, so we get to pop by and catch up every now and again. They JUST bought this beautiful, brand-new house... so, so, so beautiful... and they took us by for a pre-move-in tour. Here are the kiddos. Clara, who is Nuala and Bran's same-day-same-hospital-first-"playdate"-EVER birthday buddy, and little Anna. They're a fun little group o' kiddos, that's for sure.

Their house has a nice little slope to the front yard, perfect for rolling down. We loved catching up with them.

Maeve with Hunter and Mia.

It was great there at Maria's house. Big kids were always out sleeping on couches or beanbags or something, since we ousted a bunch of them from their beds (thanks, guys! ;), so when Maeve would wake up at too-early-o'clock, I'd nurse her and then Z would take her out, but would always be back within 2o minutes or so because some older cousin had taken charge. Here we have cute Rylee, much-loved by Maeve. She took a mini morning nap in his arms.

Maeve, Poppie, and Pup-pup.

We went out to Grandma and Poppie's place, of course. First order of business was to go say hi to our kitties, Finnigan (above) and Mushi (below). The original twins.

I'm pretty sure they were overjoyed to see us, as evidenced by the excitement on their little feline faces. We love 'em. I'm glad they got a good home when Finnigan decided he'd disqualify himself from flying internationally and then never have another mysterious seizure again.

Maeve was thrilled with all the animals there. They have horses and ponies (Heidi's), cats, dogs, cows, rabbits, chickens, and pigs. I think that's it for right now... But here she is, heading out to say hi to one of Heidi's horses. I guess this one's a pony. Booger, I think. Heidi let them ride again, but somehow I ended up without any pictures. Gasp! I'm not sure if this post can survive not having them, but we'll see. (Speaking of which, we also saw the Tulls, our friends who have appeared in such posts as the Antarctica trip, and the more recent big-huge-caravan through Turkey and Greece. But I forgot the camera. We still love you, Tulls!)

Grandma has a beautiful front garden. These are just some lovely flowers in pots, not the garden, but also beautiful.

Sharing strawberries with Poppie.

Nuala and Bran playing in the big sandpit.

YEAH! Chicken feedin' time! Maeve was not perturbed at all by the scrabbling mass at her feet. She even tried to hand feed them.

Some of the pigs-that-are-not-named-so-no-one-really-gets-attached-to-them-prior-to-butchering-time. I'm sure they'll be just as yummy as their predecessors.

Here we are, waiting in line at a most awesome indoor pool. BIG slides, a lazy river, a hot tub, a great small-kids play area... It was really fun.

Abe, Z's youngest sibling and only brother, and his wife, Courtney, with N&B.

All the siblings and their spouses went out for one last meal at a Thai place, with Grandma Buttons and Poppie. Oh, and we're missing Andrew, Sari's hubby, who couldn't come up from Oregon. But it was a fun, and quite delicious, evening!

Z and his fam, minus his dad who had to leave for work: Abe, Zachariah, Grandma, Maria, Sari, and Heidi. I love Rosie's and Maria's expressions, haha!

The morning we left... Sari and I finally dressed our one-day-apart munchkins in their matching outfits (was it OUR fault Seattle decided to remain firmly planted in spring-like temperatures most of the time we were there?? no.). They were super cute, but not too keen on posing.

Cutest little outfits, though! Who else could pull off orange leggings but an adorable toddler? Well, yes, I know you're saying to yourselves, "Fiona, YOU probably could. You can make ANYthing look good!", and I appreciate that, I do, but I'm sure I couldn't make them look THAT good. Hmmm.... yeah, close, I guess, but not quiiiite there...

Mia and Bran. Don't mess with them.

All the Rollins grandchildren, except for Preston. Looks like Poppie is sitting in for him, though, so he's represented. All 13 (and one on the way!).

Hunter and Spiderbaby. Maeve really liked doing this. Good thing Hunter is super buff, because that's an arm killer.

And this is not in Seattle, but right after we arrived home in Bulgaria. Bran was super excited to see his little brown puppy, whose name I am not sure of because it's different everyday, but he's always a favorite! He didn't get to come to America because Bran was too worried he'd lose him. Anyway, he was sooo happy to see him, so he fixed him up a dinner and let him eat right beside him. Now, normally we frown upon dogs on the dinner table, but this was a somewhat special occasion so we made an exception.

Seattle-ish with the Smiths (including crab poaching! We are rebels.) Aug 2011

2011-10-18T17:43:00.005-02:00

Since my sis, Erin, and her family now live close to Seattle, too, we get a chance to hang out with them on our visit to Z's fam. They live in Snoqualmie, a beautiful area. Rob put his boating skills to great use and rented one to take us out crabbing while we were there. Apparently (and I cannot believe Erin has not blogged about this!), their first crabbing adventure consisted of all six of them on an inflatable raft. Rob on one side, Erin and the kids on the other. It was actually quite a funny story, and Erin! You should record/share it! We are all now waiting expectantly... Aislinn especially, because she's getting antsy on bedrest and needs entertainment. Do your duty!

Waiting for the Smiths to show up... They were a smidge later than us, but they brought tons of yummy food, so it was well worth it. ;)

Going through the locks. I'm not actually hitchhiking, despite how it looks.

Maeve and Aoife loved hanging out on the sides. Aoife's not in this pic, but just imagine TWO cute little 18-month olds.

Here's Erin, making sure everyone stays in the boat.

In the little cabin... it was not a warm Seattle summer. Once Rob got going fast, it was pretty chilly up top. And actually the kiddos stayed out on the front most of the time, but they had fun checking out the cabin, too. Aoife's conked out there on E's lap.

Crabbing! It was fun pulling up the crabs, though I felt badly for the ones that didn't get to be thrown back. Such is (their) life, I guess.

The kids loved touching them...all except for Bran. And poor Maeve slept through all the crabbing! I think she would have really enjoyed it. But Bran... he would scream all high-pitchedly if one started even scuttling maaaybe in his direction after they were dumped out of the cage. I'm pretty sure he would have jumped overboard if one actually cornered him. Kinda funny, because he likes catching crawdads and stuff, but the crabs totally freaked him out.

And, then... this boat came and started pulling up our traps! Oh, the nerve! Erin was ultra-ticked. Sneaky fellas, though. They're not "Research," unless you count them as researching for the authorities, because that's what they were. The police.

Apparently the day we went (Wed., I think?) was only for Native Americans to go crabbing. We, not being Native Americans, were (gasp!) POACHING. However, the really nice water cops saw how none of us really had any clue and/or were charmed by the oodles of children on board and just gave us a warning. They even posed nicely when I asked if I could take their pic. AND, they let us keep the six crabs we'd already caught. It was pretty funny. Really, though, don't you think the guy who sold Z the licenses the previous day shoulda known the rules? Or the salty old boat renter, who saw Rob bringing on all those traps? That little caveat wasn't in the little license pamphlet thing we got...

So, we bagged that activity and broke out the tube.

Smart Liam, he ducked that noggin of his right down in there.

The water was freeeeezing, but Liam decided to jump in and swim to the boat, so Bran had to follow his cool 7-year old cousin, too. He was a bit chilly, but very pleased with himself.

Then Erin and I got to take Aoife and Maeve. Haha... ha. They really did not enjoy it. And we weren't even going fast! I think they didn't like the frigid spray right in their faces. This is the "before" pic, and I just don't feel right about posting the "after" pic. Not because of the pitiful, shell-shocked babies (Aoife has a very blank, wet look on her face, with her paci planted firmly in her mouth: "just keep sucking..."), but because the chilliness in the air is well-documented by someone's chest. Also, we didn't wear life jackets. Big FAIL. Erin and I even went by ourselves after this, and we like a lotta speed, and in the middle of that ride, it hit me that we did NOT have life jackets on. We'll be smarter next time. We just forgot. Anyway, we all survived, and the day was a lot of fun. Let me document, though, the little "hiccups" of the excursion:

1. On our way through the locks, Rob got chastised for running a red light. Maybe it was red, maybe it wasn't...

2. We bottomed out on a big rock. Nuala fell off her perch and cut her knee, screaming so much and so loudly that I about had a heart attack (I was in the back and could not see her in the front, but Z was up there), because, honest-to-goodness, I irrationally thought that she had somehow managed to get sliced by the propellor. How that would have happened, I have no clue, but my mind had my heart convinced of it. Or the other way around.

3. We became poachers. (I'm not sure if you can tell, but I kinda get a kick out of that.)

4. Liam loved tubing so much that he asked to stay in the tube and just get towed back. Sure, we thought, why not? Well, because the water cops informed us that was illegal, also. I guess we were heading into an area of more traffic.

It was loads of fun! Loads. We ate those six crabs -- even I did! And I'm not a seafood lover. Or really even a liker. Fish is fine. Everything else... all those bug-like or squishy or slimy creatures... eh, no thanks. But the crab was good, for being, you know, crab.
We spent the night at the Smiths' that night, and played a lot in their super amazing castle that Rob and his dad built in their tall-ceilinged living room. That thing is awesome. Bran's peeking out of the top of it, there on the left.

The next day we went to a nearby park. Maeve almost never gets to ride in a stroller, poor deprived babe, so she had a blast in Aoife's. A let her have the REAL seat, and she perched on the back.

She kept grabbing M's hair. They were totally, TOTALLY adorable together.

See? Aoife is 4 days older than Maeve. M's lucky to have a bunch of little cousins just around her age!

Here A's letting M smell her flower. Such an intense moment that the paci even had to come out!

Nuala and Brigit, buds forever, playing on the swing.

This was funny! They were spelling their names with Scrabble tiles, and Brigie, who's 5, spelled "Pauline" for the two of them. They share that as their middle name (our mom's name), and I just LOVE how she spelled it: POLING.

Handsome fella Colin and Bran getting some quality iPad time in "together."

Brigie and Nuala going down the slide in the AWESOME castle. Look at the painting of the fire! There are all these little details inside the castle... this fire, little fairies all over, a DRAGON painted in the "dungeon"... it's really quite the playhouse. Rob's mom did the decorating, and Erin, too.

Bran standing in the top of the castle somewhere. Look at the cutout arrow slits! And the bannister to keep small knights and princesses from toppling all the way down!

An attempt at a good cousin pic. Eh, they're all facing the right direction...

Cute, cute, cute girls in the swing.

We went back to hang out with them on another day after the camping trip. Rob had a little contingent of cookie groupies hanging around...

A lot of playing was done on the trampoline. Erin's house backs right up to a world class golf course. On this day, there was big golf tournament going on... let me see if I can figure out which one... Okay, a google search tells me it was the Boeing Classic PGA tour... anyway, it was kinda cool, to have all that going on right behind us. There's just a low hedge separating the backyard from the green, and directly behind was a Dave's Barbeque tent, set up for the golfers. We got some free sandwiches, since apparently the people who live in the neighborhood qualify for free tickets, etc. It was neat.

Aoife was great at sharing her little car with Maeve. Look at her, showing Maeve the ropes! "This is the air conditioner... I'm not sure what that does..." (Hee hee, get it? Because you don't NEED it in Seattle?! I'm funny. But really, that was a chilly summer.)

Maeve was NOT so good about sharing it back.

Awwww, the adorableness made its way to the trampoline!

Oh! Here's the backyard/green shot. With the bbq. And Erin.

Nail painting!

Baby doll holding!

Sweet...

Popsicle eating! (Yes, ALL this was exciting, so the exclamation marks are necessary.)

Popsicle sharing! (Okay, really I like this pic because both their diapers are squishing out the same side of their shorts. People should really be on top of their kids' diapers. Nobody wants to see that.)

And we concluded our final visit with some Mexican food. ¡Olé! Aoife and Maeve qualified for a free plate of rice and beans. Yay for under-3s!

Goodbye, Erin, Rob, Liam, Brigit, Colin, and Aoife! Thank you for a great time and we love y'all lots! See ya next year!! :)

The Umpqua camping trip...Aug 2011.

2011-10-11T13:46:00.003-02:00

It's well into October now, so it's just about the perfect time to throw in some more summer posts. Camping! At the Umpqua! Z's family's annual camping trip was just as fun this year as it has been before. Subtract the naked hippies from last year, and add in one giant cougar that was prowling about the campsites, and it just about equals out... Above we have Grandma Buttons with Bran, Nuala, Lilly, Mia, and Preston.

And Grandma with the February pair. Maeve was born on the 6th, and Gracie on the 5th. They were a lot of fun to throw together. They seemed to dig each other quite nicely.

On tinfoil dinner night, the mystery of the disappearing permanent marker was solved when one of the kids discovered that it had stowed away in their dinner. Nice and toasty!

Nuala's favoritest pink tube EVer.

The beach at our campsite.

Bran panicked a bit when the raft started to drift a little farther from shore and decided the best course of action was to bail out. Unfortunately, he bailed right over the submerged mass of sticks that creeps everybody out. Eventually Grandma rescued him.

I have crazy sisters-in-law. That is said in the best way possible. Yeah... yeah... that's right... Here was the scheme for this rafting session: All us girls layer on one tube to go over the rapids. Fun, fun, fun! We, um, bottomed out a bit over the rocks. That was painful. You can tell from the looks on McKenna's and Maria's faces. Good times. Also, we kinda lost Sari (who I borrowed this pic from) there at the beginning. Either that or she bailed out from a strong sense of self-preservation. Though in the top position she would have had the cushiest spot... I'm aiming for that next year...

See? They totally dig each other.

(No caption necessary)

Z loves a good snorkelin'. Bran is following quite closely in his daddy's footsteps (flippers?). He and Daddy found all sorts of fun little creatures to catch and look at. Bran sooo badly wants to scuba dive, and keeps asking about doing that when we move to Japan. Eventually, little dude, eventually...

Some more little rapids, up at the Falls.

Grandma Buttons was the designated stopper-of-children-going-down-these-rapids-so-they-could-get-out-and-go-again.

Maeve had a lot of fun. She loves the water. Here she is just a-tooling around in her cute little life jacket. She got really good at kicking those adorable little feet of hers and motoring around to where she wanted to go. Or at least pretending like it was where she wanted to go...

Sometimes the rapids are not-so-fun.

But look! The slippery slope that is also lots of fun! Except for when you get stuck every few feet and then your mom or dad has to follow behind and kick your tube the whole way down. Then it's still kinda fun for the tuber, but not so much for the mom or dad. Go figure.

Wheeee! There goes Bran Man!

Nuala heading up with her pink tube.

Z doing his surf thing off the falls.

Nuala heading down the falls with Z.

Bran and me going down. I'm holding his nose for him, lucky guy.

And, we surfaced! That's good. Bran is upset at how cold the water is, and that water is pretty darn cold.

Then, the moment when everyone at the falls felt extremely sorry for poor Nuala being stuck with the meanest mom ever... She wanted to go again so up we went. When we got up there, she decided she did NOT want to do it. It's slippery to walk down. She had already gone off and had liked it. So after about 10 minutes of cajoling, bribing, pleading, etc., I just pulled her on my lap and off we went. She went into immediate "falls mode" as soon as she realized there was no turning back. The whining stopped, the nose was pinched, a big breath taken...

...but she picked up where she left off as soon as we popped up. And she is LOUD when she is displeased. And displeased she was. She continued being displeased all the way out of the water, and then was seriously holding a grudge for the next half hour or so. And that's a long time for this four-year old. Then she got over it.

Gracie and Maeve enjoying a snack together. It's tough work, playing in the water AND being cute.

Grinning Gracie!

Uncle Ben (adored by all children), Zac, Nuala and Bran.

Oh, yeah, the cougar... I meant to say a little more about that, so I might as well do it here. The rangers told us that there was a cougar that had been sighted a few times near the campsites, so keep an eye out, etc. Great news to hear when you have a gaggle of kiddos wandering about. Then, a night or two into the trip, cousin Jeff and his wife, Hilary, drove up to the little bitty town to buy some ice or something, and not a mile up from our campsite, what should leap across the road directly in front of them but the cougar himself! They thought it was a deer at first, then realized that it was, indeed, a cat. A very big CAT. That was pretty comforting to hear. We kept good tabs on the tykes, though probably the cougar would be slightly offended that we thought he would want to eat one of them. I'm sure he's a much better hunter and has standards and a reputation to uphold.

Blob of chilling-out-ers. And Presto in the foreground.

Bran and Alex (Z's cousin, Robyn's, little guy) got to hang out for a while, too! They really got along well, it was cute.

My feet. And the beach.

Nuala and Lillers.

Maeve with Gracie, and Gracie's big bro and sis, Mathias and Annie.

Yummmm! Marshmallows!

Stuff it in... The stickier, the better!

Camping is fun.

Summer Flashback: Sleeping on the doormat puts dents in your head.

2011-09-25T18:47:00.013-03:00

One of Nuala's (cough, cough, MANY) timeouts this summer was spent on the front porch. I can't remember why... usually they're relegated to the top of the basement stairs. Or, if they are extra LOUD while in timeout, down the basement stairs to the very back room. A quite undesirable location. But Nuala lucked out and got the front porch.

Of course, she then had to fall asleep on the door mat. And before you gasp in horror, I'll tell you that she was only out there for, seriously, about 3 minutes. Maybe her extreme exhaustion contributed to whatever necessitated the timeout. Extreme exhaustion + a-brother-who-is-an-EXPERT-at-laughingly-pushing-your-buttons-for-the-entertainment-value = baaaaad combination.

He was pretty tickled that she was snoozing there on the front porch. Pret-ty tickled, indeed.

Oddly, she was NOT tickled about the situation. She was none too pleased about being woken up, especially to be immediately plunked in front of the camera to document her branded forehead.

See? Poor girl. Can't even run for cover in her dazed and exhausted state.

Bran tried to hug her. Because, you know, that's the smart thing to do when Nuala's ultra-grumpy. Though actually it is, if your goal is to bug her more. And you can count on that being his goal about 94% of the time. Brothers! Gotta love 'em.

Hauling the Trio, or "my, what a muscle-y husband I have!"

2011-09-18T17:12:00.015-03:00

We decided to dust off the ol' bicycles and go for a family ride a couple of weeks ago. Seriously, we've not ridden bikes the WHOLE time we've been here. I just had it in my mind that our street was a cruddy bike-riding street... Maeve had been too little for the bike seat... it was wintertime... etc., etc. But, now she's plenty big enough, the road's fine, and, best of all, both the attachments for connecting seats/trailers were already on Z's bike! Score! HE got to ride all the kids around while I just tooled along, solo, on my bike. (Now, in fairness to me, my bike HAD had an attachment for the other green bike seat, since we had two for N and B, but we lent one to our friends and Z happened to pick the one on my bike to remove. Score! did I already say that?)

Bran and Nuala each weigh 46lbs., and Maeve is almost 22. That's 114lbs. of little people to haul... UPhill. But not the whole way, because that whole "uphill both ways" thing? Myth. I will admit to laughing at his situation as I flitted, carefree and graceful and light (but less furry) as a baby unicorn, back and forth. Good thing Z is so super strong. Like a big tough male unicorn. Swift Wind. (If you're saying to yourself, "that sounds sooo familiar..." I'll just help you out. He's She-Ra's noble, flying steed.)

I'm pretty sure we've only used the bike trailer once... maybe twice? We got it when we moved to lovely Uruguay, when Bran and Nuala were babies. We didn't really like how you buckled them in, or how we felt like a car was totally going to run over the trailer, or how they slumped in it (even when they were old enough to not really slump). In Uruguay we were riding along streets that were fairly well-trafficked, hence my car nervousness (Uruguayan drivers are not the best... not the worst, either, but not the best). Nuala and Bran didn't even really like the trailer. They (and we) much preferred the green seats. This time, though, they really enjoyed it. Now they're huge, have a better view, and are old enough to really appreciate taking advantage of getting a ride without having to do any work.

Maeve was bossy, as usual. "Dis way, Dada!"

Despite Zachariah's major toughness, small breaks were necessary. We rode on some pretty trails near our house. Even out to the Boyana movie studio (where Z "starred" in Spiders 3D... something I still need to post about).

Bran and Nuala were so grateful for the fun ride that they really went out of their way to make it as easy as possible on Z. Haha... (See the back tire? See the foot ON the back tire?)

Rascals! These rascals actually have their very own bikes on the way. It finally sunk in that they're going to be five (five!) in three months and have most definitely outgrown their little wooden balance bikes. I just wish there was Craigslist, or good garage sales or thrift stores here. At least we found them on sale.

Texas... the REST of the story.

2011-09-10T23:14:00.004-03:00

Because we all know that I can't post in a timely manner... here's some more from our trip to Texas, which was... what... a month ago? Sigh. Anyway, Uncle Gary delayed his relocation to the DC area so we could overlap him for a few days and get some good ol' Uncle Gary time in. The kiddos loved having him there!

This was just cute, how much Maeve loved bouncing on this ball. Lots of laughs over that.

Sweeping the trampoline with Granny.

Awwwww... now isn't that such a sweet picture? Yeah, it is.

Granny and the girlies, before heading to church. Nuala's bigtime into "now a funny face picture!" Alas, often that's the picture that actually turns out best overall. This was the Sunday that Nuala fell asleep during Sacrament Meeting (the main worship service) and peed on the bench. Now if any of you reading this happen to be in Boerne Ward (1st or 2nd), don't worry, my mom cleaned it. If you are still worried, just avoid the 4th row.

Maeve trying on her super-cute, and actually really effective, little life jacket. It's a Puddle Jumper, and works really well. It kept her afloat kind of facing forward, and kept her little arms up on top of the water, obviously, so it was easy for her to just float on her tummy and kick herself around. She was a little small for it, actually, but not too much. We got her a cute yellow one, but it took forever to arrive in Bulgaria and we left before it got there. I love me some yellow, but this one's cute, too.

Grandad and Maeve.

Blowing bubbles... giant bubbles...

One of many, many, many peach stands we frequented. The best ones are the "not so pretty, but very sweet!" Yummmm.

We take the tykes to the Boerne Fire Department every trip back (well, okay, this is really just their 3rd time) to take a tour from my friend, Lyle, who started out as a volunteer while we were in high school. Another friend from church, my good friend Carolyn's brother, Martin, also is a firefighter there. They have a new station house, and, man, is it nice! When we moved to Virginia, way back when, the fire station was not far from our home. I seriously thought about applying there but we had just decided to start trying to get pregnant, and naively I thought it would happen soon and so I didn't bother going for such an active job with so much training that I'd have to leave in nine-ish months. Hahaha! Oh, Fiona. FOUR years later, the twins were born.

Here we have Gerard, then Lyle holding his little guy, Ryan, his wife, Natalie, who also was in our graduating class, me and Maeve. And Nuala and Bran. They're such nice, down-home firefighters. All "yes, Ma'am" etc. to my mom.

Nuala, with a jack up her nose.

Annnnd, the terrific two-some had their first dentist visit! They loved it and had a blast. Unfortunately for Nuala, a familiar theme is reappearing. She had a cavity and had to return the following day to get it filled. Bran, on the other hand, received a glowing report. Sigh. Nuala totally brushes better and more often than her less-hygienically-inclined-in-a-toothy-way brother. JUST like Zachariah and me. Well, he brushes fine and regularly, but flossing? Never! I am an every-other-day flosser, but I used to always need fillings, back in the early days of our marriage. Lately, no, thank goodness, but I see Nuala heading down my road. Also, she's apparently a tooth grinder and that's why her little front teeth are so cute and little. Huh.

It was hilarious being in with her while she was getting her filling. Z and I were both sitting there, and she was so weird! SO weird. You'd have thought the dentist gave her laughing gas or something, the things she was saying and the voices she was using. We were cracking up. She gets like that, our Nuala, in certain situations. It's quite entertaining, but oh-so-weird. The dentist and hygienist found it very humorous, too.

Feeding the ducks and geese at the river. Or rather, almost being mugged by the geese at the river.

Maeve playing in an outdoor bubble bath, courtesy of Granny.

Zac arrived! Yay! Here he is eating a delicious and healthy lunch on the back porch. Do you like how I censored little naked Maeve? I'm pretty impressed, actually...

The bat cave! To the bat cave! Really it's an old abandoned railway tunnel. To the bat tunnel! We like this place. It's a fun little evening jaunt to watch the Mexican free-tailed bats heading out for their night under the stars.

Everyone waiting for their emergence, listening to the lady tell us about them. The tunnel's opening is on the left, out of the picture, and they fly up from there.

Maeve looks like a little model here. The "lipstick" (it's just candy! come on, people. She has to be at LEAST three to wear lipstick...), the expression. She's pretty cute.

Everyone watching the bats, in awe. Except for Granny and Nuala, who decided to look at the camera. And me, who is looking at them through the camera.

And here are the bats. They're those grayish smudges... We couldn't get a single good pic of them in flight. Before we left I said to Z, "so, should we bring the good camera?" And both of us decided, quite intelligently, that it would be way too dark to even bother. Yeah, head-smack moment. Of course they don't come out at DARK. Oh well, they're really cool to see, and then I didn't have to waste more watching time trying to get a pic of them. There are about three million bats, and it takes about 15 or so minutes for them all to head off. There were some hawks enjoying the bat buffet, as well.

At the fence looking down at the tunnel mouth, after the bats left. Bran and Nuala really enjoyed it, and so did the rest of us. Maeve... eh. She mostly liked going up and down the stairs and eating candy.

Zachariah thinks I am so, so, so beautiful here. And he's right. Actually, he just didn't believe I'd put this pic in. Ha! Showed YOU, Zac! ...wait a minute...

My cute dad. And the lovely, but hot, hot, hot! Texas scenery.

We took Nuala and Bran to Schlitterbahn, something we've been doing for the past three years now. They love it. It's a big ol' waterpark, and it's fun. Way fun. Aislinn, Curtis, and their 6 kids were going to all come, too, but Aislinn's pregnant, and then pretty much their whole family got sick, so only Curtis and Patrick went. We had an awesome time! N&B love it. They're adventurous little tykes, and tall, and thoroughly enjoyed all the rides and stuff.

The BEFORE pic: Excited to head out. Maeve was upset to be left at home, but had a great time with Granny. And then Aislinn and her kiddos showed up, too.

Annnnnd, AFTER. Look pretty pooped, don't they?

Because they were.

The following day we headed down the road to Cibolo with Aislinn and her fam and Granny and Grandad. Free, close, and cool water. What more can ya ask for? And dinosaur footprints. The boys are standing in them.

I guess someone asked for a fort with a slide by the creek, because there's one there, now! And Grandad went down it, to the tremendous surprise of Granny. He didn't even break anything! (Himself or the slide!)

I love, love, love the trees at Cibolo. Many critters were caught. Crawdads, a tiny catfish, frogs...

We went to Target. A lot. I love Target, and I miss it greatly. Zac, for some reason, does not. Maeve is a new fan of Target, as well. She stood by these little Fur Real puppies forever, making them bark and move. The poor girl needs a dog.

My good friend Sarah and I at church. I love that so many of my friends settled back in Boerne. It's quite handy for me, because I love seeing them! Maeve is protesting the whole being-in-nursery thing. This was her third Sunday being left at nursery, and the first time she warily enjoyed it, just kinda looking around taking it all in. I peeked often. She was the littlest one there. Of course, because the babes start going to nursery when they turn 18 months old, and not only had she just barely (actually hadn't quite) turned 18 months on the first Sunday, but she's a tiny little thing anyway. She held her own. I watched her lug her little chair from music time over to the snack table. She's tough. Anyway, after that first Sunday, she protested being left... at Aislinn's ward, back in Boerne, in Seattle. She was always fine after I took off, though. No nursery in our branch here in Bulgaria. She just kinda hangs out with various nice ladies while I'm in the Primary.

Happier girl! I love navy blue on little blondies. Especially with the blue eyes.

Rowan, Bran, and Declan on their last evening together at Granny and Grandad's, playing with Transformers.

I love this picture! It looks so artsy, when really it's just my camera acting doofus-y.

Every morning Granny and Grandad would take Bran and Nuala on their morning walk. They'd take off usually before 7am, since that's the only time it was really cool enough to be pleasant out. Usually they'd walk to the church parking lot and play lots of ball. Bran and Nuala loved it! So did I :)

On the way to the airport to send us off to Seattle. Nuala was so sad. She cried a lot in the airport. A lot. She's very emotional, sometimes.

After going through security, we got to see Granny and Grandad one last time, through the glass. Nuala was still sad. Excited to see more family up in Seattle, but it's hard to leave people you love, even for more people you love. We had a great time, of COURSE.

only climb naked if you're a girl

2011-08-31T15:08:00.016-03:00

Yesterday was an eventful day 'round these parts. Maeve added three new words to her ever-growing, and actually quite extensive, vocabulary: Carry, Wipe, and Yogurt. She was trying to lug a package of diapers up from the basement, and since it was about as tall as her smidgey self, and probably half her weight, she quickly passed them off to me with a "Mama, carry it!" Later, after eating something messy (probably yogurt), she held up her little hands and ordered, "Mama, wipe it!" And I got of lot of "more yo-gut!" too. Zachariah says she'd been saying "yo-gut" for the last couple of weeks, but somehow I hadn't heard it. Haha... Nuala still calls yogurt "yogret." I almost started overtly correcting her, and stopped myself just in time. It's cute, and I know that too soon I'll be wishing that she still called it that... Anyway. Yum. Bulgarian yogret!

THEN, that evening Bran yelled from the backyard, "Mom, look at Maeve!" I ran outside, grabbing a not-so-great camera on my way, and was greeted by this sight. Look at that little monkey! She loves the geo-dome, but has only been able to swing by her hands from that same bar level that her stomach's on. Okay, this isn't the actual sight I was greeted by. The actual sight had Bran on the ground hovering beside her protectively, but when I got out there he decided that he'd done his duty and resumed previous activities. I saw that she was precariously stable, so I took some pics as I was coming to her "rescue." By "rescue," I mean that I was totally unwelcome. She thought she had it all under control. I was yelled at quite a lot when I "rescued" her. Then she showed me how she did it. Shimmied up with her feet, obviously. But, yowsa, this geo-dome thing has now warranted a lot more supervision!

(p.s. Yes, it was a naked time. Good thing she's not a boy, huh? There's always snagging potential while climbing in the buff for a boy. Bran has proved that.)

Austin Fun

2011-08-07T16:45:00.002-03:00

We spent a week with my older sis up in the Austin area, and stopped at the brand-spankin'-new Boerne Public Library on our way up. It is beautiful! I admit... I had my reservations when I learned they were building a new place and moving out of the lovely old antique-y building on Main Street. But I've been won over. The pic above is out on their porch-style reading room. Screened walls, lovely view of the trees and brush below, fans on the ceiling, comfy wooden chairs to sit in... Everything would be perfect except that it was about 100 degrees and humid outside. I can imagine it being great in cooler weather.

We stopped at Wal-Mart, too. Bob was quite smitten with Maeve.

We got to Aislinn's house a couple of hours later, and her girls and my girls were pretty excited to see each other. Maire and Aine love mothering little girls, and Maeve seemed to enjoy it, at first. Nuala was thrilled to have big girls around her, too. Here the three older girls were trying outgrown clothes on Maeve. They sent her into the kitchen with a sign that said, "I love you, Mommy" taped to her tummy. It was cute. The boys were also very excited to see each other. It was loud there. Aislinn and I were excited to see each other, and all the nieces and nephews. It was... exciting.

When we got to A's house, we spent the afternoon at a local splash park place. It was fun and cool and had a sandbox, too. One of those sprinkler parks, you know? Why in the world Boerne or northern San Antonio doesn't have one or SEVERAL of those, I'll never know. Seriously, it's Texas. It is HOT here. We don't need more unshaded parks, we need cool places for the kiddos to play in the summer. Rivers are grand, but a sprinkler park or two would be awesome. Okay, mini-rant over.

We went to the Bluebell Ice Cream factory in Brenham the following day. We went on a tour of the place, and got a free scoop (huge scoop! yum.) at the end. See our nifty hats? See the nine kids we wrangled everywhere? Four of them boys ages 6, 4, 4, and 2. They were... rowdy. Nuala tends to behave even better the rowdier the boys get. Oh, she has her shining moments, for sure, but she takes great pleasure in pointing out how well-behaved she is compared to the boys.

Maeve and Maire. M&Ms...

Annnnd, us. Aislinn, my mom, and me. Just because there are no other pictures of us in here. And because, as usual, we look goooooood.

Here is Maeve on Ciaran's car. He was trying to trade his light saber for the car, but she wasn't too interested. He was funny, trying diplomatic tactics at times, and then resorting to more two-year-old-ish approaches ;) Maeve kept calling Ciaran, "Baby," which is quite humorous, seeing as how he is 9 months older and noticeably larger.

Friday the 29th Patrick celebrated his 12th birthday at an awesomely fun pool. Seriously, Boerne! I love you, but WHY is there nothing like this pool in your area??

Here's a glimpse of some of the fun-ness. There in the middle, a big ol' slide with a rope climby thing and those big buckets that fill up and dump on innocent bysplashers...Right behind my mom and Maeve is a set of three slides for the tykes. Maeve and Ciaran LOVED them. The bigger little kids did, too. There was a bigger slide into the deep water, and a high platform to jump/dive off of. Both were fun. There was a waterfall in the medium-deep area, and then THIS...

Nuala was a little whiz at these barrels. After a couple of tries, she was able to cross it successfully pretty much every time. It was fun watching her focus, and seeing her little muscles. She's pretty wiry and has some good muscle definition, she does.

Bran... Poor little dude. He tried it once right when we got there, and fell in pretty much immediately. Then he was off romping and wrestling and splashing with the boys. I wasn't surprised, since he's a little less focused than Nuala, in general. Towards the end, though, he was back at it, lining up over and over and over again. He kept falling in, but would make it a little farther each time. Finally, I was up on the platform, about to execute a quite-splashy cannonball, when I saw him, alllllmost at the very end. I stopped up there, with a great view and everything, and willed him to make it across. Seriously, he was on the last "log" and just needed to hop onto the concrete. The lifeguard told me to go, but I just had to watch a little longer. He took forever, though, the rascal! I was holding my line up a ton, so I cannonballed in and resurfaced, thinking he'd still be there at the edge, but nope. He was climbing out of the water. He'd splashed in there at the end. I was so bummed for him. He just got in line again. And again. And again.

He never made it all the way across, but he sure got a lot better strategy-wise, and he never got frustrated. Not once. He's pretty amazing that way. He has such a good attitude, my little guy. And he kept making all sorts of friends in line. Except for one very big boy who snarled viciously at him to "stop trying to get in front of me!" when Bran was just standing beside him trying to watch the boy who was crossing since he couldn't see past Big Mean Boy. AND after I'd already said loudly to Bran several times, "remember you're behind this boy," etc., etc., making it clear that we all knew where his place was. What a brat boy. He got an earful from me. A long, annoyed, not-nice earful, and he had the good sense to look quite abashed. Also, Big Mean Boy tried to whisper it to Bran so I wouldn't hear him! My ears are good, though, especially when it involves my kids. Grrr... Anyway, off on a tangent, once again. It was a fun, fun, FUN pool.

Maeve fell asleep and we gently plunked her on baby wraps on the gym floor at the big kids' basketball games. Rowan loves to hold babies' hands. When Ciaran was a baby (now 2), Rowan would always go hold his "baby arm" when he was nursing or just lying peacefully there. He couldn't resist doing the same to snoozing Maeve...

Las Chicas. They look like they could be sisters, those little blondies.

Hanging out on a lazy, HOT morning.

Rub-a-dub-dub, four boys in the tub. Guess how much water ended up on the floor.... almost felt like we were back at the splash park...

All the kiddos after church on Sunday. They clean up nice, don't they?

Ha! This was funny. Maeve and Ciaran were both sitting on the cooler after church, except Maeve did not want Ciaran on it. So she tried to push him off. She's yelling "Nooooo!" in all these pictures, and Ciaran... well, he's just got some great expressions, he does. Especially in the first two. And he wouldn't budge.

She never did succeed, much to her annoyance. Oddly enough, she really likes to get her way.

The Mayborn Museum. We almost always head up to Waco to go to the Mayborn Museum. It's a great little museum, with loads of hands-on stuff for the kiddos. There was an Egyptian Exhibit this time, with a "real, live mummy!" and everything. We had to keep clarifying that even though it was a "real, live mummy!" it wasn't really alive and would not come alive once night fell. Bran was a bit spooked that evening back at Aislinn's house. Luckily, a "real, live mummy!" did not make the trek back from Waco and come a-tapping at his door.

Officer Bran Man.

Firewoman Maeve.

Checking out the turtles.

Nuala and Rowan.

Riding the horsey.

The boys (and Maeve) enjoying a nice herbal tea break.

Hanging out inside a gigantic bubble.

Maeve preparing herself for our next-summer move to Okinawa.

The next day we went to a bounce house place. Who doesn't have fun there?

We got back from bouncing and had very, very, very colorful cupcakes as a last nod to Patrick's and my birthdays, and then my three and I headed back to Boerne. We had such a great time at their place!! I love my sister :) And her family. It was hard to leave, since the kids were having a blast in that houseful of cousins, but we got to see them again (oh, yes we did!) before we left Texas (which actually takes place tomorrow morning, sob, sob).

It was nice getting back to the relative calm of Granny and Grandad's though, and I had ANOTHER bday treat waiting for me. And so far, 32 is pretty darn good...

Getting to, and being in, Maryland! With the Milligans. And grumpy pirates.

2011-07-31T09:09:00.002-03:00

We're here in the States for our annual R&R, which stands for "Rest and Relaxation"... when the government sends us back to remind us how to be Americans. I think "rest and relaxation" is a misnomer, because even though we always have a great time, there's not a whole lot of resting or relaxing going on.

From the get-go, in fact. Last summer and this one, the kids and I have flown back a few weeks before Z, so we can spend a couple of weeks with my family and still have a nice chunk of time to spend with his family when he arrives. He DOES grace Texas with his presence for a couple of days before heading up to the great NW.

Anyway, it's totally UN-relaxing to travel with small children. Especially alone, as many of y'all are aware. Add in the factor of international travel AND traveling exactly during said childrens' daytime hours (read: NO long stretches of sleep), and the fun factor drops considerably. Add in the major factor of having an almost-18-month old, and you enter the negative-fun zone. Now that I'm done whining (for now), I'll tell ya that, overall, the trip was good. A few hiccups, but overall... a good trip.

The tykes, watching planes at the Sofia airport, nice and early... We got to Paris and I had them run up and down as much as possible, to get as many wiggles out as they could before the long flight to DC. Finally, after 8-1/2 hours of basically wrestling Maeve (at least she was mostly just energetic, not fussy), we arrived at Dulles Airport. I only got outwardly grumpy after the guy checking our customs declarations while leaving baggage claim SENT US BACK because the agent at customs had written down that there were TWO of us, not FOUR, despite talking to each child individually, etc. Seriously? I travel for 16 hours with three small children, wait forever for some of our luggage, pile everything precariously on top of a cart, and get this close to escaping the airport, with a sleeping toddler strapped to my front and two tired four-year olds, and you're going to send me BACK? No way. But they did. Despite my loud and insistent protests. I was so dang ticked. SO ticked. It really didn't take that long, and at least they were apologetic, but still. Like we needed that. Then it was off to pick up the rental car and another two hours to my sister's house in Fort Meade, Maryland. Oh, it was good to get there! We were there from the 19th till the 22nd. I'm behind with my posts. Shocker.

We loved seeing Tressa and Nora! Loved it. We've not met Nora before and she is just about the cutest little babe. She's five months old. Tressa is two. They are awesome.

Uncle Marc is also awesome. He let Bran hold one of his guns, and so is just about the awesome-EST in Bran's book.

Maeve wanted to give Nora's exersaucer a whirl. Always better when the baby's done with it first. The baby, especially, appreciates that...

It was so dang hot there. Over 100 degrees every day with a heat factor of around 120. Good prep for Texas. We went to the little park near Tara's house and about passed out. Then we did it again. Call us crazy. Little Nora was a squishy ball of sapped energy.

That same day, we took the kiddos on what was supposed to be the coolest thing ever. Bran and Nuala have been asking to go on a boat for a long time now, so Tara and I decided to take them on a fun little pirate cruise in Annapolis. We just told them they were going on a boat, but not that it was a PIRATE ship. Oh, boy, we couldn't wait for them to realize what was going on! Unfortunately, all five of the kids fell asleep on the half hour drive, we got there just before the ship sailed, and they were the grumpiest little pirates ever. They all fed off each other, too. They all cried. Two or three at a time, in rounds. It was hilarious and maddening. Eventually, they all warmed up, but still... grrrr...

Here's Nuala shooting a water cannon at Pirate Pete. She hit him in the face and has been cackleingly thrilled about it ever since. "Cackleingly?" Not working. She cackles about it. That's what I mean. It was the highlight of her pirating experience!

Bran did NOT warm up in time to shoot the cannon, poor guy, but was able to do some other fun things, like pull up treasure. And pose by the cannons.

Little T taking center stage. With another little girl's dolphin.

Bran with his bag full o' treasure. It was an entertaining little trip, and if the kids had been going full speed from the beginning, it would have been worth the load o' dough we dropped on it.

The next morning the kiddos played in the backyard wading pool. It was hot and humid. My camera did not like it.

Cute Maeve and Nora. My camera DID like them. Who wouldn't?

Maeve really loved Nora. She totally kept trying to hold her. Nora seemed to love Maeve, too, but not especially when she was her sole support.

Here she didn't mind. Soooo cute.

Oh, man... Tressa's hair... it is aMAZing. So many curls. This is when she wakes up. Totally cool. And lots of fun for her mommy to comb.

Annnnnd... we went to the park. Again. See? Crazy.

Maeve is a total little monkey and loved climbing up this ladder thing. She's a sure-footed and fearless little gal, she is.

Tressa's outfit was most terrific. The tight little booty shorts, the curls pinned up... made me grin.

Then, about 20 minutes after getting back from the park, my kiddos and I had to leave. For the airport. Again. These were our last cousin shots. Everyone was soooo happy...

Annnnd, here is an unhappy being-held-by-Maeve Nora. Face plant!

A goodbye snuggle for Auntie Tara. Unrelated to any picture, but one night we had delicious Thai food and watched one of the coolest movies ever. Roller Boogie. This little gem is from 1979, same as me, so its awesomeness should not be surprising. We highly recommend it if you are looking for a movie that you're not sure is a spoof or not. Or "hunks" on roller skates. Or really short shorts pulled up to the rib cage.

After going the wrong way on the beltway (yeah, after living in the DC area for 5 years that still happened to me) and getting to drive right past our old digs in PG county, we arrived at the airport for our very last flight without Z. This year. Despite United Airlines changing our seat assignments, which they always, without fail, do, the flight passed with minimal drama. Just took a while to puzzle out which passenger needed to switch with which passenger so one of my four-year olds wasn't several rows ahead or behind the rest of us. Honestly, United is our least favorite airline ever, and we have flown on many, many airlines. They always separate our seats, even after we choose them! They are ultra-lame.

We've been in Texas for a week-ish now, and are having a blast. My 32nd birthday was yesterday and my sis and I got to go out and celebrate, leaving Curtis, her hubby, with all 9 kids. For several, several hours. He's a great guy, that Curtis!

Ireland: Carrickfergus and Dublin (and... LAST post!)

2011-07-18T15:27:00.002-03:00

Can you believe it?! It only took me FIVE posts, and juuuust under two months to finish posting about our trip. Phew. Anyway, this here's the last one, and I feel so accomplished. Now if only I could catch up on everything else I need to.

But yes, Carrickfergus. We arrived here (still in Northern Ireland, still along the coast, but heading down towards Dublin) and immediately got some fish and chips and headed to Carrickfergus castle to eat 'em by the water. It was some good stuff.

The seagulls were mighty appreciative of our lunch, as well.

Getting ready to go in...

Cannons! Cannons are cool. Also "cool," was when Bran totally slid off his cannon in the top pic, landing in a crumpled heap and making sure the whole castle, if not the whole city, knew of his fate. Then Nuala slid off funny and was dangling precariously and loudly while we were rushing to Bran's aid. Can't let him get all the attention, you know.... Maeve did NOT fall, but just didn't like sitting up there. Or didn't want to be left out of the racket-making.

This picture is unrelated to the cannon issues. I can't really remember why we were lucky enough to get this glare... honestly, it's not that rare of an occurrence, so it has to be a reeeeaaaally special glare to stand out. But it's still funny. Not so much at the time, I'm sure. Luckily she can switch it on and off pretty quickly. When she wants to.

Carrickfergus Castle was Bran and Nuala's favorite. They liked Dunluce Castle a lot, but that was just a big, wild shell of a castle, and Carrickfergus had cannons, and all these great statues dotted throughout.

It was more informative in a fun way, and I can see why little kids would like this one better. But Dunluce was just so rugged and wild. I'm glad we got to see both.

In a banqueting hall. That ship in the middle of the table is called a "nef," and salt was kept in there to display the banquet-giver's wealth. Salt was quite the expensive commodity back in the day.

Up at the top of the castle there was this awesome game room. A huge chess set (obviously), a crossbow and some other weapons you could hold, a giant game of chutes and ladders with DRAGONS, and some other fun stuff.

Then we left, after Bran agonized for about 20 minutes over which little knight figure he should buy to add to his Baby Warriors (a post of its own... he's so cute with his "baby warriors" :) collection.

We slept at another great B&B just down the road from the castle. Actually, we almost ditched and looked for a hotel because no one answered the door or our calls for about 20 minutes. We were in the car looking for hotels on the GPS when the lady who runs the B&B pulled up. Poor thing, she was quite frazzled. She'd been stuck in traffic in Belfast for 5 hours after a bomb scare was called in. Yeah. Anyway, the B&Bs all served us deliciously artery-clogging Ulster Fry breakfasts, which is an egg or two, sausages, bacon, soda bread and/or potato bread, usually fried... hmmm... I guess that's it... It differed from the traditional Irish breakfast by omitting the black pudding, which is 100% okay in my book! And the fried breads were yummy :) And we had the MOST amazing brown bread one morning... Mmmm... but anyway... There's Maeve asleep in her little tent. The twins used these, and only one is really surviving right now. Bran totally ripped holes in the mesh of the other one when he was two. These tents are so perfect for traveling with little ones.

Then, we went to Dublin! We spent the day Saturday and flew out early Sunday morning.

We went to the Natural History Museum, where we ooo-ed and aaaah-ed over the size of the ancient Irish Elk and Maeve had a nice long conversation with some bottled squid.

It was a pretty neat (and free) museum. Loads and loads of animals. The first floor was full of animals native to Ireland, and the second of anything else. The kiddos enjoyed it a lot.

Then we went to St. Stephen's Green to have a little picnic and let the tykes run off some of that quickly-regenerating energy. I like this pic of Maeve. She's chasing birds with a little stick that totally looks like a shillelagh, which is basically an Irish walking stick.

Wheee! Yeah, it was a fun playground.

Then we went to the nearby little town of Swords, to see its castle. Unfortunately, the castle was closed. We WERE able to stand outside of it, though. See?

Then we went back into Dublin and went by the GPO, or the General Post Office, which was the headquarters for the Republicans during the 1916 Easter Rising. As I mentioned before, I was reading a great book (1916 by Morgan Llewellyn) about the Rising, so it was really neat to go see the GPO in person, and see the bullet holes in the columns and walls.... I'm sure I've been by here in visits past, but that was before I could actually appreciate it.

And us, in front of the statue of Jim Larkin, with the GPO in the background. Then we went to our cozy airport hotel, went to sleep, and got up early. Then we flew home. And there we have it! The end of the Ireland trip! We already want to go back...