London 2010

Some photos from our winter break trip to London.

A highlander in Trafalgar Square

This hardy Scot was piping in Trafalgar Square just outside the National Gallery. The temperature was mid-30s with an icy breeze blowing up his kilt.

Alex and Grayson are in the foreground. Check out their spontaneous jig...

The Cat

Ellie getting her face painted by our neighbor on the first full day of this year's trip to London.

Golubac 2009! Camping in Eastern Serbia

We get the major religious holidays twice here - once on the day we are familiar with in the West, and once on the Eastern Orthodox calendar. This year we planned a camping trip for the Eastern Orthodox Easter holidays.

Our camping trip took us out along the Danube (Western Europe's longest river) to the stretch of it that divides north-eastern Serbia from central-southern Romania. It's a beautiful length of river. Most of the Serbian bank of the Danube there is part of Djerdap National Park, which begins at a point called the Iron Gate, a geographical feature where steep, rocky cliffs narrow the river to just a few hundred yards breadth. Historically this point of the river has been key to commercial and military policy. From the Roman period forward fortifications, chains, and military camps have been built around the area to control trade and the movement of people and armies.

Today, not much is going on there commercially. The EU and the end of the Cold War have made it virtually unthinkable that war or ideology will divide people across the river. What's left is a serene landscape, friendly rural people, and fascinating archeological sites like Golubac fortress (pictured above at the Iron Gate), Viminacium, and Lepinski Vir.

Here's Alex in the excavated part of the mausoleum at Viminacium, the ancient Roman capital of the province of Moesia (modern Serbia). Viminacium was a major Roman city and military camp with a population of around 35,000 people. The mausoleum has some amazing tomb frescoes from the late classical period and, best of all for the kids SKELETONS! About a dozen tombs lie open at the dig and our tour guide took us right down into the dig and face to face with the grisly remains of these former pagan and Christian citizens of the empire. Needless to say the kids thought this was very cool!

The large central tomb in the background is likely the tomb of the Roman Emperor Hostelian, son of the far more powerful Emperor Trajan.










The two cute kids in a section of Golubac fortress. The fortress was built in the 1300s and was held, variously, by Serbs, Turks, and Hungarians over the next 500 years. Portions of it are now underwater following the daming and diversion of the Danube, but most of it is still above ground and good for climbing and pretend battles.









Ellie at our first night's camp. Everywhere we went Serbs gave us colored eggs. Many of them were colored with natural dyes and some had intricate patterns made by masking sections of the shell with bits of cut leaves.

Giddy Up!

Ellie cried when at last we had to leave the ponies for home
check out the pink cowboy boots!

Welcome to Serbia

So, what have we been doing in Serbia for the past few weeks with no car, no computer, no toys, and no ability to communicate?
Getting creative...

Filling up our rain boots with water

Checking out the huge farmer's market
We take the bus downtown to get here , which is a whole different kind of adventure with kids!

"Hey! Let's take all our clothes out of the closet and throw them down the stairs!"Ketchup with a side of corn dog

Early morning wake-up call for our neighbors

Socks tucked into the refrigerator door handle. What does that mean?

Faced with a shortage of books, Ellie turns to unconventional reads and discovers a new favorite. I didn't know For the Strength of Youth was the fictional account of friends who go to balls and get time outs.

3 Generations - 5 Kinds of Fish

Alex and I have been really happy to have uncle Steve and Grandpa Gaskill here with us. We've gone on two fishing trips so far and you can see the results! We've caught a large-mouth bass, a yellow perch, a black crappie, a bluegill, and a channel catfish!

I'm personally so grateful and feel so blessed that Carli has motivated and encouraged me to take Alex fishing. He loves it and it's so much fun for me to see him have fun. I'm the luckiest husband and dad in the world!

Fishing at River Bend

Alex, Ellie and I went out to River Bend Park this morning for a little fishing. We had a lot of fun eating our very healthy McDonald's breakfasts, throwing sand at each other, throwing rocks at everything, throwing up (Ellie got a little car sick), and, intermittently, fishing. Alex landed this monster bluegill which measured out at just over six inches and weighed a few ounces. But, as anyone who takes kids fishing knows, the size of the fish is almost never proportional to the excitement of catching it (that is to say Alex had an absolute blast hauling in this pip-squeak).

Ellie hooked one - about the same size as Alex's - that got away just at the water's edge. As it turned out, it may have been a good thing she didn't land it, because as I was putting Alex's fish on the stringer Ellie started chastising me seriously. With her most angry-hurt face she yelled at me, "Daddy! Leave him alone! He needs to go back to his family." I tried to explain that fish don't really have families, but with the unshakable confidence of a toddler, she was not dissuaded and snapped back, "Yes, he does have a family. He needs them to take care of him and make his breakfast." (big pout!).

Alex had a slightly different, but no less familial set of plans for this fish. Alex excitedly suggested that if we could get the fish home alive he could be "Larryboy's dad." Larryboy, for those of you who don't know, is Alex's pet goldfish who lives in a 2 gallon aquarium. Alex's catch was small, but probably not too small to eat Larryboy whole, so that idea was a non-starter.

National Portrait Gallery

We took the Metro downtown today to visit the National Portrait Gallery, which was mostly for me. Alex got pretty excited about this bust of Arthur Miller (no he did not know who he was!) and both he and Ellie recognized and were amazed to see this (badly photographed) portrait of Joseph Smith. We learned to waltz in the Lincoln Inaugural Ball exhibit, saw civil war swords and guns, and the kids also loved a lot of the modern art (didn't get that from me). We wandered, quite by accident, into an area of nude sculptures and before I could navigate us out, Alex and Ellie noticed and were talking and laughing, rather loudly, about naked people who forgot their unders. Yikes! Let's see, we set off 2 alarms, were tailed by a security guard and got scolded once by another patron. A pretty successful outing I'd say! I really wanted to spend some time in the newly designed Kogod Courtyard which has shallow floating pools that kids can walk in. But the pools had been drained! I hope to take my parents-in-law when they come and I'll cross my fingers for water. If you are coming to DC, I completely recommend this place. The building itself is GORGEOUS.

Squirt Park

This was, if possible, even more fun than it looks!

Frying Pan Park

Got up this morning and was checking up on some blogs and I got a great idea from Jana about how to spend our day! Frying Pan Park was as fun as I remembered it. Thanks, Jana :)

Day Laborers

One of the best DC finds is Homestead Farms in Maryland. We picked apples here in the fall and made homemade applesauce and this weekend we came back for summer strawberries. Hopefully in July we'll get some blackberries before we ship out. The kids had soooo much fun gathering berries and petting all the farm animals here. As a bonus some of our strawberries became a strawberry rhubarb pie!

Princess Sarah and Pirate Wally came along for the ride and,
lazy as usual, they didn't help at all.

Hugh has a Capital Time

We loved having "baby" Hugh and Aunt Grace come for a visit - it wasn't long enough!

Yellow Knight

My Dad took me and a friend to a Renaissance Fair in High School and I remember thinking that I could really be one of those, I don't want to use the word geeky, but... people who got really into it. The costume, the hair, the olyde English, the inappropriate humor. (Would I be a lady or wench?) So, this Mother's Day was especially fun for me because Jeff took me and the kids to Medieval Times Restaurant and Tournament. Yes, tournament! A kidnapped Prince, knights on horses, a worried damsel, a falconer, eating with our fingers, jousting, sword fighting... I'm drooling. It was so fun. At first the kids were a bit scared of the dark and noise, but after a few minutes, they both got really into it. This was the best: at one point our knight's squire told all the "ladies" (read: little girls) who were in the front row to "do anything you can to get the knight's attention" so that she could be the lady he championed during the contests. So Jeff, being the amazing dad he is, stood up with Ellie in his arms and shoved her forward and practically dangled her over the rail! The knight had no choice but to choose her! She got a banner proclaiming her "Queen of love and beauty" and all the way home she told us, "And then, and then, he chose me!" Ah, young love.

Everyday a New Adventure

This city is packed with things to do and we've been trying to fill our days with the sights while the weather is still manageable. Last Friday we "hiked" the azalea trail at the National Arboretum (and got soaked in the many fountains and ran screaming from gigantic bumble bees and stuffed our pockets full with rocks and collected sticks for dubious purposes) and endlessly watched the Koi fish swimming. The grounds were gorgeous - I especially loved the grape arbor. The green grapes were maybe 4x's the size of poppy seeds!

This week we headed to the US Marine Corps War Memorial (the famous Iwo Jima sculpture) and the Netherlands Carillon. The day was a bit hazy, but still so wonderful to sit on the shaded and grassy hills full of flowers to picnic and play. The photo is not aimed right for the view of the city, but that is the Lincoln Memorial in the far right and we could see the Capitol and Washington Monuments as well. Afterwards Jacob came home with us for a playdate and the kids decided to "grocery shop." They took turns wheeling Ellie's shopping cart into the kitchen and I loaded it with food from our cupboards. Without considering the consequences, I put an open box of pasta in the cart and a few moments later I hear, "Noodle Time!" They had (of course) dumped the pasta out all over the floor. Look at their faces; they are in heaven! Hard to be upset about that.

Swiss Family Robinson

We went treehouse camping in Maryland this weekend with 2 families in our ward. Camping is fun. Camping with friends is soooo much more fun. The 5 little boys went exploring and most of them got burned while playing with sticks and the campfire. Friday night it poured buckets of rain, but we stayed nice and dry :) We made a westerly detour through Harpers Ferry (check out this wiki article for some good pictures, especially the 1912 panoramic) on the way home and immediately started planning our next weekend trip to the National Historical Park. It was gorgeous -- of course I am a sucker for water and Harpers Ferry is at the point where the Shenandoah River flows into the Potomac River. It's awesome! Of course, it's also on the Appalachian Trail and has a beautiful little town. If you're ever in West Virginia...