The Golden Gates

I have heard about these before...the Golden Gates.  This was the entrance to Kiev when it had a city wall build entirely around it.  Legend has that it had Golden Gates, but now it has none at all.  Usually you can walk through it, but this day they were having some type of film festival and they had blocked the entrance so that they could watch movies inside.

This shows what it originally looked like.  Obviously the dirt and timbers extended out to the left and right of the gate, but it is "earth thrown up with a workmanship of timbers above" that.  I had heard of how cities defended themselves this way, but had never seen an actual representation of it.  As soon as I saw this, it clicked with the description in my head.

This is the side where they had a monument to someone (we were not always able to decipher statues, etc.  For some crazy reason they rarely had anything listed in English.  Sometimes they did not even have it in Russian preferring to have it in Ukrainian only.).  I don't have a picture of the monument but let me tell you that when they do monuments, they are serious about it.  They are almost always huge.

This is on the 3rd or 4th floor?  I lost count.  Lots of climbing in this fort.  You can see over my shoulder our next stop, St. Sophia's.

Dayover in Switzerland

We had the opportunity to spend the day in Switzerland on a trip out to the Ukraine.  Zwitzerland is a beautiful country.  We visited in Zurich with one of my best friends from high school Cathy.  She has lived there for a year or two, but has always been a big world traveler.  She took the day off from work and walked us around to see the beautiful architecture, teach us about the culture there, catch up on old times, and also took us to lunch.

This is us having cheese fondue at a side walk cafe.  That car that is approaching us is probably about the only one that came down that way during our lunch.

This is Cathy looking smashing, and me goofy.  Yeah, that was probably par for high school too.  Cathy is a wonderful friend and a beautiful lady.  I am so glad that we had the chance to catch up after twenty years, and here is my secret confession - I only joined FB so I could catch up with good friends like her!

Wow, I am not sure if it is normally this sunny, but we managed to get great weather here (and for most of our trip).

Our trip begins!

This is Jeff and I three hours before our flight leaves on Tuesday morning.  We are the only ones at the gate.  We flew through security (which if I remember correctly Jeff got his first of several extra screenings on this trip) and breezed through to the gate to sit and wait for 2 and a half hours.  We were a little tired (we got up at 4:30 am) and just enjoyed the opportunity to read and relax.  We are unaccustomed to such activities and have decided that must be what R & R(read and relax) stand for.  This was such an unusual thing for us we actually found waiting enjoyable.  I could not help be reflect on our previous trip with the 6 kids on a discount airline (where we had to pay $40 for checked luggage) so we had each of the kids take a rolling suitcase and carry-on.  Did I mention that the twins were 6 months old at the time?  Did I mention that the oldest was 8?  Did I mention we had 6 kids?  I did not think to take a stroller, so Jeff and I were carrying the kids in addition to pulling our own rolling suitcase and carry-on and helping younger kids with their stuff.  Just for the record MaggieMae's bag was not as heavy as the rest of us...come on the kid was three.  Then there was the occasional nauseous kid, plane turbulence (did I mention we flew into a hurricane?  Seriously, we were the last flight out of both airports, they had closed down all airlines and we only got to land cause we were so close.  When we left the airport the rain was literally flying sideways).  Oh, that was an eventful trip.

So memories of other trips made this one delightful, although I felt compelled to ask anyone who had small children if they needed help.  They all turned me down.  Let me warn you, if I am in the airport with lots of kids, and you ask me if I'd like help, I WILL say yes.  I am not an idiot.  I have never received an award for wrestling a stroller down a flight of stairs.  Actually, I have never received an award for any of the labor intensive things I have undertaken so that my unusually large family can do the same things that many smaller families do without thought.  And I am OK with that.  I know what I do is because I want my family to enjoy life, not wait for it to happen.  Which is just the reason why I found myself in the airport waiting for 2 and a half hours, because when given the chance, I am going to enjoy the world around me, with or without my kids.

Mommy will lava melt your eyes?

Yes, this sweet little 4 year old girl actually asked me that question. The conversation went like this:

"Mommy will lava melt your eyes?

Yes, if lava touched your eyes they would melt it. Lava will melt almost anything.

"How bout my hands?"

Yes, it would melt your hands.

"What will it do to water?"

Water?

"Yes, will it melt water?"

Well, the water will cool the lava down and turn it to rock. The lava will turn the water to steam because the lava is so hot.

"Will it melt rocks?"

Yes, lava can melt rocks.

"Could it melt my ears?"

Yep, it could melt your ears.

And with that our conversation closed with me taking a picture of her making a face about her ears melting. My children are fun to chat with, fun to hang with and I never know what we are going to talk about next.

This year's rainbow cake

Last year I made a two level round cake that was multi-color with white frosting and a skittle rainbow that went over the whole cake. Maggie wanted another one. I initially agreed, but then I flubbed up the day before and did not make it and foolishly I scheduled her party for 9:30 the next day. So I pondered a bit (my way of saying I was stressing a bit, mentioned it to God in my nightly prayer, and got this idea sent to my head) and came up with this.

Last year I mixed the cake mix in half a dozen bowls and then poured each one in the correct sequence to make a great cake that ended up splitting down the middle because it was so heavy/large? Anyway, I decided to switch to a 9x13 pan, and just put in different swirls of color as I went. Below is the pre-cooked cake, I wish I would have gotten a post cooked picture. It really looked awesome. I frosted the top of the cake and we put on a small (compared to last year's cake) rainbow of skittles and we were all set!

Doesn't this just look fun?

My American Dream

The other day I was responding to a friend of mine about something she had posted on her blog, and it occurred to me what the "American Dream" is.  For me, I think this is having the right and opportunity to be involved in the community around you to determine your future.  This could be as simple as being involved in the PTO or voting for the President of the United States.  But why do we do these things?  I feel for the same reason that our colonial patriot's fought the Revolutionary war to improve things for our kids.  Stop for a minute to ask yourself why you get involved in things beyond your home.  The two reasons that come to my mind are 1) because you like the way it is going and you want to support a successful system so that the results can bless you and your posterity or 2) because you think the current system is not being successful and you want to correct it for yourself and your posterity.  In the Colonial times, they felt they were being treated unfairly and wanted to be able to have a voice in the issues that affected them.  In modern day I think about what I get involved in and why and they fall under these two reasons.

I think back to my perspective on this idea as a teenager.  I thought the "American Dream" was a small house of  your own with a white picket fence.  That may be someone's dream, but it is not mine.  I thought I would have to give up what I wanted to have the American Dream.  Now I realize that the American Dream is something that we must all define, search for, and then in all probability create.  For me, my American Dream is a place where people treat each other with respect and patience.  Where we don't have to have laws to govern the people because we realize that we are not all the same, we don't all think the same, but we all deserve the same respect.  A place where my huge 5 bedroom house has as much right to being on the block as a small three bedroom regardless of our fence out front.  I have come to realize there are two ways that I can influence these ideas 1) by articulating them to the world and 2) teaching the children to understand and do them.  These are the ways that mom's rock the nation.  While many programs have been put into place to teach basic principles of respect and patience, it really comes back to the home (as do most things in our nation).  This is what we as women (and men) need to understand that we determine the future by our actions now and choosing to be involved in the solutions.