Highlights from the Past Month

Ok, you're about to get bombarded with a ton of pictures. Sorry. We've taken many the past month and I always have a hard time deciding which ones to post, so when in doubt, I just post them. This is taken August 24, the day of departure from Dulles Airport. Can you tell how excited Em is to take the plane? She loves going on the plane now.Our luggage: Don't be fooled... the duffle bags and suitcases are mostly filled with toys and books to last the girls until our shipment comes. Wish I had packed more warm clothes and less toys.
Old Town. It's simply marvelous. Can't wait to show our visitors. Anyone is welcome to come!
We ate lunch in Old Town outside under those umbrellas at a fantastic restaurant... Pizza Hut!
This is how we roll. We have loved our double stroller. It is perfect for Europe.
The Palace of Culture and Science. It is the tallest building in Poland and a gift from Stalin. He patterned it after the Empire State Building.
Great pic of Ben and Caroline. Do you see the resemblance?
Tomb of the unknown soldier. This is a really cool spot... the black plaques on the side of the wall are all the campaigns the Poles have participated in.

The little strip of concrete that Emily is walking along is where part of the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto used to be.
The wall up close.
Ben's friend Chuck who came to visit us. That is the plaque in front of the church. Can you see the heavenly beams lighting upon them? Chuck posted this pic on his facebook page and said, "Here I am with Ben, the only person on the planet who could get me to go to church." Pretty sweet.
President and Sister Harding. He is from Malad Idaho and knew Grandpa Williams and family. It's a small world. He was very interested in guns asking Ben, "So, do you carry a gun on you? If there was an emergency, could you go to the embassy and get a weapon?" He said he owns an AK-47. Classic.
This is really awesome. We walked down a little alley way in the Jewish district of Warsaw and the buildings on both sides are the only originals still standing that were in the Warsaw Ghetto
Here we are in front of the buildings within the ghetto. Bethany, do you recognize either of these people? One is Richard Nabonza who said he served at the same time as you and his wife Asia Manowiecka, who said she was investigating when you served in Warsaw. She's a returned missionary and now the RS president. They are super nice.
Up close on the building you can see bullet and mortar holes from German fire. It's pretty amazing.
Caroline's first time in the swing. She loved it.

What a great big sister! Em and Caroline love each other. It's so much fun to watch them together.

Soap!

Hey guys! So one of the new and exciting things I learned yesterday is that the FDA has shown that there is actually no difference between using antimicrobial soap and regular soap. In fact, some people think that using antimicrobial soap is actually bad. They think that it might push the evolution of super germs sort of like the overuse of antibiotcs did in the fifties. And I've also included this hilariuos video.

dave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK2OakMoW_c

If you like this one, look up "Cletus take the reel."

You've got to watch this

Dave suggested I post this after I described it to him. The entire clip is pretty good, but the you've got to watch starts at the 2:07 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRPT3Q4_5p8

Dave and Wendy's new blog

Hey guys. We started our own blog! Exciting times! If you'd like to check it out, it's at

http://daveandwendy.wordpress.com

You guys are all awesome.

Well, here we are at Dave and Wendy's, where we spent a great weekend with great company and great food and great football! Go Cougars!

Steve got to come up and brought Marinda's car down for us to keep in good shape. It's in our driveway now and safe and well.









We got to take the crew out for Labor Day breakfast at the Bluebird (the Hamburg was closed : ( There was too much to eat, however--we haven't fed again since leaving Iowa. We think Steve's hand may have developed some strange cramping of late.






And we got to visit the Shaha cemetery thanks to Dave and Wendy's outstanding directions--I am standing next to James Wesley Shaha's headstone. It was a great weekend. Hope you all had the same!

Love, Mom and Dad

Pics from Poland

Poland

Poland rules. We are so pumped to be here. We have recovered from post flight HIV and had a great weekend last weekend. We went to Old Town Warsaw and walked past the Presidential Palace and many other historical sites. There was a cool exhibit on the Polish Soviet War of 1920. There was a huge mural of Marshall Jozef Pilsudski facing off with a huge, red mural of Lenin. We also went to the top of the Palac Kultury i Nauki, the highest building in Warsaw and got a good view of the city. The Palac was a "gift" to the Poles from beloved Stalin. He died before it was finished. Supposedly Stalin sent his stooges to study the Empire State building in the design phase. Then on Sunday at church, I blessed the sacrament and said the blessing on the water. I think I did OK. The mission president was there and was impressed with my Polish. He's been here two months and is still learning. After church, we sat in Lazienki park and listened to a Chopin concert. It was awesome. A beautiful, crisp sunny day (Mom's kind of weather) in the park with some dude jamming Marinda's favorite composer under the shadow of this enormous statue of Chopin. Poles love Chopin and Copernicus, both of whom are Polish according to Poles, though that's disputed. Emily would break the silence and yell "Yayyy!" and clap after every number. I go to school with a Chinese dude and 30 Poles. Great guys. I spend most of the class with a "duh" look on my face, but it's getting better. Today I made it to class for the first time without getting on the wrong bus and/or train. One of these days, I'll probably wake up in Moscow. We listened the the Estonian Minister of Defense talk on cyber-security today. Pretty cool. Our house is fantastic for any of you that would like to visit. We have a guest floor (full bath, bedroom walk-in closet, etc). Come whenever, but the weather is already starting to turn crappy. Cold and rainy a lot. Love you all.

Ben

Dress and hat compliments of Aunt Linda

Emily hangin' with the movers.

New Address

Hi everyone...

Dave awesome pics at the cemetery. Way to go diggin' all that stuff up, no pun intended (sorry, totally lame).

Here is our new mailing address:

Unit 5010 Box 146

DPO AE 09730

Shaha Cemetery

So we finally made it out to the Shaha cemetery! It was a great experience and crazy hot and humid. It's out in the middle of a cornfield pretty much and we had to take some funky roads to get there. Let us know if you'd like to go and we'll provide you with good intel.

I always load the pictures wrong so the first ones are at the bottom. It'll make more sense if you start there.


George was another child of James and Elizabeth. He died a week after William.

This is Elizabeth's father Joseph Strickland. The engravings on his tombstone are really cool.

Elizabeth was James's wife.

This is one of James Wesley and Elizabeth's children who died in infancy.

This is James Wesley Shaha's grave. There is an older tombstone behind it that I think is the original. I don't know who provided this newer one. If you zoom in you can see some neat engravings and stuff.

This is the cemetery.

This is the overgrown road to the cemetery. You can see the headstones in the clearing.

This is the sign off the country road pointing you down an even more country road to the cemetery.