The Way We Play

Today I'm documenting various activities we participated in while on our trip. As great as it was to see so many awesome sites, it was in the doing that we kept our sanity and were able to maintain an aggressive travel schedule. If there's no room for play, then there's no room for us. That's almost like our family motto...either that or "there's always room for Bruce" right, Jody? (I'm totally being stupid. I'm just always in search of a good family motto and now you know why...mostly because I can't ever come up with any good ones). Scary, sorry, or weird as they may seem, these are the activities that make us who we are...

The first spontaneous activity of the trip happened here, when we took an unplanned detour to drive through a quaint town in Germany. We had to get out and take a picture of the cemetery because Leah is fascinated/obsessed with cemeteries. Each time we drive by one, we hear an enthusiastic "I love these places!"

We found a little park adjacent to the church grounds that had a zipline...the perfect size for these pint-sized ones.

...and I suppose for this pint-size too (at least he thought so). See, he's at least three inches from the ground. I'm sure they use this zipline for adults all the time.

I always got butterflies before using the bathroom, just because there was so much uncertainty. To pay or not to pay. Men may or may not be in the restroom when I exit my stall. Having the cleaning lady shoo me into the men's bathroom. Isabel averting her eyes when Jared was standing at the urinal when she was also shooed into the men's room. Jared not even caring. Standing in the women's restroom and seeing my brother peek around the corner from the men's room.
Mom offering me a Pringles can when I had a bathroom emergency in a major traffic jam. Interesting stuff.

Rather than pay or use the rest-stop restrooms, Jared found a little place in nature to conduct his business every time. He wanted to live as the Euros live and to him, this was a way to honor that attempt.

Loved the demonstrations of our rental car key popping out like a switchblade.

Leah trying her hand with the Moroccan band.

We're basically professional camel riders now because we can even ride with no hands.

I'll be okay on a professional trek across the desert as long as I don't have to dismount my camel at all during the adventure. The dismount makes the vein in my forehead seriously pop out.

Leah loved the kiss by the 2 1/2 week old baby.

Jared scored on kisses in the Sevilla "kissing lanes"mostly because I kept misreading my guidebook. Each time we'd round a corner and see a narrower lane, we'd have to kiss again. We finally found an authentic "kissing lane" but by this time Anna was altogether grossed out - she later told my brother that all Jared and I did was kiss all day.

Mom had some serious panic issues when she thought we were too close to the edge of the cliff, so Doug had to scale the rocks in Sagres, Portugal to seal the deal. I use the term "scale" loosely because the rocks were terraced for a good 10-20 feet below him. Had he dropped off, however, it would have been okay because that's how he would have wanted to go.

Nicole's laptop provided all kinds of entertainment for the girls and they loved hanging out with their older, sweet, mature cousin.

I almost couldn't get Jared out of this little cottage that housed a dinosaur of a computer with internet access at the B&B in Sintra, Portugal. He had been cut off from his world of sports (both the real kind and fantasy) for far too long. One day while in a restaurant he picked up a newspaper and was furious "because an entire paper dedicated to sports didn't have one NBA score in it!" (slam paper down on table)

Rather than eat their McDonald's french fries and nuggets, the girls fed them to the pigeons at this park in Lisbon, Portugal. Leah had a particular fascination with pigeons the entire trip. She chased them along every pedestrian walkway and city square, regardless of how many innocent pedestrians she had to trample down in the process. (For the record, Jared and I did not eat McDonald's. That was the girls' choice. We opted for bafitas, some kind of sandwich, instead.)

Jared was totally up to the challenge of negotiating narrow, steep roads (where, I might add, traffic rules are very vague) like this one in Lisbon, Portugal.  I won't mention the sticky situation we found ourselves in when he took a wrong turn on a one-way street. I was super smooth about the whole thing.  Just down this street a ways we stopped outside one of the apartments where my brother lived as a missionary.

A vacation just wouldn't be a vacation without a dip in the Marriott swimming pool with dad...while a fully dressed mom takes pictures from the sidelines.

Before jumping/scrambling/pushing our way into the subway, I took on the familiar posture of lecturing the girls on the importance of staying with the group and what to do if separated. I then remembered how my friend Karen wrote her phone number on her kids arms when they went to the zoo one time. The girls were in a state of disbelief as I yanked up their sleeves and wrote in ink on their arms! They were almost as happy as if they had been eating ice cream.

We held on (and held our breath) on this Paris, France subway. Once we got stopped in transit and tried to act as casual about it as the locals did. Once, while embarking, I fell on top of a girl who was not very gracious, even though I was profusely apologetic. I have circled the faces of those in our group, lest I forget who we were traveling with that day.

We like to take photos from all points of view. We are a very artistic family. Well, not really, but Brita wanted to capture Notre Dame in the fulness of its beauty anyway. Even if she didn't want to go inside. Did I mention that we are more artistic than we are cultured?

Loved the ropes course at this beautiful park in Leven, Belgium. Note the difference in clothing coverage between my girls and Anna.
Love that girl.

Jared and I couldn't resist playing along (reference our family motto). Jared's got quite a bounce and I've got some lungs, especially when I'm scream-laughing, as all of the park visitors learned that day.

A vacation just wouldn't work for us if Leah didn't visit the doctor. This is the waiting area in a section of the doctor's home. Jared spent the bulk of our visit talking to the doc about the ins and outs of practicing medicine in Europe, then Isabel bumped in and proceeded to get prescriptions for her family...I almost forget why we went to the doctor in the first place.

Leah loves my brother and sister-in-law's dog Kiki like she is her own. Wait a minute...like her own? Too bad we can't get her to brush her own dog.

Kiki was always a good dance partner. I tell my girls it's okay to dance with dogs and let's hope it stays that way for a good long time.

The girls spent plenty of time riding bikes and scooters during "bonus week" (the week we were stranded because of the volcano). Leah got a kick out of standing on the pegs while Anna did the hard work of pedaling. Brita went out with them once or twice, but she preferred to read or play computer games most of the time. I'm not sure how she stays so skinny.

Perhaps my favorite activity of the trip was the constant testing of flexibility that went on...in various settings throughout Europe. Doug and I were constantly struggling with this exercise while Jared couldn't wait to demonstrate his flexibility. Each time we engaged in this show of elasticity my dad would comment on how his dad could touch his palms flat on the ground up until the day he died. Except I think he was exaggerating because I don't think his dad actually tried touching the ground with his palms on the day he died. Then Jared would pipe in and share his theory of how our arms must just be short in proportion to the rest of our bodies.

...which lead to a totally scientific experiment. Even on vacation, Jared can't stop being a scientist. Each person's arm span was measured, as well as height, and it was determined that the Moon siblings, are indeed short armed....thanks to my mom's side of the family (dad does a fist pump and mom is in a stupor).
Sure makes me grateful I went to Europe.
Otherwise how would I ever have known?