My apologies...

...to Ducks fans. I went to my first ever game and fear I cursed them causing them to break their 21 home game winning streak and dashing any hope of the BCS Championships.

But, I still had a great time (until they lost). I went with my friend from work Sheryl and had an awesome time. We tailgated before the game, eating lots of great food; we then walked around the stadium and saw the Heisman Trophy in person.

We had great seats and yelled a lot.

See how close the on field camera was?

Captain

Today was Ben's promotion ceremony to Captain. I got to pin (it's called pinning but I'm not actually pinning him, it's velcro) him. I asked Ben's dad Mike to take pictures during the ceremony. All the pictures turned out blurry and Ben's eyes are closed in most of them.
*Note to self, don't ask Mike to take pictures again. :-)


Please note I took this picture so it is not blurry like the rest (and everyone's eyes are open)

Congratulations Captain Selander!

Summer

My Grandma

Lucy Louise Bax

March 18, 1943 -July 13, 2011

As powerful as words can be, there really are no words to adequately express the measure of a person’s life, or what they meant to us. Lucy Bax was my grandma and being the oldest grandchild I was able to have her as my grandma for 26 years. It’s hard to think that there will not be any new memories with her created, but I will forever cherish the memories I have.

First Peter 4:9 says “Be hospitable to one another without complaint.” She followed this instruction well. As her grandchild I knew I was always welcome in her home and she made me feel so loved while I was there. Even though grandpa has diabetes she still kept sweet treats in the house for us kids to eat by hiding them in the closet so grandpa wouldn’t eat any.

My grandma’s mom passed when I was 10 years old leaving her grandchild Tina, who was my age, without a grandma. I remember Tina telling me she would just call Aunt Lucy grandma because it would be easier. I think she wanted to call Lucy grandma because everyone wanted her to be their grandma; she was that great of a grandma.

When she began her photography business she would let me and my sisters come with her to her shows. I learned some very valuable business lessons during that time. I remember one show she told my sister and me that for every $100 worth of pictures she sold, we would get $1. To a 10 year old, this was a great deal. So we worked all day trying to sell her pictures. In the end, she sold over $1000 (which I think at the time was the best she’d ever done) and we got $10. It. was. awesome.

Grandma was the oldest child and definitely took on the role of the typical oldest. She was the planner of the family. She would plan all of our family camping trips. I remember during those camping trips she would bring a big poster with intricate designs on it for the grandkids to color. She always had the coolest markers and would let us stay in her trailer while coloring; which was always such a treat.

When I turned 16 they took a friend and me on a cruise to Mexico. Can you imagine how brave they were to take 2 16 year old, boy crazy, girls on a cruise to Mexico? But my grandma planned everything and we had such a wonderful trip.

In college I was contemplating applying to a program that would allow me to study abroad in Spain but I was afraid to go. Grandma told me she’d lived most of her life letting fear dictate what she did and she finally decided she didn’t care about what other people thought and she didn’t want me to let fear dictate my life. Because of her, I applied and went, and was forever instilled with the same love for travel that my grandma had. In fact, while in Spain my grandparents were in Europe also and we met in Rome for a few days. Traveling with them was so much fun –even if I did have to sleep on the floor of the bed and breakfast.

It’s difficult to say good bye to the grandma I loved so much, but God was ready for her and who am I to argue. Thank you God for the time I did get to spend with her. She was a very special woman and we were all lucky to have known her.

The Netherlands

People have asked which was my favorite country to visit and I’ve responded Scotland, but as I prepared to post the blog on Holland I realized how many pictures I wanted to show because I have the fondest memories in Holland. However, the memories aren’t of the beautiful, old buildings, the canals or the cheese stores (which were all great), it’s the memories we made with my family while we were there.

My grandparents were the reason for our trip to Holland in the first place. This September will be their 50th wedding anniversary and since they both immigrated from Holland, they thought it would be fun to celebrate over there with relatives that still live there.
So we flew into Amsterdam and stayed a night in our hostel in the Red Light District.
We did see all the typical things you'd expect to see in Amsterdam; canals,

wooden shoes,

Open air markets,

where we bought stroopwafel made right in front of us (so good!!!)

cheese stores where you can sample all different kinds of cheese (also so good),

and parking lots just for bikes. Our canal tour informed us that the canals are 1/3 water, 1/3 dirt, and 1/3 bike.
Amsterdam needs the bike parking lots because there are so many people in the city and there isn't room for everyone to drive cars. Guess that's why some choose to drive a car like this:
This is Dam Square. See how many people there are?
And of course we enjoyed gebakjes (dutch pastries).
After time in Amsterdam we got our own little car,
packed all our things in it,and drove to these cabins on a working dairy farm to stay with my family. My grandma found these cabins and reserved them for us. They were absolutely adorable!

There were 14 of us from the States that came to stay in 3 cabins on this farm in Woubrugge. Here's everybody: my aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunt and uncle, sister and grandpa. Unfortunately despite all her planning my grandma wasn't able to make the trip. She was missed horribly.

This is the dining room. See those doors?

That is where Ben and I slept.

One night we invited friends and relatives still living in Holland to come to the farm for a visit. Here is a group picture of everyone who was able to make it. It was fun to meet relatives I'd never seen before (or at least remembered seeing them before).

Also at the cabins were row boats.

We all took turns rowing.
The first day at the cabins we went to a little town named Leiden. My grandpa was kind enough to take us to a pannenkoekenhuis. This is where they serve "pancakes" bigger than your face. I had ham, cheese and mushrooms on mine. I couldn't finish it it was so big -but delicious!
The next day my aunts and uncles wanted to go to Amsterdam but since we'd just been there we got to spend a day with my grandpa. He took us to Scheveningen to this little restaurant on the beach. Here is my grandpa being responsible and protecting his head from the sun since he forgot his hat.
And Ben enjoying his long island ice tea.
Brittany found this good looking Dutchman.
After Scheveningen my grandpa thought it would be a good idea to see the Parliament building in Den Haag. He gave me a map of the COUNTRY and told him to navigate to the building in the CITY. (By the way, this is not possible). Instead we drove around for about 4 hours in circles -never to find the elusive Parliament building. We did however make a wrong turn into a parking garage and had to pay to get out of the stupid thing. Ben and Brittany in the backseat thought this whole adventure was quite hilarious.
The next day all 14 of us went to Delft. This was perhaps my favorite city in Holland. It was so quaint and welcoming. Ben and I climbed to the top of this church (375 steps),
and saw this view.
Another example of the canals in Holland.
Delft is where they make Delft's Blue so we went to the factory to see how it's made.
Everything is hand painted. The paint goes on black and when it's fired it comes out blue.
The other thing people think of when thinking of Holland is windmills so we were to Kinderdijk where they have lots of those.

And there's our 3 week trip in 3 blog posts. We really did have such a great time!

Scotland

I know the anticipation has been killing everyone so without further delay here is our time in Scotland:

We flew into Edinburgh
and were completely overwhelmed with the amount of old, well preserved buildings in such a concentrated area.
Since Scotland is part of the UK there were still cool telephone booths like this one:

One of the major attractions in Edinburgh is the Edinburgh Castle which sits atop a hill over looking the entire city.

We wanted to stay out late one night to get a picture of it at dark all lit up, but this was taken at midnight and it still wasn't dark. We were too tired to stay out later so this as close to it being lit up as we got.

A view from the castle:

Scotland is famous for deep fried candy bars. Here is one of the deep fried Snickers we enjoyed.

And what trip isn't complete without an old man sleeping on a bench? So cute.

Next we took the bus to St. Andrews. Here is what remains of the cathedral.

St. Andrews Castle.

Some may know St. Andrews because that is where Prince William and Kate went to school, but to others, St. Andrews is known because it is considered to be where golf originated from. The Old Course has hosted the British Open more than any other golf course in the world. The bridge Ben is standing on is the "famous" Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole of the Old Course. Many famous golfers have walked on this bridge.“I’d like to see the fairways more narrow. Then everybody would have to play from the rough, not just me.” Seve Ballestero

From St. Andrews we took a bus to Stirling for the day. Stirling has two main attractions; Stirling Castle and the William Wallace Monument.

Unfortunately these 2 attractions are about 2.5 miles apart. See? There is the William Wallace Monument as viewed from the castle:

But we walked all the way! For those who love history (my husband), this is Stirling Bridge where William Wallace won the battle against the British saving Scotland. If you want more details, watch Braveheart; Mel Gibbson is William Wallace in that movie.

After Stirling we went to Glasgow. This city was in stark contrast to Edinburgh. Edinburgh had charm and history, Glasgow had people.

It did have this cool building in George Square.

And this Cathedral.

And this arch as an entry into a really nice city park:

This is Glasgow University. Could you imagine if this was your school? How cool!

You can't tell in this picture but we are actually sitting in a cemetery leaning up against a monument to somebody. It just felt so good to sit.

One more country to go...