Moments of a Move - and a Big Dead Pig

A few snapshots of life inside a military move.

Friday and Saturday we spend all day outside in the muggy heat - pressure washing everything that had been stored on the porch, in the shed or in the outside storage room. Monday we have a customs inspection and everything must be free of dirt, spider webs and snails. We put it all on the driveway and back porch and surround it with a thick line of salt.

While emptying the storage room, Geoffrey remarks, "I've learned something from this move. I need to stop trying to make every house we live in into a homestead." Bwa Ha Ha Ha!!  If you knew how many pre-moves I have spent suggesting, begging and encouraging him to get rid of his stuff you would understand how funny this was. I try to contain my laughter long enough to give him a hug and tell him that I am proud of his epiphany.

 In Geoffrey's heart of hearts, he would like to live on a farm with large animals and a big garden and a huge workshop. He would have every tool and keep everything that might be useful again someday. He would spend hours teaching his children the many practical skills he knows. He would be prepared for any type of apocalypse the world could throw at him. It kills him that he can't be that dad.

Three hours after that admission, he took the oldest two boys boar hunting with a Turkish friend named Mustafa. At 1:30 am in the Tarsus Mountains near Pozanti, his sons shot a boar. He teaches them how to gut the beast and they spend the night with their friend, coming home the next morning with coolers of meat, puffed out chests and big cheesy grins.

 So he gets to be that dad.

Saturday evening after the boys left Delaney is sitting at the computer planning the menu and shopping list for her birthday dinner the next day. We have been too busy to do this before but the commissary is open for another two hours so we can still make it. She is singing along to a Montgomery Gentry song.
     Yeah, this is my town.
      Where I was born
       Where I was raised
      Where I keep all my yesterdays. 
This kills me a little.  This proud, grounding sentiment won't ever apply to her.  When someone asks my children where they are from they hesitate and look at me for the answer. Where are we from? It should be an easy question to answer but it's not. They have no hometown. Their identities are not tied to one place of permanence but to many places of experience.

Sunday morning Evan and Rory wait with me in the kitchen for the breakfast cake to finish baking.  They woke me this morning determined to keep up the birthday-breakfast-in-bed tradition for their older sister. Evan talks about the move.
"The bad thing about moving is having to unpack everything again and again.
 But it would get really boring to stay in the same house your whole life in the same town."
(Pause)
"I'm really glad we got to live in Turkey."

Lucerne - Last Switzerland Post, I promise.

So I've been holding off on that whole announcement thing for a while. Yesterday felt like the right time and I'm glad its posted and out there. But I still have one more day of Switzerland to blog about. I considered skipping it but it was too awesome not to share.

After trolling all around Lake Lucerne and its surrounding mountain peaks for several days we spent our last day in the city of Lucerne before heading to Zurich to fly back to Adana.

Just a tiny aside here - one evening we rented kayaks and paddled around a portion of the lake. I really enjoyed it, we saw the schamncy vacay homes and the tiny beaches people climbed down to from the hills above. The water is a gorgeous turquoise color and the shoreline has so little development on it due to the height of the banks. We also saw a couple of naked people. Old people. Out on their boats just enjoying the sun shining where it normally doesn't. Now ask yourself, if you are a retiree who enjoys going au naturalle while on your boat and you see some kayakers approaching what do you do? Do you stay seated, maybe casually throwing a towel across your bits and wave? Or do you stand up, turn around and bend over to retrieve something that really could've stayed on the floor for a few more minutes? Yep. You just can't unsee that.  And not to press the point, but if you are another retiree of a similar mind-set and you are enjoying an evening swim off your boat without the encumbrance of swimwear and you see kayakers approaching, what is your best option? Do you stay in the water until they pass? It's not like we were kicking up dangerous wake waves. Or do you climb out of the water, stand on the platform in all your shriveled glory and then pull on your speedo? It boggles the mind.

Anywhooo. . . . Lucerne. A pretty awesome city.
 We stashed our big backpacks at the train station luggage check so we could walk around unencumbered. (But with clothes on. Definitely with clothes on.)

This bridge is called KapellBrucke or chapel bridge. The lake pours out into a river here at Lucerne and the bridge crosses this river and leads to, you guess it, a church. It is the most photographed site in all of Switzerland and was built in the 14th Century. (I know some of you are thinking that I'm crazy, rivers pour into lakes, not the other way around. But I'm not. Well. . . anyway, the lake really does drain out through this river. It's a gravity thing.)

I'm sure it's lovely any time of year but the spring flowers made it so picturesque.  Inside the bridge's roof are triangular paintings depicting "important events from Swiss history and mythology." They were semi-interesting but not nearly as cool as the paintings in this smaller bridge down the river a ways.

This one is called the Spreuerbrucke. Built in 1408 (33 years before Chris Columbus made his mortal debut) its paintings are called Dance of Death and depict how the plague affected all levels of medieval society.  The plague is represented by a skeleton in all the paintings. They were creepy and amazing.

After the bridges we walked on the intact city wall for a bit and just wandered the city. At the cross roads of two streets we came across this little shack. Can you see the date on that big dark stone? 1689.

 And it was somebody's house. No kidding. There was a sliding glass door in one side with hanging blinds and a tiny entrance on the back end complete with a pair of wellies sitting by the door. But there are dorm rooms bigger than this. It's like an ancient chicken coop and some guy lives there.
Europeans are the best recyclers I know.

Our last stop was the Lion Monument. This 10 meter long sculpture was carved into a rock wall in 1820 to commemorate the Swiss soldiers who were killed defending King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

The lion has a spear tip in its side and is dying. It's hauntingly beautiful. Mark Twain called it the "saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world." Yeah.

We interrupt this adventure for an important announcement.

My husband has this habit of beginning a statement with, "Well.  . . (pause)."  I know that whatever comes next could be as innocuous as, "I think we need new tires."  Or it could be as momentous as, "It looks like I'm going to Korea for a year." So I always hold my breath until he finishes the sentence.

A couple of weeks ago he came home from work and said, "Well. . . ." I immediately got a gut feeling that this was going to be a big 'well'.  It was.  The rest of that sentence was, "How would you feel about PCSing in September instead of next summer?"

Oh. My. Lanta.

That's really not a question I could answer as I was in shock. We were 11 days shy of our halfway point in a two year assignment. We had already made the hard decisions about who was homeschooling and public schooling and part-timing for next year now that we know the school and the options well. We've only visited about half the places we want to see - haven't even made it to Istanbul yet.  I am just now able to drive around Adana without breaking out in a cold sweat. We love our little neighborhood with its gang of little kids running amok and washing everyone's cars willy nilly. We are settled here.

My mother-in-law Robin used to say that every big change in life felt like being handed a sealed envelope. You have to rip it open and deal with what's inside. Here's a synopsis of our envelope's contents. Instead of being reviewed for a command position this fall and possibly being given one to begin next summer, Geoffrey was selected for a command position a year early. The position needs to be filled immediately but as we are overseas and the assignment isn't, we were given a few weeks to deal with all the details of moving back across the globe.  (Seriously, it feels like we just did this.)

So now its been a couple of weeks and I've had some processing time. We've told the kids to varied responses:
Brannick - overwhelming joy to be returning to the good ol' USA
Delaney - cried, but mostly from shock and is okay about it now
Carson - disappointed that he has to leave his friends
Evan - okay with it
Rory - completely non-reactive other than asking if they speak English where we are going

Resiliency is a word you hear discussed frequently in relation to military kids. Yeah, there's a reason for that.

But how do I feel? I'm very happy for Geoffrey and proud of him too. I'm excited to live close enough to family to go home for holidays and reunions and sisters weekends.  I'm glad for all the places we got to see and sad for the ones who won't have time for.  I am grateful for so many of the experiences we've had and the friends we've made. Living at Incirlik has been a completely unique experience in terms of being in a military community. I've never felt this sense of community anywhere else.  It was life in a small town as done by the Air Force.  I'm not sure we will find that again.

Of course, I'm also completely stressed about the logistics of making this move happen as we are going to have accomplish in days what most people take weeks and months to do. And since there's no option of sending our household goods and car 3 months ahead of us, we will be waiting that length of time on the other end for them to catch up with us. Bleh.  And the timing means that all five of them will need to homeschool this year since it will be well into the school year before we are permanently settled. Bleh. Bleh. 

I always tell people that I don't mind moving, except for the moving part.  If the Air Force had a giant finger snapping machine that could instantly transport us and all our things into our new house at our new assignment, I'd be willing to move once a year. But if such a machine exists it must still be classified and I see movers and paperwork and suitcases in my near future.

By Christmas we'll be settled again. It will all be good. A good assignment and a good location. Oh, did I forget to mention that part?  Well. . . . . viva Las Vegas!

What are men compared to rocks and mountains? - Lake Lucerne and surrounds

 See that room on the top left with the balcony? That was our room in this cute little hotel in Vitznau. I'm so glad we ended up staying in this darling little town instead of in the much larger Lucerne. The hotel was right across the street from the bus stop, the ferry dock and the cogwheel train that ascended Mt. Rigi.

This was the view from my hotel window. Don't you just want to breathe in that mountain air?

 This is the electric cogwheel train we rode up the mountain side of Mt. Rigi.

It was a short hike from the train station up to the summit. Despite how it looks in this picture, we did opt for the young man (steeper) trail.

 The scenery was green and gorgeous and we could hear the sheep and cow bells from animals fathoms below us. It was so peaceful at the top that we actually snoozed on the grass for a bit.

Seriously, why does my hair have to look so horrible on vacation?

After we went down the mountain on the other side we took the ferry back across the lake. The views from the lake looking up were just as breath-taking as from the mountain summit looking down.

 The next day we tackled a different peak - Mt. Pilatus (which is pronounced like pilates with a tus on the end.) This is the famed Golden Round trip which includes a ferry ride, two cable car rides (one much steeper than the other, and a very steep cogwheel train ride back down the mountain.

We stopped halfway up to do this:

 You sit on a sled like the one below. I loved it because that red joystick in the middle controls your speed. We went down two times. The first time I was fairly cautious - I'm not a fan of uncontrolled speed. Geoffrey was much faster. The second time I was braver and faster. And Geoffrey maxed out his speed, never using the brake at all. It was a blast. If you ever get the chance to do one of these courses, take it!

 

 Her's a portion of the course. It was pretty long. When you reach the bottom you get hooked backwards onto a tow rope and pulled back up the hill.

 The top of Mt. Pilatus is rockier and less lush that Mt. Rigi. We took an invigorating 45 minute hike from the observation building to a summit look out.  The view was different but you could still hear the bells from sheep so far below they were just specks on the hillsides. But the clanking jangling bells came up through the air unmuffled.

In the cogwheel train going down we chatted with a group who had hiked the mountain in just over 3 hours. It was a great day for it. But I glad we had taken the cable cars.

I like being on top of mountains. I'm not a mountain climber by any means but growing up in a family whose vacations usually involved mountains gave me an appreciation for the peace of a mountain top.  Standing on the summits of these two Alps reminded Geoff and I of standing on the peak of Huayna Picchu in Peru. Literally being 'above it all' helps you keep perspective. And I'm tickled to have the bells to remember too. Like listening to the underwater whale song while snorkeling in Hawaii years ago,  multisensory memories just stays richer and stronger in my head.

I love that line from Pride and Prejudice. What are any of us compared to the majesty and vast permanence of rocks and mountains?

Edited**** Today in Rothenburg I bought a bell that sounds just like the sheep bells on the mountain. I clanged every bell in the shop and only one had just the right sound.  Can't wait to find the perfect place to hang it.

Food of the Gods - Chocolate and Cheese - Switzerland Day Two

Did you know that the Swiss eat more chocolate per person than any other nationality? Yep, it's true. And our mission on day two of our visit was to find out why. With the help of a friendly train station attendant we purchased tickets to get us to the Cailler Chocolate Factory and for the tour inside. Since we had checked out of temple housing that morning, our travel was encumbered by our large backpacks but we managed. In about an hour and three trains later we arrived here:

Well, not really. But this is a pictoral representation of the factory's strategic location in the mountains of Switzerland. The tour was impressive and unexpected. I anticipated following a tour guide who droned on about the secret processes of chocolate making. What I got was more like the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride at Disneyland minus the moving boat. We walked through lavishly constructed rooms through which the history of the cocoa bean played out in audio and visual. The Aztecs used it as a pre-war energy drink, the royalty and aristocracy of Europe used it as an aphrodisiac, and finally a few geniuses combined it with cocoa butter and cream from Swiss cows and made the confections we love today.

 Once we were through the smoke and mirrors portion of the tour we did get to see the more mundane nuts and bolts of the thing. Big sacks of cocoa beans and a whole room of running machines churning out small chocolate bars were explained by placards along the walls and windows.

But this - this was the cherry on top.  The tasting room. I'm not sure what heaven will be like, but I do know they need one of these. 

 That lovely man in the middle just kept refilling the glass trays.  The only rule was that you couldn't take any chocolate out of the room. But you could taste all the varieties as much as you liked.

 They were all so divine. And brilliant as a marketing strategy because we exited this room into the retail store where we all immediately purchased our favorite morsels from the tasting room. Yes, this was definitely a highlight of the trip. If I lived here I think I could do my part in keeping up the nation's chocolate consumption figures.
    After purchasing enough chocolate to gorge ourselves on and still have enough to share with kids and friends when we got back to Turkey, we got back on the train and headed to our next destination - Gruyere.

 Getting there was a long story involving a missed train stop and a "one minute walk" that turned out to be forty uphill minutes all while carrying our big backpacks. But we did make it. First to the chateau and quaint village on the high hill and then to the cheese factory itself.

 Look at all that cheese! Once again we did the tour, which this time was a less flashy audio guide walk through. Geoffrey purchased a wedge of two different kinds and some bread which we snacked on while we waited for trains to take us to Lake Lucerne.  That forty minute hike was probably fortuitous considering all the delicious calories we consumed in this one perfectly glorious day!

Bern - the city of the bear

So I'm finally getting to blog about our trip to Switzerland.  I'm a bit late as we've been back over a week now but you know how life gets super busy. The morning after Geoff finished (and passed, yay!) his ATLS course, we got up early and took a taxi to the train station in Landstuhl.

Our train riding experience is limited aside from the Frontrunner in Salt Lake so it was a bit of a learning curve. Example: the very first train we got on was the wrong one.  It was going to the right city but would making more stops along the way. So had we stayed on that train we would have arrived at Manheim too late to catch our high speed inter city train to Bern.

Luckily, Geoffrey figured out our mistake fairly quickly and we were able to change trains at the first stop. Our second train ride took us into Switzerland in about four hours and with one more small change at the Bern train station we arrived in Zollikofen, the suburb of Bern where the LDS temple is. Our Google maps walking directions from the station to the temple turned out to be WRONG but we didn't get too far off course before Geoffrey saw the angel Moroni on the spire of the temple.

 We checked in to the temple housing - which turned out to be very affordable but very basic accomodations. The clerk asked me if we needed a two bedroom. I responded that one bedroom would be fine. Then I realized what he said was a two. bed. room.  And that pretty much summed up the furniture of our very narrow room.

We had just enough time to change and make it to the 3pm session, the last session of the day.  This session happened to be in Italian, so we got to wear headphones for English translation.  Mine were stubborn and only spoke to me in French no matter how much I turned the language dial so a kind French speaking sister traded with me.  It felt so nice to be back in the temple. We feel blessed to have a little branch to worship with each Sunday there in Incirlik but we've missed being able to attend the temple. Sitting in the (very small) beautiful celestial room was so peaceful and I felt some of the worries and anxieties that I've been carrying around this summer finally lift off my shoulders.

After the session, we still had plenty of daylight so we took the train back to Bern and walked around the old town. We visited the high rose garden park with its amazing flower beds, then walked down the steep valley side to the river which winds through the city.

The name Bern means bear and the city keeps real brown bears on display. Until a few years ago they were kept in a small pit that I'm sure angered the PETA people to no end. But the bears now exist happily in a large riverbank habitat which even connects to the old bear pit in case they ever get nostalgic for the old pit.

We ate a hearty but expensive dinner at the bear pit restaurant and then walked around the charming old town.

Every building had window boxes filled with red geraniums. Every window. Every building.  At first we thought maybe they were fake. I mean, what kind of city maintains mass floral compliance? This city, apparently. We started seeing the red petals on the ground under the windows and realized all the flowers were real.

The old town had several fountains depicting various people and scenes. The above fountain is my favorite. I wish you could see it better. Its called the Ogre fountain and its a giant. Eating children. Around the bottom tier march a row of Bern bears, guarding the ogre and his pediatric feast.

We wandered until it got dark and on our way back to the train station we saw this. In a city of famous (and infamous) fountains, this water works topped them all.  The metal structure spanned the whole street. Every ten seconds or so droplets of water would fall from the cross beam.  They were lit from above and released in such a way that they spelled out words as they fell. Words from all languages. It was beyond cool.

With a bit more familiarity, we managed the train back to Zollifen just fine. We did get a scolding from the temple housing night guard for being an hour past curfew (we plead ingnorance) but all in all it was a fantastic day.

A Big Bear Hug!!

 My poor long-suffering middle child finally has a quilt to call his own. This quilt has been in the works since before Christmas but has been put off for baby quilts and a teacher quilt. And if I'm honest, because I just didn't enjoy working on it. Carson picked some wildlife panels that were so not my style and that I had no idea what to do with. And it didn't help that several of them were printed off square. So it was slow going.

 I finally decided to cut some of the panels apart and made some stars with fussy cut centers. These are my two favorite. The other two were a rock and a tree. Not as exciting.

 This is the center panel.  Now that it's done I'm not loving the grid quilting. Like his older brother, Carson requested minimal quilting but I felt like I couldn't leave that big space entirely unquilted. Oh well. It's fine.

 

The only sort of pattern I used for this whole quilt was Scout by Cluck Cluck Sew for the borders.  And even that I changed to make the feather portions thicker.  I did some bricks around the center panel. And because I am not a quilting math genius none of the corners pieces, neither the stars nor the wolf/elk panels, match up exactly with their respective borders. You can see that pretty well in the above picture. It frustrated me to no end while I was working on it but now that it's done it doesn't bother me as much.

The back was a lovely soft flannel plaid that Carson had picked. This is the first time I have backed a quilt with flannel. I had a few small problems with puckering but I love how soft and cuddly it is. I wish it had turned out a bit longer. Its plenty wide enough for his bed but he is a tall boy and going to get taller so it should have been longer.  Eventually I'll make him another one. But this time I think I will avoid panels and follow a pattern!

I named it Bear Hug. Carson is the middle child but he is the biggest. He outweighed all his siblings by 2 pounds at birth. And he has passed everyone but his dad in height at age 13.  He has a great smile and sense of humor and reminds me of a big teddy bear. And he does give pretty great hugs.

I finished this quilt while he was away at scout camp. And Geoff and I left for our Switzerland trip the day before he got home. So I laid it out on his bed for him to find. He was pretty excited.