More Pictures (read the previous blog first)

Outside the Coliseum.

Breakfast in Rome.

Daily (sometimes twice daily) gelato. Our last one in Italy.

After flying into Berlin and picking up the rental car, we encountered snow.

Wonderful dessert in Gorlitz, Germany.

Last dinner in Poland. Pizza and Thai ;)

Cool old house in a small town in the Czech Republic.

Outside the punishment museum in Rothenberg, Germany.

Farewell! At the airport in Frankfurt before I got on the plane.

Adventures in Europe

Well, I have returned!! I actually got back Wednesday evening, but have been busy recovering from the cold I acquired on the way home, spending time with Mark, work on Friday, catching up with Barb, getting unpacked and laundry done, and a few other activities. So please forgive the delay in posting.

How do I even begin to describe my 14 day adventure to, through, and back from Europe? The time with my dad was wonderful! We traveled perfectly together. All the planning he did for the trip really paid off with seamless transitions and arrangements. We took trains, plains, cars, buses and trams. We had torrential rain, hail, snow, sun, and strong winds.

Top 10 (in no particular order)

- Arriving in Frankfurt at 9:15am Thursday morning (not having slept much on the plane) and seeing dad right on the other side of Customs/security, knowing our great adventure was about to begin! We spent until 7:30pm that night traveling to our first night's destination in Vernazza, Italy. It was a long day, but full of fun new experiences!

- Being in the security line to fly from Rome to Berlin and realizing my Nalgene water bottle was completely full. We had to drink it all while in line. For some reason I really thought that was fun.

- Our breakfast every morning in Italy of coffee (cappuccino, americano, or espresso) and a croissant, it was wonderful!

- Being able to see the ruins and Coliseum in Rome. You see pictures, but actually being there and seeing it for yourself is truly awesome!

- Discovery the incredible and beautiful super old hill town of Servano (or was it Sarona) while driving around the Tuscan hills. It rained so much that day we weren't able to go checkout the town, so it saves something for next time ;)

- Hearing Dad say he was finished sight seeing, after a slow day wondering around Rothenberg, Germany, at 3:30pm the afternoon before we left. That was the first time he didn't want to keep going!

- Discovery after the first few days together that Dad and I would be great travel buddies because we wanted to do dinner, go to bed, and get up around the same time. We also had similar interests in what we ate and wanting to try the local food.

- Finding out how beautiful the Czech Republic is on a sunny day driving through small towns in March.

- When the Lamborghini flew past us while we were driving in Poland. The sound was nothing like I had ever heard!

- Having the best Dad in the world, willing to fly half way across the world with me to do a little exploring!

Here are some pictures (captions above the pictures).

First hour we were in Frankfurt.

A cemetary above Montosorro, Italy.
On the St Mark's bridge in Florence.
On the train to Venice.
Confused and not sure where to try and find a place to stay for the night. Hill country, Tuscany.

Depature, 36.5 hours

Yes, that's correct!! I depart for Germany in less than 37 hours! I can't believe I only have 2 more nights in my own bed, 2 more showers, 1 more full day of work, one more workout, and 1 more day of normal life before I leave. Although I'm sad to leave Mark, but SUPER excited!!

Here's my travel itinerary, in case you are interested:

Wednesday 14th
7:40am depart PDX
8ish pm depart DC for Frankfurt

Thursday 15th
9:15am arrive in Frankfurt and meet up with dad
Take a bus to the airport across down
3pm depart Frankfurt for Pisa, Italy
Upon arriving in Pisa, hop the train for Vernazza
Eat a great 'real' Italian dinner
Stay the night in Vernazza

Friday 16th
Hangout in Vernazza and trek to the nearby cities
Eat more food, meet people

Saturday 17th
Take train to Venice
"See" Venice
Eat
Stay the night in Venice

Sunday 18th
Pick up rental car and drive Tuscany
Stay the night some place we find that looks fun

Monday 19th
Drive Tuscany, stopping where ever we want, see the area, eat the food, meet the people

Tuesday 20th
Drop off rental car at small town near Rome
Take take to Rome
Wander Rome

Wednesday 21th
See more of Rome
Eat Roman food and otherwise, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do' ;)

Thursday 22nd
Flight from Rome to Berlin
Pick up rental car and head to Dresden
Stay some place around there, check out the city
Eat German food

Friday 23rd
Drive to Wroclaw, Poland
Meet up with some people my dad has made contacts with through Peacemaker Ministries
Visit with them, eat with them, and stay at their University

Saturday 24th
Drive to Auschwitz
Drive a little further into Krakow
Eat the food, meet the people

Sunday 25th
Church
Lunch with the people we know
Drive to... where ever we want to drive next

Monday 26th
Undecided, although I believe it will probably include a little of Czech Republic and Austria

Tuesday 27th
End up back in Frankfurt

Wednesday 28th
8:30am depart for US

The Saturday Biz

Well, it's a slow day at home, which is very nice. Here's the recap:

6:15 - got up and got ready to meet Trisha for our long run of the week. Discovered I was up 15 minutes earlier than I needed to be, so chatted with Barb (who was about to start writing sermons for later this month).

7:00 - met Trisha at Sunrise Bagel and drove to our route. Put in a challenging 13 miles.

10:00ish - went back to Sunrise Bagel and ate and continued chatting with Trisha.

11:00ish - got home and listened to part of Barb's sermon. Clipped toe and fingernails. Got calendar ready for Europe trip conversation with my dad.

12:00ish - called dad and talked through the trip schedule. I will probably post a short version before I leave (Wednesday morning, SO excited!!)

12:30 - ate again, oatmeal. Watched a little tv with Mark (who came over while I was on the phone with dad) and then headed out with Mark to run a couple errands.

2:00 - home again and laid town for a nap.

3:30 - didn't sleep for most of that time, but it was still nice. Relieved pressure of a blister underneath my toenail (SO fun!!). Went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen while Mark put food in the crockpot for a yummy chicken dinner.

3:45 - ate again, left-over slice of pizza.

4:15 - was going to get in the shower, but got side-tracked loading cds on my laptop, throwing out a blog, and about to go help Barb clean her bathroom (she's not feeling too well). Then I'll, hopefully get in the shower. I hate showering in the middle of the day. Takes me forever to actually get there. Mark is wonderful and is vacuuming the house since Barb isn't feeling too well. And before you go thinking I'm really thoughtful for helping Barb with her bathroom, I've never offered to do that before and didn't until after Mark offered to vacuum. Um... I'm not sure I ever would have thought of it on my own. Mark makes me a better woman!

After Wednesday's icky day, I had a pretty good rest of the week. My emotions seem to come in waves so that wave had calmed by Thursday morning.

I heard a create acronym for 'fear' the other day.

False
Expectations
Appearing
Real

I didn't hear it in the context of a Christian setting, but thought it fit anyway. I've been thinking about it ever since.

Oh, last night Mark and I went to see Westview's performance of Crazy For You. Incredible!! It was really good!

Okay, off to do the bathroom and then shower, pack, etc. It's fun to be starting to put the final plans on getting ready for the trip!

Wednesday insecurities

I seemed to have taken a cue from the writer of Psalm 142 and hit battled the desire for a pity part today. It was actually some feels that started last night (why, I have no idea, pms?).

Normally my system reboots each night but occasionally it doesn't reboot all the way and any bugs from the previous day remain. So today started a little lower than I hoped. For the most part, I forgot about it during work, but the insecure bugs kept flying through my brain all day. It was like a scrolling marque in my head.

You are not worth anything.

Your investment in ministry over the past 4 years hasn't contributed anything.

Every other woman on this planet is prettier than you.

Every other woman on this planet is in better shape than you are.

God doesn't love you because you aren't perfect.

People don't like you.

These were just a few of the messages my heart was pleading with my head not to believe. 'Truth' was fighting 'feeling' in my soul today. 'Feeling' won a few battles, but it's evident that 'truth' will win the wore. But much blood is being shed in the process. It's not over. But I'm hopeful that tomorrow will be better.


On the flip side, 7 days from right now I will be in the air, about 4.5 hours away from landing in Germany. I'll be trying to sleep but seeing as it will only be 8:30pm 'mybody' time, I'm not sure that will work out.

I'm excited to have all my monies in order for when I'm gone. I just purchased 1million in traveller's insurance (which a high deductible it was only $17, pays to be young!). I just submitted my taxes and payment (will check back to make sure it processed).

Pity Party 101

Ever wonder how to have a good pity party? Take a hint from Psalm 142:4 "I looked for someone to come and help me, but no one gave me a passing thought. No one will help me. No one cares what happens to me." Hah! I think this is pretty funny. This was my memory verse today and all I could think of, "someone having a bad day?" Funny!

The sermon yesterday was great! Pastor Ron spoke about how we play the blame game. As I listened to the sermon, I thought to myself, "wow, I've totally heard this kind of thing before and have practically mastered the art of not shifting blame to others." But as the sermon went on, I realized I've been blaming some big things (maybe I've been better with the small ones) on those who aren't responsible. However, I was very pleased to realized that there is one area that I recently took responsibility for and just this past Friday had a small victory. It went something like this:

In this little story, 'BLANK' will represent the THING that floated through my head.

Setting: At dinner with Mark at Macaroni Grill, our favorite place. We had just been seated at a nice, dimly lit, table near the back where it wasn't too noisy. Our drink order had just been taken and we had already made our dinner selections and set the menus aside.

Mark took my hand from across the table, looked lovingly into my eyes and this floated through my brain, "I can't believe BLANK! I should totally express to him my frustration about BLANK." That was me talking.

This is what I heard from God, "Care, if you give life to that thought, you could mess up a really nice dinner and evening with your best friend and the man you love. You know that if you do this, I will still love you and Mark will still love you. But instead, will you trust me with BLANK and choose to put it aside, without bitterness or resentment, and enjoy your evening?"

God won!! He gave me the patience and strength to set it aside. Yippee for God victories! It may seem cheesy but I seriously have to celebrate all the little ones I get ;)

We had a really nice evening and I was thrilled on Sunday to realize that the work I have been doing has paid off in some real tangible ways. It seems that in the same way it gets easier to do the wrong thing the more you choose it, it's also easier to do the right thing the more you choose it. Although this is absolutely a work in progress.

Highlights from right now:
- Elmers ROCKS at speedy service on Saturday mornings!
- Weekend long runs with my running partner are a highlight!
- I'm enjoying my consistent and successful workouts for the past 7 weeks, but am looking forward to changing things up with infrequent shorter runs outside in Europe ;)
- The first day of our trip (March 14th) has finally shown up on the 10 day forecast. Ya!!
- The weather in some of the places we will visit looks like it will be similar to Portland today ;)
- I got to put the top down on the Mustang today!
- My car is a super awesome speedy ride!! If I smash the pedal to the floor at the right point in first gear, the tires don't quite squeal, but she acts like she can't go fast enough to keep up with the monster engine and I'm up to 50+ before I know it!
- I feel highly privileged to be able to drive my beauty of a car every day! And hope to enjoy this element of my life right now as much as possible.
- I really like the turbo kick boxing class at the gym on Monday nights. I still get tired and feel like I don't know what I'm doing, but it's really fun and makes time go by fast!
- I'm doing better at flossing on a more regular basis.
- We are eating dinner soon and food is always a highlight ;)
- I get to see Mark soon and HE is my FAVORITE highlight!
- I'm SO thankful I decided to renew my passport for no reason last August.
- I get to spend 2 weeks wandering around Europe with my dad!
- My friend Raychel is coming over after the gym on Thursday, we're picking up Baja Fresh for dinner and watching the week's American Idol's in one sitting ;)
- Mark just got here!

Friday's trailmix

This week has gone by SO fast!! Faster than any week I can remember in the history of weeks! Well, maybe not quite that fast, vacation weeks go by pretty quick and all of last year is now a blur.

I read 1 Samuel 7 today. I'm not sure if I mentioned previously how I decided that I will no longer read my Bible chapters looking for something to apply to my own life, but just enjoy the story. So instead of writing a verse, of my choosing from the text, in my journal I'm writing a brief synopsis of the chapter. It's fun although I have a hard time keeping it short and by the time I'm finished I've used up an entire journal page. Although I don't mind using up pages, so it's all good. Today's chapter had the Ark sitting in the same place for quite a few years, the Israelites getting all sad about God leaving them (from what I can tell, they brought it on themselves). Then Samuel invites the people to come back to God and get rid of their other gods. So they do and meet in one place and Samuel sends a word up to God on their behalf. (There is a point to all this, but I have to share the story first). Then the Philistines (who stole the Ark and gave it back in the previous 2 chapters) decided it was a good time to pick a fight, because they were all in one place. Knowing the Philistines were going to attack, the Israelites started to freak out, so they started pleading with Samuel (why him, I'm not sure other than he was the priest so had the direct-connect to God) to plead with God. So God gave them victory and for the next 20 years the Philistines laid off and things were good.

So, as I read this I thought about how many people lived and died during these 17 verses. Hundreds, thousands! They gave birth to babies, died, married, had relational drama, cried, and laughed. And we don't know any of them but one man, Samuel (and a couple other random peeps).

We are all the lead in our own story. I am the center of my own universe. I feel totally self-centered saying it, but it's absolutely true. And unless I'm in someone else's skin, this is the way life is. In other words, I am the most important person in my life. It sounds horrible! I don't always choose to do things that serve me first, but for the most part, I'm the main character. And I often forget that I'm not the main character in everyone else's stories as well. Just ask Barb or Mark ;)

In the 1 Samuel story, there were thousands of people that were the lead character in their own story and we know nothing about them. Everything they lived and thought and felt and experienced is not remembered, written about, wondered about, or even cared about. It's easy to lead into thoughts about my own life. "So, is this life worth nothing? What the heck am I doing here if I don't mean anything to the existence of the world?"

"You knew me before I was born. Each day of my life was recorded in your book and each moment laid out before a single day had passed." from Psalm 139.

It really shows how personal God is. He didn't just create us all to do something so momentous that it gets recorded for all eternity (like Samuel or Moses or the others), but we each mean so much to God that he already knew our story before it started. He is a personal God and he brought you on earth because he wanted you here and you mean something to him and he wants to hangout with you. That's pretty crazy cool!!

I hope that all made sense. They are just random thoughts from my brain.

Tonight is dinner at Macaroni Grill with my best friend EVER, Mark ;) I was weird today and wrote down a few notes of things we could talk about. Not that we ever run out of things to talk about, I just thought it would be fun. Here's a little preview of the topics: How much money should we give to help support a friend in ministry? What's your dream vacation? What are 5 things you want to accomplish in your life time? What is your "perfect day" and it has to be doable? I'm sure we already know the answers to some of these things for each other, but it's fun to be specific.