Road Trip

Peter enjoying the "Wild Thing Dinner"

Well, I was just gearing up to clean all the bathrooms (to try and induce labor), but I noticed that David had left the external high-speed internet device home, so I decided to go blog crazy and get several posts up of our lives these last few months. We've had some GREAT times.


We made a fun trip to Nashville--went to the temple, a fun bookstore, and JoAnn's--a big fabric/craft store (I think that we may frequent this temple more often)! We then drove up to the Piepers in Kentucky for a visit and to spend a few nights. Uncle Blaine (my Mom's youngest sibling) and Aunt Marianne sure take care of us. It was cold and rainy, so we stayed inside and played lots of Rock Band, watched TV and just ate and relaxed. One of our favorite things is "Wild Thing Dinner". Peter really got into it this year. We also love to go to there tiny branch--I think we about double the attendance! We had a great time with them and love our visits to Kentucky.

Date Night

We try to take the kids out for some one-on-one time. I took Parker out a few weeks ago to buy a new suit--his has been way to small for several months and it finally became a priority. He found one that he loved and I even managed to get the pants hemmed by Sunday--the last pair we duct taped up on the way to church. Anyway, he was in a very talkative and chatty mood and opened up about life in Middle School (thank goodness for the DeBry genes that have given him some social skills!) Among other things, he let me know that he didn't want me driving him to school in my robe and pajamas anymore. We had a great evening it was fun to get out with him.

Apricot Chicken and Floods

Yes, it has been a while--but his recipe is worth waiting for. Emily made this for us a while back a recipe from her mother-in-law. It is excellent.

Apricot Chicken

4-6 chicken breasts

1 cup mayo

1 cup peach jam

1 package onion soup mix

Mix ingredients. Put is 9x13 pan with chicken. Cover and cook for 30-40 minutes at 350. Serve on rice.

Of course, I only had half of the ingredients and did it a bit different. I didn't have any peach jam--so I put some canned peaches in the blender with some sugar and made my own "jam". I didn't have any onion soup mix, so I used dried minced onions (some David had dried!), beef boullion, and some onion powder. I also had some chicken broth and put it all in the crock pot--it was more "saucy" than Emily's original recipe. Both tasted great. We had it over rice.

I asked the kids how they liked the Apricot Chicken--they all loved it, but they were confused because I used peaches--I'm don't get it either, but the taste is all that matters, right?

Also, we've had lots of rain--Eliza went and took some pictures in our back yard--usually this stream is just a few inches deep, but it is 6 feet deep now. It has gone down a lot. We're supposed to get another big storm this weekend. Hope we don't float away.

Report #2 from Europe

Hi everyone,

I am still in Rotterdam doing Change Management workshops for the Supply Chain group. Instead of taking the taxi (cost is $45 for about a 20 minute ride to the office) I like to be adventurous and take the public transportation. I also went to Middelburg yesterday, which I will explain below. I am in Capelle / Rotterdam again tomorrow and then take the really fast train to Cologne.

I haven't had the camera, so I got all the pictures off the Internet.

The metro in Rotterdam. It is right outside my hotel and I ride it 4 or 5 stops to Kralingsezoom. It is still about one mile from the office, but I had looked on the map and it looked like there was a walkway that I could take. I leave early enough to walk a ways. I happened to look at a map and it showed a parking shuttle on the walkway, so I decided to take it. When I arrived, I was met with an unmanned vehicle that loads you and drives about 3 miles, stopping along the way. My stop is the second stop. The vehicle has sensors and takes off when it is full (we packed in about 20 people like sardines...the dutch way). If I ride it alone, I could wave like I am the king. It was really cool!

The Eastman office in Capelle an den Ijsel (Capelle on the Ijsel river). It is very nice.

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Yesterday I went down to Middelburg, a small town in Zeeland and close to the Belgium border, to do a workshop (one of our plants is there). I didn't have time to ride the train, so the HR Manager from Capelle drove me down. She goes down quite a bit. It took us about 1.5 hours because she drove me the scenic route, which was great! It was foggy, but we could still see fairly well. Pictures below are from the Internet.

Zeeland - Sea land in English. As you can "sea," it is surrounded by water almost.

Our route on Google earth. It is very rural and so we drove through many dorps (villages) with the church in the middle. It was like one long Kodak moment. On the way back from Middelburg (see report below for trip to Middelburg), Rita, the HR manager who was driving me, took me to her house in Oostvoorne (by the N15) for dinner with her husband. He works for a plant Eastman used to own. He also loves to cook, so he made a 5 course meal of Indonesian and Indian. It was unbelievable (Rice, Garang, Chicken Marsalla...Indian style, bread sticks, another chicken type curry, peanut sauce, mango sauce, and other things I don't know the name of). I tried everything, at least twice. We then had some homemade apple pie, dutch style (with crumbly cake like strudel instead of pie crust) with whipping cream. It was unbelievable. I had sparkling water to drink which I still do like. They tried to offer me alcohol, tea, and coffee multiple times until I explained I didn't do that for religious reasons. They were amazed when I told them I had never had alcohol. Rita said she didn't drink coffee, and I told her she must be the only one in Europe who doesn't. Her husband then took me the 35 minutes back to my hotel where I relaxed.

By the way, on the trip from Middelburg to Rita's house in Oostvoorne, I made Rita talk dutch to me. I got about 75%-80% of it, and tried to speak with her. I am getting better all the time. However, there are a bunch of Germans in the Capelle office, and I keep getting Dutch and German mixed up.

This is the town of Middelburg, with the Eastman plant circled in red. Notice the moat around the old city. It was very much like a quaint town and beautiful. Look at the middle of the city with the circular road around the city center. Very typical.

A windmill along the way.

The Ouddorp (old village) lighthouse one the beach. These are very popular beaches in the summer.

This is driving over the bridges and dams. After the flood in 1953, when 1850 people were killed, they build dams at each of the openings to the ocean.

These are the tops of the dams, with the actual locks lifted.

A view of the dams / locks from the shore. They can stop completely the ocean from coming in.

There were also a lot of wind farms along the way.

Report #1 from Europe

Hi Kids, Dad here.
I know others read this blog but I wanted to write some special blogs to you so you don't miss me while I am in Europe. Marilyn, I hope this doesn't make you miss it too much. Everything went well getting here in Rotterdam and I have enjoyed seeing some of the things I haven't seen before (see pictures below). It has been very cold, about low 20's with the wind chill, but everyone is still riding their bikes. I bought a two-day pass for the public transportation so I have enjoyed getting around.

I went to church this morning in the Rotterdam Zuid (south) Ward where Mom was a missionary. Some of the members remembered her, including the Zwekhallen girl who Mom taught and was baptized. She is now married and has two kids. She spoke today and I could hardly understand her. However, one of the Senior missionaries, Elder Anderson, taught SS and I could understand him perfectly because he is from Utah (he was on his mission from 63-65 but didn't know Opa).

Saturday:

View from the Delft train station. Look at all the bikes. The guy in the picture took forever to find his bike,and still hadn't found it when I left. The church in the background is the Old Church, and some of our ancestors went there. I love going to Delft (2nd time)

Old Church in Delft. I love the duck in the canal.

I think this is a Fiat. It is really that small.


Stained glass window in Old Church - Delft

Inside the Old Church in Delft. Amazing how tall the ceilings are

New Church in Delft on the town square.

Eliza, these signs are everywhere at the train stations.

Sunday:

SS Rotterdam. Now a retired ship...hotel, museum, and has restaurants. Opa saw this when he was on his mission 40 years ago when it was brand new. It was free to walk around so I figured it was a good Sunday activity.

I get sick of spending a lot of money and eating out ($30 for breakfast here at the hotel), even though the company pays for it, so I went to Albert Heijn grocery today and bought some stuff. I already ate the orange and one chocolate hazelnut bar. I had to shoo a pigeon out of the store. I know it is Sunday, but I had to eat something and this was better than going to a restaurant.

I bought: Muesli, Milk, Apple juice, an orange, Stroopwafel, Liverwurst, Bread, Meat, Cheese, chocolate, and yoghurt. All for about the same price as one breakfast. I also got some Pomme Fritas (french fries) at a stand. The market area was packed with people.

View from my hotel room.

My hotel room.

Added Upon

“And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon;…and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever.”

David has been reading his Opa’s missionary journals, a Christmas gift that his Dad recently compiled into a nice book. It has been fun to read. In Opa’s journals he had mentioned reading the book Added Upon by Nephi Anderson. David decided that he wanted to read it. Well, he had started and was really enjoying it—I asked him if he had “met” Rupert yet? I remembered this same book on our shelves at home and my Mom telling me that a character in the book was named after her Grandpa (her Mom’s Dad—Rupert Peter Olsen).

Here is a paragraph from the Olsen Family History book explaining more of the story. This is written by my Grandma, Mary Pieper:
“Father (Rupert) was twenty-two years old when he was also called to go to Denmark as a missionary for the Church on April 22, 1903. While on his mission he helped build the LDS meeting house in Alborg, Denmark. During this time an old family friend from Brigham City, Nephi Anderson had been sent by the Church to visit all the missions in England and Europe. He was in Denmark and called Father into his office to talk with him. Nephi had recently written a novel, Added Upon (published by Deseret News Press, 1898) and told Father that he had chosen the name “Rupert” as the name for one of the characters in his story. He had first heard the name Rupert when the Olsen and Anderson families associated together in Brigham City and liked that name. Aunt Daisy also remembered that as a young girl her mother told her that Brother Anderson had used the name of Rupert for the main character in his story Added Upon, and how pleased her mother was. Father was given an honorable release, returning home from his mission on his birthday, July 22, 1905.”

Well, I decided that I wanted to read the book, too. It was very inspiring and well written, but I found myself wanting WAY more details on some of the events. It starts in the pre-earth life and then takes the characters to earth and then the spirit world. At one point of the book, during the Millennium, one of the characters is busy with temple work and commented that he has just attended the laying of the cornerstone of the 100th temple. Remember, this book was written in 1898—there were 4 temples, so imaging 100, really must have been a miracle to them and something only to happen in the Millennium. It is amazing how the building of temples has really exploded in the last few decades. We just looked and there are currently about 147—some of these announced or under construction. It really is a miracle and we are blessed to be a part of this marvelous work.

My favorite part of the book was towards the end, when a few of the characters were talking about life on earth and some of the trials and experiences that they had struggled through--and felt "hopeless". From their "heavenly perspective" they conversed:

"We couldn't see very far, could we brother?" remarked Rupert.

"Our faith was weak and we did not trust in the Lord enough."

"Yes; I used to wonder how the Lord would straighten out the mass of entanglements that seemed to exist in the world. We failed to comprehend the providences of the Lord because we could not see byond the narrow confines of the world in which we were living; we could see only a small part of the circle of eternity; we could not see how that visible portion, which was often rough and unshapely, could fit into anything beautiful; but now our vision is extended and we have a larger, and therefore, a more correct view."

I hope that I can have a "more correct view" in life and keep an eternal perspective.

December 2010

I know that you were all so impressed with my more frequent blogs, but it couldn't last too long, could it?! I just wanted to do a quick run down of December. We had some fun game nights with friends, movies, and some great goodies and food. School was out the week before our "official" Christmas break--so the kids have had a L-O-N-G break. It has mostly been good with a healthy dose of contention--just to keep us all humble. I've gotten lots of cleaning and working hours out of the kids in trade for electronics time. They have all discovered that Dad is definitely more generous than Mom in most accounts. David has also been off work for two weeks--that has been fun and he has totally spoiled the little kids--they are in for an awakening when Monday hits and fun Daddy-O is back at work and not here to cater to their every need!

We also had a quick get-away trip to Washington D.C. We hit several impressive museums--Natural History, American History and the Air and Space Museum at the Dulles Airport. The kids held up quite well. We did decide on this trip though that we are going to start doing more outings with just the older kids--more enjoyable for all. The museums are amazing. I was intrigued with one exhibit "America at War"--it has pretty much bee war since the nation began--Revolutionary, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Civil, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, Desert Storm, 9/11--all the Middle East Terrorism. Anyway, it was interesting to see the displays and the time frames of the wars. It was quite sobering. I could have spent hours reading about the details if there weren't hungry kids with rubber bones at my side. By the way, the museums are all free which is nice--because you need the money to pay for the $50 snacks that were our lunch.

We also went to the temple and looked at the lights, trees and the nativity collection from around the world. It was beautiful, but once again the kids were hungry. We finally found a Wendy's after "following" the GPS. The next day we went back to the temple I did baptisms with Parker and Eliza and David was in the Visitor's Center with the little kids. They watched the Joseph Smith movie. David said that Katherine asked "why" the whole time. When I asked her about the movie she said they got sick from bugs in their food. (Also, just yesterday Peter was pretending to be Joseph Smith--I have a big, flat Rubbermaid container full of dry beans that I let the kids play in--to measure and pour and bury little toys in. They love it and if unsupervised it can turn into a big mess. Anyway, Peter had a lunch box with a Book of Mormon in it, he was concealing the Book of Mormon with the beans as he packed the lunch box full of beans. I asked what he was doing--he said, "I am Jospeh Smith and I am hiding the Gold Plates!" It was great! Thank goodness that some good is getting through!)

We had some great snow for Christmas--it started snowing on Christmas Eve and all day on Christmas--it was a great present. We spent Christmas Eve at the Ernst's and had some great food and company. On Christmas Day we went to Veechs and had dinner and games. Then just more days of relaxing and playing with our fun loot. I got "Beekeeping For Dummies"--thanks Lorie and read through most of it. Very enlightening and interesting.

The latest has been a "PaintBall Party". Darren has a paintball gun and let everyone shoot it when we were up there last week. Well, since then David got a full arsenal on Craigslist, they've had battles in full camo in the woods behind the Ernst's house. It is a perfect place. We can watch from above while they battle down in the ravine. Right now, David is headed out to refill the CO2 cartridges, and Parker is getting all the gear set-up and ready to go again. I'll have to get a picture of everyone today.

Happy 2011!