The Stecherbush Abroad

Here's a glimpse into a normal Wednesday for me. I was awake at 5:30am and up by 6am, got lunches packed, breakfast made, and sat down to seminary. I had to hop up during Seminary while they were reading through some scripture passages to open the curtains in the girls' room and get Elise up and running.  After Seminary Matt popped back in really quickly to run my seminary student to school for me. His week has been very full because of a delegate who came to conduct a training that he organized. Breakfast and girls hair are always on the docket but today we also had to get Brigham's hair doing just the right thing so he could dress up like Tintin. It took a little doing but I thought the result was good.  I organized a paddle board adventure with a few friends so after I got the kids onto the bus and quickly at breakfast myself I dashed off to the Yacht Club to lead this paddle trip which was all kinds of fun but ran a little late so I barely had time to eat a bowl of birc...

Samuel and I were able to jump in on an embassy tour of the Grand Mosque. This was his first time there and we were able to take pictures and hear a lot about it which I had been able to do when I went with Matt and Eli and Brigham last year.  The carpet itself is made of wool and natural dyes. It is over ? BILLION knots and took 600 women 4 years to make inside the mosque. At one time it was the largest carpet in the world. It's incredible ornate and beautiful. Our funny tour guide Khlifa worked for Shell for years and lived in many countries. He volunteers to tell visitors about the Mosque and answer any question about Islam. He assures us that we worship the same God. He says that anyone who worships 1 God believes in Islam. He said that Islam believes Jesus was the greatest prophet and Mohammad was the last prophet. The only woman mentioned in the Holy Quran is Mary, mother of Jesus. He told us that Islam started with Adam, because Adam worshiped 1 God. We share many believes K...

This picture really needs a caption. HAHA. Elise is in a really awkward stage. She was so excited to go to this party with her friend to celebrate their classmate's birthday. She wanted to wear a skirt but I insisted on her wearing shorts because I was told there would be a playground. It was at this very swanky hotel and she would've been better off in a dress as the other children were very dressed up. The sweet Mom tried to get Elise to smile for a photo and she just didn't have a good smile left in her. No matter what I said. This was definitely a moment when I wanted to snatch her and apparate. I was in flip-flops trying in vain not to disturb the live classical grand piano music as I clapped down the stairs to get out the front door of the hotel since I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get in the back way to pick up Elise. Then all these women in their lovely party dresses invited me to stay for cake and visit and I had to decline and felt so rude tha...

For her birthday I gifted her Nutcracker tickets. As sad as I was that I didn't have a ticket to take Elise, I was so thankful she didn't come. It was late. It started at 7:30 after Sennia had been at school all day and the poor girl was so tired. Elise wouldn't have made it. It was a beautiful ballet. Entering the building is magical in and of itself. Sennia asked every. single. question.  We had a lovely time. Instead of some kind of magical carriage transportation into Sugar Plum Fairyland, Clara rode in a ladybug. This is one of the fun little variations of this performance. The lights that simulated snowfall really brought us to a German Christmas town. Clara was the most graceful and beautiful ballerina. My favorite number is always the pas-de-deux and I still loved it but this time Clara's grace seemed to outshine the sugar plum fairy so I might've enjoyed watching her dance with the Nutcracker more. Either way it was dreamy to be back in the world of Christm...

Sennia has been working on this musical since school went back after Christmas. She had to go online with it for 6 weeks and stayed late at school for 2 weeks straight. They did a nice job though. Her little duet with Junie's Dad (Sennia was the mom) was very cute. It was called 'The Lemonaide Song". Sennia is blessed to have some of the sweetest friends on the planet.  

It was awesome to be able to watch Brigham race again. He hadn't been feeling great. He started the week with Swimmer's ear and who knows what else he developed. Then he didn't bring his water bottle to school and was really not feeling great when I arrived and went into Mom mode. I got the poor kid some water and he perked up.  

I really enjoyed hiking with these friends. Hiking is really a lovely way to socialize. I take it back. Paddling! That's the best! On this hike Kimberly and I paddled over and met these Embassy Folk who hiked in. I was also really excited about Lynne's new Easter book arriving. It's so beautiful.