Category: Project 52

It’s time for Project 52, Week 35!

35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 35 — June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.

So far, with three posts, I haven’t gotten very far into the year, because we took an amazing vacation to England. First, we roamed around Dover Castle, then we went to Bodiam Castle, Battle Abbey, Winnie-the-Pooh country, Framlingham Castle, and Somerleyton Hall, and next to Cambridge, London, Weeting Castle, Castle Acre Priory, and Castle Acre Castle.

Tonight I’m hoping to finish describing that English vacation. On Thursday, July 22, 1999, we made the long drive to Oxford. (I’m pretty sure Steve was hoping one of our kids would decide to go to college in Oxford or Cambridge. It didn’t end up working out that way, but we did all have fun visiting.) On the way there, we stopped at a lavender farm.

The next stop was the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery in Aylesbury.

At Oxford, we visited The Oxford Story – an actual ride that taught you the history of Oxford. And of course we visited bookshops!

On Friday, July 23, we started out the day at Castle #82, Castle Rising Castle. (Another village with “Castle” in the name.)

This was another castle with an audio tour. You can see Jade (then called Josh) is wearing headphones. Steve and Timmy weren’t interested. (So Josh and I went through the castle much more slowly. But it was so interesting!)

There were some earthworks around this castle, too, so we did some rolling down them.

We suspected it might be a tacky American thing to do, but we had a picnic lunch on the grounds.

Next, the same day, since we were on an island, after all, we headed for the Beach! We went to the town of Hunstanton.

We went to the Sea Life Centre there, a small aquarium.

And then we took a boat ride along the coast in a DUKW — an amphibious vehicle like they used to land on the beaches of Normandy.

We had to visit the carnival there by the beach.

And we finished our eventful day with a walk by the sea. And in the sea.

Our final day in England was Saturday, July 24. We drove south to catch the ferry at Dover. (And on the way, we passed a van with a family from our church. They were heading into England.) We stopped along the way at Castle #83, another of the prettiest castles, Leeds Castle in Kent. There I snapped my very favorite castle picture (at the top) with the swans posing.

We did touch the castle, but we didn’t have time for a tour. We did walk all over the beautiful grounds, though.

Another castle with a Labyrinth on its grounds!

There was also a Grotto.

And so we said goodbye to England. Now, when we’d arrived, I’d been thrilled to see the white cliffs of Dover with my own eyes. But it had been a cloudy day, and I didn’t get any pictures. The day we departed was perfect for that.

So that was our amazing and unforgettable family vacation to England July 1999. And all the car travel of the week was accompanied by the reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I can confidently say that a magnificent time was had by all.

(Now I’ve gotten through a month of the year I was 35!)

It’s time for Project 52, Week 35!

35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 35 — June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.

The year I was 35 began with one of our greatest European vacations, to England, so it’s taking up more than one post. First, we roamed around Dover Castle, then we went to Bodiam Castle, Battle Abbey, Winnie-the-Pooh country, Framlingham Castle, and Somerleyton Hall.

The next day, July 19, we went to Cambridge. It was fun walking around the stately buildings.

And next to the Cam River:

The cows really surprised me!

But the highlight of the day was definitely visiting Heffers Children’s Bookshop! Book 3 of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had been published in the United Kingdom at that time, but not yet in America. So we bought a copy before our American friends could do so! Then all the rest of our travels in England were accompanied by one of us reading the book aloud. (And of course we read a chapter before bed as well.)

The picture at the top of this post is me in front of our cottage in Wisbech when we got back. You didn’t think Harry Potter was the only book we bought, did you?

The next day, we went to London! We parked at a station and took a train in.

We began our sight-seeing with Castle #78, the Tower of London!

Here’s the Tower Bridge over the Thames:

We rode on the top of a double-decker bus around London.

I didn’t take pictures of the rest, but the kids enjoyed Segaworld, and we visited used book stores at Charing Cross Road.

The next day was a day for visiting castles we found in the countryside. First up was Castle #79, Weeting Castle. We had a picnic there (just like we’d do at castles in Germany).

Our next stop was Castle #80, Castle Acre Priory. I was endlessly fascinated by the shapes made by the ruins.

Our final stop of the day, in the same town, was Castle #81, Castle Acre Castle. (The town was “Castle Acre,” and it had both a Priory and a Castle.) This was a much older motte-and-bailey castle — like those I’d read about in books about castles. Apparently they’re a lot more common in England than in Germany, and was how the first castles were built. Lots of massive earthworks around a central round ditch.

The kids and Steve played “Harry Potter tag” in the center. It was like Freeze tag, but you say “Basilisk” when you touch someone to freeze them.

And here’s Timmy holding Tiny Daddy!

Well, that was three more days of our amazing English vacation. I’ll try to finish the last three days in another post tonight.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 35!

35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 35 — June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.

But the years we lived in Europe seem to be impossible to condense into one blog post, so I’m giving in and posting multiple parts each week. Last time, I only got through the first day of our vacation in England, when we roamed around Dover Castle.

We spent that night near Dover, and the next day, July 17, went to Castle #74, one of my favorite castles of them all, Bodiam Castle — certainly the most beautiful castle I’ve visited.

All around the castle are fields complete with sheep. And this castle has a moat (unlike most German castles where we lived.)

And a rather amazing thing — a year or two ago, while working in the Virginia Room on genealogy, I learned that the knight who built Bodiam Castle was my direct ancestor. (This is true for thousands of other Americans, mind you, but I thought it was cool.) He wasn’t a very nice guy, and killed lots of people in France, but he did build an exceptionally beautiful castle.

After visiting Bodiam Castle, we went on to Castle #75, Battle Abbey (which was fortified), where the Battle of Hastings was fought! The battlefield had a guided audio tour, so we could get a feel for how the battle went.

The audio tour took us all around the battlefield.

We gained an appreciation of how sloped the ground was.

And the tour brought us back around to the Abbey

This stone marked the spot where King Harold was killed in 1066. Believe it or not, my eyes got misty when I stood on this spot — because I’d recently read The King’s Shadow, by Elizabeth Alder, which tells Harold’s story. It was silly, because if Harold hadn’t lost that battle, I’m sure I wouldn’t exist — the majority of my ancestors are English, with plenty of Norman blood. But the story was so powerful, I couldn’t help but mourn for Harold.

Here’s Jade (then called Josh) listening to the audio tour.

We went to a tea room in Hastings, where we had lunch and some fun with the statuary.

Next, we headed to Winnie-the-Pooh country! We visited the town of Hartfield, where A. A. Milne lived and explored the countryside where Christopher Robin used to play.

Here’s the Enchanted Place at the Top of the Forest!

And the Poohsticks Bridge! The Poohsticks Bridge!

That night, we drove to where we’d rented a self-catering cottage in Wisbech, in the middle of the fens. It wasn’t the most picturesque spot itself, but it was very central, for all our further travels.

On the 18th, we headed East. First stop was Castle #76, Framlingham Castle.

Framlingham had another audio tour. It was mostly a shell wall, which we could walk around. Framlingham had something like 17 chimneys (added later).

The view over the wall was lovely.

And here’s the inside:

Sheep dog trials were happening in the field next to the castle! We watched for awhile from the wall.

Our next stop that day was Castle #77, Somerleyton Hall — more of a grand palace than the ruin that was Framlingham. But the grounds were simply lovely.

This tent was actually a tea room.

And the grounds had a labyrinth!

Josh made it to the center first.

That covers the second and third days of our England vacation!

I did mention that England was one of my favorite places, right? I’d like to say it was my second-favorite vacation of all our years in Germany, but hmmm, our Bavaria vacation was great, too. (Tied for second, maybe?)

So anyway, next up will be Cambridge, London, more castles, Oxford, more castles, and the seaside. (Perhaps not all in one post.)

It’s time for Project 52, Week 35!

35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 35 — June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.

Now that I’m in the Germany years, though, I can’t seem to cover a year in one little blog post. It makes me tired trying to post about all we did. No wonder I remember feeling a little overwhelmed! I didn’t finish last week’s posts until last night, when I finally finished up with Castles #70 and #71 that we visited the day before my 35th birthday.

To review: As the year started, Steve was still with the USAFE Band, stationed at Sembach Air Base in Germany. We loved it there so much, he’d decided to sign up for another 3 years. I had been working for a year now half-time at the base library at Sembach. It was as if the job were designed for me, I loved it so much. (And continually marveled at how much more I liked it than teaching.) We had lived for awhile in my dream house in Gundersweiler, Germany.

The catch to all this was that life was a little crazy. We were visiting castles. I was a Mom of two kids. I had a big house to keep up with. My headaches were coming back, since I’d stopped Inderal after I figured out it was giving me drug-induced lupus. And I was trying to be a writer. But it was hard to find time to write.

The good side? What a wonderful, wonderful place to live! And with Steve, Jade (then called Josh) and Timmy, the people I loved most. Steve was a great sport to do all the castling with us even though his job took him all over Europe.

I haven’t mentioned yet that it was right around the time we moved to Germany that my friends started getting email. (Darlene had it before that, but she was the exception.) So I felt much less isolated from my friends than I had when we lived in Illinois. Plus the other folks in the band knew that your family was far away — so they were friendlier than the band folks in Illinois, as a rule. (Though some of our best friends in Europe, we’d known first in Illinois, so maybe it was just that we knew more people, right from the start.)

Plus, when I went to the SCBWI Writer’s Retreat in Paris in 1999, I made actual friends who wrote children’s novels! I remember this was also about the time I discovered Knitter’s Magazine. Both things, in a rather silly way, made me feel like there were people out there like me. Kindred spirits.

And my best friend (and kindred spirit) in Germany and fellow band wife Jeanine Krause, started working at the Sembach Library that summer, sharing the job with me. That was a treat. (And sometimes we’d go into the library on the day it was closed and do photo album scrapbooking together.)

In fact, the first castle we visited when I was 35 was with Jeanine. It was Father’s Day, June 20, 1999, and our husbands were marching in a parade in Boppard (on the Rhine River). So we went to the Fest together and watched the parade — and visited the Römer Kastel in Boppard while we were there.

The bus we took to the Fest in Boppard had one of my favorite words on it! (Sonderfahrt means “special trip”.)

And here’s the Römer Kastell. Just a little ruin in the center of town.

On July 2, we went to Holiday Park! I think it was a belated birthday celebration for Josh. We’d give them a choice of a party or a trip to an amusement park with one friend, so Josh chose Holiday Park with their best friend Ryan.

Holiday Park was a tiny amusement park very close to us. It didn’t have a whole lot of rides, but it was empty! So we could go on the rides they did have over and over again.

Looks like Timmy lost a tooth!

This was one of the most boring rides in the world, so the kids had fun posing:

There’s a kid who’s come to terms with getting wet! We went on this ride many times.

And after one more time on the rafts:

But then came our trip to ENGLAND!!!!

Our first summer in Europe, Steve’s parents chose our vacation — to Sweden (which was amazing). The next year, I wanted to go back to Spittal an der Drau. The top priority, right after that, was going to England. We were there from July 16 to July 24.

And I’ve seen so many movies and read so many books set in England — it felt like coming home.

That first time, before Ryan Air existed, we took the ferry from Calais to Dover, which was actually very expensive — but it also meant we didn’t have to rent a car.

Our first stop in England was Castle #73 — Dover Castle!

I liked Dover Castle a lot. A castle with a beautiful view (We could see all the way to France!), but also one that had an important function from the days of King Henry VIII all the way to World War II. Amazing.

Okay, I’m afraid I’m going to stop there tonight. More about our England vacation is coming up!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 9!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

The question is: Can I finish talking about Year 34 on the last night of Week 34? This is now the ninth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, Ruth and John’s visit, our trip to EuroDisney, more travels and more visitors, and Writing at the Abbaye de Royaumont.

My family, including my in-laws, was still on vacation when they picked me up after my overwhelmingly wonderful weekend at the Writer’s Retreat at the Abbaye de Royaumont. Our next stop was Holland, and the next day we went to the most beautiful place in the world — Keukenhof Gardens in Springtime. I’m just going to post lots of pictures. The gardens were amazing.

And we finished up our vacation with a trip to the tiny city at Madurodam.

And we stopped at the pottery factory in Delft. I got an adorable little piggy bank that I still have today on my desk.

So we had a lovely time while the Eklunds visited, but it was also exhausting. Then we caught our breaths and the next pictures are from Mother’s Day. On Mother’s Day and on my birthday, I always requested that we have dinner at a castle. And the weather in Germany in May is pretty much glorious. So we went to one of our favorites, Altenbaumburg, and had dinner outside, overlooking the valley.

I call this one My Angel Picture. Behind them the yellow fields are the Rapps blooming, as they do in May.

Here are some from a May ramble on the top of our Gundersweiler Hill:

Some time in there, by the way, we began reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as a family, followed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It wasn’t a phenomenon quite yet. We gave a copy to Josh’s 5th grade teacher at the end of the year, and he later said it was the best gift he’d ever received.

Here are some pictures from our house. The first flowers are Pfingsten Poppies that bloom around the holiday of Pfingsten. (I loved the flowers that popped up around our house in Gundersweiler.)

In June, we went to Zweibrücken and visited the Rose Garden and Castle #69.

And on the last day I was 34, we did some castling in Luxembourg!

First was Castle #70, Burg Ulmen (actually in the Vulkan-Eifel on the way to Luxembourg). And yes, Vulkan is the same word as volcano. The lake next to Burg Ulmen was once a volcanic crater.

And then Castle #71, Chateau-Palais de Vianden in Luxembourg.

And here’s how my 34th year ended:

Now tomorrow I’m ready to talk about when I was 35!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 8!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

And the week is almost up, but I haven’t finished the year yet! This is now the eighth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, Ruth and John’s visit, our trip to EuroDisney, and more travels and more visitors.

After we went to Belgium with my family and Steve’s parents, one of the highlights of my life happened. They went to Paris — and dropped me off at the Abbaye de Royaumont outside Paris on April 11. They picked me up on April 13, after I attended the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference.

When I walked through the gate of the Abbaye, here is the sight that greeted me!

When I prayed about the conference, yes, I hoped an editor would discover my work and beg to publish it, but what I really prayed for was that I’d make some connections with other writers of middle grade novels. I was feeling a little bit of a freak, since I didn’t know anyone else who was desperately trying to find time in their lives to write children’s novels.

That prayer was answered in spades!

But first, some walking about the Abbaye grounds.

My roommate was Vicki Sansum, and she proved to be delightful! We were pretty sure they’d given us the Servant’s Quarters, but the conference was so good, that was a minor detail in comparison.

That first night, at dinner, I sat next to someone — who ended up being Arthur Levine, the editor with Scholastic who had brought the Harry Potter books to America!

I had given Josh the first Harry Potter book for their birthday, having read about it in Horn Book Magazine. But I hadn’t read it myself yet! (What an opportunity lost!) It was shortly after this conference that Josh told us this needed to be the next book we read at bedtime. (We were trying to read to both kids at once, now that Timmy was 4 years old.) And so began a wonderful family tradition. Steve did most of the reading aloud when we were home. (In fact, when Steve moved out just after Book 6 came out, when I was crying about it, I said, “But who will read Harry Potter to us?” What, after all, is important?)

Anyway, the conference was wonderful. I got to talk with editors. I got a critique of my first book. I affirmed my intention to be a writer. And, best of all, I made connections with other writers.

Here’s the luxurious dining hall. Vicki’s in front in the blue.

By the end of the conference, we’d formed an email critique group. It ended up being me, Vicki Sansum, Erin MacLellan, and Kristin Wolden Nitz. Within the next few years, all three of them did get published, and I’ve put links to my reviews of their first books. (I kept saying it was my turn next, but I stopped critiquing awhile back because now I’d like to get on the Newbery committee before getting published.)

For awhile, we emailed very faithfully, and they became my dear friends. We call ourselves the Sisters of Royaumont. We had a reunion at another SCBWI Writer’s Conference at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 2005 — which happened the day after my husband told me he wanted a divorce. These women were my lifeline! (But more about that later.) Anyway, it all began at the beautiful Abbaye de Royaumont in April 1999.

Here I am with Vicki:

And here are Erin and Vicki:

And I’m afraid this isn’t the greatest picture of Kristin, but think of her as a Woman of Mystery.

It was an amazing weekend. And I came home now having new lifelong friends who shared my passion.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 7!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

But my 34th year was a big one! This is now the seventh post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, Ruth and John’s visit, and our trip to EuroDisney.

Well, so far I’ve gotten to the winter….

One major event that happened on December 15, 1998, was that my Grandpa Bates died, in Oregon, of a brain tumor. I couldn’t afford to fly to the funeral at Christmastime prices. (I hadn’t heard of bereavement fares, though any amount would have been difficult.) That made me feel far away from family. And it gave me a fresh wave of grief about my college roommate Colleen Jenks, who’d died of a brain tumor in Oregon in March of that year.

As the winter carried on, my job-share Sonia moved away, but it took them months to replace her. From January through August, I worked 27 hours per week instead of 20. At the same time, I was taking my writing very seriously, trying to spend 7 hours per week writing. But I was also working, being a Mom, trying to keep a large house decently clean, going to castles on weekends, and trying to get all those pictures I was taking into photo albums. (I did not succeed, but some of them are in nice albums. Now I’m trying to post them all online, which is a much more doable task.)

My journals are interesting. There was lots at this time about being my Authentic Self — probably natural now that I was in a job I loved so much. I also believe that’s a side effect of my theology changing. If God is going to eventually save everyone, it doesn’t make sense that my main purpose in life is to convert people to Christianity. Maybe the other gifts I have to bring have meaning. Maybe God made me my quirky self for a reason and takes joy in what I can bring. Working in a library certainly makes my heart sing. And Writing.

And I was delighting in my sweet kids. When it snowed, Timmy loved to go outside and use his bubble mower and “mow” the snow!

Here’s our beautiful view with snow on top!

And here are the kids sledding in our own yard:

Here’s our pretty house at Christmastime:

And look! I took some pictures at the Sembach Library! The first one has my dear Elfriede!

Did I mention our cat, Oskar? He came with the house, and quickly “informed” us that he was allowed indoors, and that he did not tolerate dry cat food. I swear he liked to go walk in the mud and then come back into the house, just to annoy me. He also liked to rip the “skirt” off the back of our sofa. You can see him here making nefarious plans. But the kids loved him.

We got to one castle that winter, on February 27, 1999. Castle #64, Burg Reipoltskirchen, a Wasserburg (with a moat!) — I think the only moated castle in the Pfalz. Most there were built on hills instead.

Josh turned 11 years old. They were a winner in the 5th Grade Oral Reading Festival!

But on March 25, 1999, Steve’s parents came — for a month! That put a lot of pressure on me. I was already trying to find every spare minute to do my writing. Now I had to set it aside to be a good host. Only I was scheduled for a Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators retreat in Paris in April, during their visit. And there was homework. So I really had to get that homework done before the retreat.

On top of that, as soon as they arrived, I got sick with a bad cold. But we took off two days after they arrived and headed south to the Black Forest.

And the next day, we went to Mainau Island and visited Castle #65, Schloß Mainau.

That next week, of course, we went with Gram E and Gramp E to Falkensteinerhof for dinner and visited Burg Falkenstein.

Springtime! We could eat outdoors with the beautiful view!

My main homework assignment for the writer’s retreat was to illustrate the poem “I’m Hiding.” Since I don’t draw, I decided to use photos. Setting them up was a lot of fun. Here are my favorites.

On Easter Sunday, after church we drove to Bern, Switzerland, and saw the bears!

And the next day, April 5, we visited Castle #66, Schloß Burgdorf, near Bern.

When it came time for my SCBWI Retreat, the whole family went on vacation. They visited Paris while I was on the retreat.

First, we spent a night with Steve’s Dad’s cousin in Ghent. The flea markets there were amazing!

And of course we made sure to touch Burg Ghent, Castle #67!

The city of Ghent is lovely.

This is at Steve’s Dad’s cousin’s house. Beautiful countryside.

And we stopped in Brussels for a couple hours on our way to Paris and were dazzled.

You have to have chocolate in Belgium!

And of course we visited Mannekin Pis!

Well, it’s getting awfully late, and I still haven’t been able to finish. Next up is my amazing SCBWI Writer’s Retreat at the Abbaye de Royaumont in Paris, where I made some lifelong friends.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 6!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

I’m afraid now that I’ve reached the Germany years, it’s taking multiple posts! This is now the sixth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, and Ruth and John’s visit.

That brought us to the end of October, 1998. For Halloween that year, naturally Timmy was a knight.

And here’s the first snow day of the year, on November 19.

But the next Big Event was when we decided what to do with the $740 from the Beanie Babies Aunt Kay had given to the kids that Steve had sold in Colorado. It was really the kids’ money — so we decided to go to Disneyland Paris!

Knowing Disneyland (California) like I do, it seemed ideal to go over Thanksgiving Break, when the French kids would be in school. (This was, indeed, an excellent idea.) I’m going to quote from my journal for most of the description of the trip.

“We left on a cold, cloudy morning. We left fairly late — 10:30, and arrived at 3:30. It took us an hour to find the Ranch Davy Crockett and check in. It was so foggy when we arrived, we couldn’t tell where the park was when we were in the parking lot!

“We entered Disneyland Paris at 4:30 — It was open until 6:00. There were no lines whatsoever. First, we all rode Star Tours. It’s the same as California, only the robots speak French! I’m not crazy about that ride, because it doesn’t give the whooshing feel I love on roller coasters, and is so jerky. Timmy said it was too scary.

“Then Josh and I went on Space Mountain. Josh was just barely tall enough — they checked him twice. He’s 1.40 m tall. I was glad they had a Space Mountain, and liked the Jules Verne décor, but I expected the ride to be exactly like Disneyland California. How wrong I was! It had both a 360-degree loop and a corkscrew! As we went around, I was laughing delightedly — ‘Space Mountain doesn’t go upside-down!’ Ah, but it does! The ride was also darker and faster than the other Space Mountain — all-in-all, one of the best roller coasters I’ve ever ridden!”

“That night we also rode It’s a Small World and the Teacups. It was an excellent hour and a half.

“After the park closed, we looked at Disney Village.”

“I wanted to eat out since it was Thanksgiving. We shelled out well over $100 for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It was rough on someone with a headache (me) — too much shooting. I expected tables — dinner theatre sort of thing. Instead, we were crammed into a bleachers sort of arrangement. Anyway, the boys did enjoy it.”

The next morning, we did the Character Breakfast. I love the way Timmy’s face is shining in these pictures. (And we’re all wearing my knitting!)

“On Friday, we were at the park by 9:30. Sure enough, they let you in before opening at 10:00.”

“This time we headed first for Frontierland — for Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril and Big Thunder. We took turns riding those and being with Timmy. I liked Big Thunder better than the California one. It goes underground at the start, to go on an island. And it seems faster to me. Indiana Jones is another roller coaster that goes upside-down.”

“We had a marvelous day. There were no lines at all. I liked Adventure Isle — no boats to get there, just bridges — how nice. It has more caves and tunnels than Tom Sawyer’s Island.”

“Another thing that’s different is Alice’s Curious Labyrinth — instead of a ride. Rather fun.”

“Timmy also liked Storybook Land — both the boat and the Casey Jr. train (which goes faster than the California one).” Here’s Belle’s village in Storybook Land:

“We got to go on everything — Timmy went with us on Pirates of the Caribbean and Phantom Manor (both updated) and even Big Thunder! He must be exactly 1.02 m tall — the height limit. On that ride, he clutched the bar and my hand tightly and looked pretty scared. He said it went ‘too fast.'”

The Pirates of the Caribbean got a castle! (No, I didn’t count any of these castles! They weren’t 100 years old!)

“Another highlight that was different was the 360-degree movie — a journey through time and Europe, instead of America. It was fun.”

More pictures from that wonderful day:

I love the oh-so-French shrubbery:

This part of Frontierland looks almost the same.

I call this one “Tired and Cold”:

But there was still enthusiasm for Eeyore!

“The next day (Saturday), we took the kids to their favorite rides and headed home about 3:30. The lines were short — max was 30-45 minutes, but we had been spoiled the day before!

“Josh chose Star Tours, Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Timmy chose Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, and Autopia. We did those separately, and all rode on the Teacups together (another favorite of Timmy’s).”

“Saturday was cold and even rained a little, a contrast from our lovely day Friday. I did like that they had “galleries” behind the Main Street shops, so you didn’t have to be outside. We ate at Buzz Lightyear’s Pizza Planet for lunch.

“On the way home, we ate at a French restaurant, where I had absolutely scrumptious pear ice cream.

“A nice finish to a fabulous vacation!”

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 5!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, I can’t seem to restrain myself when it comes to talking about Germany! This is now the fifth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, and yet more castles.

In October 1998, Ruth and John came to visit!

The night they arrived, of course, we took them to eat at Falkensteinerhof. It was too dark to see the castle that night, so we took them to Burg Falkenstein the next day.

But that day, October 19, we took them all over Burg Lichtenberg. (This was a castle we’d already visited, Castle #14.)

Burg Lichtenberg is right outside the village of Ruthweiler, so I thought Ruth should get a picture with the sign, too.

And the next day, we took them to the Rhein River. We showed them an old favorite, Burg Rheinfels, but also took them to Castle #61, Burg Sooneck.

Here’s Ruth in front of the Lorelei, where sirens used to sing riverboat captains to their doom.

After this, Ruth and John went off to Bavaria and did some sight-seeing on their own. We did some sight-seeing on our own, too, driving into France on October 24, and visiting Castle #62, Chateau de Fleckenstein.

On October 25, Steve had to work, but the rest of us went with Ruth and John to Trier, where we visited Castle #63, the Kaiserthermen, the Imperial Baths. Now, I know I had a reason for calling these a castle. They were used by the Roman emperors, and I believe it was part of a palace structure… maybe I was stretching it, but it was fun to roam around in the passages with flashlights.

I’ll finish off this post with some views from our home in Gundersweiler.

And this one from the balcony outside my bedroom:

I was definitely still loving living in Germany! So far, my family seemed to share my enthusiasm for castles! (I never did get tired of them. This was not necessarily true of everyone else by the time our 10 years were up.)

I’m still not even halfway through Year 34. Next up: Eurodisney!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 4!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, when I lived in Germany, each year was packed full! This is now the fourth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, and visiting the village of Sondra.

I still haven’t gotten through the summer. It was about that time that my cushy schedule of working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday switched to working four hours a day, five days a week. In a lot of ways it was nicer — I could get a regular schedule and usually worked 9:00 to 1:00, which was very nice. It was a three-week rotation, and every third week I had to work Saturday and Sunday.

I was still trying to spend lots of time writing. I was trying to sell my first novel and trying to write my second. Working a little bit more days was conducive to that (though being a Mom wasn’t — there were always things that came up).

I remembered that just when my boss told me my schedule would have to change, I’d bought tickets to go see the Student Prince in Heidelberg. Fortunately, Elfriede took pity on me and took that Sunday.

So on August 16, I went on a bus tour with band wives Kathy Huggins and Daphne Ciufo, and we got a tour of Heidelberg and got to see the musical “The Student Prince” performed in the courtyard of Heidelberg castle!

First was a tour of the city.

And then we saw the musical “The Student Prince“! They set up chairs in the courtyard. They brought in a real carriage and horses! And used an upstairs balcony for some of the scenes. It was a wonderful summer night, not too hot, not too cold, and most of the play happened as the sun was slowly setting.

My favorite part was when the Student Prince would say, “Ahhh, Heidelberg!” talking with longing of his time there — as we were sitting there in Heidelberg. It was wonderful.

Our busy summer finally ended and Josh started 5th grade.

In my quiet time notebook for this year, I see that this was when I first read the compilation of George MacDonald’s writing, Discovering the Character of God. My journals are joyful. Lots of quotes from the book. On September 18, I wrote this:

But my mind has been expanded. George MacDonald is convincing me little by little of his belief that God is so loving that all will be saved — eventually.

I knew this was a big deal. I figured I wouldn’t be able to teach at Biola any more, since I wouldn’t be able to sign the statement of faith as written. I wouldn’t be able to become a member of our church for the same reason. (Though Steve couldn’t become a member because he was baptized as an infant. But still.)

We had switched churches when we moved. We’d been attending Faith Baptist Church near Ramstein. But when we moved, we missed lots of weeks, and even though I was singing in the choir, no one seemed to notice. (To be fair, there was so much turnover, it was hard to even know who was new or who’d moved away.) So we started attending Sembach Bible Church, near the base at Sembach. A nice thing about this is it made us more part of the Sembach community. I’d see people I knew from church at the library, and some of my friends’ kids went to school with Josh.

I still believed that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So I could still worship with them. But I was starting to think that Jesus brings some people to the Father in a way I might not recognize.

After I read the George MacDonald book, I began reading through the New Testament with this new lens. Could it be true? It seemed impossible before I tried it — but to me the new view actually seemed a better and more natural interpretation of the words of Scripture. (Since then, I’ve read many, many more books on the topic. And found out that this was actually the view of the Church Fathers. And there are many today who believe it as well. For more, check my book reviews.)

On Labor Day, the whole family was off, so we drove into France to Strasbourg.

There we visited Castle #59, Palais de Rohan, and the Musée de Beaux-Arts.

On Saturday, September 19, I spent the morning at work, and then we drove on the Hunsrück Schiefer- und Burgenstraße, and on a whim followed signs to Ruine Koppenstein. There was a nice path — a Rundweg — through the woods to the castle.

We weren’t sure if the huge rocks were part of the old wall or part of the mountain.

Either way, they were fun to climb on!

And one day, Josh came home from school and said, “Steg is worth a THOUSAND DOLLARS!” Steg was one of two Beanie Babies that Aunt Kay gave us when Timmy was a baby and Beanie Babies were just cute. 1998 was the height of the Beanie Baby craze. The kids were fine with selling them. So when Steve had a band trip to Colorado in October, he took the Beanie Babies with him and sold them in a mall. He didn’t get a thousand dollars, but he did get $540 for Steg and $200 for the other dinosaur (a triceratops, if I remember right). Now what to do with the money that really belonged to the kids….?

While Steve was in Colorado, I went for the first time to the Frankfurt Book Fair with Elfriede. Now that was an amazing experience! Even just staying in the English-language hall, it was overwhelming to see so many books, so many publishers.

And next up — Ruth and John came to visit!