The Professor and Mary Ann

Even before his baptism, Sebi had a big weekend. The day before Rob took him down to the pool to try out for the UVRays swim team. He has desperately wanted to get onto it for a couple of years, after watching Maddie and Will and attending their swim camp. He had all kinds of support from coaches, siblings, parents, and friends and he dominated in the pool. Hooray for our newest Sunray! Then Sebi's baptism was the day before Easter. The grandparents all came and many friends and family too. Maddie gave a smashing talk, and he was baptized with Ryan from our ward too, so the chapel was packed with friends, teachers, and neighbors. Brother Olsen told everyone some of Sebastian's favorite things, and also that Sebi wanted to be a muffin when he grew up (Brother Olsen's son wanted to be a stop sign when he was a boy, which gives me great hope -- the Olsens are sharp ). He was baptized in one try (fish that he is), and then Rob gave him a very thoughtful and personal confi...

This year for our gingerbread house, I checked three books out of the library and looked for ideas. And for future years and generations, here's a good rule to live by: "if you ain't baking' it, you don't get to vote on it." Without this rule we ended up choosing a church and I said some truly unholy words while the candy rose window wouldn't cooperate three times . This is always the point where I contemplate running out and buying a kit. Then I look down and see that I'm covered in molasses and powdered sugar and surrender. In the end, it has always turned out just fine: We had a good time, but the kids were playing happily downstairs and we didn't want their pestering hands to bother them, so Rob and I did a lot of the decorating. Sebastian put on the roof, Joss placed the shrubs, and Maddie decorated the trees with coconut and candies. This is the only fuzzy shot we got of the Isaaks' magnificent manor house, which was based on an actual ...

My sister-in-law Betsy just her first baby, a boy named Eli. I started this sweater while she was in labor and finished it when he was a week old. Then I decided it needed a hat, so that took a couple more days . . . And these are for two cute brothers, Declan and Malcolm, sons of friends of ours. They wore them to their sister's baptism and they looked so cute, but I realized I could have done better sizing down the 3 month old size. And TJ will notice that I took her suggestion on the hem at the bottom!

Wednesday we had reservations for the kids to attend a Schoko Werkstatt and make a couple more custom Ritter Sport bars. We drove up to Waldenbuch to their quadratisch, practisch museum. Joss and Rob and I shopped and walked around the grounds while the other three did their thing: There they are in their lab coats learning the secrets. "So this is where the magic happens," Rob said. "I'm going to snap a picture of the Oompa Loompas coming in off their smoking break." At the end we got some pictures of them creating their own wrappers. They did some funky stuff with dark, white and milk chocolate and then got whatever mix-ins they wanted. Maddie loved the plastic sealing machine. Then Rob and I got a glimpse of the town as we were driving out and we stole 10 minutes of date time to go check it out. This is the equivalent of the bishop's storehouse where all of the tithed goods would have been kept. "Fremdenzimmer" is an old way of saying 'rooms...

By Thursday we had managed to get to most of Curtis' A-list sights, so we were going to take a slow day and come home early to pack -- the Isaaks for Vienna and the McFarlands for Dresden. We began with a trip to the Berlin Cathedral. Here's a model of it inside the museum (what? you don't have a museum in your church?). Here is Maddie, showing where she and I were locked in back in 1998. We'd come in here because it was quiet and I was trying to feed her. Then someone came by and locked the door! It was very exciting because only Betsy was outside and she had limited German at that point. She finally found someone and pointed and said "Mein Schwester ist in da!" and they let us out. They were getting ready for a wedding. We saw this sculpture storage space on the stairs to the top. Always good to have backup sculptures. A bit of the view from above. Actually the Altes Galerie where Rob had just taken Maddie and the students. Recognize this picture? Scroll up...