Krakow's Rynek Square

The kids had their fall half-break and that meant it was time to travel! Fortunately Mark got some time off as his schedule allowed a few days for us to visit Krakow, Poland. What a beautiful place. As a history buff (and student of many a WW2 specialist professor), I've always wanted to see the sights in the region, particularly Auschwitz-Birkenau. Pictures of that to come. We rented an apartment in the city, which outside looked like something out of a communist ghetto but was tastefully renovated on the inside. Yea, it's that concrete monster on the left, right beside a beautiful terre-cotta hued hotel.





Marina and Emma enjoyed riding the clock tower's guardian lions (Nico, too).
Everyone wanted to pose in front of or inside of the cool blindfolded head on its side statue.







The figures on top of the Cloth Market, which is in the process of being refurbished.

And,
Marina amongst what seemed like legions of pigeons, Europe's cockroach species (not my description). I will post more pictures of Mark and the kiddies' adventures with the

pigeons, yes, it's that exciting! :) There were a few cool statues and Mark even broke down and let the kids go on a horse-drawn carriage ride. It was pretty cold the first day, yet we considered ourselves fortunate to experience decent weather and even some sun during the last two days of our stay. We enjoyed some talented street performers who used helmets to protect their heads for some of their more daring moves. There were also the standard costumed mimes who move, pose for photos, and perform for money. Nico is drawn like a magnet to those guys! I think I'm going to make a photo book of his adventures while we've lived abroad because I have so many pictures, and he can't resist them (unless it's a clown, of course). The beautiful St. Mary's Church housed a huge wooden-carved mural at the front/center of the cathedral. There is so much color and detail, it's incredible. I think the architecture is somewhat similar to Prague, another place I've only seen in pictures but would love to visit. The food was also very tasty with copious portions. Lots of potatoes, meat/game, cabbage, pierogies (yummy), etc. And it was so much cheaper than London!! But what isn't, actually? We had a wonderful time and there were no injuries so this was a great trip for the Hamberlin's.

Lifting Burdens

Lifting Burdens . . . I know that my Redeemer lives, what joy this sweet sentence gives . . .

Paris-Versailles 2009

Will someone please tell me how to better arrange photos and commentary so that this doesn't look like a deformed puzzle? On most people's blogs the pictures are arranged with a nice caption underneath yet mine looks the work of a two year old (maybe because I have the patience of one when it comes to doing these things. All for you grandparents!! :)

Oh well, c'est la vie. Which leads to our next subject, a quick but great visit to Paris (and a run to Versailles). We, the chitlins and I, took the Eurostar last Thursday to Paris and met up with Mark on Friday evening. After spending a week in CA for work, he flew from San Jose to London, then from London to Paris. We went straight to a very tasty sushi dinner with our friend, Micheline, who is pictured with Emma at the town hall of Versailles here. Micheline was Emma's occasional babysitter and turned out to be the sweetest angel whilst we lived in Vaucresson. She used to make us all sorts of good food and spoiled Emma like her own granddaughter. It was fun visiting with her and catching up on her life.

On Saturday Mark and Nico secured our time chips and goodies for the race, then we dropped off Mason at his friend, Max's for safekeeping. We had lunch at a regular's type of bistrot and then walked around a bit at the Trocadero before heading to La Defense for some shopping (not really, just surviving the crowds and making our way to the train to the suburbs). At the Troc, we enjoyed a show from some street dancers. They weren't the greatest, "Diversity" they were NOT, however, they did their best and entertained our kids for a bit. We also witnessed Elvis' secret love child in the crowd, although he seemed to be mysteriously German and walked away quickly when he noticed me taking his picture. He was quite the poseur!

Later that evening we traveled to the Crook's, in our old home of Vaucresson, for a carbo-loading spaghetti dinner. Although they used to live down the street from us, they've since moved to a beautiful home with hopefully no more plumbing issues. They have three kids who match up more or less with our younger three, so everyone had a great time playing and meeting the family's new member, dog Daisy. I wish I had taken some pictures there. I think I was too tired to think at this point! They graciously offered to have our kids spend the night so Mark and I could sleep soundly and participate in the race without any worries. It was so nice of them!

The next day (yes, we broke the Sabbath), we ran the lovely Paris-Versailles, starting from the Tour Eiffel and ending at the Chateau de Versailles. It's a ten mile stretch through the quais/riverbanks of Paris and into the forest leading to Versailles. The weather was beautiful and I felt really good. There were some killer hills but overall, it was a wonderful experience. Mark was feeling not so well, with the jetlag and his body giving him trouble, yet it was our goal to finish together and we did! After meeting up with the Crooks and claiming our children, we ate lunch with Micheline at a local creperie (which was painfully slow but ok). Then we took the train back to Paris where I picked up Mason from Max's home and I finally took a shower (at the hotel)! Wow, I just realized how terribly uninteresting this blow by blow description of our weekend is . . . no wonder I don't write much on these things! We had a mostly uneventful trip home to London and Esher, unless you count our taxi driver being an hour late to pick us up; we arrived home at midnight and everyone crashed as the show went on with school and work the next day. I've yet to feel totally recovered from the whirlwind but I'm hoping the upcoming five day weekend will help--thank you parent/teacher conferences! Sometimes you just sit back and say life is good and I'm really blessed. That's how we feel as we've been so fortunate to be able to do many things like this during our time in Europe, from the very beginning in 1998 Perigueux to 2009 in London. Praise be to the big man upstairs for all these opportunities. We love you!

Marina's a Tenner!

Well, I'm only a month late in sharing 10th birthday photos of our lovely firstborn daughter, Marina--poor girl! I win the bad mother award, but she did do okay in the gift department so she can't complain. This year Marina had a low-key birthday, a more mature event that she celebrated with her friend, Alexandra. Alex spent the night and the next day we had lunch and went shopping. It was my kind of celebration and Marina seemed content. I'm sure she'd like a big deal made out of her birthday, however, we are trying to simplify and get back to a party/friend celebration every other year (with a family one every year, of course). Ever since we've lived overseas it seems like birthdays are an excuse to invite all the friends over since you don't know who is going to be moving at any given time, and it "might be their last chance to have a party" with them. Sometimes it seems like the parents and kids want to outdo one another and the parties often end up draining the financial reserves . . . I won't even mention how much we paid for inflatable jumpers in France. It brings a tear to the eye!

But I digress, this is about Marina, our beautiful Marina. Her doctor christened her the "Sumo" because she was an average size baby, 7 lb. 14 oz. Apparently, next to the alcohol and caffeine-addicted underweight french babies of Perigueux, she was enormous. No slight to my French friends, but Marina was healthy and cute while the others looked sickly and preemie; it was like 5 lbs. was a pretty normal birthweight! She was pretty stubborn, though, at ten days late. My doctor insisted she was coming and an induction was not in the cards. Thanks, man, I really needed that! Marina has continued to charm her way through life and she is full of life in general. When she is not dreaming of becoming a star, she is listening to her iPod nano and ripstiking around the driveway. Marina is a gentle soul; you may catch her giving her brothers a hard time yet she is the greatest big sister and still likes to hang out occasionally with her parents. She also has a crazy streak that calls to mind a young Whitney Hamberlin :)

We love our Marina, and hope that 10 is a magical year for this blossoming young lady!

People Who Live in Glass Houses . . .

Shouldn't throw rocks at their brother and/or sister!  That's what my, ugh, sweet innocent angel girl Emma decided to do recently.  It's only taken three weeks to track down someone who says they can replace the glass . . . now how long will the whole thing actually take?  Customer service not a European priority.  Anyway, life continues and here we see Nico's badge progress in gymnastics (not unlike the "belt plan" in martial arts where one is motivated to continue a sport and pay for small feats completed over time).  He's really enjoying it so whatever works!

There's a few of our lovely sister missionaries, Chase and McGraw.  They're joined by Katherine and her daughter, Emma.  Along with husband Michael, they are our houseguests for several weeks while they prepare to return their native South Africa.  Little Emma is getting lots of attention from our children, hopefully this means they haven't been scarred by their sibling relationships and may someday babysit and even more hopefully, have children of their own.  A few token first day of school photos on our stairway--Emma chose to wear her pajama's to Scramblers (pre-school), and Mason somewhat smiled for these photos!  He's come a long way, baby.  He even tried out for the middle school volleyball team and made it.  Now mind you they don't cut anyone, we're just proud he made the choice to try and will learn a lot. Marina turned 10 on 22nd August so I'm working on her post.  It was a low-key birthday and more details to follow.  She's growing up beautifully and looks a little too old for her age.  Not looking forward to these rollercoaster years :)  Right now I'm a bit swamped with church and school responsibilities (why did this have to be the year the Girl Scouts needed a leader??).  Oh well, hopefully you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Duck Week

After all the hustle and bustle, it's nice to just relax at the beach.  We were so fortunate to do just that in lovely Duck, NC.  Even Mason got into the spirit of things and dared to touch sand and ocean water (at least for a day or two :).  With all the responsibilities of school and work, and back to reality, it all seems so far away.  But what a great week it was!