The Adventure Continues

We're about an hour away from leaving for the airport for our trip to Venice, and two days after that we'll get on board the Costa Cruise ship for our trip down the Mediterranean to Athens, via many ports, and back through Croatia to Venice again. We'll be back in Amsterdam on the 10th, and I'm thinking that will be my next opportunity to post to the blog—but you just never know.

Meanwhile, I thought I end with these few photos of the family in action. That's been the real fun so far. Then I'll sign off, singing a strange rendition of "Happy Trails to Us."

Keukenhof, The "Kitchen Garden" of The Netherlands

On Saturday morning we traveled a half hour by car to Keukenhof, to enjoy a day walking through the "kitchen gardens" of The Netherlands. That's what Keukenhof translates to mean, and all I can say is that they can boast the biggest, most perfect and without a doubt most fragrant blooms I've ever seen. From beginning to end, it was a wonderful day. It ended with Ben pulling up their copy of Ironman on Apple TV. I really didn't think I wanted to watch it, so I got my clothes together for church, then wandered down to say goodnight and got sucked in. Good movie, by the way. Very good movie.

Words won't do the day justice, but then they rarely will when it comes to travel and family fun. This time I started by creating a slide show, just so I'd know if it worked or not. To begin with, it worked. Ben came home and showed me how to make it automatic, though, so once you click on it, you no longer have to tell it to start from the page that opened. (When he does it, you click on the link and it just opens and starts. Now mine does, too.)

Two days are already gone, and they've been

wonderful. Our Sunday was filled with church, food, and bedtime routines for the girls. Then the adults sat together and played Clue. What fun that was! I think I've got the game nearly figured out, at least if you don't expect me to have an actual strategy. I want a rematch.

As for this blog, I'll go ahead and post it now and tweak it later. That way I'll have more time for having fun…

Ashley graduates from Joy School tonight, so I imagine there will be more photos in a day or two. Tomorrow is, after all, another day, and the fun has just begun.

Happy in Holland

I actually did get a couple of hours sleep on Thursday night. There was a fabulous thunder storm that I needed to enjoy first. It finally tapered off sometime after midnight. I was in the shower at 2:30 a.m. John wanted the 3 a.m. slot, so I cleared out for him and woke him up just before the alarm would have gone off. We were ready to fly into Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Our neighbor drove us to the shuttle (thanks, Doug). The shuttle was really punctual and arrived early at the airport. The day continued with nothing of any significance going wrong. I will say that the quality difference between Continental and Delta's food served is staggering. Our August and September 2009 flights on Continental were highlighted by the food. We were amazed at how really good it was. We'd never really had airline food that you could brag about before.

Well, Delta obviously doesn't care. At least I can say honestly that it was served by a very nice woman who didn't seem to be getting any thanks at all from the passengers. I made sure to tell her that we really appreciated getting food. We did. Even though it wasn't great, we were very hungry. Remember the adage, "Hunger is the best sauce?" John and I had a lot of "sauce" on our food.

Being here with Ben & Ruth, Ashley and Kate is wonderful. The smiles and giggles are so endearing. It really tickles me to see how excited somebody can get to see us. (The little ones got excited, too!) More tomorrow, and hopefully with photos. We're going to see the tulips in the morning.

Latest Flight & Health News

This is just a quick post to update everyone who might be interested on the latest news on my health and our flight to Amsterdam. Today's flight of the same number corresponding to our flight on Thursday is in the skies, scheduled to land in Amsterdam on time in less than an hour, 7:35 a.m. their time. This sounds very promising for our chances of arriving as scheduled, God willing and the volcano doesn't blow in the wrong direction...

I spent an hour with my wonderful physical therapist today. If you're in the Loveland area, you really can't beat Rebound Sports Physical Therapists. Jami, the therapist I was lucky enough to get, saw me limping in and checked me over. She had one of the assistants pack my back and neck in hot, wet and heavy packs, and then worked on getting me as pain free as possible. I can't believe how much better I feel than I did before I went in there. There are times when a good physical therapist is better than a doctor.

Flight Update—Holland Dreaming'

We're not on the airplane yet, of course, but things are looking up a bit. Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where we're supposed to be headed on Thursday, has changed their front page statement. All day it's remained unchanged from yesterday's warning that no flights would be taking off and there was no estimate on when flights would be expected to begin. Tonight, however, there's a new message:

"Dutch airspace will gradually become available for air traffic on Tuesday. Air traffic to and from the airport will commence in phases. Initially flights will only take place at daylight and capacity will be limited. It will take days before air traffic to and from Schiphol will be fully resumed."

On looking further, I found some news that might be considered alarming. Our flight is going through Detroit. The eight fights tomorrow that go through Detroit have all been cancelled. There are nine flights being routed through JFK in New York City. Of those nine, four are still scheduled to arrive within an hour of their originally planned time.

I'm fairly positive, with all the people stranded coming and going, it's too late to change our city of departure. What does that mean for us? It's still prayer time. (Well, it's always prayer time, isn't it?)

Ice or Heat After a Fall?

Oh, look! A short cut! Famous last words. I had gone down the hall to use the rest room before doing the sound check in church this morning. We still had nearly an hour before the congregation would arrive. I was singing and playing my guitar (country Gospel) at both services. As I returned from the ladies room, I noticed a sign on a side door that said "Audio Room" which happens to be in the very back of the sanctuary, and exactly where I needed to be for the sound check. What it should have said is "Big Step."

Although I love my trifocals, since they allow me to really focus at all distances, the one thing they don't allow me to do is focus on my feet. My feet are far away, relatively speaking, but the bottom of my glasses are for close-up viewing. I went through that door, hit the step and went flying. Luckily it was my right side that took the brunt of the fall, since if I had wrenched my left wrist like I did the right one, I wouldn't have been able to hold the strings tight enough to play. I also tore open my right knee and got a big goose egg on the back of my head. (Yes, somehow I managed to hit the back of my head on a metal components cabinet.)

So I've been using ice, which I've been told since my childhood days of being called "Stumble, Fumble and Fall" that it's the proper thing to use for the first 24 hours. After that, you switch to heat. And I'm dealing with the fact that many places on my body that didn't hurt twelve hours ago are chiming in now. I guess I'll be visiting Dr. Bohm tomorrow. He'll know what to do with me. He always does.

If I were a horse, someone would have shot me by now.

On Volcanos and Travel Plans

Our airline tickets for Amsterdam are for Thursday, April 22nd, five days from now. The airports across Europe are still closed due to ash from the volcanic eruption in Iceland. The volcano continues to erupt. Oops. Our son, who is expecting us for this visit with his family, gave me the link to check Schiphol, the Netherlands airport directly for updates. As of five minutes ago, it says "Forecast: no air traffic will be possible to and from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol until further notice. Unfortunately we do not know at present when air traffic will be resumed."

Bummer.

I've heard that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Well, excuse me, Sir, but did You happen to remember that I have Granddaughters over there? Excited Granddaughters? Little ones who don't understand things like volcanos far away that they can't see, and planes that won't fly when the sky is blue and clear? (Their daddy told me it was.)

Thousands of people are stranded at airports across Europe, while I sit here in my very comfortable home. Many people planned to leave this week and are already inconvenienced. I'm not worried yet. Really—I'm not. I'm praying, though.