I booked our flights for the first part of December thinking it would be the perfect mix of post-Thankgiving/pre-Christmas activities.  One of the activities at the top of my “Things To Do While In Utah” list was to take the kids to see the lights at Temple Square. The King mentioned to me that the Christmas Devotional for The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints (you know, the Mormons) was scheduled  for the weekend we would be in Utah.  According to the church’s website:

This devotional will include Christmas messages from the First Presidency and music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square.

This means that not only would those in attendance get to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but they’d get to see and hear the prophet IN REAL LIFE!

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints (you know, the Mormons) I believe that we are led by a living prophet. The prophet has always lived out of Salt Lake City, Utah (for obvious reasons).  I spent the majority of my growing up years less then 100 miles from Salt Lake City, and yet, I never ever had seen a prophet in person.  Sure, I watched the prophet on TV during our twice yearly General Conferences and other televised events.  But never in person.  (I would say this is very atypical for a Utah Mormon.  The King grew up here in Seattle and he’s seen more then one of the prophets during his life!)

I knew this was a ticket-only event and while the tickets are free, they are still hard to come by.  I called Temple Square and asked how I could get my hands on some tickets and the sweet old lady on the phone pretty much laughed at me when she said; “Those tickets have been gone since October.  The Conference Center holds 21,000 people and we get requests for tickets from over 500,000!”

Oh man, how I wanted to attend the Christmas Devotional.

I thought about who I knew that could get me tickets.  Instantly Heidikins came to mind.  She gave a coworker and myself a private tour of Temple Square a few years back and I knew she had some connections.  (I’m not sure I can blog about what her connections are. But they are very impressive connections!)

I e-mailed Heidikins to see if she could do anything for me.  She replied by saying: “IF (and this is probably a big “if”) I happen to get some tix I’ll be sure to pass them along, but I’ll probably only get 2, and the chances are pretty slim in the first place.”

I thanked her for tying and then sort of gave up my dream to attend.

(I’m sure you can guess how this ends, right?)

A week or so later I heard back from Heidikins; “Ok, so I for sure have 2 tickets for you!” (emphasis added)

OMH (Oh My Heck), The King and were going to the Christmas Devotional.  (Only 8 and older can attend.  For obvious reasons.  My Sweet Babboo would have to wait to see the prophet some other time.)

Heidikins sweetened the pot by saying she got another set of tickets and she and her new fiance would be attending with us.

We met up with them on Sunday night and headed in.  Our seats weren’t by each other, but Heidikins was pretty confident that she could pull some strings and get one of us moved.

(Isn’t Heidikins so pretty?!  You can’t see it but she was wearing fuchsia leggings and a gorgeous new diamond ring.  Both were awesome.)

Just look at this picture.  That’s the famous organ in the background and the MoTab (as we in the know refer to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as) warming up before it started.

When the Prophet and his counselors walked out on the stage the entire conference center (which holds TWENTY ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE) became dead silent and we all stood up to show our love and respect to these three great men.

The MoTab sang some beautiful Christmas songs and all three of them spoke and shared uplifting stories and counsel for this Christmas season.  The Prophet said:

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things.

They announced a new website devoted to videos about Bible stories.  They showed the videos of the story of Jesus’ birth taken from Luke.  AMAZING. (Go and watch it now.)

The service ended with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Silent Night”. The congregation was asked to join in and sing the fourth verse WITH THE CHOIR.  When the fourth verse rolled around I sat there and sang, with tears in my eyes, and consciously acknowledged that this was a very special moment in my life and one that would never be forgotten.

My parents watched the devotional live on TV at their house with the kids.  My mom said Babboo looked for us in the crowd.  But with 21,000 people there he never saw us.

Thanks again Heidikins for working your magic to allow The King and I to participate in such a wonderful event.

(You can go HERE to listen to me singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!!)

(You can go HERE to watch or listen to the entire Christmas Devotional.)

and this is what it looks like after last week’s flooding.

The beautiful building we stayed out used to look like this:

But looked like this during the flooding:

Staying in Vernazza for five days was the pinnacle of our time in Europe and it makes me sick to see what’s happened to it.  Our hearts go out to the wonderful people of Vernazza.

More photos of the flooding here and here.

He’s not the only one.

Since The King and I have planned all along to take our kids on adventures like this we had to plan things a little differently then if it would have just been the two of us.  First off The King did a little internet research and found the roller bag most recommended for kids to use, at the best price.  As soon as it arrived in the mail we made a pretty big deal about it to Babboo and hyped him up to use it on our trip.  We loaded it for a test run and had him practice with it around the house.  Babboo was excited to be considered big enough to be in charge of his own suitcase.  The King and I were excited that he was finally old enough to help carry his own weight.

We knew the only time Babboo would actually have to pull his roller bag was when we went from hotel to airport/train station and vice versa.  When we packed we made sure to spread our stuff out between the roller bag I’d  be in charge of, the backpack The King would carry and the roller bag Babboo would have. That way if, Heaven forbid, something happened to one of the bags we’d all still have underwear and an outfit to get by.  We kept Babboo’s bag as light as possible.

It worked out perfectly.  Babboo was able to maneuver the bag over bumps and curbs and load into trains without too much assistance.  If he got tired of pulling it The King and I were always there to take it for him for a few blocks.  But overall Babboo was a trooper.

As always The King was in charge of carrying the brunt of the luggage.  And, as always, he was also in charge of all map reading.  He says he doesn’t like having all the directional pressure on him, but I believe differently.  I know he secretly thrives on navigation all subway and train rides.

This time around I was in charge of Rerun.  I too did some research on how best to navigate around Europe with a 11 month old.  After trying out a few of my friends carriers I settled on the Ergo carrier.  I saved up my birthday money and found one on craigslist.  It was in good shape and the right price.  Plus it and was black.  (Which, let’s be honest, is my number one requirement!)

I carried my (not so) little baby everywhere we went.  Including hiking in the Cinque Terre.

What I liked most about the Ergo (which is not paying me to say this) was that Rerun could take a nap while we went about our sightseeing.  We didn’t have to go back to our hotel room and we didn’t have to feel guilty for not going back to the hotel room.  He was perfectly happy sleeping all cozy up against me.

And while the temperature in Europe in August can get pretty high, I never got too hot.  If I did get a little tired, which didn’t happen very often, The King was always willing to carry him in the Ergo on his back.

Even though it may not appear so, Rerun loved the Ergo.

Babboo was only two the last time we took him to Europe and therefore doesn’t remember anything from that trip.  (He claims to remember that we let him pee on the beach, but I don’t know if I believe him.)  He didn’t remember the glorious food in Berlin.  Most notably the döner kebab.  When he saw his first döner at the shop at Yorkstraße, which according to the locals is the best one, he audible gasped.

I admit I did too.

While we didn’t actively seek it out, we stopped at a remaining section of The Berlin Wall during our week in Germany.  I told Babboo to stand by it so I could take his picture.  I figured it would be a picture he’d like to see as an adult.  He asked us both what it was he was standing by.  The King and I looked at each other and just shook our heads.  This was not the time or the place to get into the horror that is Hitler.

We spent some time inside Tacheles looking at all the cool art.  Since it’s an abandoned building there were no lights and the place stunk like a sewer.  The place made Babboo a little nervous and I thought about the juxtaposition of The Wall and the art at Tacheles and how it should have been the wall that made him nervous, not Tacheles.

While Tacheles is one of The King’s favorite things about Berlin, I personally love Tiergarten.  Tiergarten is like the Central Park of Berlin.  Babboo was disappointed with the park and made the comment, “how can they call it a park? It’s all just grass.  There aren’t even any toys to play on here!”

Touché.

Babboo’s old enough now that The King and I can use him as sort of a tripod and we can finally get pictures of he and I together.  Although, like his father, he prefers to be a little more artsy in his photo taking.

I reminded him time and time again that taking upside down pictures wasn’t as clever as he thought it was.

Sure the boys won’t remember details from this trip.  But we had fun while we were there.

Next stop, Italy.

When he was first born I had a hard time looking at him and seeing him as an individual and not just as a baby.  People would ask me who Rerun looked like and I didn’t have an answer.  He didn’t have the dark hair his brother had, and what hair he did have was much lighter.  Rerun didn’t have the eyelashes that Babboo had either.  (This was a hard one for me considering Babboo’s lashes.)

He just looked like a baby to me.  A super snuggly baby I loved with all my heart.  But a baby none the less.

Rerun’s personality began to show the older he got.  He loved to smile and grab at faces.  As he got even older this evolved into him intently locking eyes with people (mostly stranger) and then smiling at you once he got your attention.

One of Rerun’s most favorite things to do is smack Babbo’s face. If Babboo is within reaching distance you can be sure that Rerun will be pounding on his head.  Thankfully having his head pounded by his little brother is one of Babboo’s favorite things, so it works out.

(Here we are at the Eiffel Tower trying to take a nice photo.  But NO, Rerun must hit Babboo’s head!)

It’s not just Babboo’s head that Rerun likes to pound on.  He loves to bang on mirrors and windows.

We spent a lot of time on our trip to Europe trying to get Rerun to sit down on trains and “stop hitting the window!”

And then there’s the mirrors.  He’ll start to bang on them which is then followed by him seeing his reflection and playing a game we refer to as “kiss the baby” in which he’ll start licking and kissing himself in the mirror.  (Apparently he finds himself very attractive.)

In the last month he’s begun giving us kisses.  I use the term lightly as mostly he just wants to lick our tongues.  He refers to Babboo as “nigh nigh”, but has yet to figure out who “mommy” and “daddy” are.

He seems to have the whole sleeping situation figured out.  He demands screaming out when he’s put in his crib but will stop in no less then 3 seconds.  He likes to be swaddled and to sleep with his “sick bunny“.  He nurses three times a day, but only if something better isn’t going on.  He has no interest in television and will dance the second he hears any type of music. He prefers his Ergo carrier to the stroller and hates being in his car seat.

Rerun is a picky eater and prefers to eat pancakes and string cheese.  Babboo, on the other hand, will eat just about anything we give him.  (Including fresh sardines in Vernazza, Italy.  I wouldn’t even try them.)  And, also like his older brother, he likes to climb on everything.  EVERYTHING!  We never had to baby-proof our house before Rerun was born.

This little red-haired, picky eating, tongue kissing guy has been a part of our forever family for a year now.  And I’m thankful for every second of it.

——————–

Technically Rerun spent his first birthday on a plane coming home from Paris.  Due to the time difference his actual birthday lasted more then the standard 24 hours.  I wanted to commemorate his first birthday by taking his picture on the Eiffel Tower the night before we flew out.  Unfortunately my batteries ran out and this is all I got:

(I swear he’s at the Eiffel Tower and that that’s Paris in the distance.  I SWEAR!)

He’s changed a lot in this last year.  Just look:

I’m not sure what I like most about this picture.

• Rerun giving the “#1″ sign
• Babboo’s sweet camouflaged sunglasses (that have been blacked out.  Sorry.)
• Their adorable matching shirts
• The Leaning Tower of Pisa in the background!!

We’re back from our trip to Europe.  It was great.  Really great.  Much better then the last few times we’ve been there.

And to answer the most asked question I’ve been getting, “the kids were amazing. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”