Thirteen Years

Thirteen years ago I married the love of my life.

When I think back to that day when we spoke to each other for the first time, I realize how random our running into each other was. I was only eighteen, and he was twenty one…so young. But how could I have resisted this gorgeous guy??? 

Someday I’ll have to tell you in detail our proposal story (a marriage proposal executed in a typical Robert’s style).

And of course, I said “Yes”- one of the most important “Yes”s I ever said in my life.

We were having a discussion with our kids a couple of weeks ago about how decisions that they will make between ages of 15-25, will be incredibly important in their life. They will have to determine how well they do in high school, what college they will go to, what profession they will choose and whom they will marry. I can tell them confidently that marrying the right person is one of the most significant things they will have to do in life.

Thanks to marrying Robert, my life is what it is right now. I know that a lot of decisions that I, personally, have made have carried me through so far, but it’s even more decisions that we as a couple have made in the last thirteen years is what turned our life into this big adventure (and it’s not always easy).

The most obvious outcome of our marriage are these three fantastic kids who try every day to make the right choices. Under Katya’s business-like leadership, they cooked us our anniversary dinner—tacos and root beer floats. They were so proud of themselves! Katya even cooked the meet all by herself and we didn’t die.

I know we have changed through all these years. We have learnt how to do a lot of great things and have developed a few bad habits, we have gone through the sad and happy moments together always holding each other close, we have travelled the world and tested our marriage with a number of stressful moves. But most importantly, we have grown to love each other at least ten times more now than on our wedding day.

Happy Wedding Anniversary to us!

Northern Wales: South Stack Lighthouse And Caernafron

Wales again? Yes! Remember in April of 2013, we took a three day trip to Southern Wales—it was beautiful! We came away from the trip feeling the need to explore the rest of Wales for sure. So this Labor Day weekend, when we had three days off, we drove up to Snowdonia, a National Park in Northern Wales. We stayed in a tiny village, in a small cabin (attached to a hostel but not a hostel), in a very convenient location near Betws-y-Coed (I would love to here your pronunciation of this one).

We drove up to our cabin on Friday night, and headed for Anglesey on Saturday morning. Anglesey is an island that extends in the northwest of Wales. It became especially famous after Prince Charles got stationed there at one of the RAF bases and later moved in with Kate into one of the villages. The locals loved having them there, while Kate and Charles say they will always miss their days at Anglesey.

We did not go looking for their cottage. Instead, we wanted to find this famous South Stack lighthouse. The lighthouse is located on a tiny island. To read the bridge to cross from mainland to the island, we had to go down 400 steps. I believe that in total, round trip, counting all the steps on the island and inside the lighthouse, we had to climb 1000 steps.

Thank goodness we are a fit family.

No complaining or whining—just beautiful views.

I just wrote a brilliant blog story here…and my Live Writer decided to not save anything…so I’ll have to be quick now…

The lighthouse tour lasted about 20 minutes. The guide just led us up the stairs and gave a quick history overview of the lighthouse. Too bad that I only understood maybe 30% of what he was saying…I’ll blame it on his accent.

Cold Atlantic Ocean.

During summer months, thousands of birds nest in this area. We came just a couple weeks too late to see any.

After the lighthouse, we drove 10 minutes to nearby Trearddur Bay. We ate our picnic lunch and let the kids play on the rocky beach.

Katya is such a daddy’s girl.

Mark was looking for crabs.

I love the view of this peaceful village in the background.

From Anglesey, we headed to Caernarfron village, home to the majestic Carnarfron Castle. This one is special. It was built by Edward I as part of his Iron Ring of Castles in Wales. So again, we are talking 13th century here. This one was a cute above though—the design of the towers and the layout that is hourglass shape-tell us that.

Somehow once, the Welsh rebels managed to destroy some of the walls of the castle and even occupy it. But Edward I gathered his troops quickly and quelled the rebellions in the country, occupying the castle again and punishing the Welsh. His son, the TRUE Prince of Wales was born here. Edward I claimed that his son was a real ruler of Wales since he spoke “No English”. And it is true, the kid was brought up speaking Welsh and French since at that time, that’s the language that the nobility spoke.

“Edward of Caernarfon became King of England (Edward II of England) in 1307. His rule was, by many accounts, disastrous. He was deposed from power by his own wife, Isabella (the so-called 'she wolf of France'), and met a very unpleasant death.” You can find many more interesting facts about this castle here.

The kids thought that this castle was same old-same old…they are just tired of castles, and I hate to admit that. That’s why they decided to mix it up with some handstand and climbing up the walls.

Robert and I thought it was pretty neat. Just the fact that our present Prince Charles, who is a Prince of Wales, was crowned in this very castle in 1969, is pretty cool.

After the castle, we drove towards the village where we were staying and got some Welsh pub food for dinner. Great first day in Wales!

My British Lads

Summer was too short for these two…I do realize they get many school breaks throughout the year, a week or two at a time, but I also see how much a good long summer break can add to one’s childhood. Sleeping in, playing outside, no homework, no lunches to pack, staying up way pass your bedtime (till 10 pm sometime since it’s still light outside!)—that’s a real summer treat.

Nevertheless…on September 4th, the boys had to go back to school. They were super excited, of course! And I was excited with them. I love watching them experience these new things, meeting new friends, adjusting to new routines, learning to live life (and fail sometime) and make new memories.

We have been biking to school most of the days this last month (as I am writing this, it’s already October). The boys love biking! It doesn’t take much longer than driving, and it’s more convenient. And this year, September has been amazingly warm, so they have been able to wear shorts to school almost every day.

So this little guy is in Year 1 now.

This is his second year of school, but he’d be officially in Kindergarten (just starting school) in the states right now. His teacher is Ms. Machen. He loves her! Since our village school has two classes for each grade, the administration mixes those classes up each year. That means you get some friends that you had from your current year and some friends who were in your parallel class. Mark is excited to be making new friends and be done with “baby stuff”. He also begged me to let him have school lunch every day—they are free for all children under 8 years old in Cambridgeshire starting this year. Although these lunches are not as horrible as they are on base, I still only let him “buy” it three times a week and send a home lunch on Wednesday and Friday (Friday is fish finger day-gross!).

Mark is still doing swimming every week, and just started tennis (which he LOVES!). During winter months, he’ll try out basketball on base now, since he is five. I am also slowly teaching him piano until he is ready for real lessons.

“I hate being the youngest”…says Mark.

Now this guy is one happy boy! He loves school! He loves it mostly because he succeeds often, I am sure. He is never afraid to challenge himself and thrives on being extraordinary.

His goal this year is to receive a Platinum award again (that’s the highest you can get) for achievements throughout the year. He was also hoping to go another year without getting a Red Card….but during his second week at school, he forgot his PE kit at home (it was on Monday, and PE kits get sent home to get washed every Friday, but they have to come back to school on Monday). He was so embarrassed and disappointed. I was feeling bad and sad with him, but at the same time, this was a good lesson to learn when it’s not a huge deal yet. I don’t believe he should have gotten a Red Card for this actually, but there is no way, I’d tell him that. I am an advocate for my children, but most of all, I need to teach them to respect the rules and teachers who make them, although sometimes they don’t like them.

Oh yeah, Alex is in Year 5! That’s an equivalent of the Fourth Grade in the states. I am amazed at how much writing they do this year. Alex is really good at his literacy and spelling. And of course, Maths…it drives Robert crazy that it’s MathS-hahaha. Alex is also in choir and orchestra at school.

After school, Alex has swimming once a week, takes piano lessons(and actually likes it more than Katya), goes to Cub Scouts on base and activity days for boys (weekly activity for boys at our church). And during November-February he’ll be playing basketball on base.

Good luck, boys in your new school year! Make it a great one!

Lyana.

Northern Wales: Canyoning

The last day of our trip to Northern Wales we went canyoning (not to be confused with the popular sport of can-yawning where competitors yawn into cans trying to make cool noises).  Canyoning is where you get into a COLD mountain stream and climb/scramble/slide/jump your way downstream.  Not for the light of heart.  And technically not for 5 year-olds, but since we were the only ones that day, the guide said he could take care of Mark just fine. 

Before heading out, we had to gear up.  We were told to wear swimsuits underneath (yes, we remembered) the wetsuits.  This was probably the hardest part of the entire experience – putting on the wetsuits which were still wet from being cleaned the day before!! (we hope they were cleaned...)  After each of us finally managed to squeeze and wiggle into our wetsuits the guide recommended we put on a second wetsuit because the water was REALLY COLD!  He even had wetsuit socks for us (which I appreciated  because I hate having cold feet).

Over the TWO wetsuits we each had a life jacket, helmet and harness with rope and carabineers (which we used several times).

Of course we had to put on shoes, which were just regular sneakers that we didn’t care about getting soaked.

And the finishing touch . . . something to wear OVER our wetsuits.  Everyone else chose old shorts but me, I wore some old scrub trousers!  Styling!

This is where the pictures stopped.  We didn’t have a waterproof camera so sadly you don’t get to see any action shots.  I’ll try my best to give you a play by play.
To get to the jumping-in point, we had to hike almost a mile (in our wet wetsuits).  Excitement kept the kids moving without complaint).  Along the way the guide taught us about some of the local fauna, like that one fern I can’t remember the name of but Lyana guessed the name of it and won 10 points.
Soon enough we were at the jumping off point, which to be more accurate was really the falling-backward-into-the-cold-water point.  We swam a yard then began our awkward scrambling descent through the water, traversing the slippery rocks all around us, frequently losing our footing, sometimes dragging another down with us.  The kids had no problem it seemed and they easily kept up with the guide, all the while leaving us parents trudging slowly behind.
We soon came to our first waterfall.  The guide had tied a rope for us to grip to prevent us from going too fast.  I was tasked with holding onto Mark as I held the rope to guide us down with painful results.  Mark was fine.  But my tailbone met a rock at full speed and OUCH!  After floating in the fetal position for several minutes at the base of the waterfall, I proclaimed I was fine (which I was, except for all the times later down the stream where I was required to slide down more rocks).  Next time I’ll tie a pillow to my seat. 
Anyway, at the bottom of this little slide there was a deep pool where we spent a good 10 or 15 minutes jumping into from the rocks, ever pressing each other to go higher and higher.  Thankfully no more injuries, but I was getting nervous, especially when Mark would jump in.  The guide would point to the deeper section and tell us to jump over there away from the shallow spot near the edge.  Those instructions were lost on Mark and he kept jumping into the shallow parts!  At least he was little and didn’t sink much – wouldn’t want him to get cut on a submerged rock or something.
So we swam out of that pool and made our way downstream, through a couple other tiny pools, sliding down a couple tiny waterfalls.  Pretty uneventful for most of it really.  But then we came to a large slide where we had to wait for a time while he set up ropes across the stream and along the boulders.  The water was rushing so quickly and it was so strong that we had to latch onto the ropes with the carabineers and ranger crawl our way down, one person at a time, hand over hand (the guide took Mark – he didn’t trust me anymore after my tailbone fiasco).  At one point we had to cross through the rushing water, holding on tight to the rope even though the water was gushing over our heads.  Only Alex lost his grip and would have been washed away except for the carabineers.  After that adrenaline rush I think he just wanted to do it again. 
When we were all down, still attached to the ropes, we sidestepped our way along the ledge to the edge of . .. a bigger, vertical drop waterfall.  I secretly hoped we would get to jump off of it.  Nope, too dangerous.  Instead, we were to abseil down one-by-one with the guide holding the ropes.  (by the way: abseiling is the British word for rappelling)  When we would get close to the bottom, he would have us “jump” away from the wall and then he would let the rope go and we’d fall into the pool of water. 
First Katya, then Alex, followed by Mark, Lyana then me.  I put my full trust in him not only to NOT drop my family, but to not drop me either.  (at least not till the last few feet).
And that was the finale of our canyoning adventure.  We could have stayed and swam in the pool, which was beautiful, but everyone was pretty cold and tired by then (even with double wetsuits on) and were ready to get back to the car and change.

We hiked back like a flock of ducks, waddling along in our wetsuits.  The excitement fulfilled, we were all just ready to go home.

If you want a fulfilling, exciting, adrenaline-rush (tiring) adventure, then check out canyoning.  They also have gorge scrambling, but I don’t know what the difference is.  I think that’s going the opposite direction and safer for younger kids.  As it was, Mark broke the record for the youngest kid ever to go canyoning there.

Frozen, happy, memories made.

Thanks Lyana for finding and booking this fantastic trip.  It was one-of-a-kind for sure.  I will always remember our time canyoning in Wales. 

Rob

PS:  my tailbone still hurts a littlez