To Europe
Thursday, March 31, 2011
In which Mom and Dad depart for Lisbon…
So Mom and Dad were off!
To the airport, leaving the house by eight o’clock, in order to catch their 11:05 flight to Chicago, a four-hour layover, and then to their next connection in Spain towards…
The Grand Tour
03/31
Depart United States.
04/01-04/04
Lisbon, Portugal
04/04
Depart Lisbon.
04/05
Mediterranean: at sea
04/06
Gibraltar
04/07
Cartagena, Spain
04/08
Mediterranean: at sea
04/09
Valletta, Malta
04/10
Mediterranean: at sea
04/11
Split, Croatia
04/12-04/14
Venice, Italy
04/15
London/Bath, England
04/16-04/18
Bath/Costwolds, England
04/19
Depart London/return home.
Puck was fascinated with a pair of OLeif’s suspenders that he had found that morning, He anchored them across the door to the library. When Linnea tried to cross it…
“I’m sorry, Lila,” he said, “but you broke the recipes.”
Sometimes he got confused with the names of certain objects.
At lunch during a live Piper Q & A, Puck added water to his plate where a few solitary cutie wedges were sitting.
“I flood the Earth!” he exclaimed.
“But God said he would never flood the earth again,” Linnea explained.
“With all of the water in the refrigerator I could flood the Earth,” Puck suggested.
“That still wouldn’t be enough.”
Puck looked back to the orange wedges on his plate.
“It’s broken,” he said. “It won’t sail.”
For the afternoon, Puck and Luke were very intent on continuing their biggest hole on earth in the landscaping. Dirt was flying, and more or less collected into the purple saucer sled. Leia swept the porch with the best of her two year-old ability. And Linnea raked the dead leaves out from around the hollies.
On their walk, Puck made a discovery.
“Bees are out, Mama!”
Indeed, from some indefinable hole in the ground, bees were swarming.
“Hurry, get away!” Collette called to all of them.
They outran the swarm.
“I saved you from the bees!” Puck crowed triumphantly.
For the afternoon, Puck was plunged into the tub to wash away the dirt of the biggest hole on earth.
Linnea wrote a paper and studied the capitals of Asia.
And Collette prepared a favorite of her youngest sister: macaroni and cheese.
Adventures in Odyssey.
Catechism.
The Jesus Storybook Bible…
Then Puck was down for the night. He always had something to say in parting, as he did on Wednesday night…
“Why does my baby brudder’s mudder not want to have him anymore?”
“She probably couldn’t take care of him,” Collette replied. “She couldn’t keep him safe or find enough food for him to eat. So we are going to take care of him, and love him.”
Puck thought for a moment.
“And we will find him in a basket!” he declared. “Like baby Moses!”
The evening was saved for the final third part of Pride & Prejudice with Linnea, and ideas for films the following week when Linnea would spend the night again.
“Have you seen Mansfield Park?” Collette was asking.
Linnea thought about this for a brief moment.
“Is that the one with the dinosaurs in it?”
And OLeif was out to dinner with Simon Boogey.
By the time they went to bed for the night, Mom and Dad were around two hours out from Madrid.
In other important news of the day, Francis had his braces finally removed. He was one happy man.