Suicide Sledding

Went to Garmisch Germany with my friend Roz and her 3 children. We had tons and tons of snow which made for incredible skiing. The pictures are of a gorge where the waterfalls are frozen solid. Fun to touch a waterfall frozen in time! The other friends in the photo are Beth Passy and her daughter Anna. Sadly, Beth has a disease called 'Hiver Slidetosis', thus she spent lots of time trying not to fall flat on her bum, but she did anyway (picture).
My title: Suicide Sledding. I have no pictures, but try to imagine. I went with Beth, Anna, and Sarah (another daughter of Beth's). We rented 2 German sleds and I had Sarah as my sledding partner(I was steering in the front). We rode the chairlift to the top and found the toboggan run.
We had no clue how to steer the sleds and since we had 2 to a sled, it made it even more difficult. It took us a full HOUR to sled down. There is a lighted path because it is NIGHT sledding! At points there were some huge bumps that we would hit, fly to the next at torpedo speeds, slamming bodies and crashing. We laughed and laughed but in the pit of your stomach you are scared to death.
We barely survived our trip down the mountain, and to my utter amazement, Beth was all gung-ho to do it again. So up the gondola we go again, only this time we KNOW we are crazy and that we are literally taking our lives in our hands! It it seriously dangerous!
The second time we were a little better at steering. You use your legs to steer and to stop! Still, there were moments I was sure we would be killed or maimed for life. One crash we tumbled head over heels with the sled flying everywhere, finally the sled landing on top of my legs with Sarah on top of the sled! Beth and Anna said they couldn't steer clear of a girl in the path so Anna reached forward and plopped the girl on the front of their sled as they continued to fly down the mountain!
Can you even comprehend an hour of straight sledding? Down a bonafide ski mountain? (we did travel though the forest in a toboggan trail, built up on either side with snow, so we weren't on the actual ski slopes, but still many times just as steep). At night so that sometimes all you could see was a light up ahead in the distance and you just prayed that you were on the path? And bumps in the trail that sent you LITERALLY flying? And other people sledding and flying so if you crashed you had to quickly recover and get out of the way or be crashed into?
I think it was Sarah that said, "this should be considered an extreme sport." I did ask the guy we rented our sleds from, "has anyone ever been killed before?" "Maybe 10 years ago or so." That should have been my clue!
I have some doozy bruises on my legs for proof, but no pictures of the sledding course. Still it wouldn't do it justice.
Would I do it again? I'm pretty sure I would. Yes, I'm sure I would.
Thanks Roz for a great time, and thanks to Deb for Yoga classes after skiing to stretch out really sore muscles, and thanks Passy's for being daring and adventurous friends!

The week-end

This time in Paris we decided to visit a cemetery in Montparnasse, which was planned by Napoleon. The still photos show the sculpture, 'The Separation of a Couple' by de Max. It is very moving. See how the lady is blowing a kiss to her grieving husband and trying to lift the ground to reach him? There is also a tomb with the name 'Herve' in case any of us decide that's where we want to be buried! In the slideshow there is one for the Charles Pigeon Family Tomb. The book says, 'This wonderfully pompous Belle Epoque tomb depicts the French industrialist and inventor in bed with his wife.' All the tombs set against the thriving buildings full of people was such a contrast. Truly, I kept thinking, here we are to fret and strut and then we are gone.

We also spent an entire afternoon in the Lourve and I wanted to post the wall antiquity that dates to King Darius....(so dating back to Daniel and the Lion's Den!) It is easy to underestimate the size of the vast collection in the Lourve. The range of antiquities in the Louvre is impressive. There are objects from the Neolithic period (6000 BC) to the fall of the Roman Empire! My favorite discovery this time was Napoleon III apartments. In the video clip there is one of the dining room. No wonder the french people rebelled against the lavish living of their Kings!

Tom's favorite part of the Lourve this time was the excavated area below the buildings... of the base of the towers and the drawbridge support of Philippe-Auguste's fortress. (The Lourve was originally a fortress with towers, then turned into a royal residence in about 1360 and enlarged for four centuries of French kings, and today is one heck of a magnificent place to house an incredible collection of art!)

The first still photo is the view from our room. We could see the dome of the Pantheon as well as the Montparnasse Tower. We stayed in the Montparnasse area in the Marriott. It was a new area to explore. More residential and a bit out of the way, but we enjoyed discovering a new area.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

TWENTY YEARS!!!

That's right. Today we have lived in Brussels for 20 years. And we plan to do some major celebrating. The main event is a week-end in Paris...yes, again! I already told Natalie I found 19 euro tickets on Thalys to Paris. So that is only 38 euros round trip. What a deal. Then you book a hotel on Priceline (we got the Marriott!), and viola, you have a super, fun, but affordable week-end.
I asked Tom for some of his 'HIGH' points for Belge living:
1)Church bells
2)Restaurants
3)Sights and Cultures
4)Mild weather
5)Traveling
6)Living Allowance
7)Belgian Chocolates
8)Downtown
9)Domus
10)Strength of Belgian members
And to make 20 let me add:
11)Forest behind the house
12)Tervuren Lake
13)Walking and biking paths
14)Everything is Green, never need to water
15)Clay courts (tennis)
16)20euro Dr. visits, and Dr. will make home visits
17)metro to town, Eurostar to London, Thalys to Paris, and RyanAir
18)Kinepolis
19)Belge antiques
20)Bus #616 to the airport
21)yearly ski trips
22)johanesberry jam on fabulous Millet bread....oops, hard to stop!

We were here for the fall of the Berlin Wall in Nov 1989. Also the change to the Euro in 2000. We loved the International Ward, but are finding we are more useful being interspersed with the Belgian wards. Over the past 20 years there has been a constant flow of people in (new friends! fun!) and out (saying good-bye to dear friends is tough!) of our lives. And there are some complaints. Or should I say 'low-points'
1)Plumbing back-ups
2)flooding in the basement every home leave
3)exchange rate
4)road construction
5)yield to the right
6)when kids graduate, they don't get to come home until Christmas
7)you have to fly to see family
8)blew up lots of stuff b/c of the 220V
9)hard to get drivers license for kids
10)low pay summer hire
11)my car wreck on the ring
12)Aaron flying through the sliding glass door
13)moss
14)4 seasons in one day (although it can sure be interesting)

I do have to include WHY I loved raising our family here:
1)All kids went to the same school, which meant catching one bus! One school schedule!
2)Activity bus
3)Graduate in the Town Hall (all but Dan)
4)No driving until 18!
5)once in the week Seminary, never had to do early morning (I would move here just for that!)
6)Yearly Senior dance
7)Sports
8)yearly ski vacations
9)lots of family holidays
10)Fiedler and Carmone
11)Senior trips: Egypt, China and South Africa
12)many week-ends the kids stayed home and were fine with it
13)Quiet Sundays
14)all the kids had super friends from super families

Twenty years. Who would have dreamed?

Slumdog Millionaire

It was fantastic. Thought the photography was very creative and unusual and loved it. The story line was suspenseful. It was sad because of the inhumanity of man to man and man's greed, but that is realistic. I would highly recommend it.
Has anyone seen Benjamin Button, and if so, what do you think of it. Is it worth seeing?
Went to Den Haag again this past week. We were finally able to get to the temple and attend two sessions. We had a male family name, whose card I found in an old journal. His baptism was done in the Jordan River Temple in 2002! Poor guy, has been waiting for 7 years in my journal. I hope there aren't other cards/names that I have misplaced like that.
Yesterday I finally put up 11 batches of johanesberry jelly. It's been on my 'to do' list since summer. It's not hard, just time consuming.
We also attended a wedding ceremony for Naomi Fraikin. She and her husband were married on Saturday and left for 4 months for Senegal the next day. Wow, what a honeymoon that will be! They are both nurses and are going for school.
Also at church today a young man came up to me, "Are you Sister Herway?" "Yes" "I am Elder Hat and I took a picture of your family in the farmer's field behind your house!" Amazing. "We have that picture still up on our wall in the house." " I was companions with Elder Asay." Well this all goes back a long time ago, but it was fun to chat with him. He said that Scott, the BYU professor that is a weight lifter says 'hi'. What was Scott's last name? Jake, Seth, can anyone remember?
Lastly, Dan was here at the beginning of the week. Sure is fun to have him here. We played tennis at the Davis Club. I loved playing him on my turf. I gave him my worst racket and played him his first day here so he was in major jet lag. Still, he whooped me but at least I won a couple of games! Next time maybe Lara can come as well. Of course that would leave someone else to handle the emergencies, b/c they always happen when Dan goes out of town! Hope Zane and his 15 stitches are healing nicely.

Bike shopping

I really want an 'old ladies' dutch bike. They are not light, but they ride like a cadillac. Problem is that they are very expensive. Too easy to just make do with the bikes we already have. Plus the weather is still very, very cold and not conducive to riding your bike. Still. I really like the idea of taking long bike rides and not having your bum go numb, or your hands go numb (the handlebars are adjustable) or getting a backache. Seth has me all pumped to try the bike path along the Mosel River. Well, there are actually tons of bike paths to try.
Just so you know. That is my #1 wishlist for the moment.