Do You Hear the People Sing?

I heard them in Portland! I have to confess that I have now seen Les Miserables three times and I'm sure I could see it many more times before I die. My sister Ruth got to go with her boyfriend (now husband) when I was a kid and she brought home the soundtrack which we played over and over.

So when my friends from church, Erin and Christina, arranged a little group to go see the show when they were touring through Portland, I couldn't say no. It was excellent as always and I spent the two hours with a huge grin on my face--same as I do every time I see it (or any show for that matter). There is just something magical about seeing a live performance with such talent as this.

Erin and I before the show

Another highlight of the evening was that my friends also arranged for us to go to this yummy little creperie in town before the show. It was delicious! No photos cuz I was too busy enjoying my savory and sweet crepes! I also got to catch up with my old friend Harmony who just moved back to the area after a year in Texas. She was able to join us for the evening which was special in itself because we saw Les Mis in London together while we were traveling Europe.

Christina's first time to Les Mis!

This is the 25th anniversary of the show so they made some changes to the choreography and costumes than I had seen before. I missed the famous spinning circle in the middle and would probably say that I prefer it but there were some new creative moments in this version too. And of course the music was the reason to go and it was fabulous! My plan is to read the book someday although down hold me to that. :-)

A HUGE thanks to Erin and Christina for putting together a wonderful evening for us!

BLACKberries

Blackberries win for being my favorite in the berry family!



They always seem to show up when you're not quite ready for summer to be over--and that's what I think of them as--an end of summer berry. I found a bunch of wild blackberries (are they ever not wild?) near our home and had some fun picking several quarts to fill my freezer with. Best part was that they were free!! What's your favorite berry?

From 0-4 in 2.5 hours

A special week of memories with Trudy, Tobin, Clara, and Greta!

We spent a lot of time at the pool! So thankful for a whole week of nice weather!! We even got to have some new friends over for a pool party one day.

I tried to brainwash Greta of the joys of sunbathing. I convinced her for a little while but mostly she was trying to brainwash me of the glories of the hot tub.

Obviously swimming with Uncle Chris was a highlight! He is much more fun in the pool than Aunty Kissa! How fun when he came home from work to play.

Bikes!

Tobin found a cute baby grape. He thought it was so cool. We tried to plant it with my strawberries but nothing happened. Oh well.

Uncle Chris was diving this week and came home one day with a Crayfish. Everyone thought it was so cool! Sadly, he didn't last very long in our house. The kids weren't very sympathetic though. They said, "let's eat him!!"

All the kids took turns holding our new little friend while he was still "with" us. They were all braver than I am! Trudy is definitely cheesing it up for the camera in this shot but don't you just love Tobin's little grin?

I was not sure how taking all 4 kids out would be but it went so smoothly. They all can buckle themselves in except Greta which helps a ton! We got to meet Uncle Chris on his lunch break one day at his favorite restaurant. Yay for Buffalo Wild Wings and a special day out of the house!

After lunch, we tried to go play at Ikea since it is right by the restaurant. After waiting in line for a few minutes, they told us they were full and the wait would be more than an hour. Well, that wouldn't quite work with naptime but the free ice cream they offered us and riding the escalator was still a special treat! Ikea is the best!

We loved having our little family members with us for the week. Can't wait to meet the newest little nephew when he arrives from Africa!!

In which Charissa updates her blog

Mount Hood and the Columbia River~photo by Emma Sobel

Well, I've almost failed at updating the blog once again. My inspiration for posting today is for my Ali who is ready to give birth to her first any day now. These are meant to be distractions for you, friend, along with a little life update for all my others friends and family out there. This will be a wordy post and I'll hopefully get some photos up soon.

This summer has been full and steadily flying by. We've been married for 7 months now and are so happy that we are--even through the challenges.

I've found a lot more time to read these days and even joined a book club! I am so happy to be able to have reading for homework behind me and reading for pleasure ahead of me. I have cranked out several books in the last few months and should probably dedicate a post to that--not making any promises though. :-)

Chris has been working full time again since July. It has been good for both of us and we are so thankful for God providing for us in his job. He'll be deploying for a few months this fall so we're starting to relish our days off together.

I've been loving this not-working-thing myself and definitely recommend it if you can. Although I have always been blessed with interesting and laid-back jobs, you can't beat this! It's been nice to have time to keep up my home and be able to help others out when that's needed. I spent a few weeks helping a family from our church who was moving to Papua New Guinea to be missionaries for the next 4 years. It was such a blessing to me to be around them and to serve them with my time. It's amazing how quickly you can come to love and cherish a friendship and I was definitely sad to see them go. I'm looking forward to hearing how God will work through their family in that place though!

We've had lots of visitors over the past few weeks. My parents are able to get down here every few weeks to see us as my dad fills in preaching at a church in the area about once a month. Its been nice to spend time with them and they usually come bearing gifts of produce from their garden or canned fruit and jam that my mom prepared. It's been great! We like seeing them even if they didn't bring gifts but those are nice too!

Last month we had 4 precious little visitors. Some of my nieces and nephews came to stay with us for a week while their parents went on an adventure to Ethiopia to meet their new brother who will be coming home for good soon. It was a good little lesson in parenting for Chris and I and made us grateful that kiddos (usually) come one at a time. We had so much fun with them though and were really blessed by their sweetness and our special moments of talking about God with them. It is such a special thing to see their faith and trust in God even at this early age.

We also had visits from my cousin Grace for a day (which we filled with garage saling), Chris' sister Emma (had an amazing week getting to know her better and having adventures around Vancouver and Tacoma), and my sister Debbie and her family (their first time to see us--we celebrated by going to Joe's Crab Shack).

I saw Les Mis in Portland. My 3rd time but still amazing!!

Last weekend my friend Erin and I did a yard sale together. It was successful but Saturday was HOT so we ended up closing early. It felt good to finally get rid of things that were moved down here but we don't actually need. yay for purging!

I spent a couple days over the past week babysitting a sweet 5 month old baby girl which was fun. She was a cutie while she was awake and slept so much that I got some thank you notes written and more books read. Yes, I'm still working on thank yous. I have a year, right?

So those are just the main bullet points from the last month but hope that gives you a better understanding of what life is like here in the 'Couv for me. Would love to hear from you. Photos to come! Don't be shy on your comments.

Schloss Neuschwanstein

Okay so now that I have returned to blogging-land, I figured I better clean up shop and post the drafts that have been waiting almost a year (eek!) to be posted. I hope this one was worth the wait!!

Last August while I was studying in Germany (see here,  here, here, here, here, and here) I was so blessed to be able to do some traveling over the weekends. Some of these roadtrips have already been mentioned here, here, here, here, here, and here if you need to catch up.

Our lovely road trip crew: Todd, Ashley, me, and Jennifer.

This part of the trip made all my childhood dreams come true as I got to visit the most amazing castle I have ever seen: Schloss Neuschwanstein (literally "New Swan Stone Castle").

The history of the castle is rather interesting. First off being that its really not as old as you might think having been commissioned by "Mad King Ludwig" in the late 1800s. Apparently he was a little crazy. He built the castle partly in honor of the German composer Wagner and many of the murals in the castle were painting using inspiration from his music. He also had a bit of a swan obsession--hence the name and many little swans carved into the furniture and even doorknobs. Ludwig wasn't everyone's favorite guy though and he and his doctor "mysteriously" drowned near his castle. Even though the castle wasn't completed, they opened it up for tourism that same year (1886) and it has been a tourist hotspot ever since.

Another interesting tidbit is that Walt Disney visited the castle and used it as inspiration for building Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. There is also a mural in the ballroom that looks like it came right out of scene from Bambi! Our tour-guide told us this also was inspiration for Disney. I knew it looked familiar!!

See that little bridge spanning the canyon in the distance? We were able to hike to that for the view you see in the photos above.

Gotta love the abundance of castles in Bavaria! The castle below was another one we could see while we were spending time at Neuschwanstein. I don't really remember anything about it since we didn't visit but the view was definitely beautiful. Anyone else know anything about this second palace?

And if I could offer you one bit of advice for your visit to Neuschwanstein it would be to make sure you pick up some of these melt-in-your-mouth-powdered-sugar-goodness in the form of these tasty German doughnuts. You won't regret it and its a pretty long way to hike to the castle anyway so you may as well gain some calories while you burn them!

Sorry for no photos of the inside...no photography allowed. Guess that means you get to go visit to satisfy your curiosity!! ;-)

Vacation

Hello, old friends! Does anyone still frequent around here? I'm sorry to say that I went on a blogging vacation and didn't tell any of you!! I'm sure there are plenty of things I could have blogged about over the last 5.5 months but I have to admit that I got lazy in keeping you posted. I think I'm ready to remedy that over the next couple months so if you would like to continue checking in around here to see what the Sobels are up to, I welcome you! :-) For now I'll leave you with this photo from our real vacation on Nantucket Island last week. Have you been able to enjoy any vacations this summer?

Little Friend of Your Choice Give-Away

Head on over to Knittybutton for your chance to win a custom knit little animal of your choice! The Giveaway is open until March 10th so hurry and get your entries in and spread the word!