Utah Visit…Part 2

Our days in Utah were filled with reconnecting with friends and family. 

We met Mark's Uncle Sheldon and Aunt June at the Golden Corral in Orem for lunch on Monday, December 3. Uncle Sheldon and Aunt June live in Provo, right above Brigham Young University. We have had great memories over the years of being in their home and feeling of their wonderful spirits! 

Our second buffet on Monday was dinner with Kelvyn and Laurie…our wonderful SLC friends. We ate at "The Roof" on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Building…overlooking Temple Square.

We had a great view of the the Salt Lake Temple, Temple Square and the Utah State Capitol. We especially enjoyed having our Melissa join us for an hour between her studies at the UofU. 

Kathleen and Andrea also joined us for dinner…the food was great…and conversation even better!

Our birthday dinner celebration for Melissa…shared with special family and friends.

After dinner we walked around the new City Creek Center…

….a great indoor/outdoor mall with beautiful landscaping, and great Christmas decorations!  

I found out that one of my favorite Utah stores is located here…the Flagship Deseret Book Store.  No time for shopping as the stores were all closed…but we still enjoyed walking around. 

City Creek Center is directly across the street from Temple Square.

The next morning, Tuesday, we visited with Mark's Uncle Don and Aunt Veda, and their daughter Dawnette in Salt Lake City.  Unfortunately, we don't have a picture….but it was great to renew our family ties with them also.

On Tuesday evening we returned to the City Creek Mall and met some dear friends that we met in Poland…the Trenerowski's!  We met this sweet young couple at church in Warsaw while they lived and worked there for about 6 months. They now live in Salt Lake City and are expecting their first baby in February. 

What great fun to reconnect with Katie and Michał….I miss and love this beautiful couple!  I can't wait to hear their happy news when their baby girl arrives.

On Wednesday we met up with more family…mostly cousins of Melissa and Jamie…and a few special friends too.  Ryan, Alan (Lindsay's fiance), Lindsay, Spencer and Nicole Mark, me, and Melissa!

We ate at GoodWood Barbecue in Orem. We hadn't had barbecue for many months so it was fun to enjoy it with great young adults!

In addition….two wonderful friends joined our family gathering, Martha and Duardo. 

When Mark was a missionary in Puebla, Mexico in the mid-70's, he helped teach a family about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  One of the daughters in that family eventually married, and two of her children are Martha and Duardo.  A few years ago Martha made a goal of finding the person who brought the church into the life of her mother.  It was like looking for a needle in a haystack because there had been no contact with Mark since his mission.  Then, there was a chance encounter between Martha and Melissa when they were both teaching at the Missionary Training Center….Martha saw Melissa's name tag and asked if she knew a Mark Pickett.  That is how Martha remarkably, perhaps miraculously, fulfilled her goal….and we have remained special friends ever since. 

We loved our days in Utah…fun reconnections with family and friends, being with our Melissa, and seeing beautiful Utah during the Christmas season!

December Days in the USA…First Stop - Utah

December 1-15 was our scheduled trip back to the U.S. - time for making family and friend connections, shopping, and doctor visits. We were up at 4am on Saturday, Dec. 1.  Little did we know we were going to have a very long day…December 1 lasted 30 hours for us!

Our first leg was flying from Warsaw to Frankfurt, Germany.  In the lounge in Frankfurt, Mark found a comfortable place to rest…reading a newspaper, reclined and facing a lighted wall mural of a forest - so soothing. We were delayed in arriving and leaving Frankfurt due to weather conditions…so we made the best of our stay at the airport.

We flew 11+ hours from Frankfurt to San Francisco, where we arrived late and missed our connection, which added 2 or 3 hours to our trip.  We made a later flight to Salt Lake City…arriving around 11pm (7am the next morning for our body clocks). 

We made our way to the home of our good friends Kelvyn and Laurie, where we were going to stay while in SLC.  They welcomed us warmly to their home despite the late hour….and soon afterwards our Melissa arrived.  She is living there while she attends grad school at the University of Utah. 

The next morning, December 2, my sister Debbie and her husband Jim stopped by to visit us before they drove home to Colorado. They had spent the previous week in Utah…where their beautiful daughter Natalie passed away the weekend before.  The funeral was on the day we flew to the U.S.

I wish that visiting with Debbie and Jim had been under different circumstances, but I'm so grateful they rerouted their journey home to Colorado in order to see Mark and me. 

Their visit with us was so uplifting…I'm grateful they could talk about Natalie, their week of planning for her funeral and the day spent honoring and remembering her. It was so good to hear them share tender thoughts and moments with us.  I love my family!

For the past 30 years….December 2nd has been a very important day in the Pickett Family….it is the birthday of our Melissa! How lucky we were to be with and spend the day with her!

Mark's sweet sister Kathleen flew to Utah when she heard we were coming to Utah ….and she brought her two daughters - Alycia (a student at Utah State in Logan, Utah) and Andrea (wife and mother to almost 3 children living in Roseville, CA). 

After attending church with Melissa, we went over to where Kathleen was staying and enjoyed a delicious birthday lunch and celebration for Melissa! How fun for Melissa to be with her cousins on her day!

Happy….

….Happy Birthday, Melissa

Kathleen surprised Melissa with candy from the University of Utah…Melissa is not sure what to think of the UofU treats. She tells us she is a loyal BYU blue fan…but we think she can be a loyal fan to both schools (unless they are playing each other in sports).

One of the highlights on Melissa's birthday was attending the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. I have only attended one other event here (October General Conference 2006)…so being in this grand conference center was a wonderful experience.

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional is a wonderful evening…where our prophet and president of the church we belong to (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and his two counselors give Christmas messages.  The messages were wonderful, as was the singing by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra.  I loved when the audience sang Silent Night with the choir!

Kathleen (Mark's sister from Seattle) and Mark…I just love the two of them!

We had great lower center seats...

Here is our whole group that attended the Christmas program together…Alycia's friend Kyle, Alycia, Kathleen, Mark, me, Melissa, and her friends Julia and Whitney (who will start singing in the Tabernacle Choir in 2013).

After the Christmas Devotional we walked around Temple Square and saw so many beautiful Christmas lights. The weather was cool but relatively mild…not the bone-chilling cold it was when we were here for Thanksgiving in 2008.

I love Temple Square during the Christmas season….the Salt Lake Temple is simply breath taking!

Love this picture…though we are missing Jamie and Caroline in this family photo!

Kathleen and daughter Alycia...

We look so nice and dry in these pictures….

…. which were taken just before we headed to our car because we felt a few raindrops.  But we did not get to the car before the sky opened up with pouring rain and pelting hail.  Melissa, her friend Julia and I were soaked from head to toe…we screamed, laughed, and ran to the car.  Mark somehow was calm….and hardly got wet….he ran faster!

Happy Birthday Melissa…we had a wonderful day sharing it with YOU!

Getting Ready for December days...

Our blog has much catching up to do . . . . 

Christmas 2012 began early for us ….we started putting up our Christmas tree mid-November!  I had planned to decorate and put up our tree prior to our 2-week trip to the U.S., December 1-15…but didn't realize we would have it up so early!  Mark does the lights on our tree… so he brought the tree up from our basement when he knew he could work on it.

Mark said,  "We are probably the only family in ALL of Warsaw that has a tree up on November 17th!"  Most Poles don't put up their tree up until Christmas Eve or just before…. but ours was up a full week before Thanksgiving (which isn't celebrated in Poland).

Mark always does a great job in stringing our Christmas lights….though he hates the job because it gives him backaches!  One day we will get a pre-lit Christmas tree.

I absolutely love the Christmas tree ornaments we have…they tell stories….and memories flood through my head as I decorate and recall…places, friends and family!

Our tree was complete and lovely, and what fun it was to begin turning on the lights each November evening. One afternoon around dusk I was pulling in the garbage can from outside, and a young boy and his mother were riding their bikes in the neighborhood.  I heard the little boy say, "Oh Mom, look…. a Christmas tree!" Brought a smile to my face!

A few of my favorite things around our home in Warsaw….a nativity set from Jerusalem given to Mark and me by our Melissa.

I love the "M's" and "J's" we have on our tree…. whether they are for Mark and Jackie or Melissa and Jamie…they bring sweet reminders of family.

I love my simple Willow Tree Nativity…I do not have many pieces…but I love the simplicity they bring no matter where I place them in our home.

My newest nativity this year…a wood carving from Poland! Wood carvings are a very popular handicraft by folk artists here in Poland…I like this particular piece because it's very Polish, and because the eyes give the figures character and cheer.

Mark brought me this Polish Nativity from his first trip to Warsaw in November 2010. I love it because it represents when we first started planning for living in Poland. 

I love my Santas...

….and my wintry snowmen...

I absolutely love the Christmas season, and whether I am in the US or Poland…

….the spirit of Christmas can be felt in our home.

On the last weekend of November we had a special friend visit.  Claire from Scotland came back to Warsaw, and how lucky for us…she came to our home!  

We loved having Claire in our home for brunch, a walk and a visit…we miss her but were so happy to make connections once again in Poland!

We also went to visit another of Mark's co-workers…Agnieszka and her little son Karol. Since Claire lives in Aberdeen, she had not seen Agnieska pregnant, or her new baby.  So lucky us, we returned to visit this sweet family once again.

On the evening of the last Saturday in November (24th), Mark and I attended the Scottish Caledonian Ball in Warsaw.  We were invited by Mark's business associate David, from Scotland….the same man who invited us to the Robert Burns Supper last February.

We had a lovely, delicious meal which began, once again, with haggis.  I actually liked the haggis this time.  It was served in between 'neeps and tatties…a common way to refer to the Scottish dish of turnips and potatoes.  The presentation and the taste were really quite good!

This is the dessert….I really don't know what to call it…raspberries, drizzled with dark chocolate, oatmeal sprinkles…and the white treat in the corner…it wasn't ice cream, or yogurt…but it was tasty for sure. 

During November I walked twice a week at the Kabaty Forest…I knew I would be leaving for the states and with winter approaching there would be much less time for walking here after I returned.

Here are a few ladies I have enjoyed walking with this fall…the person in the red jacket is the original leader of this walking group…her name is Liisa and she is from Finland. She and her husband lived in Warsaw for 4 years but have now been transferred to London. I have enjoyed my weekly walks in the forest, but have enjoyed mostly walking with Liisa and other ladies from many different countries. I will miss Liisa!

November was filled with great events, simple events and time preparing for our trip to the U.S. and the Christmas season. I love this time of year and I am so grateful for all that Mark and I are experiencing here in Poland.