Sarah and Jean treated us to pure Swiss dinner fare this evening: a meal of RACLETTE. Artisanal cheese was heated up inside a table-top grill, then poured hot over boiled potatoes … and sweetened with vinegar-heavy baby corn and onions. The adults enjoyed Swiss wine, made from grapes...

Tomorrow in Nashville, Tennessee, the CREIGHTON family is gathering for a massive family reunion. My late maternal grandmother Mama Liz was a Creighton — she’s the baby girl in the tiny black and white photograph at the top of this post. Her name lives on in our family —...

One of our hosts here in Germany has been deployed to/in Afghanistan since last summer. We were surprised to see M in his living room over the weekend, wearing his favorite Sleepy Hollow Elementary t-shirt. He was home for less than 24 hours. In small ways, we’ve seen what HOME means...

Happy birthday to strongman Davey Gaskins!!

You know that song, “Make new friends, but keep the old…one is silver and the other gold?” I think a new line should be added — “And get to know the old ones better!” We ate our way through a wonderful 2 nights with the Howard family in Brussels with a full...

A few days ago ,while in Belgium, we stayed with a family named the Howards. They had a cat named Leo. He is black and he catches mice, brings them back to the Howards, and eats them. While we are here in Germany we are staying in an army base. The family that lives in this house are  the...

Two days ago we went to see the Howards in Belgium.  We toured the whole day with our tour guide, Mr Howard!  We saw (and had) lots of things from the European Union to eating the best french fries in the world!  We also saw the world-famous statue of a boy :)  My dad wouldn’t let...

We are staying in a US Army Base called a Garrison.  This is a picture of the people that live in this house.  They are older now.  There is a soccer field about         100 meters along the street.  There is lots of American food in the refrigerators, and English-speaking neighbors...

Boarding Chunnel, bound for France — so cool! W just said: “Let’s play soccer ”...

      I decided to solo pilot a wooden rowboat for the first time this week in the middle of a seasonal gale on Lake Windermere. As if there weren’t enough rainbursts, shallow water buoys, and expensive watercraft to look out for, I spiced up the maiden voyage by propping up my...

Shploock. Shlup.  I cringe just a little as the mud closes over the top of my shoe.  It is a slightly delicious, and slightly disgusting, noise as I pull my foot out for my next step.  I try not to guesstimate the varieties of bacteria and feces mixed in there, so I look up and around. The...

Two days ago we went to a Manchester United game. It was so fun! They played a team called Wigan Athletic. I had never heard of wigan athletic before and by the end of the game I knew why: Manchester United Beat them 4-0.Nobody scored in the first half but in the second half Manchester scored...

This afternoon I was poking at one of my molars and it popped right out! It wasn’t even loose!!!  There was a lot of blood!!  10x as more as on the napkin!!! This tooth makes three this trip!! One in Iceland, and one in Chilton, England! I got 100 Krona in Iceland, a pound here and...

The highlight of this week for me has been time spent on just a fraction of the hundreds of miles of public footpaths that stripe the Lake District.  Yellow arrows on wooden posts declare public right-of-way, down roads, along fences, across fields, through pastures, up and down fells and...

W and H recently paraded around our apartment dressed as mom and dad — wearing our footwear, speaking our expressions, and sporting accurate hairstyles. They even asked everyone to leave the room so they could have a private conversation. It’s true that we’ve chosen to...

Today we took down a barbed wire fence!  We used this crazy tool called a “wee-beastie”  to cut, bend, hammer the wire and to pry out the gigantic staples that fastened the fence to the fence poles (E posted about the “wee-beastie” HERE).  When we got the  barbed...

Today we volunteered for a group called Friends of the Lake District. We took down a barbed wire fence. We took it down because it had fallen down and the ponies and cows could have gotten tangled up in the barbed wire. The ponies were very curious and they came up to us and they let us pet...

t Today we helped out with the Friends of the Lake District.  We took down an old fence so the cows and horses wouldn’t get tangled up in the barbed wire.  I am using the “wee beastie” tool  in this picture, taking out a staple that holds the wire to the pole.  It was...

This picture is only one third posed … … and it shows how YESTERDAY was a particularly trying day for World School. S pulled teeth through math and science. I struggled through art of language. An example: Since we’re in the Lake District, we’re discussing POETRY in...

You may find this somewhat distasteful … but this is the spot where, deep in the fells and dales of England’s Lake District, I was able to text with my wife who was an hour’s walk away. Very...

I’ve spoken with some friends about THE NOISE that has been part of this journey — bits of things that I’m shedding (and noticing!) as we (try to) deepen our focus on the truest and most honest forms of faith, family, and our journey. Our arrival in the Lake District has...

S and I read somewhere (a blog?) that, despite the generous year we’ve been given, our ’round-the-world tracks will really amount to A THIN BLACK LINE around our massive globe. It’s a phrase we’ve used repeatedly when discussing our year away. I’m here to tell...

We’ve had some requests to update our WHERE WE ARE page … so we’ve done it. Reach it through the above link (below the page logo) … or click here.

  We’ve been staying in a commuter community called Chilton. S came across a posted flyer calling one and all to join Chilton’s bell ringers for a Tuesday night workshop. These aren’t hand bells, mind you — they are the REAL DEAL, church bells, high up in a...