Week in Review: Walks and Weights and Worries

We've been taking lots of walks lately (shoutout to Elisabeth's Cool Bloggers Walking Club) and the scenery is beautiful here in leaf-peeping New England.  I try to walk everyday during my lunch break at work and Phil and I also walk the dog each afternoon/evening.  Declan and Brendan love to join in when they are available, especially if it means some loops around the cemetery on their scooters.

The tombstones provide lots of theological discussions surrounding death and heaven and prayer.  Declan noticed that a lot of people have a photo or mention of Jesus or a cross on their tombstone, which prompted talks about how we want to live for heaven and not just hope for it when we die.

That's a terrible photo of the parents Martin, but I wanted to show you the new addition to our walks.  Weighted vests!  They really make a difference in the sense of feeling a little more sore/tired after a walk than without.  I'm one of those people that likes to sweat and feel sore after a workout and walking doesn't always do that for me, so this is a nice one upper.  I researched that you are supposed to wear a vest that's 1/10th of your weight so I'll pass along that tip.

I have another walking story!  Oh man, on the night of Eamon's Senior night soccer game, I was texting back and forth with Andrew and fretting from afar.  He had just finished up his week in Ireland and Scotland, and decided to change his flight back to Vienna for an earlier one so that he could arrive back on campus in time to get a full night sleep before classes started the next day.  Very sensible.  

Hiking in Scotland

 

His bestie kept his original flight back (he was with his dad in Scotland and didn't want to leave early).  So Andrew's new flight was supposed to leave at 6am to Amsterdam, but got delayed to 9am which made him miss his flight to Vienna.  The next flight to Vienna left around 5pm so he got booked on that one and spent the day in the Amsterdam airport.

After spending $200 to get an earlier flight, he ended up arriving at the airport in Vienna at the same time as Smiles anyway.  They then both got on a train that took them to a town about an hour away from campus and were trying to figure out how to book a taxi or an uber from there to campus.  They found out that they could take another train that would put them 10 miles away from campus, so they did that.  The problem is that when they got off that train, it was after midnight and they couldn't get a ride to campus:

Just a mom, reminding them to pray for safety :)

Andrew did call the local police but texted "no luck" which I don't blame them because that's not their job.  Unsurprisingly, there were no cars driving by in the middle of the night in the tiny villages in the Alps, so they walked.  With their luggage.  Thank the Lord these two are runners/hikers/soccer players!  After lots of worrying and waiting to hear, Andrew and Smiles made it back to campus around 3:30am (9:30pm our time which meant we could go to sleep relieved, thank God):

See why Smiles has that nickname?  Andrew said he was exhausted and starving.

I definitely sprouted a few more gray hairs after that night.  The thing is that I also did crazy stuff like this when I studied abroad.  I hitchhiked, I slept in vans, I got stuck in airports and train stations...but my mom didn't know about it until I was home safe in America again.  Technology is both a blessing and a curse.

How about a photo of a lunch I ordered at work that fed me for two days.  They called it an Adult Cracker Stacker and it was like a mini charcuterie:

The bestest thing that happened this week was that Eamon applied to colleges and JP applied to MD schools and DO schools.  It feels so nice to have that finally behind us, especially the medical schools applications - they are intense!.  It's almost like you have to be smart enough to be a doctor just to apply!  Eamon wanted to take a photo commemorating the moment and at the time I didn't want to be in the photo but I'm glad to have it now.

Tonight we have the Halloween Dance at school, which has been the talk of 8th grade as it is their fundraiser.  Alexander's class runs the event and they have games, sell snacks, trick or treating, a costume contest, and the main event is the haunted stage.  The 8th graders plan a theme and set up the area behind the stage to be spooky (they all dress up and have parts) and people walk through and get scared.  I hate it because I hate being scared, so I will go through the non-spooky stage that is open for the first part of the night.  It's the same thing except they leave the lights on and nobody jumps out or screams or anything.  Much more my style.

I hope you all have a wonderful non-spooky weekend!