A Seussical Christmas

Karen's mother, Wynell LeCroy aka Lala, has got to be one of the most fun grandmas ever! She always picks a theme for Christmas; this year was "A Dr. Seuss Christmas." Here's a photo of K4 in our Seussical garb!

The Cukrowski Family

Ice Skating

As our tour guide said, "Over here on your right you have the National Archives, where we have the most impressive documents that founded our nation; over here on your left you have the Mall's ice rink, where you have the worst skaters in the nation."

Cousins with November Birthdays

Pandas

New and Old Monuments

Ken and I had never seen the newer WWII monument, the FDR memorial, the Holocaust Museum, or the American Indian Museum. The kids had never seen anything in Washington, or at least they didn't remember anything from the drive-by we did one year on our way to Hilton Head Island and Alabama for vacation.

Silly Boy!

Security Alert Level Orange

photo taken from inside the Washington Monument

Tourists

You may have heard the quotation from Erasmus, "When I have a little money, I buy books—if any is left, I buy food and clothes." While the Cukrowskis all have a weakness for buying books as well, we'd have to add that we spend whatever extra money we have on travel. We'll maneuver this or rob Peter to pay Paul or wrangle every drop of travel money we can out of our pay to travel somewhere and see and learn something. Both Ken and I were fortunate to have traveled with our families while we were young, and remember, we live in France in our hearts! We've been so blessed to be able to travel a number of places with our girls— to Yellowstone in winter or France and Italy in the summer... and now Washington, D.C. for Thanksgiving 2006.

One game we always play upon completion of a trip is the alphabet game; name something from the trip that starts with the letter A, then B, etc. Tonight, while we were waiting for our flight in D.C. to return home, we played again, and it was so easy to come up with multiple items for each letter. Take M for example: museums, the Metro, the Mall, Mt. Vernon, memorials, monuments, memories. Especially the memories.

Museum of Natural History

Just because you're fifteen doesn't mean you're particularly serious! Katie, Krista, and Zack really enjoyed taking trick pictures (and other oddities) on this trip. Katie received a digital camera for her birthday, just in time for this vacation, and she's getting really good at photography.

Which gets me to a comment: digital photography rocks! We took pictures to our heart's delight on this and other trips; but we can crop or delete or adjust the photos easily--and we can print the good ones instead of how we had to print up everything in "the old days," meaning two or three years ago. I am never going back. Just so you know.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. is one of Ken and Karen's favorite cities. After all, what's not to love about a town with an outstanding metro to take you to any of the great, free museums? We took advantage of Ken's annual SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) conference, which was meeting in D.C. this year, to join him. Katie, Krista, and our nephew Zack LeCroy all had the whole week off, so we were able to join Ken. We have been packing each day with lots of sightseeing and fun. We'll keep you posted!

How to Get into the White House

Since the recent additional security measures have come into effect, it is nigh unto impossible to get to go on a White House tour. You can't bring your purse, any liquids, a pen, a camera, a cell phone—or even anything that could hurt someone. You have to write your congressman a month ahead (we didn't), and your tour will still have decent odds of being cancelled, especially this Thanksgiving week.

So, we pleaded. To no avail. Ah, Mr. Bush, you've let us down in so many ways...

  

Institute of Theology and Christian Ministry

Ken’s students at the Institute of Theology and Christian Ministry were really stellar. They studied hard (Ken joked that the only language they had in common was Biblical Greek!), and they have such good, encouraging hearts. It’s uplifting to see (mostly) first-generation Christians, people who have chosen to study more, often against the understanding and wishes of their families and people around them. They love being together, which is a good thing, because their dorm situation here at the University of St. Petersburg is that they have a floor of a large dormitory designated for the Institute students, so they can’t really get away from each other. As the Dean of Students put it, it’s a real “laboratory of love.”

They love Ken, and Ken loves them. He plans to return as often as can be arranged to teach another course or two (this year he taught Mark, Greek, and the Thessalonian letters; last year was Greco-Roman Backgrounds, his specialty). They gave us some lovely parting gifts at a little party on the last day, including our favorites, which were T-shirts with pics of them together with Ken on them and singing us some songs in Russian. 'Til we meet again, St. Petersburg! We’ve had a lovely trip. SpaSEE-buh!