The Number Field

I. Last week, my mother became the first guest in our new home. We gave her the grand tour, which included going up and down the stairs. This staircase has a small landing at the bottom, just one step up from the rest of the room, and as we came down the stairs Gran Ann commented on how well Roman was able to navigate them. When he took the last step, from the landing down to the main level, unassisted, she even clapped. Roman and Elena always love to get extra attention from grandparents, but when I observed what happened next that I realized that Roman had gone from that to being a junior scientist, attempting to recreate the work of Pavlov. He climbed back up on the landing, then stepped down, looked right at Gran and started clapping, prompting her to do the same.

More than once this past week, when I was sitting by the stairs, he would repeat the trick, clapping for himself as a way to encourage me to clap for him. Grandma stopped by again yesterday, and it was the first thing that he did. I may have taken the idea one step too far. Roman's not necessarily the best eater, but at lunch today he was really going to town on a grilled cheese sandwich. I clapped for him after one particularly good bite, and after that he wanted me to applaud every bite. I hope he forgets about that before dinner.

II. Elena got CandyLand for Christmas last year. We tried to play it with her once, but she wasn't quite ready to understand it, and soon after we put it in storage with most of the rest of our belongings. The board game box was one of the first ones unpacked, and after Elena saw her game, she wanted to give it another try right away. We finally found a time to play, just the two of us, when Roman was asleep and Jenny was out shopping. I remember CandyLand as an introduction to disappointment and constant suspicion of cheating--it seemed like I always drew the gumdrop or candy cane just as I was closing in on the finish line. Elena, playing the game for the first time, had a fresh perspective: she wanted to visit all the different characters, no matter what the order or effect on her chances of winning the game. She won, finishing quickly thanks to drawing Queen Frostine early on, but I told her that next time she might get to visit the other characters. Later, she spent some solo time with the CandyLand board, but she was telling herself stories about it more than she was playing a solitaire version.

III. Elena likes putting dishes away, and for Roman the dishwasher is a novelty. Still, this didn't require any additional prompting:

And yes, the dishes were actually clean!

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We endured a long journey from England to the USA just in time for Thanksgiving, and haven't been heard from since. Even though we didn't land on Plymouth Rock, we still felt like pilgrims. There isn't too much to say about the flight. Roman and Elena fussed a normal amount, but at least on the long transatlantic leg of the flight Roman had his own seat and was finally appeased by Monsters, Inc. Sitting on the other side of the plane, I used one of my sneakiest tactics to get Elena to take a nap: when I knew she was tired but wouldn't fall asleep on her own, I answered 'no' to her pleas to borrow my iPhone and play games until she got upset enough that she started crying, which was quickly followed by her falling asleep. It wasn't a long nap, but she needed it; by the time we made it to our destination, my parents' house, we had been traveling for about eighteen hours.

Since then we've been doing all those things that have to be done to get a new home up and running again. At Thanksgiving, we were thankful for wonderful friends that allowed us to invite ourselves to their excellent Thanksgiving feast. We're also thankful for my parents and their willingness to let us stay in their spacious home for as long as we needed, and for our brother-in-law Sam who came out very late last Friday to help us move boxes from a storage unit into our new townhouse. We've been here a week now, and although there are still boxes everywhere, things in the home are starting to take shape. It's the same way in our personal and social lives--we've already met some new friends and found the playgrounds near here, and Jenny has started to enjoy the hunt of of exploring the local thrift shops in search of the things we need, but don't want to commit to buying new. We don't know what's in store for us in the short-to-medium term future, but it looks like there are two likely paths: if things turn out one way, we might continue to follow our wanderlust and head back to England, and if they go differently we're likely to be looking to put down roots and buy a house. No matter what, we'll be savoring the company of family and friends this holiday season, just as the pilgrims did.

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Dear Elena and Roman,

Your parents were not totally incompetent before you were born. We each made it through childhood and both of us graduated from college. We established ourselves as independent, self-supporting adults with friends, hobbies, and responsible jobs. We gave service, both in church and outside of it. After we met, dated, got engaged and were married, we had a good life. We doted on Jewel and went for walks on Sunday afternoons. We took interesting trips and made plans for our future. Most of the time, we felt no need to warn each other about minor details like when we needed to use the restroom. On car trips, we only rarely needed to carry a throw up towel or bucket with us. Often hours or even days would go by where we didn't yell or shout in anger, and when we didn't get enough sleep we had only ourselves to blame.

Now that you are in our lives, everything is different. The rate at which you oscillate between giddiness and tantrums is still shocking to me, even after three years of exposure and experience. You require constant attention, because when you are not demanding it explicitly I still need to watch you to prevent any imminent accidents involving you and that thing you're climbing on, reaching for, or swinging around. As a result, I have moved further and further towards the edges of my own emotions, well outside the comfortable zone where I know that I have control of my feelings. I love you dearly, and every time that I carelessly and callously raise my voice and say No , Stop , or Don't do that , I regret my tone immediately. It is hard to have to come to grips with my human frailty this way.

As hard as it seems at times, our life is actually extremely easy. We live near and are well-connected with many supportive family members and friends. We do not generally lose sleep over money matters; I have a stable job that pays well enough that we can have the things we need and even save a little without needing supplemental income sources, so your mother can stay home with you. For now, there are only two of you, with no prospects of new siblings in the immediate future. For comparison, when I was Roman's age my mother was already six months pregnant with my sister. When I was about the same age as Elena, my parents moved across the country, away from their families and all that was familiar to pursue a career opportunity. Due to a terrible real estate market, they suffered financially for a long time. It must have been hard on them.

I have generally happy memories from childhood, and I hope that the blissful filter of innocence that protects most children from the adult world, the one that prevented me from seeing or understanding much of the stress that my parents must have constantly experienced, will remain with you for many years to come. I pray that the bitter moments in our relationship are overwhelmed by the good, and that when you remember them they do not take the dominant place, but are accents that give depth and perspective to your memories.

What we have done in this past year has gone right up to the threshold of being truly crazy. The ambition and scope of our adventure has dwarfed anything that your mother and I took on before you were born. We've lived in four and a half homes (soon to be five and a half), spread out across two different US states and one foreign country, for lengths of time measured in months--the most inconvenient unit of habitation. We've travelled to great cities and small towns, seen amazing sights and witnessed spectacles of sport. Many times we tried to do just one more thing at the end of a long day when it was clear that you were tired and ready to be done, and although you often voiced your displeasure at the circumstances, you always made it through and cheered up once things were restored to their proper order. We have done this together, all of us.

love, Your Father

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It was only at the very last one we would have a chance to visit that we learned the real truth about castles: they weren't ever homes for princesses; they were places where prisoners (mostly debtors) were kept and tried. At least that was the claim of the tour guide at Lancaster Castle , which prides itself on having been the last working castle in England, because it only closed to prisoners in 2011, and trials are still held there. The tour guide had a sense of humor that was right in line with my own, and tried to personalize the tour for those on it--at the beginning, he asked where each group of guests was from, and later on tried to tell stories that tied in those locations. When we said that we were from Maryland he asked if we lived anywhere near Annapolis, and pointed out that most criminals weren't worth the trouble of being kept in a castle prison because it was so much less expensive just to send them off to the colonies, with Annapolis as the favored destination. According to him, the main result the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution was that the British had to find somewhere else--Australia--to send their outlaws. He also told us the story of the Pendle witches, tried at Lancaster castle, that I mentioned in my previous post .

We went to Lancaster so that Jenny could revisit the place where she spent a semester abroad in college. After strolling around town, where we found that her favorite sandwich shop had probably been taken over by a larger chain, we went on the castle tour which she had never done while she lived there; although the tours probably happened less often back when the prison was still operational. Roman and Elena fell asleep on the short drive from town to the university, so we drove around the perimeter instead of getting out to walk the campus while Jenny remembered what it was like and pointed out all the things that had changed. I engaged in some idle speculation: wouldn't it make sense for there to be a rivalry between Lancaster University and University of York? Any athletic competition between the two would be called the War of the Roses . A British person I asked about this pointed out that college sports is not a big business in the UK, but it turns out that the two schools do have a yearly competition called the Roses Tournament , which in the most recent edition included contests in 39 different sports.

I would like to spend more time exploring the outdoors--if not camping, then at least hiking--but it's so hard to do with young children. Nevertheless, we made two attempts to see the wonders of the natural world in this last weekend. On the way back from Lancaster, we drove through the Yorkshire Dales on our way to Malham, site of some impressive rock formations. Locals like to point out that a scene from one of the last Harry Potter films was shot there. Sadly, the light was fading fast by the time that we arrived and we weren't sure whether what trail would take us in the most interesting direction in the limited amount of time that we had to spend there. We ended up walking half a mile along a muddy footpath right through a pasture where cows and sheep were grazing--Roman liked that--and turned around when we realized that we had no immediate prospects for seeing interesting rocks, and Roman was probably not going to stop crying until we returned to the car to warm up. Elena was a trooper all along, even in the face of a few spills into the mud.

On Monday, taking advantage of the holiday, we decided to attempt one more short trip to Brimham Rocks , where there were also supposed to be interesting rock formations. Even though the weather wasn't ideal and a layer of fog kept us from seeing the distant sights, the rocks really delivered: windswept towers a hundred feet high, balancing stacks, beautiful textures and shapes all around. Elena was scared when I decided to climb one of the shorter formations, but very proud when I made it to the top. My climb must have inspired Roman: when we took a break, he found every rock in the area that was the right height for him to step up onto, so that he could pretend to jump off. On the walk back to the car, Elena and I discussed what names she would give to the different rock formations, and which ones would be good for a kid to climb. Any outing that ends while everyone is still cheerful is an extremely successful one!

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For whatever reason, the end of October or beginning of November is a good time for a celebration. Maybe it's an instance of weather determining destiny; each year it's a flip of the coin to see whether we'll get lucky and have one more pleasant evening outdoors, or be unlucky and have our first notice of what winter will be like, sort of a converse to Groundhog Day. Since we're in the UK, but in an area with lots of US people, we took part in both Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night, and both times got a thorough dose of cold weather. The two holidays are observed in very different ways, but as we've recently found out, there are some interesting and little-known connections between them.

Roman wore a pumpkin costume to our Halloween events. At first Elena picked out a pumpkin costume to match his, but then she decided that she would rather be a princess--we were thankful for a good thrift store with a cheap Snow White costume in her size. After one party where she waited in the face painting line but didn't make it to the front before we went out trick or treating, Jenny put special princess makeup on her before we went out to our second Halloween party. For Roman, we put a lot of effort into teaching him to say "trick or treat" and "thank you" so that he would be able to show off when we went from house to house or trunk to trunk. His mumbles became consistent enough that Jenny and I knew what he was saying, but in the live trick-or-treat environment surrounded by raucous candy-crazed children, his requests went mostly unheard. Since then I've noticed him saying and signing "thank you" much more, often without having to be reminded, so that's a nice benefit.

Our first trick-or-treating experience, which actually took place the Friday before Halloween, was harsh. We made it halfway around the neighborhood loop before giving up due to the cold and wind, when Roman started to cry inconsolably and even our normally warm-blooded Elena wouldn't stop complaining about how cold and tired she was. We were very grateful for a friend that offered us a ride home so we wouldn't have to wait an extra hour for the bus. A few days later, the weather was a bit nicer and we didn't have to walk nearly as far at the church trunk or treat. Elena and Roman built up a sizable stash of candy that lasted until today, even though Jenny and I did our best to help them--mostly Elena--work through it in a timely manner.

Although Halloween has ancient origins, the traditions that we associate with it started to take their current shape in America during the industrial revolution. The English had abandoned Halloween with their split from Catholicism, and America didn't pick the tradition up until the large-scale immigration of the Irish in the nineteenth century. As globalization backed by American cultural hegemony continues its ascent, and the traditional strength of religion in determining the dates and observances of holy days remains in decline, Halloween is returning to England: in the last weeks of October there were candy displays in stores with spooky lollipops and Cadbury Scream Eggs and some of our neighbors decorated their doors and windows with spiderwebs and pumpkins. It's not hard to see why Halloween is spreading--it has everything that people in our modern world want in a holiday; it no longer has any overtly religious connotations, it's easily productized and marketed (candy, costumes, etc.), and is fun for children and a light-hearted escape for adults.

Even though it has evolved away from the strongly anti-Catholic sentiments that used to accompany it, Guy Fawkes Night is unlikely to spread beyond the bounds of Britain. It commemorates the unearthing of the Gunpowder plot, a conspiracy to blow up Parliament and restore a Catholic king to Britain. The night is celebrated by a bonfire and fireworks, but it isn't just a bonfire, it's a burning in effigy of Guy Fawkes, one of the plotters. It seemed like the whole town turned out for the bonfire, and it appeared to be a popular fundraising opportunity for the Boy Scouts; there were at least five or six concessions stands run by various local troops. We chose to patronize the troop selling fresh, hot popcorn--theirs was by far the best smelling stand. By the time the fireworks started we were almost out of popcorn, and Elena and Roman had started to send us their telltale we're cold signals, but we stayed until the end. It was a nice fireworks display, but the spectator who told us it was "pretty much the greatest fireworks display" had clearly never been in even a small American municipality on the fourth of July. Probably the most memorable part of the evening was how muddy we got as we trudged back home with the rest of the crowds, cutting through the park to save time.

Earlier I mentioned a little-known connection between Halloween and Guy Fawkes night. Although the links are tenuous, here is what we recently learned. After the Gunpowder plot, certain parts of England that were still heavily Catholic sought to curry favor with King James, who was very much against witches and had even written a book promoting the denouncement of witchcraft. In 1612 there was an accusation of witchcraft in Lancashire, one of the aforementioned parts of the country, and the prosecution was allowed to proceed. In order to secure some of the convictions, the testimony of a minor was allowed--a nine year old testified that several members of her family were witches--because the King's book said that children were good at identifying witches, despite the fact that the testimony of a child was inadmissible as evidence. Several decades later in the New World, most of the evidence at the Salem Witch Trials was given by children and was admitted because of the precedent. Although there's no official connection between the Salem trials and Halloween, I claim that those trials are a part of the cultural baggage that has been associated with the holiday to make it what it is.

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One evening I had a passing thought that we should go to Italy for Jenny's birthday. I wasn't entirely sure she would want to, especially when my other idea had been to treat her to extended alone time, where I would take the kids away and she could do whatever she wanted. She got on board with the idea of the trip right away. Tickets to Milan were on sale, and it looked like an interesting area to visit, so we moved forward with the plan. I think that what tipped the scales was that one of Jenny's core tenets in life is that when one is in Italy, eating gelato is a daily requirement. In fact, that was the main thing Jenny told Elena about to prepare her for the trip. Even though flying in the sardine-tin atmosphere of a discount airline is a hassle, it felt quite good to be landing in sunny Italy after only a couple of hours in the air; it wasn't an overwhelming amount of travel time for a three-day weekend trip. We spent the first day in Bergamo, a small city next to the airport we flew into, about twenty miles away from Milan proper. Straight off the plane we tried to visit the historic citta alta (upper city), but passed by all the parking and soon were driving down narrow cobblestone alleys that we probably shouldn't have been on. By the time we figured out what was going on we were headed down the side of the hill and decided to try again later in the afternoon--we decided it would be best first to take naps to recover from our early morning wake up call. It was good that we got some rest, because when we returned in the afternoon we took the first parking spot that we found, not realizing what a long walk it would be from there to the town center. The walk was a beautiful one, with incredible views of the town below, but Elena and Roman were not entirely ready for it and we needed a break long before we found the first gelato shop. After that, things were easier; the town center itself was picturesque and not too big. The highlight of the evening was our trip up a funicular to an even higher part of town; although the main attraction up there--an old castle on the grounds of a city park--was closed by the time we got there. The next morning we woke up ready for a big day in Milan. We didn't have the easiest time getting to a metro stop and finding someplace to park, but worked it out eventually. The trouble was all forgotten when we exited the metro on the far side of the piazza across from the magnificent Duomo. After we'd had our fill of gawking, we joined the throngs walking up the Via Dante towards Sforzesco Castle. I wish I knew more about the history of Milan, in order to appreciate the significance of these places, but Roman and Elena don't make it easy to take time to read the historical explanations posted in various locations. As we wandered out the back of the castle, we looked down into the now-dry moat and noticed that there were about a dozen stray cats, some standing guard, others lounging around; there were even a couple that looked like they might get in a fight. While we were eating lunch in the park, I thumbed through a guidebook (an actual book, not a website) to see if there were any nearby attractions we had overlooked, and discovered that there was a free aquarium on the other side of the park. It was perfect--not too big, but had plenty of fish. I can't say it was mostly for Elena and Roman's enjoyment because Jenny and I liked it too. From there we headed to the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology . We thought it would have interactive exhibits for the kids, but they were mostly shut down on a Saturday afternoon, and small-scale models of da Vinci's crazy inventions are not the kind of thing that hold Roman or Elena's attention for very long. After the museum our daily gelato break was long overdue, but we took measures to rectify the deficiency while partaking in our other favorite tourist activity: wandering through whatever part of town seems interesting. Towards dinner we made our way back to the center of town, and on our way out we managed to go by the Duomo again; it may be more spectacular at night than it is during the day. The next day was Jenny's birthday. After we sang and she unwrapped the one small gift I had brought in our very limited luggage, we headed away from the cities, towards the Alps to enjoy the beautiful scenery from the vantage of our very stylish little rented Fiat 500. The first road we took was fast, but went through too many tunnels for us to enjoy the beautiful Lake Como on one side and mountains on the other, so we exited it at the first opportunity and made our way to Varenna, a lakeside town I had read about, where we enjoyed lunch in the little town piazza , then explored the lake shore and quaint cobblestone streets. I had a plan in mind for the remainder of our trip at the northern end of the lake we would head inland, taking the valley road until a place where we could turn south and head up into and through the mountains back to our hotel. Jenny and Elena requested that we amend the plan to include a stop for gelato. When we arrived at to the town where we planned to head into the hills, we started to look for a gelato shop but noticed that some of the streets were blocked off; as we investigated further we found that we had run into the Italian Mountain Racing championships at the 55th Trofeo Vanoni . Luckily, the gelato shop was right next to the race course and open for business. It may have been the best gelato of the whole trip. Heading up into the mountain from there, we crossed the race course several times; at each point we had to wait until the safety personnel spotted a large enough gap in the flow of racers to flag us through. After seeing where their course topped, I have a great deal of respect for the runners, and don't know whether going up or down would have been harder. We continued on up and into the mountains, further and higher, each dizzying curve showing us a beautiful new vista, either of the valleys below or the fall foliage on the trees ahead, around, and above us. No matter how high we went, there were always cottages or farm houses visible much higher on the mountain than we were, so remote that we couldn't even figure out if there was a route for cars to get up there or if the inhabitants always have to hike up to their homes. Just when the road seemed to level out a little bit we came to a closed gate--the pass was closed and we shouldn't go any further. It did look like there was a well-worn pathway around the barrier, but we didn't want to take any chances. We contemplated taking a break there; it appeared that there was a trail leading straight up to a lodge, but Elena had just fallen asleep and we didn't want to wake her up, so we headed back down the way we had come, past the cleanup crews for the now-finished race, and back into the valley. It was getting late, so we took the faster way back, tunnels and all. I find it fitting that for Jenny's birthday we happened upon what may be the only Italian/TexMex fusion restaurant in all of Northern Italy or possibly the whole world. When Jenny was young, she always asked if they could have tacos for her birthday dinner, even though her family had tacos at least weekly. True to those childhood birthdays, Jenny ordered fajitas. Back at the hotel we closed out celebrations with an unglamorous chocolate cake. It wasn't the most birthday-ish birthday, but it will be one to remember. Happy Birthday, Jenny!

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Not so long ago this blog was about Elena and Roman, a record of their growth and development and our interactions with them, not just about all of our crazy travels. I'd like to get back to that. During the past few months the miracle of growth and development has continued to play out in front of Jenny and me, embodied by these two children.

Roman has gone from unsure tottering to running everywhere. He knows to bend his knees when he wants to be successful ascending and descending steps, which he so desperately wants to do whenever he's close to a flight of stairs. This may seem like a small thing, but it was like a sudden revelation to him. He understands a surprisingly large portion of what we talk about, which is often manifested when we ask him to find and pick up things that are far away or out of sight. He also has started to nod yes and shake his head no in response to some questions, usually with a big smile on his face. He loves playing with balls and balloons and is fascinated by my very rudimentary juggling, or when I spin his toys like tops. As we expected, he loved our trip to Tropical World because of all the different kinds of animals there, from scaly snakes, alligators, and lizards to butterflies, bats, and meerkats. Jenny has taught him to give bedtime and naptime kisses to herself, Elena, and me. Whenever I sit down on the rocking chair in the children's room he brings me some books to read, although he doesn't always hang around for long enough to listen to them. He's even starting to talk; he said "hi dad" when I arrived home one day this week, and has been working hard on saying "trick or treat" for Halloweeen.

Elena has been thinking and expressing ever more complicated ideas. She accompanied me to the ballet, where we watched The Nutcracker . We carried on a nice conversation during the long walk to the theater, and despite the late hour she was happy to walk back with me when the show was over. Many times instead of being upset when she meets some setback (often imposed by us) to her plans or desires, she'll come up with a creative solution and present it in a clear and reasoned manner. This isn't to say that there are no tantrums, or that her proposed solutions are always good ones, but more and more she is thinking things through and beginning to consider the thoughts and feelings of others.

Both of them like to play the "push daddy over" game, where I sit on the floor and they push me as hard as they can until I fall over and we all wrestle. I remember wrestling with my dad--the memories must be from when I was older than Elena is now--but every time I went into it thinking that this time I would actually be stronger than him. My main concern now is trying to make sure that I give them both equal attention, and don't bash their heads against each other. It's comforting to know that I won't have to worry about them being stronger than me for many years yet.

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In a city as big and busy as London it's tempting to put together a tourist's wish list of activities without regard to location, and as a result spend most of the day going back and forth between sites without really seeing much. We only had one day in the city this time around, so we tried to resist that temptation by first coming up with a list of things we wanted to do, including things that weren't top line attractions, then picking the ones that were reasonably close to Buckingham Palace. With those constraints it turned out that our activities had shopping and commerce as a common theme.

Although my wardrobe doesn't show it, I am fascinated by bespoke and high-end men's clothing and shoes. Jenny says that this is similar to the way Elena feels about princess clothes; I wouldn't mind having some, but the fascination is in the idea more than the realization. Jenny loves a totally different kind of shopping experience: the open-air market. In London we found both in close proximity: we window shopped along Jermyn Street as we made our way to Picadilly Market . After an ice cream break we headed up to the larger markets in the Camden Town area. We had to walk through lots and lots of identical novelty t-shirts and iPhone cases but eventually found a few things we were looking for, including a pretty coin purse for Elena. We give her all of the coins that we find on the ground, and she needed a place to put them.

We decided to check out another shopping venue--a Salvation Army thrift shop just around the corner from the Vogue offices that is known for having great deals on lightly-used high fashion items. We got there just before closing time and didn't have time to explore as much as we would have liked; I tried on a couple nice suits, but didn't pull the trigger. From there we visited Allies, one of the lesser known statues in London, which depicts Churchill and Roosevelt chatting on a bench. It's a tight squeeze, but there's room between them for another person to join the discussion.

Our day concluded with a search for dinner. Although I suspected we wouldn't find any restaurants there, I guided us down Savile Row on our way to busier streets. Jenny's patience was wearing thin, but as soon as we turned a corner we saw a Whole Foods Market. It wasn't a culinary adventure, but we needed a break from the slow service and greasy food common to many restaurants. It wasn't until we sat down with our food that we realized what a long and tiring day we had. Dinner was extra tasty and our upgraded hotel room that night seemed especially nice.

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Even though we like buses and trains, having a car can be really nice, especially since we don't have one very often. It doesn't matter how comically small it is or how likely it is that the kids will get motion sickness, it opens up options that just don't exist with public transportation. In between Cornwall and Yorkshire, we visited three locations we wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise. We reached Stonehenge not long before the grounds closed. The sky was beautiful and blue and crowds had thinned out so it was easy to take good pictures. I'm not sure what else there is to do but walk around the monument, examining it and taking pictures from all sides and wondering why this thing has been able to survive when so many artifacts of its era, things that could give it context, have disappeared. I'm glad we saw it, but can't imagine wanting to spend much longer than we did. In 5,000 years will people wonder why there's another one on the other side of the world, or will the records that we keep today survive until then? After our day of shopping in London we wanted to have a different kind of experience so we visited the London Temple . Jenny and I each took a turn serving in the temple while the other stayed outside and showed Elena and Roman around the grounds. The peaceful temple environment provided a sharp contrast to the hustle and bustle of the big city. On the last leg of our drive home we stopped at Woolsthorpe Manor , where Isaac Newton grew up. They had a number of child-friendly activities and displays explaining his work. Elena is still too young to have understood the ideas, but she liked making and shooting a rocket, along with all the spinning, rolling, and throwing of things that was involved in the other displays. Roman also liked rolling and throwing whatever he could find, although the equal and opposite reactions to his actions meant that things generally moved away from where they were supposed to be. The house itself was well-staffed with helpful docents and we had a good time looking for toy mice hidden in each room; by finding all of them Elena earned a sticker! My favorite part of the day was a brief moment of contemplation in front of the famous apple tree (or perhaps its nearest descendant) before the rain started to come down harder, forcing us to retreat to the car. With that last cultural experience under our belts, we headed out and soon found ourselves safely back at home.

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It seems entirely fitting that this year we celebrated my birthday on the road, with the attendant challenges and compromises that arise from having limited luggage space, limited living space and no kitchen. Jenny, Elena and Roman stepped up to the challenge and delivered a wonderful, thoughtful birthday celebration. We woke up early to open cards and presents. Each of them gave me a card, and there was even a card from Jewel. The presents didn't take much space, but were just what I wanted: metal collar stays, a new shirt and tie, commemorative Olympics postage stamps, and a bag of candy big enough to last for the rest of our trip. I was especially surprised by the stamps, which celebrated athletes that we had seen compete, and had been available as a limited edition for only a short period of time.

In the evening, after an excellent dinner at an authentic pub that clearly sees far more local guests than tourists, we closed out our celebration with special cupcakes. Jenny had wanted them to be a surprise, but Elena was just too excited and had accidentally spilled the beans by asking about or otherwise mentioning them several times. They had scouted out a local cupcake shop online before our trip, then placed their order as soon as they arrived in town. Each cupcake had its own flavor and style, and the bakers were very kind to mark them with my age and include complimentary birthday candles so that I could make a birthday wish after we sang "Happy Birthday."

It was hard to know what to wish for. On the one hand, I have a wonderful life with an amazing wife, charming children, loving parents, brothers, and sisters, and more blessings than I could ever list. I couldn't ask for anything more in that regard. On the other hand, we aren't exactly settled down, and it's so hard to predict what we'll do next that it's hardly wasting a wish on just one of the many possibilities. We'll continue to hold on tight and see what happens.

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