Jacob's Birthday and Europe Trip with Becca!

We were so excited that we got to have Becca with us for our Europe trip to Norway, Poland, and Ireland in February! We all celebrated Jacob's 10th birthday a day early. He got a fitness tracker and The Silver Sword so he was all ready for our big trip!

The next day we had an overnight flight from NY to Bergen, Norway. It was a beautiful little city. We had an apartment right in the heart of town and enjoyed easy access to the Funicular, grocery store, tram stations, and museums. We enjoyed some new foods (including brown cheese that tasted like vanilla tootsie rolls, reindeer sausage that tasted really game-y) and learned to say Tusen Takk instead of thank you very much and hallo (hah-loo) instead of hello! We really enjoyed taking the Funicular up Mt. Floyen, walking around town, the Science Center, and the Edvard Grieg Museum, and grocery stores. We also loved attending church on Sunday, meeting missionaries who translated for us, and singing the hymns in Norwegian!

Our apartment was a great place to warm up, write in journals, eat yummy food, play games, and relax!

Reindeer Sausage and Mt. Floyen! 

Around town--Grocery shopping, Bryggen, Haakon's Hall, Science Center:

Sunday Church, short walk to the Stave Church, and longer walk to the Greig Museum:

Monday morning we headed to the airport for our flight to Gdansk, Poland. We arrived not sure where we would be staying since we got an email the night before that the boiler in our reserved apartment had fallen off the wall! The owner had booked us in a new apartment that wasn't quite as nice, so we stayed up late that night to try to find something we liked more but finally decided once we got to Gdansk to just make it work. We were right next to the main street (Dlugi Targ) in Old Town Gdansk and loved how easy it was to explore the old town! We spent the first afternoon walking around and stocking up on groceries. Then for Family Home Evening we learned about Poland from Grandma and Grandpa Tueller's book, played Quix and Monopoly Deal, and enjoyed Polish ice cream. 

The next day was dedicated to wandering around Old Town and enjoying the sites. We also enjoyed some real polish food, including pierogies and goose pie, at a local restaurant. And we got to try out some of our new words like Dziekuje (jen-koo-yah) for "thank you" and Dzien dobry (jane doh-bri) for "good morning/hello."

On Wednesday we took a train to Malbork and toured the castle. We unknowingly booked a premium train on the way and had fun in our own train car that reminded us of the Hogwarts Express in Harry Potter! At the castle we each had a headset and an audio guide that worked through GPS to tell us about different areas as we came to them. It was pretty cool! It started snowing on the train ride home and we were pretty tired, so we didn't get out at Tzcew like we planned, but I got a picture when we were going over the bridge (where WWII started!) and the sign as we passed the station! We found a hot chocolate kiosk as we started our walk back to our apartment and even saw some snowflakes even though most of the snow had stopped by the time our train arrived back in Gdansk.

The next day was museum day and we went to the European Solidarity Center and the WWII Museum. Some of us were battling sore throats and fevers, so we didn't take the time to see everything, but we did learn a lot! Later I did some laundry at the mall while Jon and the kids headed to The Room of Plenty, an escape room in Gdansk, and had a great time figuring out the puzzles!

The next morning (after some down time in the airport!) we were off to Dublin, Ireland! After the flight Jacob and Katie and I had time for naps/rest while Jon, Becca, and Megan walked through the park to ALDI to stock up on groceries once more.

The next morning we were off on the 2 1/2  hour bus ride to Kilkenny! It was such a fun Irish town to explore, and we really enjoyed seeing Kilkenny Castle, where our Butler ancestors lived and ruled for almost 600 years! We also tried some Irish food like bacon and cabbage and a meat pie before the bus ride back to our hotel.

On Sunday we went to church and found out that it was Stake Conference. Luckily it was at the same time and place so we didn't miss it. They got a new Stake Presidency and the visiting general authorities gave great talks about supporting our leaders and not being so distracted by their weaknesses or mistakes that we miss their messages and guidance. One reminded us that we are all learning and don't know exactly what to do and say in our callings all the time. He shared some experiences from when he was a new bishop that were pretty funny--like when there was no sacrament bread so his counselor ran home to get some from the freezer and had to microwave it before they could use it and when a speaker fainted and he caught her then kept asking, "Do you want to finish your talk?" 

After church we took a hop on hop off bus tour through Dublin to see the city. We got off at St. Patrick's Cathedral for a few pictures before walking back through the city to our bus and heading back through the park to our hotel for the night.

Monday we headed home! It was a good trip, hard when we were sick but full of interesting sites and experiences!