Day 15

Today is Sunday. The city skyline of Riga is dotted with churches, but, after the organ concert yesterday, we knew better than to try sitting through a service in another language for a longer period of time. We miss our church. It will be a re-enactment of Daniel and the lion's den when we recover from our outing later on tonight. Charades works well along with the Action Bible graphics for the language and attention span barriers.

After quiet times in the morning, we headed out to the trampoline park and let the kids jump out some energy. Then they were thirsty, so we spent $14 on bottled water at the restaurant for lunch. Ouch!

Then back to another section of the park where Will had not yet played. The girls took turns racing one another to see who could beat her own former time. It is interesting how much these girls love each other and how fiercely they are competing against one another already. When we played the affirmation game while waiting for lunch, we had to explain, just because we say that one child is smart that doesn't mean that we are saying that another child is NOT as smart. We have five smart children, and each of our children have different strengths. This seemed to be a hard concept to get across as everyone is trying to find (or fight for) his or her place. All of our children are loved the same, but they are not the same, and we would never want them to be.

Andy was proud that he can still whoop their best times.

We walked through the city again retracing our steps to find the square that had all the paintings. The one I wanted was still there, so Andy bought it for my birthday (not until July 10). We are proud of ourselves for learning to haggle in this culture.

We have done almost all of our sight-seeing on foot and wonder if we were to take a day and walk around our own city, what kinds of things we might see. If we go downtown at all, we drive by architectural treasures and street musicians on our way back home to the suburbs. Maybe we'll take a Davis family field trip on a day when it's not 114 degrees heat index!



A band of Latvian guys dressed up as peasant women playing the Party Rock Anthem

A signpost that was covered in traditional wool patterns.

Interesting statues everywhere. Will wanted his picture made with this one.

Is this wheat? These decorations are still leftover from last week's celebration.

This was my personal favorite find of the day on the sidewalk: a tea house that will be on my outing list for the next time I get to walk on my own.

I would love to study anything here.

Did you know that the first Christmas tree was actually in Riga, not Germany as I had thought? 1510

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3claI_kVuI