3 weeks no wife, 2 girls, days 4 and 5

So if you have been reading my blog even a little bit you have noticed a few patterns of what goes on in my little world which largely revolves around my girls.  I get to indulge in American Football, the gym, and mushroom hunting among other treats.  I have talked about how difficult it can be to feed Mila the Destroyer and that holds true for everybody who has tried except for one person.  Mila will pretty much eat anything that my father in law is eating and if she notices him at the table she promptly insists to sit on his lap and is ready to be fed.  Here is a picture of them from yesterday :)

She looks very sweet and innocent from pictures because she really likes to have her picture taken but I should probably film some video so you can see some of the household destruction in real time :)  She is pretty good company though when we go out for stroller walks and look for mushrooms.  

Happy Mila

Mila and the first two Birch Boletes of the day :)

The first two Birch Boletes as pictured with Mila

A family of Birch Boletes

I must admit that it was pretty strange for me to find so many Birch Boletes all in one place.  Usually when I am finding Birch Boletes they are spread out a little bit that is if I am even finding them at all.  Like I said I am in a country of experts in hunting mushrooms so I really have to be lucky to stumble upon some good mushrooms.  My only clear benefit is the size of the forests in Poland and that it takes many people a long time to look through them :)

Slippery Jack

This was a big Slippery Jack that I found and put my hand next to it to show scale. It was in really good shape considering that these tend to fall apart pretty quickly.

Amanita

So this is a poisonous mushroom and very non-edible but they are very pretty to look at and I can't resist taking the occasional picture of them :)

And now a sequence of making Kaszanka :)

Melting butter, onions, garlic and salt

Added Kaszanka

Making a smiling face as I will be happy later :)

The Kaszanka will fall apart and mix with the other ingredients 

Smiley face on my plate :)

Kaszanka is like flavor country when you eat it and some people I know here refer to it as "Polish Caviar" myself included :)  Kaszanka is a blood sausage and typically consists of pigs blood, pig offal, and buckwheat stuffed in a pig intestine. Well I am going to try to get to bed now as who knows how badly my girls are going to sleep again.  I think that it is probably a little bit of Murphy's Law that they are sleeping funny when mommy is out of town.  I hope you liked the pictures from today hopefully more to come soon.

3 weeks no wife, 2 girls, day 3

Well last night I had a horrible time trying to sleep because the girls didn't want to sleep.  Lydia was shifting and flipping in her bed constantly and making the occasional loud vocalization. Mila was up randomly in the early hours and then up at 4 and back to sleep and up at 5 for an hour and then up at 6:30 and stayed up.  I have been exhausted after doing this for a few days.  When mom returned from taking Lydia to school and going shopping she saw that I was beat and she took Mila while I got a much needed nap.  The nap lasted for about 30 minutes before my father in law started using a tile saw :)  We are currently working on finishing our master bathroom and my father in law is awesome at doing projects involving the house especially his tile work.  So I got up and did a few cleaning projects as usual and made dad and I some coffee and then went downstairs to check on mom and Mila.  It was already time for lunch so we ate and then I took Mila for a walk in her stroller. Now if you remember my last post I was commenting on how the rain and somewhat warm weather should bring some mushrooms out and of course I was right :)

Birch Bolete

Birch Bolete

Birch Bolete

Slippery Jack

Jack Rabbit

Birch Boletes

The mushrooms I found while walking Mila today

Grass Eggar Caterpillar 

So a pretty cool walk today found some good mushrooms and was able to identify the caterpillars that I have been seeing all over the place.  It seems the caterpillars turn into some pretty cool moths. I would have liked to go out into the woods and look for more mushrooms today but it just wasn't possible while watching Mila the Destroyer.  I also couldn't burden mom anymore that I did, that nap albeit short was very nice and needed. Well if I am allowed to go out hunting tomorrow I will try to remember my camera to take some more pictures of the mushrooms as I find them in the forest before I pick them. I think it is pretty cool to see them how they are growing and not just laying down on a table :) And to all of my mushroom hunting friends, happy hunting and good night :)

3 weeks, 2 girls and no wife day 2 -Snowglobe

Snow globes are often very pretty to look at and can be highly entertaining to children but they are not the best items to be handed over to little toddlers who just like to shake and throw things and get excited when something breaks.  This is a common sense kind of message and if I had to guess my older daughter Lydia was involved in the accident and surrounding conspiracy to cover it up.  Yes I do say conspiracy because she was not the only person to avoid telling me about the broken snow globe.  You see on Tuesday night I went to football practice and left the girls with their grandma to watch them and when I got home there was no mention of it.  Yesterday while I was playing with the girls in the afternoon laying on Lydia's purple IKEA carpet Mila comes over to me and hands me a large piece of ragged glass while trying to place another small piece into her mouth! The next thing I did was of course throw the house into lock down and perform a hazmat type of sweep shaking, picking and vacuuming up any remaining small pieces of glass. So other than the broken glass it was a pretty snow globe, I think it was from Disneyland or the Disney Store. The snow globe had Minnie Mouse inside and was also one of those rotating music boxes so it's too bad it had to meet its demise.  I managed to get some cleaning done around the house while the Destroyer was asleep and also had a nice walk with her in the stroller in the afternoon.  When you are pushing a stroller this time of year you should always glance into the woods and look for edible mushrooms.  It is almost like a national duty or right here in Poland to pickup mushrooms from the woods.  When there has been rain and it's not too cold mushrooms are going to start growing in the woods and fields and everyone here knows that.  In fact when you are traveling around the roads and you notice there are a bunch of cars parked on the side of the road there are definitely people out with wooden baskets or plastic bags for gathering mushrooms. Mushroom hunting is also a sport for people of any age and I have seen people as little as three and very old Grandmas and Grandpas walking the forests finding the edible bounty :)  Here are a few pictures of the mushrooms I found yesterday while taking Mila for a walk.  If you look very closely at the first picture you can see that I intentionally left part of the stroller and Mila's foot in the background :)

The first two mushrooms are Birch Boletes and very easy to identify by the thick blackish-white scraped away stalk, light to dark brown rounded cap and sponge texture underneath the cap.

The third mushroom is a King Bolete or Boletus Edulis and it is also easy to identify by the thick stalk very light to dark brown rounded cap and sponge underneath the cap.  The King Bolete can very a great deal in color and shape depending on where it is found but the cap and sponge are key to easily identify a Bolete.  Well it is raining today so I probably won't be taking Mila The Destroyer for a walk but it does mean that if it doesn't get too cold I will be out looking for mushrooms tomorrow or the next day.  Well while Mila is still asleep I am going to make some coffee and get some other things done, bye for now. 

*update!  My Polish wife is on a business trip to USA right now and because of her jet-lag she is up reading an corrected me that the Bolete at the bottom is a Queen Bolete and not a King Bolete because it has a yellowish-Brownish stalk and it is yellow underneath the cap.  Yes Polish people can instantly identify and make subtle distinctions, too bad she can't help with the girls from a distance :)

3 Weeks with no wife and 2 girls, DAY 1

Before I start out with the day I must comment on the night without my significant other.  I don't think I need to explain to any mothers or new mothers what it is like to have a child that wakes up in the middle of the night and does not yet posses communication skills.  For us when our young Mila wakes up in the night we calm her down by either giving her the bottle, changing her diaper, holding her while humming or some combination of all three.  As a good sharing married couple we tend to trade off on who gets up to deal with our young Mila based on how many times the other got up or who seems to be more tired from the day or lack of sleep.  While my wife is away however I do not have that extra support of "hey honey it's your turn." I got up a few times during the night and unfortunately Mila decided that she was ready to get up at 6 this morning and not going back to sleep until 10.  Lydia doesn't cry at night unless there is a thunderstorm but she does sometimes talk in her sleep and we have to go and tell her "everything is alright" or "don't worry the monkeys can't get you in here" and she falls back to sleep.  She doesn't remember any of what you are saying to her when she does it so I make up ridiculous responses to hear what she might say back to me just to make myself feel better for having to get up. I do have the support of my mother in law who is great with the kids and the household as we live on the second floor of the house.  After getting my older daughter up and dressed and fed and her backpack put together my mother took her to school which makes the morning much more manageable.  Older daughter Lydia was of course up to her usual stalling routine in the morning and I had to resort to setting a timer on her eating and teeth brushing and imposed threats if she did not finish before time ran out.  After Lydia was out of the house at around 8 Mila had free range to trash the bedrooms and kitchen and dodge my attempts to feed her.  Mila has adopted an interesting method of eating and sometimes I am ok with it but most of the time it drives me crazy.  Mila has a tendency to only eat the food you are feeding her when she is very hungry or hasn't had that type of food in a while, most of the time she tends to rummage the kitchen cabinets or point to food that she can see around the room and we feed it to her.  We also have to try and encourage her to try new foods and say "lick lick" or "umm umm" with a spoon and fork in front of her and hope she does.  When she doesn't try a new food we have to try and grab her hands and shovel the food into her mouth and hope we are not met with too much deflecting, spitting and crying to get the job done.   One of the best games that I play with my girls is "What was that sound?"  It consists of leaving wherever I am in the house and traveling to the room I think the noise came from and figuring out what happened.  While both girls are together Lydia can explain what occurred or hide in a corner and manufacture her soft version of why her sister is crying but when it is just Mila I have to figure things out.  The noise I heard this morning was just her tearing a book apart.  I am going to try to get a little bit of cleaning done around the house now that the destroyer is asleep and see if I can't plan my day out a little bit before I go back to my little sweetness being awake :) I am sure I will have some updates later today.

American Football in Poland

This picture was taken by Ada Iniarska on the 20th of September and it is of my buddy Oskar and I getting ready for our second football game of the day.  We are currently playing in the PLFA 8 and our final games will be in the championship tournament on the 12th of October. I think that I will be making many posts about American football here in Poland :) .  When I first started coming here to Poland in 2003 there was no league and any mention of football would bring up a soccer discussion.  Information about the football leagues in Poland can be found on the PLFA website www.plfa.pl which has all of the team stats, upcoming matches and rankings.  There are a total of five different football leagues here in Poland as follows: Topliga, PLFA I, PLFA II, PLFA 8 and PLFA J.  Topliga or Top League is a league that consists of the countries top 8 national teams.  PLFA I is a league of 8 teams which hope to play well enough to gain entry into the Top League.  PLFA II is a league of 21 different teams and it consists of teams that either hope to play well enough to gain entry into the Top League or they are the second teams for football organizations that already have a team that plays in the Top League.  PLFA 8 is a league of 19 different teams that consist of amateur players that have just played in Poland for their first season.  PLFA 8 is 8 on 8 football instead of the traditional 11 on 11,  This league is also a series of 13 different 4 game tournaments that determine an overall champion.  PLFA J is a league consisting of Junior players that are ages 12-17.  So my first season of playing football here in Poland I played for the "B" Eagles in PLFA II or the "Beagles" as we are called we went 4-2 overall and I am still playing for the Eagles in the PLFA 8.  I really enjoy the enthusiasm and the comradery the players have that are playing the game.  After a game I would say that at least fifty percent of the time the two teams will get together for a photo and share a laugh.  For anyone who has played the game, you should know how much fun it is and in Poland you will get the opportunity to relive some of that former glory you had playing in the USA.  There are many different levels to this sport as I have highlighted above in my post so there is a lot of opportunity to find a spot on one of the many teams.  This is a very exciting time in Poland and I am working out on the field and in the weight room and trying my best to share my love for the sport with all of my new friends in Poland :) .  

Mushroom hunting :)

This is a picture of my morning mushroom haul :)  It consists of Queen Boletes, Birch Boletes, Jersey Cows and Slippery Jacks.  I am not sure on the exact scientific name for Slippery Jacks but that is what we call them and they are pretty easy to identify.  First of all, I must admit that I am a complete amateur to when it comes to cleaning and preparing the mushrooms for eating because I just really enjoying walking in the woods and fields trying to find them.  My wife is the utmost expert on mushrooms, she is Polish so it just comes naturally to her and everyone else in this country to know what all the different mushrooms are, immediately.  For instance, the two yellowish mushrooms in the upper left hand corner are two that I picked while out in the woods and I brought them back for her to identify. She looked at them and instantly gave me the Polish name for them, and we went online and found out that they are known as Jersey Cows :)  The good news about that is that I now know what they are and will start gathering them.  In Poland or California, when hunting mushrooms, you really can't go wrong picking mushrooms that have a sponge underneath them.  The really bad mushrooms that have a sponge underneath will, I think, at most be bitter, ruin a soup, or make you use the restroom more often, but they can also be identified really easily through books and this marvelous thing we call the Internet.  I pick one kind of mushroom that has gills underneath the cap, and it is called a Parasol mushroom or Macrolepiota Procera for the Scientific name.  The Parasol mushroom is fantastic when you pan fry it with some butter. I really cannot begin to describe the buttery flavor and texture that the mushroom ends up with but it makes me smile :)  Preparation for the parasol mushroom includes separating the stem from the cap and cutting the bottom part of the stem that still has the dirt from the forest floor attached.  Then you wipe away any extra sand or dirt you see on the mushroom and get your pan out ready to fry with some butter :) All of my morning mushrooms can be used for soup or stew and their cleaning methods include separating the stem from the cap to check for any unwanted worm damage, cutting the bottom part of the stem to remove the dirt and forest floor, and then scraping along the stem to remove the top layer of crud before putting it into a pot. The Slippery Jack is the only one that requires additional care.  First of all, they call it a Slippery Jack because the cap of the mushroom is actually kind of slimy, which will also help you to identify the mushroom pretty quickly!  So you start out like the Birch, Queen Bolete or Jersey Cow and then you have to peel the skin off of the cap of the mushroom. Peeling the skin off the top of the Slippery Jack is more work but necessary in order to put it into the soup. Actually, I was told, some people don't peel the skin off of the caps which makes the soup gluey. All, I know it's a must in my wife's home as my mother-in-law would not accept it any other way! The Queen Boletes are good for soup, preserving, drying, sauteing or stuffing into pierogi so we do some combination of all the different methods.  BTW pierogi are another fantastic food item that the Polish people do very well and I will be doing a blog entry on the diversity and deliciousness of them later :)

Mila the Destroyer!

Although Magda and I have used the phrase many, many times it still has not lost its meaning: Mila the Destroyer!

Where's Waldo?

You might ask yourself, how can those parents let their child live in such a mess like that?  Well the answer is that we don't first of all and secondly this mess was accomplished in about 10 minutes of decorative creativity.  While this 'decorating' is taking place all that mommy and me can hear besides the constant noise is older sibling Lydia saying "ohhh Mila" over and over again.  So now if you are a parent you might be asking well where did all of that stuff come from?  Do they have cabinets or boxes or is it all piled up on the floor before becoming this mess?  Good question!  Magda and I are fans of furniture stores and visit them often trying to figure out what the best thing to buy to keep everything together :)  We like IKEA and RED, BLACK and WHITE and we order things online.  The problem is that the furniture we got for older sister who has a room just across from her gets pillaged daily and has her own things thrown about on the floor as a demonstration of might by Mila the Destroyer.  So most items are actually kept in different organized boxes, the diapers hang in a nice crocheted bag tied to the crib and the books are the only item piled in a careful stack next to the other nice boxes.  Mila is also a very skilled climber and one day gave us a scare when she noticed a window open and some chairs and tables that might be a suitable way to an escape so we are always thinking about what furniture she might not immediately be interested in climbing.  So despite the very attractive shelves and desks and cabinets that are out there waiting for us we occasionally settle for items that she probably wont destroy too much until we think she might be old enough to behave herself so that we can get her what we would really like to buy :)  So that red Tickle me Elmo you see in the picture is another great example of the little destroyer's fun, she likes to turn him on and then shove his face into the ground while it is moving around and shaking and laughing.  It has been a good toy that we found used on Amazon and has taken one hell of a beating out of her rage attacks :)  The diapers have all been put away for now but the rest of this mess is going to have to wait until after little Mila wakes up from her nap.  We do fortunately get some rest from her frequent mischief :)  I don't think there is a safe room in this house that she doesn't get into and terrorize, she does however listen to us when we tell her that certain cabinets or drawers in the kitchen are not hers to play with, well most of the time at least :)

Reflections on my first six months and my new life in Poland

Hello all,

Well after being nudged, pinched and bitten by my better half for the past six months I have finally decided to start my own blog about our new life abroad (for me and my girls) and to stop the attacks if nothing else.  It is impossible to sum up all of the awesome and terrible things one can experience in half a year so here are a few of the highlights of what I have been up to with the hope that I will do regular updates to this blog.  My family moved to Poland because my mother in law was diagnosed with a late stage cancer and we wanted her to have as much time as possible with her granddaughters.  Mama has gone through several different types of treatment options over the last 14 months or so and after the initial growth and shrinking of tumors, the last six months has been met with little to no growth, no more Chemo and some time to laugh, yell and wrestle with our girls.  Life here in Poland has been a learning experience and an opportunity to have more time to spend with my family.  I really miss being able to go to a Costo or Walmart near home and buy everything I need for a week.  I miss the idea of a 24 hour gym because here in Poland most will only be open from like 8-am to 10-pm or 8-22 for those of us who use 24 hour time.  But I mostly miss the food diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area and the ability to get a big juicy steak or good sushi :)

 Now after ranting a little bit, here is some of the good :)

 Here I am suited up on the far left as the speaking captain for our last game of the regular season the B Eagles vs the B Spartans.  We won the game and it was a lot of fun under the lights :)

Here is a picture of my girls in Sweden :)

This was taken at a historical site where you could rent a wagon to drag them around in.

It was hard not to laugh during this picture, this was a hotdog that I got in Sweden :)

As an American I don't know where to begin with what is wrong with this hotdog :)

Here I am with the girls at some castle ruins not far from our house :)

It is pretty cool that you can find castle ruins all over Europe and no I'm not pregnant, I was just much fatter when I first arrived :)

And finally a picture of me and my beautiful wife :)

Magda is usually the one taking all of the nice pictures, this one was taken by our older daughter Lydia who can surprise us at times :)

Living in Poland is actually pretty awesome.  They have adopted my favorite sport in the world American Football :)!  Polish people are generally very cool, giving and educated.  There is a great sense of community among people here and the young generation is gobbling up American culture and business.  They are also a fun bunch of drinking buddies and I have not come across anyone who does drugs or the subject in a conversation.