Beethoven's birthday

In honor of Beethoven's birthday (well, at least, the day he celebrated his birthday, according to Wikipedia), we begin with a few lines from "Ode to Joy" ("An die Freude"), the lyrics to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (although technically the words were written by Friedrich Schiller). So, if any of you find yourselves at loose ends this evening, you can do what our Sunday school teacher recommended today and sit back and enjoy a little Beethoven.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium!
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, Dein Heiligtum.
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt,[1]
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,[1]
Wo Dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Chor.
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, überm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen!

[English translation]
Joy, thou source of light immortal,
Daughter of Elysium!
Touched with fire, to the portal,
Of thy radiant shrine, we come.
Your sweet magic, frees all others,
Held in custom's rigid rings,
All men on earth become brothers,
In the haven of your wings.

Chorus
Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss for the entire world!
Brothers, above the starry canopy
Must a loving Father reside.

(Incidentally, one of the most amazing things I saw in Austria when I was there several years ago was Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, a wall mural in the lower level of the Secession building in Vienna, which visually depicts the themes of "Ode to Joy").

Anyway, that's enough ruminating about things that are only tangentially related to us. Tonight's post will likely be short--we have no pictures, and I need to start packing for PA as soon as Andrew goes to bed. So, without further ado, we present the weekly highlights.

On Monday Andrew and I drove up to Salt Lake City for a play date with Stephanie and Gaby Sturgeon, Andrew's best friend from State College days. The two actually played together quite charmingly, and then we took the pair of them to IKEA, where we fed them lunch. Andrew ate not only all of his swedish meatballs and french fries, but he ate quite a bit of my pasta as well, and talked about that meal for the next several days. ("Ate it all gone!" "Gaby ate macky cheese" "freh fries"). On Tuesday, we had another play date, this time with my friend Karin and her son Ezra--Karin is expecting her second baby in a few weeks, so I figured this might be our last chance to go visit for a little while. Andrew and Ezra played okay together--they're both only children and oldest children and Ezra tended to get threatened when Andrew played with his toys and insisted that Andrew couldn't have any of them. But they finally worked that out. At least Karin and I had a nice chat. :) We tried to hurry back from our play date so that we could pick Dan up on campus (he had a doctor's appointment that afternoon), and of course, because we were in a hurry, we hit stop and go traffic on the freeway and were late getting to Dan. Unfortunately, the results of Dan's doctor's appointment were such that he spent that afternoon and significant portions of the next day in bed. I think it threw Andrew's schedule off to have Daddy home on a weekday, but he enjoyed it for all that. (Incidentally, Dan is NOT a good invalid--he gets sick so seldom that he doesn't really know what to do with himself when he gets sick).

By Thursday, Andrew was pining for sight of his cousins, so we went over to Jeni's house to play with Emi while Jacob was at joy school. And of course, that wasn't enough, so we went back over again on Friday to play. It's good for Andrew to have so much exposure to other kids--for one thing, it helps him learn how to share! And if Friday wasn't enough, we went over to Jeni's house yet again on Saturday, this time with Dan in tow, to meet up with Jeni, her kids, and Jared and his kids. (Unfortunately, Samuel had to work so he missed this invasion of in-laws). Jared and Dan played games on the wii with Jacob and Joshua, while Jeni and I entertained the littler kids by making rice crispy treats and setting up the big slide in the basement. Andrew was particularly excited to see his cousin Brielle again--after carefully holding her for a minute on the couch, he announced to me that he wanted a baby at his house, and that he wanted his Daddy to have the baby. I didn't have the heart to tell him that probably wouldn't happen!

Such has been our week. This next week promises to be busy--I'm flying out tomorrow (yikes!) to get ready for my defense, and Dan and his parents and sister will join me later in the week. The mother in me is already feeling guilty for leaving Andrew for a week, even though I know that he'll be more than amply cared for (read: spoiled) by his grandparents. At any rate, wish me luck!