Sweet

This morning Lily was doing something precious as she usually does, and I said,

“Lily, you are so sweet”

And Lily replied,

“sweet Jesus”

And I had a good laugh.

Every time I hear that particular expression it tickles my funny bone. I had never heard that expression before I married Jeff. I think he is the first Southern person I ever knew. If you have never met a Southerner, “Sweet Jesus” is how one expresses frustration with others or a situation. In Northern California we would say, “WTF” or “Good Lord” or “Oh my God”. Anyways, here is the story that tickles my funny bone.

About five years ago when Jeff and I were newly married, one of the first Family Adventures we undertook was a drive to Salzburg, Austria. It was about a five hour drive from where we were living in Pordenone, Italy. The drive is incredible. Through the mountains all the way. Straight up the middle of Austria, from the southern most portion to the northern most portion. The highway is dotted with castles and incredible mountains.



We arrived in Salzburg and it was raining. We had driven all that way, we were going to see the city. This being one of our first trips, we just showed up. Now I research a place before going, then we would just show up and see what we saw. So we found a place to park, we found a restaurant, we found some really expensive umbrellas. After lunch, the skies had cleared, no more rain, now we were forced to carry really expensive umbrellas all day. We saw a big enormous hill with a fortress/castle in the distance and we decided to walk that direction. We walked through the old section of Salzburg, and up the hill. We discovered it was quite expensive to go inside the castle/fortress so we just looked at it from the outside. We then started back down the hill. On our decent we noticed a beautiful church. We decided to go inside. There was a placard on the wall next to the door of the church. It basically said that the movie The Sound of Music was filmed at this church. However, this is still a real church. No large tour groups were allowed and anyone entering the church must be respectful of the fact that this is a place of worship. So we entered hesitantly. I was so excited.



The inside was very dim. My eyes had not adjusted to the dimness. I saw the pillars that the Von Trap family hid behind in the church and I went over to get a closer look. I didn’t notice that there was a step down, and I tripped. This being a big empty church the sound of my tripping was loud and it echoes. Mandy was started by this sound and dropped the wooden sword she bought as a souvenir at the fortress/castle. This made an even louder noise. Which cause Jeff to exclaim loudly,

“Sweet Jesus”.

We girls may have been loud but at least we didn’t take the lords name in vain in a church. I think that might actually be one of the ten commandments, but I am not really sure as I am a sinner. Unlike my husband who is typically a saint who never swears or gets frustrated. That made my day, that Jeff cussed us in a church. Ha, I love to make fun of him for it. Now his sweet baby girls is going around cussing like her dad. Hee, hee. Don’t tell him that I taught it(Sweet Jesus) to her just to drive him crazy.