Wednesday, June 23, 2010

overheard

Charlotte: I want the yellow and pink jammies, and yellow panties.
Rob: (With pink jammies and white panties,) those aren't in your drawer.
Charlotte: Well, I need pink panties (to match.)
Rob: It's okay, white goes with everything.
Charlotte: (Notices pink on the elastic waistband.) Pink and white are my favorite colors. And yellow and orange. Those are my favorite colors in the whole world.
Rob: What about purple?
Charlotte: And purple. And yellow and orange and pink and white. Those are my favorite colors in the whole alphabet.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Celebrate good times

These have been a CRAZY busy few days... but we have a lot of reasons to celebrate that we'd like to share with you.

First our dear friends have arrived! Yay! And we had a fun Father's Day picnic here last night with yummy food, great friends, and even some very special music, courtesy of Aubrey's dad. (Charlotte sends her love to "that grampa with the 'tar.") I meant to take pictures... but then I completely aborted that plan and decided to just enjoy the evening. And I really did! :)

Second, around my birthday back in February, I decided that I wanted to run a 5K. I have never run a race in my life. Even (especially!) in high school, I avoided exercising in front of people like the plague, and I couldn't run a mile without walking parts. Well, 4 months later, and I have been running 3 times a week every week-- 9-12 miles/week for the past 2 months! And on Saturday morning, my friend Jenn and I ran in the Frankfurt Women's Run. I am very proud of myself... although I didn't run as fast as I'd hoped. I did it. :)

Pre-race, a little jittery, and glad to have Jenn with me!

Where's Julie? (I'll give you a hint- I'm wearing a pink shirt.)
It took me a full 2 min. just to get to the starting line, which is not even in this photo.

That's me approaching the finish line behind that muscle-y chick in blue.
(I did manage to pass her.) 34:54.

Thank goodness it is OVER! I came in 311th (out of 4,000-ish,) and I was 43rd in my age group.

And finally, but MOST important this weekend, is my sweet ROB. :)

He cheered me on and watched the kids through an extremely long day on Saturday. But it's not too surprising really, as he supports me all the time in my efforts. He is such a great husband and as Charlotte told him on Sunday night, "I love you, you are my favorite Daddy, AND I like you."

Rob skipping rocks in Croatia. We love you babe!

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Croatia- Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes is a National Park in Croatia. It was also the center of hostiliites in the Croatian War in the 90's. And you weren't allowed to leave the trails, in case of undiscovered land mines. We took a bus trip there to see the waterfalls and hike around for the day. It was a loooong bus ride- about 2 hours each way. Rob told me there was no way sitting through that torture with the kids would be worth it-- but at the end of the day we agreed-- it totally was!

I'm having a really hard time picking my favorite photos... but here are a few.


This one turned out kinda crazy, but I still like it a lot.

WATERFALLS!

I ended up carrying Charlotte for about half the day-- it was a lot of hiking for a 3 year old. We had Toby in the little stroller, but the path got pretty rough in spots, and there were a lot of steps, so Rob would pick up the stroller (with Toby strapped in) and just carry the whole thing. Also, Europe is different from the US in that most of these areas had no handrails. There was nothing keeping you from tripping off the path and down a ravine, except your own caution.

Rocks + water + rainbows = beautiful.

Family photo, taken by Charlotte's new Italian friends from the bus.

There were so many spectacular views.

Gorgeous blue water, big mountains.

The "big one."
(That family photo posted up above was taken at the base of the waterfall in the top of this picture.)

A very happy Rob at the end of the day. :)

Croatia- part 1

Last week we went to Croatia.

We'd been wanting to go to the beach for sometime, but thought France, Spain, Italy, etc. looked a little too expensive for this summer. Then we stumbled upon the idea of going to the Dalmatian coast in Croatia and we were hooked! :)

As we told our family members our plans, we kept getting concerned responses... Hadn't they recently had a war there? Well, yes, they had a war of independence from 1991-1995, but they're totally stable now. Isn't it dangerous? Not at all! Although we were warned to stay on the marked trails at one tourist site, as they haven't fully cleared the place of land mines yet. Who goes to Croatia?!? Lots of people! Overwhelmingly we heard German, but we saw license plates from all over Europe and Slavic countries. We really didn't hear much English though. And we had people ask to take pictures with our kids-- maybe they looked famous?

Here are some snapshots!

Relaxing by the pool.
Since it is still early Summer, the resort we stayed at was not crowded at all. It was a perfect getaway! (The water was pretty cold, but we went in anyway.)

Rob taking the kids out to look at the big floating play area. The Adriatic is great for kids because there are no waves to speak of, and the water is really shallow for a long way out-- or at least it was on this stretch of beach.

The next day we decided to take a boat ride out to see some of the islands along the coast. They drove us past this cave-like place, and learned that this is where they kept their war ships. We oohed and aahed appropriately, but later remarked that those must have been some tiny war ships, since our tourist ship (capacity 100) wouldn't have even fit through there.

The first island we went to was rad. Only one house on it- the lighthouse keeper's. We were left to explore on our own for a few hours and we did just that.

White rock "beaches."
I'm glad we bought the kids those water shoes.

Rob and Toby walking down the pier.

The lighthouse.

Really, really clear blue water.

The second island they took us to was to go to lunch at a restaurant. Yes, I ordered this fish. (We only had two choices.) I am very allergic to shellfish, but I do eat tuna. I've never really had other fish, and they said it was their "specialty," so I thought I'd be brave. When they brought it out all scaly, and head-and-tail and all, I realized just how brave I was going to have to be. And it was... okay. I ate it anyway. (By the way, Charlotte liked it so much, she asked to have it again 2 days later!)

The boat tour was a fun way to pass a cool, drizzly day. There are soooo many little islands out there. This one was just covered in flowers. And we got to see a group of dolphins too! Some people think we're nuts traveling with two little kids (sometimes we even think so,) but we love getting to have these adventures as a family, and this is just our life right now. :)