Croatia

Croatia=fantastically beautiful.  That's all I can say.  Well....that and that it would have been nice if it hadn't been RAINING the WHOLE time we were there.  Oh well.  It was still really really beautiful.

The beach.  The water was crystal clear amazingly beautiful.

The city of Split is built up inside of an old old old palace.  It's crazy cool.  There's restaurants and shops and apartments.  Can you imagine living in an old castle?  Love it.

Walking around inside of the castle/town.

The amazingly clear water.

This was the part of the day that I decided that rather that climb ONE more set of stairs, we should have a diet coke and sit on the side of the dock.

I can't look at this picture and NOT start laughing.  Lara had to "go" real bad and ran into this bathroom.  She came out looking confused and asking for assistance in the bathroom.  I went in with her and she pointed at the floor and said "What do I do?" BAhahaha.  Squat dear Lara.  Squat.  And try not to get your shoes.

Seriously, check out this water.

This is the view from our vacation rental near Plitvice Lakes National Park.  It was so beautiful.

We'll just say this is not apple juice.  And Matt had to go real bad.  And we couldn't find a bathroom.  And things got real akward and quiet after this.  haha.

Matt at the last supper.  I was watching for lightning bolts...we made it out alive.

artsy.

So THAT'S how I'm getting all those wrinkles in my forehead.

wandering.

Lara and Steve.

Plitvice Lakes National Park.  This place was SERIOUSLY amazing.  You must go. Must.  All the rest of these pics are from there.  Yes, the water REALLY is that color.  Are you blown away?  Check out this link.  http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-39456339

Croatia.  Done and done.  Loved it.

Tie Dye

We Tie Dyed shirts with the girls from our Youth Group at Church the other night... and I couldn't BELIEVE how amazing they turned out.  So so fun.  They're going to be cutest girls at camp. :)

Something I love and something I hate....

Pardon this brief travel log interruption, but I found  a treasure that I can't wait to share!  My friend Megan was in town for the last week and we hit up amsterdam, greece, and paris.  It was all wonderful.  Well.....when we were in France (on our way to Versailles) we stopped in this cute little french town to seek out a bakery for breakfast and check out the flea market they had going on in the streets.  I'll just say breakfast was DELISH, but even more delicious than my breakfast, are these jars that I found on the table of one of the vendors.  I paid a whole....wait for it....wait for it..... 2.50 Euro for all 3!  (That's like, 4 dollars).  Aren't they the cutest, happiest little containers you've ever seen?  I can just see them being used in a french kitchen for the last 50 years and now making their way into MY kitchen.  Love love love.

And now for something I hate.  It looks a little something like this:

This sight always means it's packing day.  I hate hate packing day.  It's the worst.

VIVA ITALIA!!

  Venice.  Oh I loved Venice.  I had gotten mixed reviews from friends who had been there.  They ranged from, "That place smells bad and it's dirty." to "It's my favorite place we've been."  Soooo, I went ready for anything.  What I wasn't ready for though, was that I was going to fall in LOVE with Venice.  I could spend days and days exploring the little narrow streets, checking out all the little shops, spending all of Matt's money,  eating Gelato, gorging on Pizza, people watching.  It is such a fun city.  I could also spend a few days there just taking pictures and be a very happy woman.  So anways, it was great. Loved it.  You should go.

I loved seeing all the Venician (sp?) masks everywhere.  I really wanted one.  Real bad.  I just couldn't justify the cost in order to have a sweeeeet halloween costume once a year.

The lady in the store got mad me and said "NO PICTURES!"  So I had to go incognito after that with my picture taking. 

Pretty much every street looked like this.  I have SO many pictures of canal streets it's unreal.

I also loved all the little narrow streets that were only one person wide.

Gelato, mmmmmm.  Rick Steves didn't steer us wrong on this one.  I only wish we had gotten MORE Gelato.

Don't you want to be here?  These pictures are making me want to go back.

I am so, SO grateful that I'm never the navigator on our trips.  Too much pressure.  I was grateful for Lara and Steve and Matt for dealing with all that nonsense while I wandered around taking pictures. 

Gondola ride anyone?  Psht, not us!  It was like, 100 bucks.  I'll swim, thank you very much.  Ok... maybe I won't swim in THAT water.

Matt carries around his own little canon and takes his OWN pictures when we are on trips.  I guess mine aren't good enough for him!  :)

On the train out of Venice back to vacation rental.  I forgot a sweater and Matt was nice enough to sacrifice his.  Nice nice hubby.

So there's Venice for you.  I had a really hard time narrowing down pictures.  There are just so many.  Up next....CROATIA.

SWITZERLAND. The land of overpriced french fries and beautiful scenery.

AAAAnd we're off on the first leg of our trip.  We headed out to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland early on Saturday morning and made it there by the early evening (we would have been there earlier had Matt chosen to use his good sense rather than listen to our possesed GPS...scenic drives are nice though.  I guess.)  Anways, I LOVE Switzerland.  Love love love.  It's still probably my favorite place we've been since we've lived here.  We went camping in Lauterbrunnen last summer and loved it, so we were really excited to bring Lara and Steve to see this beautiful town we had discovered.  They loved it as much as we did.  I know you might find it strange that there are way more pictures of Lara and Steve on this post than us, but because we'd been there before and gotten a lot of pictures...I stayed on the picture-taking end of the camera for the most part.  Plus, I seem to have gained 10 lbs in my face and every picture I see of myself makes me cringe.  You get the idea. 

These were some very friendly swiss cows.  They could sit, stay, speak, roll over.  All around I'm pretty sure they'd make great pets.....if it wasn't for that smell.

Lara and Steve in the amazing valley of Lauterbrunnen.

You KNOW pictures are way cooler when there are people jumping in them.  We all know this.

This is the artsy side of me coming out.  Steve's Mom is a great painter....I'm hoping I can bribe her to paint this for me.  :) 

Lovely Lara by the Swiss flag.

One of Matt's FAVORITE things to do is get parasites by drinking water from all kinds of random places.  Just kidding, he didn't get a parasite.  He DID however get a delicious drink of mountain spring water.

I don't know what Matt's problem is with this picture.  He hates it.  I love it.  And since it's MY blog, I get to put it up here.

Lara and Steve being my models.  :)

"I GOTTA have more cow bell!"  hahaha.  Please tell me you know where that quote is from.

Handsome, handsome hubby.  I love him.  I love him so much.

Rick Steve's TOLD us that if we knocked on this door, the lady would give us free cheese.  Rick Steves is a liar.  Lara only wanted some cheese, is that SO much to ask??

The view of the valley from a cable car.  I was borderline terrified being manuvered across this valley on a cable holding a box car filled with 50 people.  Those swiss people are nutso. 

So there's my favorite Swiss pics.  Up next.....VENICE.