A Taste of Venice

You're going to have to deal with some pictures that are bit out of order and this dumb line that has appeared under the text. It'll have to do, I'm on a small lap top without a mouse. It's driving me nuts! I thought I'd upload pictures of our first day in Venice. We caught the train and rode in. The weather was a bit cooler than expected. We didn't dress quite warm enough. After buying 3 scarves and a cap we were set! Here we are enjoying Gelato. We love exploring things in the Rick Steve's travel books. He said this was the "best" in Venice. It was good but I still think the one he recommended in Rome was better.


Posing next to some gondola's by the sea. It was windy and just COLD. Lauryn loves creating new looks with her scarves.
Here we are in Piazza St. Marco (piazza is a plaza or Square) In this particular area a guy had a camera stand set up with opportunities to feed the pigeons and he'd take the picture. yada yada. Gross and disgusting huh? Who wants a disease filled pigeon on you??? :-) Some HOT man with 4 beautiful kids walked up to me and asked if he could take my picture. Here I am!
The grand canal. It was fun to watch the gondola's cruise by.
Little canals and fun houses lined them. We loved looking at the architecture everywhere.
This was our ride back to the train station. It was cheaper to all ride back in this than to take the big boat taxi. For those that don't know, Venice is a car free city. All the transporting is done by the water taxi's or gondola's. It's not the cheapest transportation but it does the job. Speaking of not being cheap...we spent about 30 DOLLARS to use the public toilets today. Crazy huh? Each person was in euro 1.50 which isn't cheap. And, upon asking a few restaurants/hotels if we could let a child about ready to wet their pants use their toilet we were kindly told NO! In all, we had a great day in Venice. Tomorrow we drive into Venice to park at the cruise terminal. We'll board the ship around 1pm. We won't be back online until after the cruise, I refuse to pay for internet onboard.

Celebrating Thanksgiving early

We set a goal upon arriving here that on Thanksgiving day, we'd celebrate by eating something other than a turkey meal. We wanted to be somewhere else tasting and enjoying other cuisine. Our first year we were in Belgium eating Belgian waffles, they were yummy! Last year we were at Disney Paris with a large group of friends. We enjoyed pie in a hotel room together. Each year we've had some sort of squadron Thanksgiving meal before the actual day so we haven't gone turkey less.
This year is no different. We're packing and getting ready for our family cruise to Greece!!! We head out Saturday morning for a 10 hour drive to Italy. We'll stay at a base near Venice where the cruise port is. We'll spend Sunday visiting Venice and the surrounding area. Monday morning we'll make our way back into Venice to park at the cruise terminal. Our cruise begins and ends in Venice.

Day 1 we're in Bari, Italy. Day 2 we are in Katakolon/Olympia, Greece. Day 3 we are visiting the islands Santorin and Mykonos, Greece. Day 4 we are in Rhodes Greece. Day 5 we're out to sea. Day 6 we head to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Day 7 we head back into Venice. We are super excited but trying to pack like mad to not forget anything.

This past Sunday we are had our good friends the Abbotts over for a Sunday Thanksgiving meal. We always enjoy their company. We spent last Thanksgiving with them and will get to cruise with them this year too. Man they are LUCKY! :-)

We are surrounded by such good friends and neighbors. Life here is great, we're blessed beyond measure. We're healthy and happy and thankful for all the bounteous blessings of life.

Just when we think this dog is OUTTA here with all her crazy naughty behavior, I walk into the room and find this. Big brown eyes along for the ride.

What other dog would allow this obnoxious 6 yr. old to do this?

Because she has been such a bad dog, we decided to install a make shift doggie door. The funny thing about buying wood here is it's individually shrink wrapped. AND, this piece which is about 4x2' cost 14 euro or 20 DOLLARS! They don't use real wood here a lot, it's mainly the pressed particle board. They like to conserve their forests and such. We thought it was funny to bring home this piece of wood.
Here is the final product. We pull the rolladens (shades) down which sit nicely on the wood. Now she has a doggy door to go in and out. She has no reason to use my nice rugs anymore!

Halloween 2009

Here's the gang all dressed up. Dallin wanted to be the power ranger that he was 2 years ago. (SWEET no costume searching for him) Brilee dressed up in her traditional Korean gown we brought back from Korea. Maddi was a cute High School Musical Cheerleader. Lauryn was a scary/nice witch.
This is the entire group from our neighborhood. They sure had a lot of fun!Look Ma! No Braces!!!! And just in time for all the CANDY!!!

Some interesting finds in their bags including "otter pops", yummy chocolate, and cookies. They also received cough drops. I think it was a desperate attempt to find something around the house to put into their bags.
Mike and I at the youth dance Friday night. I was a big "baby" he was a chef.