We just returned from a week of Spanish adventure! We began our journey in by flying into Barcelona. After everything I had read about the city (warnings to beware of pickpockets..preparing us for late night noise and all night partying), I was really expecting a wild, chaotic city (similar to New Orleans), but what we found was that it was incredibly clean, orderly and efficient. I think due to the Olympics, everything is very nicely organized and ready for out of town guests. We got crazy and decided to try a true European hostal, rather than a hotel in Barcelona. It [View Full Entry]

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January 19, 2008. Once recovered from our long, overseas adventure home for the Holidays, we hopped a train to discover Bern, the Swiss Capital. It is a beautiful Gothic city, with tons of history and incredible architecture. The big highlight for the girls was the "Bear pits". I had heard tons of opinions about the "bear pits", which are exactly that, two pits in the city, which house the city's mascots...two big bears. I was really expecting the spectacle to be somewhat sad. It is heavily debated that the situation is cruel and inhumane, but the bears truly appear quite comfortable [View Full Entry]

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We made our most exciting, exotic voyage yet....Wisconsin. It was wonderful to spend the holidays with friends and family at home in the USA. We spent time in both Waukesha, WI (outside of Milwaukee), with Nate's family and in Cataract (yes, like the eye disease...about 1 hour west of Madison) with my family. It was a snowy, beautiful wonderland. The girls spent their days sledding and playing in the snow. Teagan, our beloved hairy wolf hound, is in foster care with YaYa and Papoo in Cataract and we were so happy to find that she did not forget us! [View Full Entry]

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We had a busy month! We had a visit from a good friend from Texas, and took in the Holiday festivities in Lausanne. Emma arrived the first week in December. We strolled Lausanne, visited the Olympic museum gardens and took a crazy day trip to the Mountains in an attempt to ski. Lausanne is beautiful at Christmas time...full of traditional decorations and good cheer. They had wonderful festivities throughout the city the whole month of December, including numerous visits from "Pere Noel and his charming ass" (a translation on the community website..hee-hee). The plaza near our house, St [View Full Entry]

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The YaYa's have arrived! (My mother and her bestest bud since the ice age, Mother Marilyn Tucker). It was wonderful to have not one, but 2 grandmas to spoil us and the girls for 10 days. We got to celebrate Abigail's 6th birthday over French Flammenkuchen (fancy pizza) and homemade cake! We took the opportunity to find some more spectacular spots in the area. We traveled to Chateau de Chillon on Lake Geneva and Gruyeres, Switzerland(home of Gruyeres cheese, and a beautiful medieval city). This weekend we rented a car and roadtripped into Northern Italy to the Italian Alps and up [View Full Entry]

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We just returned from our first cruise. We are all tan and tired. It was an Italian line departing from Rome (Costa Victoria) and traveling South through the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. We stopped in Sicily,The Greek Isles of Patmos, Mykonos and Santorini and in Izmir, Turkey. As first time "cruisers" we had a lot to learn, but were pleasantly surprised by the mode of transport. We have discovered that Italy has a different concept of structure (ie.-standing in lines, taking turns, timetables, schedules, etc.....they really just don't do it) and once we made peace with that fact , it was [View Full Entry]

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Ohhh, Santorini!.....my favorite of the Greek Isles we visited. I could definitely hunker down here for a long while. Santorini, again, has most of the villages perched high up on the top of the cliff. It has seaside vineyards, a volcano,ancient ruins, great little restaurants. We only had enough time to do a fast run-through, so I definitely would love to return and explore it properly. We took a very modern, fast cable car to the top...and a very slow, smelly donkey back down to the port at the end of our visit (a decision I regretted the second I climbed [View Full Entry]

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Next port of call, Mykonos. Unfortunately, we arrived at dusk and only had one evening to take it all in. We had great fun, none the less. We meandered around the fishing village of Chora, watching the fisherman(and women) clean their catch, getting lost in the narrow, winding streets. Bella found herself a surrogate Papoo sitting on a porch and climbed right up for a cuddle. We met Petros the Pelican who has apparently been the Island mascot for 5 decades....we were wondering why he looked so bored. He was really cute, chasing after a Greek restaurant owner with fish in [View Full Entry]

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Our next port of call was the Greek Isle of Patmos. Our first view of Greece almost brought tears to my eyes. The water was the deepest, yet brightest blue I have ever seen...almost purple. Patmos was everything I pictured.....white houses with blue doors, fishing boats, men sitting around drinking ouzo (ahhh, makes me homesick for Papoo), and everything perched high up on the cliffs..I was surprised that the Islands really look like big brown rocks jutting out of that incredible azure water. We even found ourselves a taxi driver that looked like a long lost Moskonas Uncle. We headed up [View Full Entry]

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Our first excursion was a trip to visit Mt. Etna. Really very remarkable...I felt as if we stepped off the ship and took a bus to the moon! Mt. Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with an eruption most recently in September. Apparently, although it erupts frequently, the lava flow is very slow, so it is not considered particularly dangerous to inhabitants,as they have plenty of notice to get out of the way. It does take out pretty much anything in it's path, and it was amazing how the locals just keep building right on [View Full Entry]

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