Merry Christmas - 2019 Photo Review

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Merry Christmas Everyone!! We hope y’all are well and enjoying your holidays with family and friends. Since I didn’t blog this summer while traveling, I decided to do a photo year in review of our events and travels. Blogging was impossible while on the road for several reasons: fatigue, packed itineraries, and slow Internet. Here’s a quick summary of our summer trips and some photos of events throughout the year.

Our first adventure took us to the countries of Portugal, France, Switzerland, and England. All the destinations were repeat visits to places we always enjoy. The trip to England was extra special. We were invited, by a former student, to join in a birthday, wedding anniversary, and citizenship celebration at Highclere Castle. It was an amazing weekend event. I‘ll share those details in the photo captions.

The second trip was to Pennsylvania to visit my sister and then to Lake Wallenpaupack, where I lived with my grandparents for 10 years. We visited all my favorite places and had a fun time at “The Lake”.

After a few weeks in steamy Florida, we flew to Washington state to visit life long-friends. Our time in Seattle, Whidbey Island, Lake Chelan, and Victoria with Sue and John was great fun.

In addition to these great trips, there were family and friends’ visits to Florida, time at the beach, the annual Sister-Fest, concerts, plays, operas, and fun times with all our Florida friends. It was a busy year!

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Photos

Lisbon, Portugal
Eduardo VII Park overlooking the city

Elevator de Santa Justa in Lisbon

Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal
The summer palace of the King.

Albufeira, Portugal
Hanging out at the beach and having a Seafood Kabob

Paris
The current state of Notre Dame

Artes de Lumineres
Viewing the Van Gogh exhibit in a moving sound and light show

Our friends in the Cotswalds
Bea was in my 8th grade class when we taught in Rio de Janeiro. We have been friends for 30 years. Being invited to their very special celebration at Highclere Castle was a true honor. We feel so blessed to have this special family in our lives.

Vasily and Bea’s celebration at Highclere Castle (aka -Downton Abbey)
It was a magical weekend!

The Secret Garden
Before dinner there was a tour of the gardens

Comments

[Bea]

Happy New Year!
Happy 2020 to you both! We have enjoyed reading and browsing through the photos, so glad you did this! Sending lots of love from all of us