5 Countries : 4 Days

First off, there are many countries without Natural Gas (no heat) so please pray for them...

So we are back and what pictures do I have to show for seeing 5 countries in 4 days?? Not many, but I will give what I have, then Google the rest...

Hungary: This is where we started and finished obviously. We left the day after Christmas, but here are some pics from Christmas day. Full of relaxation I tell you. We just chilled then went to dinner at a friend's home. Very nice.

The loot. This looks like a lot, but we just have a small tree and I had a happy trigger on Amazon.com with all the boy toys...

Girl toys. blah. :) Haley has been wanting this music player since Nona's house in the Summer. Good 'ole Santa!

Now I have been wanting one of these since I was 5. Yessss! I caught him finally taking his eyes off this thing long enough to take a quick pic. Notice the cars tumbling down. I think I played with this more that Dylan did.

Maleia in her Belle dress up and belle light up shoes from Nana watching a new movie with her eyes all lit up. What a blissful Christmas day. Can't you see it in her eyes?

The trash and finally a somewhat open photo of our home... notice B's Christmas present. Madden!! And another PS2 controller so that he can have another opponent.

That's a better smile from you buddy! After a syrupy delicious morning, (hence the semi-nakedness bc jammies are now sticky-fied) Dylan was pretty proud of himself getting up and down from our chairs all by himself.

Austria: The entire way there we would go around a bend and the kids would yell, "There's another castle!" Seriously! There are so many. We would speculate who might have lived there and decided that it might be too cold and scary to live way up on the mountain top. Good thing.



Italy: We went through miles and miles of vineyards that just looked plain since it was winter. Can you imagine what it would look like in the spring/summer?? I can't wait!

Our final destination was Aviano, Italy where the Air Force Base is. Here are my favorite parts of Aviano:

1. The mountains. They remind me so much of Colorado and I loved just traveling through them. They were wonderful.

2. The commissary. I have heard how AMAZING it is to shop at a real commissary, but I never got to experience it first hand. Holy cow!!!! It is soooo cheap! It was 98% American stuff and I was in heaven. $800 later we left feeling really good about our purchaces. Red Meat (Hungarian meat is gross and we Americans need it I tell you.) Then a few other staples here and there... like cereal, strawberry quick, oatmeal, brown sugar, powdered sugar, etc. I even found a 12 piece China set for my China hutch for $50 at the BX!! The commissary rules. Go military. 3. The bowling alley. We bowled and all three kids LOVED it! Dylan was a little concerned the first time we threw the ball down the alley and he didn't think it was coming back, but when it came out the ball retriever, he yelled and clapped, "Wow!!! BALL! BALL! Wooooah! BALL!" And he was happy just watching the ball go down the alley and back out the retriever clapping and laughing all the while. Then he noticed the other people bowling with different colored balls... he went to investigate a few times. 4. The Hotel What? It's not as cool as I think? It really wasn't, but it was just so nice to be in a different place where you didn't have to worry about cleaning, calling, organizing, etc. We just enjoyed each other and took it easy. What good that did. The day we got home, we were all sick. 2 of us is on Antibiotics still, the two girls still have coughs and nose issues and I have a little of everything.

We watched the laundry...

played ball... look at that lefty!

Good aim Maleia!

Look at that follow through! Wrong leg, but GREAT hand position!

Tackle! Get 'im girls!

My thoughts exactly. Love those cars!!

Do I find it sad that we took more pictures in our hotel room that outdoors? Nope.

This was my ideal Christmas. Cuddling with Dylan, playing ball with my family, being together, what more could a girl want? (Besides an Eliptical, but don't let B know. It's sort of a touchy subject right now...)

5. The play ground in the back of our hotel. We frequented this often. We DO have a playground in our backyard in Hungary, but this one was HUGE. The military sure does cater to kids.

Haley could really sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" and mean it! It is so not cool to zip your coat up all the way BTW.


If that hat came in my size I would totally get it. Go H&M. It is so warm.

And who can resist this little fella? No, not dada, say, MAMA...

My little man. Look at those boots. Poor guy. He had such a hard time walking in those things! Sorry to say it was so funny!
(I am a sucker for the AFHV -America's Funniest Home Videos- where people are always falling.)

SEE!? lol. Poor guy! He would just keep saying, "uh-oh!" lol. I had to wipe a tear I was laughing so hard. Oh, it was that funny. He was smiling too when he knew he had an audience. I'm not that mean! :) He never got hurt. promise! And I picked him right back up... after a picture of course.

Slovenia: We went home a different way so we could see more of Europe and as we drove through Slovania, we noticed that in every little town, there was a big church in the middle of it. They were all different and just so quaint.



Croatia: We were only in Croatia for an hour, so there wasn't much to see, but it looked rather similar to Slovenia and it was getting dark by the time we got there, so no pics, sorry. This one is on the list to go to because we hear the beach is AWESOME. Here is something to look forward to.


All in all it was a great trip. 9 hours there and 7 hours back. Guess who drove back?? :) Okay so the way back was a little shorter and there wasn't any McDonald's, so we didn't stop, but still. We didn't get out and walk around much, but we saw a bunch from the car. Since it was in the 10s and 20s Feirenheight and we knew we would be back in the Spring when it was warmer, we postponed our trip to Venice and the neighboring cities until it got warmer.

In addition: Dylan goes around saying, "Thank thee" instead of "Thank you" because at almost every prayer I try to get my kiddos to say "thank thee" more than "bless us," so when Dylan "says" a prayer he folds his arms, bows his head and goes, "Thank thee, hepus (help us), aye-men!" Perfect. I couldn't have said it better than that. :)

**So the pictures that have a lot of green in them I obviously did not take since it is Winter time, but I found all the castles except one that we saw on the way. Also, we couldn't post ALL the churches that we saw since there were so many, so I picked only a few.

Okay, this was our only halfway descent shot of the driving part of our adventure... I had three to choose from. It was a tad chilly, but a wonderful trip. In the end, our girls said, "Mom. That was a long way. It was 4 movies there and 3 movies back!" I caught myself more than once saying, "Two movies left until we get there!... Only a movie more left until we reach the border!... Only a half of a movie left until we can get out of the car! etc." The kids understand that better than time. :)
We are going back in the Spring. Anyone game?