Europe Trip 2018: Italy

Up next on our European adventure this past summer was Rome, Italy! I think I was most excited about this stop because I hadn't been here before, and there's so much history in Rome. One of the very first things we did was head to the Vatican to listen to Pope Francis give a brief little talk. I would have loved to attend a church service by the Pope, but he wasn't leading a service when we were there. Regardless, we actually got to see him, and fairly close at that! It only took us waiting hours in the hot sun with no shade and thousands of people next to you, but I thought it was totally worth it. It's not every day that you get to see the leader of the Catholic church.

Up next was the Pantheon. The details and artwork on and in these buildings is just incredible!

After the Pantheon we made our way to the Trevi Fountain. After tossing a coin in the fountain we stopped for a little photo shoot. We were there at the wrong time of the day to get great pictures. Full on sun and a white monument aren't a good mix.

Close to the Trevi fountain was the Spanish Steps. We actually came out of the metro station at the top of the steps, and it was a beautiful view from up there! We made our way down the steps to see them from the bottom and check out the fountain at the foot of the steps. 

The next day, we went back to the Vatican to see the Vatican Museums. There were so many statues, paintings, and tapestries, and everything in between. Even the ceilings were covered in artwork! We were able to go inside the Sistine Chapel to see the ceiling Michelangelo painted. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside the chapel. We had plans to go inside St. Peter's Basilica, but the line was ridiculously long so we decided to skip it. Maybe next time we come we will have to check that out!

One of the coolest things about Rome (and most of Europe really), is that you hop on the metro and when you get outside at your stop, you are literally feet away from all of these historic monuments. I'll never forget coming out of the metro station by the Colosseum and saying, "I wonder how far away the Colosseum is", only to be staring it in the eye as we reached the top of the steps. 

This was one of my favorite stops- you hear so much about the Colosseum and the fights that went on here, it was amazing to actually see it in person. It is huge, and while there aren't many of the original seats left, they told us that the entire stadium was lined with seats. The tunnels under the stadium were visible to see, and thinking about the gladiators forced to walk through those tunnels to their likely death gave me goosebumps. 

Right next to the Colosseum was the Roman Forum. You really felt transported back to the Roman days walking through the Forum. The fact that this piece of history is right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city amazes me.

Our last day in Italy we hopped on the most packed train I've ever been on (with no AC and little personal hygiene of fellow passengers), and made our way down to Pompeii to check out the ruins left after Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered the town in ash and pumice. 

It was another scorching hot day, but we all thoroughly enjoyed walking around Pompeii and seeing what the archaeologists have uncovered. We saw amazing tile work on the floors, and I'm talking one inch or less pieces of tile, check out that tile floor with the dog! There were also so many painted walls. We found lots of walls with penises on them, marking the brothels in the town. Walking down the stone roads, you could see the tracks of wagon wheels that have been worn down into the stone. There were holes in the rocks on the side of the roads used to hitch up horses as people went to the market. We even found a mini "colosseum" on the outskirts of the town. We did see one of petrified bodies of someone caught in the town, but the majority of those bodies are in a museum in Naples. 

And that wraps up our stint in Italy! While there's so many pictures of things we saw, what we didn't get pictures of includes eating real Italian pasta and pizza (which I regret to say just isn't as good as American pizza ha!), walking the streets and going in to many of the gorgeous churches on every street, a date night with just Eric, having a cappuccino and pastry in the corner store like the locals, and so much more. Stay tuned for our last stop of the trip, Paris, France!

2018: A Year in Review

2018 is officially over. Whew! 2018 was a year filled with great friends, great adventures, and lots and lots of love. It was another year without Ian and Madison, and that will always leave a sting, but I'm learning to be stronger because of them, to love harder because of them, and to cherish each moment because of them. So let's take a look back at all that 2018 had to offer!

We started the year with my best girls (and their husbands and kids). We don't all get together as often as we would like, but we make the most of it when we do. This year's gathering included a complete kid photo, including Ian and Madison!

My birthday this year included a trip to Cameo, the Firefly, and beautiful diamond earrings. Eric spoils me.

In March, we hit up the wine trails with Eric's sisters and their husband/boyfriend. We had a blast playing Speak Out and watching Eric drool everywhere, saving humanity from infection in Pandemic, and of course binge-ing on some of our favorite wine.

March also marked Madison's first birthday. My Facebook feed was flooded with posts #becauseofMadison, and I still get teary eyed going through and reading how much Madison has affected everyone's lives. 

Eric and I celebrated 5 years of marriage this year. Where has the time gone?

The summer started with some fun on the lake and never stopped! We went on countless jeep rides, I attended a Pro-Life Women's Conference, got in lots of snuggles with Grant and celebrated his first birthday!

August was a big month for us- we traveled to Europe! I'm still working on finishing editing our pictures from Italy and France, but I have posted on London and Germany. We were all there to celebrate Andy's wedding- what a fun time it all was!

Eric ran in his third Tough Mudder this year- so proud of this guy!

Eric also started coaching Fresh/Soph basketball at NCHS this fall. I don't have any pictures of him in action, but here we are cheering him on!

And I'm realizing Eric had a big fall as he shot his first buck this year too!

October brought a trip with Grant to the Zoo, and a visit from the cutest little monkey for Halloween, and celebrating my Godson Bennett's first birthday.

In December we celebrated Ian's fourth birthday in Heaven, and enjoyed spoiling Grant at Christmas. He loved the little basketball hoop and ball we got him!

2018, what a year you were! 2019 if full of endless possibilities, and I can't wait to see what's in store for us.

Europe Trip 2018: Germany

Up next on our European adventure this summer was Germany! I have to admit, I can't say I was necessarily "looking forward" to Germany. I knew we were going to Munich and to see some castle, but there wasn't anything I was really excited to see- like the Colosseum or Stonehenge. But I also have to admit, I think Germany was one of my favorite stops on our trip!

In every other country, we had so many things we wanted to do and see. And that made all those countries really interesting and exciting, but also really exhausting. Germany was so laid back, it was a refreshing break after all the walking and sightseeing we did in England.

Up first was an overnight trip to see Neuschwanstein Castle. This is known as the "fairy-tale castle", and it definitely lived up to it's name! Driving up to the castle, you could see it nestled in the mountains from down below. You could also see that it was going to be a long trek to make it to the top of the mountain where the castle stood. Of course, you could pay to take a horse and buggy to the top, but what fun would that be? -Insert loads of sarcasm here.- 

Nonetheless, we finally made it to the top and got to marvel in the beauty of the castle's exteriors and views, which were breathtaking, before taking a tour of the interior. No cameras were allowed inside, but I'm sure you can find interior pictures online somewhere if you're interested to see what it looked like. 

I will say that the interior was pretty extravagant- there were so many beautiful paintings, ornate pieces of furniture, and monstrous rooms. I would really like to know why people thought some rooms needed to be so large! The interesting thing about the castle is that it was never completely finished. From what I remember from the tour, the King rang out of money to complete the castle. Not long after that, King Ludwig II was declared insane. A day after being sentenced to Berg Palace in 1886, he and his psychiatrist were mysteriously found dead the very next day. Crazy history right there! After the tour, we took another hike to the  Marienbrucke, a bridge that gives a spectacular view of the castle. We stopped for a quick photo op and then took the long, and much easier downhill, trek back to the bottom. 

After leaving the castle, we hopped back in the car and went to a picture perfect little town called Oberammergau. This town was SO NEAT. Almost all of the buildings had the coolest murals painted on them of traditional Bavarian scenes, fairy tales, and religious themes. I wish we could have visited every single building that was painted because they were all just so beautiful. And the pictures of the inside of a building are of the church in town- wow, just wow is all I can say. It was absolutely gorgeous inside!

This town is known for a few things, one of which is the Passion Play that they hold every 10 years, and have been holding since 1634- that's over 380 years! A man brought the bubonic plague to town, and it soon began spreading through the town's inhabitants. The town vowed that if God spared their village from the effects of the bubonic plague that they would perform a passion play of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ every ten years. After that vow was made, no one else in the town died, and the very next year their performed their first passion play. The Inn we stayed in had a book of one of the more recent Passion Plays, and let me tell you that this thing is legit. It is a full on production involving a majority of the town and runs for months. I think the next time we come to Germany needs to be in a year ending in 0 so that we can go see the play!

Oberammergau is also known for its woodcarvings, and is home to the Bavarian State Woodcarving School. This town is lined with woodcarving shops, and we had such a great time exploring all the shops and seeing what talent these woodcarvers have. Mom and I both brought home some wood-carved figurines, mine is a Mary, Jesus and Joseph carving and mom's is of two Bavarian (not German as the woodcarver quickly corrected my mother) dancers. 

The next day we spent exploring Munich, which included visiting Dachau Concentration Camp. If you want to be humbled beyond belief, you need to make it to one of the concentration camps. Just walking from the visitor's center to the front gate of the camp sent goosebumps up my spine and left an eerie feeling around me all day. The first thing you see before entering the camp is the replica of the original gate, reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free." Sadly we know now that this wasn't true of the prisoners sent to Dachau. 

Dachau was the first concentration camp built, and all other camps were modeled after this one. We were able to tour some of the original buildings to the camp, as well as replicas of the barracks. We walked through the gas chambers, which they told us were never actually used at this camp, but it was still an overwhelming experience. 

We ventured back to the city center to catch the glockenspiel show at the Marienplatz square (which was luckily right above the metro station or we might have missed it!). There's jousting, dancing, and even a wedding that rotate and move during the little show. It was a pretty neat thing to see. We enjoyed a dinner of pig knuckles, pork belly, wiener schnitzel, and beer- lots and lots of beer- at the Hofbrauhaus. The morning we left we visited the Chinese tower in the English Garden (and had one last German beer of course). 

That wraps up our stint in Germany! That also wrapped up our time with Andy before he left for France to get things ready for the wedding. It was so nice to be able to spend some time with him (and Laura and Alexander in England!), and for him to show us around some of his home country. And I just have to say thank goodness we had him in Germany to help us navigate their public transit system. Not that we couldn't navigate public transit, because now I can say that we definitely can, but because German is so different from English and the words are so long and confusing. We would have spent a lot more time trying to figure things out on our own if it wasn't for him. Until next time, Germany!

Europe Trip 2018: London

This will be the first of four, possibly five, posts about our trip to Europe this August. I know August was a while ago, but it's been hard to find time to edit my own pictures as I jumped right back in to my photography business once we were home. After constant nagging questions about when these pictures would be finished from my mother, I finally decided that I needed to make the time to work on some of my own things so that it's not next summer before I get our vacation pictures tackled! I have the pictures in a little bit of a chronological order of events from our time in England.

First up was changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, I didn't get great pictures during the actual changing of the guard as it was insanely crowded and we weren't able to get in a good position to really see anything. We came back later when there was no one there to get some other pictures of Buckingham Palace. Much less stressful!

When in London you have to get pictures by the iconic telephone booth. That cute couple on the end is Andreas and Laura- the whole reason we were in Europe to begin with! When Andy told us that they were getting married in August and that we were invited to their wedding (in France), Eric and I talked it over and decided we just had to go. Something like this only happens once in a lifetime, and what better time to go than now. I know that Andy was SO surprised when mom told him that we were all coming. And I'm glad we all did, because we got to meet and hang out with his now wife Laura for a few days in London, as well as Andy's brother, Alex. 

Here we are at Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. That's Andy's brother Alex standing on the far right. We had a great time checking out the crown jewels, finding the ravens (they have seven- the required six plus one extra!), and learning all about the history of this once bustling castle.  

We did a little walking around and checked out the London Eye- but didn't ride it because the line was forever long. From the Eye, you got a great view of the city of London. They were remodeling Big Ben, which was a little sad, but they did leave the clock face open on the one side. 

Our next day in England was spent on a day trip to see Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Up first, Stonehenge! There are so many mysteries about the origins of Stonehenge, so it was really neat to learn some of the history that we do know about the stones and their construction. We couldn't get very close to the stones (unless you want to pay a lot of money to be able to walk in the center circle), but even being so far away, the magnitude of this place was overwhelming. 

As a side note, the location of Stonehenge, or should I say the main highway, is a little strange. While these pictures make it look like Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere, it is actually very close to a major highway. Because of this, traffic to get to Stonehenge is horrendous. Since the road is so close, everyone slows down as they drive by to say that they've "seen" Stonehenge without actually coming up to the monument. Our guide told us that there are plans to put the road underground so that the traffic issue is solved and to make it feel like Stonehenge actually is in the middle of nowhere.

Aside from the history of all of the stones inside and just outside the main ring of Stonehenge, there's also a huge stone far outside the main structure, known as the Heel Stone (which is the top right picture in the collage below). The Heel Stone marks the place on the horizon where the summer solstice sunrise appears when viewed from the center of the stone circle. And then the alignment from beside the Heel Stone looking back towards the stone circle is to the winter solstice sunset. How cool is that!

I'll spare you the story of losing my father, and then my brother, right before the bus was supposed to leave, but we definitely thought that they were going to be left at Stonehenge. Moral of the story, if you're going to go get something to eat that's in a different room than where everyone else is (and the bus is leaving in like ten minutes), be sure you tell somebody where you are going.

After our visit to Stonehenge, we got back on the bus and traveled to the town of Bath to explore an ancient Roman Bath. The town in itself was so cool. Every building in this town is built with the yellow Bath stone. 

Inside the Roman Bath, we saw statues of important Roman figures, viewed ancient artifacts from that time period, and even got to taste the water from the hot spring that supplies the water for the bath (which was hot and did not taste great). The bottom left picture shows where the water from the spring comes up to go into the main bath area. 

On our last day in London, I was finally able to convince mom to just wait in line to see the inside of Westminster Abbey. Eric and I went in with her while dad, James and Andy did a little exploring and souvenir shopping. I think it's safe to say that mom would say that the long line was worth it. And while we couldn't take any pictures inside the church, I think the architecture on the exterior of the building speaks volumes for what the interior looked like. 

And there ends the England stint of our European vacation this summer! Stay tuned for our next stop, Munich, Germany.