Camping Trip

This weekend we went camping with the Cavanaghs and had a great time. The kids had so much fun together and so did the parents.

The had fun running around the campground.


And then even more fun getting in the lake and getting all wet.

Zach and Katie enjoyed the water.


Our campsite. There were lots of people in a pretty small area, but it was great.


There was a burn ban in effect, so we had make smores over the charcoal. The kids didn't care though. They still had a great time.


Zach and Liza before bed time. I said Zach looked like he was a superhero in training.


Here the kids were all getting ready for bed (and still finishing off the smores.)


The next morning Zach had lots of fun hanging out with baby Nate.

Later they were all hanging out enjoying some apple juice.

When we were ready to go home, Indie got up in Zach's lap (with encouragement from Ashley) and she stayed there the whole trip home.

They both caught a nap on the way back.

When we got home, we were all pretty tired. :-) We had a great time as a family and with our friends. We are so glad we got to go this weekend. We'll be going camping again in 2 weeks with our New Parents class. More pictures then, I'm sure.

A swing and a ...

Last week the kids and I were playing baseball- really just practicing hitting the ball. There are lots of swings and misses, but both the kids can hit the ball pretty well when they connect with it.

Little Gymnasts

Isabella has been taking the "little rollers" class at the YMCA the last few weeks. She has really been enjoying it. She and Zach have been jumping, rolling, and standing on their heads all over the house.


Isabella can get up on her own pretty well...

Zach worked hard to get him self up on the wall. I caught him the the 2 seconds that he could stay up.

Making Pesto

This afternoon I had a couple of women over for a pesto party. My 3 little plants bought in April have turned into huge basil bushes, and I didn't want to lose it. So Lauren and Holly helped to make 7 cups of pesto--that's 21 cups of basil leaves torn off the bushes. And we hardly made a dent. After their naps, Isabella and Zach wanted to help also...

Isabella and Lauren dry washed basil leaves.

Zach and Holly manage the blender with the leaves, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan, and walnuts. The recipe is actually really simple, but it is fairly labor intensive. We had fun though!

Playing at the park

Here are a few pictures from when we went to the park recently...

Zach was enjoying watching some guys play tennis.

Zach and Isabella enjoyed the tire swing. You can see them sporting t-shirts from my trip to Europe. Zach with the Swiss shirt, and Isabella with the Italian shirt.

Almost...

Once again we've been working on potty training with Zach this week, and the week before. He has been telling us that he needs to go, but only after he has gone in his pull up or underpants with rubber pants. Tonight after we put him to bed, I heard him calling out to us, so I went upstairs. I found him in the bathroom, naked on the bottom half, and looking at a nice pool of potty that he had made in front of the toilet. Well... we are still looking at it as a victory because his diaper was dry which means he knew he needed to go and tried to do it.. he just missed. :-) I have hope that he may actually get out of diapers.

Pray for me

Tonight Zach threw a ball over our balcony down in to the dining room. It didn't hit anything, but it could have broken something. When I looked up, he was leaning over the balcony looking down in to the room. I went upstairs and took him in the bathroom to talk. He was crying saying that he didn't want to get in trouble. We talked about how serious it was for him to climb up and lean over the balcony and what could happen, and also what could happen if he throws anything over the balcony. I told him that if he did either again, he would get in serious trouble. I then asked him if he could remember to not do those things and he said, "Daddy, will you pray for me so I can remember?" I was happy to.

Later, when it was time for bed I told him that he needed to remember to stay in bed and not come out. "Will you pray for me?" he asked. I did and then he said, "You're such a nice girl to pray for me." I laughed and said, "Do you mean nice daddy?" "Yes, that too." he replied. I told him I love to pray for him and he can ask me any time. :-)

Bologna

Our last day on our recruiting commercial trip took us to Bologna, Italy. Yes, that's Bologna. I had never heard of it before some friends of mine moved there, but it turns out that the university there was founded in 1088 and is the oldest University. The term "Alumni" actually comes from the Bologna university. We trained in from Florence on Tuesday and spent all day around the city and on the campus filming Italian students and taking pictures.

This is a picture from San Luka, a church that overlooks the city and the countryside. The weather was perfect and it was really beautiful.

We saw this street sign while walking. The name of the street is "Street of Hell" and I thought the "do not enter" sign was very appropriate. :-)

Students gathered at a central square of the university. Everything is so colorful!

These two Italian students met up with us and we filmed them in a couple of different scenes.

We filmed one scene on this street (right next to "Street of Hell" )

A picture of me under one of the porticos. There are porticos on almost every street- something that Bologna is famous for.
This is the central cathedral in downtown Bologna. It looks crazy because the pope cut of funding when it was only half built, so the city built the rest out of brick. It's not too pretty on the outside, but inside it is really cool.

On Wednesday night we left Bologna at 11:18pm and took the overnight train to Zurich. I caught at plane at 11:55Am to Washington DC and now I'm waiting for my flight home to Austin. I can't wait to get home!

Cinqe Terra

On Tuesday we went from Florence by train to La Spezia and from there to Riomaggiore, the first of 5 towns along the coast in an area called "Cinqe Terra" (cinqe is Italian for 5.) Henry came along from Florence so we could film him there. Of all the places I've been in Italy, this was by far the most picturesque. It was really beautiful.

A view of the coast from where we got off the train.

The town that is built up in to the hills leading down to the ocaean. It is so colorful.

Matt and Henry walking down a tiny alleyway as we were working our way through the town. Just after this picture, a van that filled the entire path came up the hill and we had to jump out of the way up on to a landing.


Even someone's laundry hanging out is beautiful in this place!

Matt filming the town.

Me at the overlook looking down to the ocean.


We went down right to the water and filmed a scene on the rocks right by the ocean. It turned out really well!

The water was a beautiful blue and the weather was perfect. We couldn't have asked for better conditions! If you ever get a chance to visit Italy, be sure and go to Cinqe Terra.

Morocco

We flew to Casablanca from Rome on Saturday. It was an easy flight (about 3 hours) and we really didn't know what to expect. Many people frowned when we told them we were only going to Casablanca and not other cities, but I thought it was nice. French was the predominate language along with Arabic. All the menus though and most everything was in French. I don't really know much French, but I was able to get by ok. It's a lot easier than trying to read Arabic!

Here is a view of the city from the roof of an apartment where several of the women from the team there live.
This was the view out our hotel room window. Lots of palm trees!
This was a beautiful church that was converted in to a mosque.
This is the "Medina" market. We went in there and found several places to film as well as some old men to film for the commercial.

This was a great door we found in the market and later went back to film with one of the team members.
This was a little island of volcanic rock with a small group of houses on it. We went out there and ended up coming back the next day to film.
A resturant that we had lunch in. It was GREAT food!
We went back to the beach to film at sunset. The weather was perfect.
We went out on the rocks and one of the women stood at th end for the shot looking at the sunset. It was very cool.
Here I am with the little village on the island behind me. During low tide you can walk out to it, but at high tide it is surrounded by water.

This is a video I took out on the island when we went back to film. We were only there 1 and a half days, but we had a great time with the team, had great food, and got some great shots for the commercial. I'm so glad we were able to go!