Plitvice Lakes Preview

Wow.  This place was spectacular.  Think a perfectly landscaped Disney resort garden, but 100% natural with water so clear you can see the fish and rocks in the deepest pools.  Here are a few pictures from my point and shoot camera.  We haven't uploaded pics from the big camera yet.  I'll write a proper blog later.

And on a side note, but actually more important than our trip to Croatia, I'm thankful for a few things today.  I'm thankful that my sister, who must surely have nine lives, is doing okay from a scary car wreck this weekend.  I'm researching bubbles for you to live in...a protective barrier of sorts.  Stay safe, Kelly Belly! 

And I am thankful for those men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that I have the freedom and the luxury to take these trips and live my normal life.  Happy Memorial Day.

A Sunday Trip...

On Sunday we took a little tour to a local cave/grotte about an hour away.  It's a potential field trip for the kids this summer so I had to check it out first to see if it would work.  It was a beautiful day for a walk/hike with Kika and Greg and the pups, Sophie and Cleo.

 The view of the walkway going through the caves and streams.

On the way home we stopped at the local vineyard to buy some wine.  The owner was talking to us (well mostly to Kika because she understands more Italian than me) and he took us out in the fields and was showing us the difference between prosecco vines versus merlot vines and showing us the olive trees and telling us about the vineyard.  He was so nice and it was so neat to walk into his fields and get an impromptu lesson!

After our trip to Fregona caves we dropped off the dogs and took a walk to a restaurant in Kika and Greg's town.  It was a pretty little walk next to a beautiful, clear, blue stream.

These are the things I love about being here...the day trips and the scenery.  We have not been able to travel much lately because of work schedules and different things going on.  But we have a trip planned for this weekend to go to Croatia and visit Plitvice Lakes.  It's a National Park in Croatia, but it's not on the radar of many Americans because when you travel to Europe it's not on the big tourist spot.  Usually you hit the big cities and big tourist destinations.  But living here has given us the opportunity to see things outside the big tourist spots.  I had not heard of it until I googled, "Top Places to See in Europe" written by a European.  And sure enough it was listed on there.  So I did a little research and I think it looks fabulous. 

Since I started looking into it...I've read at LEAST three articles on Yahoo listing Plitvice Lakes on the World's Top Prettiest Places, World's Most Beautiful Lakes, and the Extended Wonders of the World.  So, it will be a relaxing trip, but I'm really looking forward to exploring the park and the 16 lakes and waterfalls.  We have rented an apartment with Kika and Greg and we're headed out on Friday night!  I'll post pictures when we return...hopefully they're as beautiful as the pictures below!  Here are a few snapshots.

And as if this isn't great enough...I have my Mom, Kelly, and Aunt Joyce coming to visit in two weeks.  Ahh, I'm so stinkin' excited.  I already gave Taylor fair warning that I will be entering into crazy (maybe slightly psycho) cleaning mode soon, and even though it might not look dirty to him, it is very important that it gets cleaned before my family arrives.  Just don't ask questions. 

Why am I like this, you ask?  I give full credit to my mother who did the same thing anytime we had company when I was growing up.  Does the top of the refridgerator REALLY need to be cleaned before company arrives?  I clearly remember having this discussion with Mom and not being fully convinced of her reasoning that the taller people can see up there and might look.  Will the top of MY refridgerator be cleaned before everyone arrives?  Probably.  Even though no one visiting is taller than me.  It just proves, I am my mother's daughter!

Have a great week!

Uncle Taylor and Andrew

How cute are they both!?!  I love them!

Lazy Sunday

It has been a wonderfully lazy Sunday for me at the house.  It has rained ALL day, with strong winds and temperatures in the 50's.  I have laid on the couch under my blanket with the doors slightly open watching movies for the better part of the day.  When I wasn't obsessing over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and feeling a bit indifferent about Morning Glory, I was cleaning bathrooms, finishing laundry, and having lunch with Rosario.

And I just have to say that I have had mildew around the bottom of my shower for months now.  It looked as though it was growing under the caulking in the shower.  I have sprayed, soaked, researched, scrubbed, and scraped at that stuff and have not been able to get it clean.  All I have read pretty much said there was no way to get rid of it except to pull up the caulk redo it.  Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun.  So I happened to see a Lysol Mildew and Mold at the commissary last week and I bought it to try it out.  I sprayed it on there this morning and about three minutes later it was all pretty much GONE!  I sprayed it a few more times to get it sparkling white and the shower is now as good as new!  I am very impressed and thought I'd pass the word along. 

I hope I have something cool happen pretty soon so I don't need to write about cleaning products again.  But really, you should try it out :)

Send Me a Tee Shirt...

I'm eating cheese and crackers, cereal, and animal crackers for dinner and I'm coming home after work to the same spotless house that I left in the morning...this could only mean one thing.  I'm living on my own for a few days!  As many of you have probably seen from Taylor's Facebook posts, he is currently making his way across the States visiting friends and family and fitting as much as humanly possible into his trip (and probably his suitcase too when he's finished shopping!)  He was able to take leave last minute and decided to use it to go to the States.  He has not been home in over a year and was more than ready to spend some time in the States.  It sounds as though he is having a wonderful time and I'm so glad he is able to spend this time with friends and family, he deserves this break from everything!  One of these days in our marriage we will coordinate our vacation schedules so we can actually go home together!  But in the mean time, someone has to go to work to pay the bills, so I'm sucking it up with a grin on my face! 

While Taylor was deployed, I guess you could say, I did a little traveling.  One of those said trips just so happened to be Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest and happened to be with a bunch of our friends from the squadron.  Well I know that Oktoberfest is an event Taylor really wants to attend while we're in Europe.  So while we (Kika, Greg, and I) were looking for magnets (because we collect them from our travels) we found some nice looking tee shirts.  I bought one for myself and thought Taylor would really appreciate one as well, so I bought one for him and sent it to him in a care package.  Great idea, what a thoughtful wife I am, right? 

Apparently when you go to a festival your husband has always wanted to attend, with all of our friends, while he's deployed to the desert, and then send him a tee shirt from it, the original "good intention" gets lost somewhere in the mail!  Wow, didn't really think that one through, did I?  Thankfully my great idea of a gift was received with a good sense of humor, but I won't soon live that one down.

While Taylor was making plans for his trip to the States and talking about some of the things he'd be doing back home I was commenting on my jealousy and how that sounds so wonderful.  His response?  "Don't worry, I'll send you a tee shirt!" 

Yep, totally had that one coming!

Lake Garda and our House Guest

I realize I have really been slacking on my blog.  Working full time has been a great excuse for awhile, but honestly all my posts have previously been very long and informative and it's a bit daunting to think I have to have THAT much to say before I sit down to write a blog.  So I'm going to try to do a few shorter updates with just day to day happenings.  And really, come to think of it, we have become been a bit lax and complacent with our traveling, so without the exotic places, I lose a bit of blog content!

But a few weeks ago we went to Lake Garda with Kika and Greg.  It is located about 3 hours from us between Verona and Milan.  My Dad sent me an article about the world's top 10 most beautiful lakes and by June I will have visited 3 of the Top 10.  It helps they are located within 5 hours of me!  But it was beautiful scenery...here are a few pics.

 Our great friends, Kika and Greg :)

It was gorgeous scenery and it would have been a great picture because I'm pretty sure I was putting my arm around Taylor to have a cute, loving picture and Taylor was moving my arm back to my side and we ended up with this awkward prom pose...sweet.  Oh well :)

So we were watching Kika and Greg's cute little 6 pound fur ball of a dog, Sophie for a few days.  And while we don't have a dog, we would like to get one eventually.  Taylor wants a big dog and swears he will only have a big dog, yet EVERY time we go over to Kika and Greg's house he's holding that little puppy in  his lap and playing with her.  While we were watching Sophie, I went against everything I believe in and allowed her in the bed with us.  As some of you may know there is a great divide in our house because I grew up in a home where dogs were NEVER allowed on the furniture, it just didn't happen.  And Taylor grew up with their family dog sleeping in the bed.  I caved this time, but it was more like having a little stuffed animal sleeping at the end of the bed.  Anyway, I wake up in the morning and hear Taylor saying, "come here...come on, come here".  I'm thinking oh that's sweet he wants to cuddle with me.  I turn over and see he's talking to the dog, telling her to come up in between us to lay next to him!  Ha!

So Taylor gets up early that morning with things to do before he had to catch his plane back to the States for a few days.  So I got up to say goodbye to him and  then I took Sophie and we went back up to bed because I didn't have to be up for awhile.  That night I get home from work and I'm talking to Taylor on Facebook because he had made it into Philly.  And he says, oh yeah, by the way, I think Sophie peed in the bed last night.  WHAT?  He said yeah, there was a wet spot when I woke up so it was either her or me, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.  I said why in the world would you not think to tell me this as I'm taking her back upstairs to get into bed while you're leaving?  He says, I don't know I had a lot going on, I guess I didn't think about it.  REALLY!?!?  How would you not think about that?  Ay Ay Aaaayy.  But, thankfully, his assumption was not correct, Sophie likes to lick her paws and it left a nice little wet spot on the bed.  Phew, I can totally handle that.  Crisis averted.

Anyway, I loved having little Soph here to hang out with for a few days!  But she's now back home with Greg and Taylor is now back home with his family.  More on that in another post.  It's bedtime.  I have a Kentucky Derby party to go to tomorrow.  I'm just hoping I can wear my hat for longer than 5 minutes...my unusually large head makes hat shopping/wearing quite difficult.  Like father, like daughter, I believe :)

Buona Notte!