Italy... Milan & Venice

After leaving Switzerland, we drove to through the Alps and our first stop in Italy was Milan. We arrived and were tired, but before we turned in, we went to see the Duomo which is a massive cathedral. It was beautiful. Lots of people and our first tastes of real Italian food... yummy!

Riding on daddy's shoulders through the streets of Italy!


From there we made the trek to Venice or "Venezia"!! Since I was a little girl I have wanted to see the city with the streets of water! And it truly was amazing. We did a lot of walking and had Sadie Mac's stroller, but if you plan on visiting.. it's not exactly what I'd call stroller friendly! Because the streets are made of water, there are plenty of bridges with stairs! But, no complaining here... we were in Venice! We enjoyed a family gondola ride (a smidge less romatic with a one year old trying to climb out of the boat!!) but none the less... it was a great experience! Our gondola driver told us where Mozart stayed and the theatre house that Shakespeare wrote for. The food was delicious and our hotel was great! We were right off of the main canal and loved every part of it. This was for sure our favorite city in Italy.


Every time we went into a church to look at the art Sadie Mac would notice her echo and want to be all the more chatty... so we would have to plug it with her passie! :-)



The view from our gondola

View from the Accademia Bridge on the Grand Canal

Public transport known as the water bus

Switzerland!

When you hear someone say that all of Switzerland is a postcard... it's true. We were overwhelmed with the beauty of God's creation and so blessed to be able to do all we did in the past two weeks. Our first week, we spent in Wilderwil, Switzerland which is near Interlaken. We were there with several friends we work with and enjoyed fellowship with friends from the States. While we were there, we did lots of different things including a boat cruise and picnic, hiking, getting to see Jung Frau: the "Top of Europe", and of course, lots of looking and "wow-ing". It was a true blessing and we are so thankful for the blessing it was! We have tons of pictures, but here are a few of our favorites...


We went on a boat cruise and were amazed again at the beauty of Switzerland.

This is the area where the boat cruise stopped and we had our picnic. Also the place I plan to retire!!

We were able to experience a Swiss Cultural night with "Ricola" pipes and everything! It was so cool.

An early morning hike the three of us enjoyed.

There are no words.

I promise, we were not photo-shopped into this picture!

One of the "post card" moments as we came down from the mountain. Do you call the Alps a mere "mountain"?



.... More to come!!!!

Celebrating 3 Years!

Today we are celebrating 3 wonderful years of marriage and thank the Lord that He walked with us every step of this journey. We are so blessed to live this life of adventure together and are so thankful He has given us Sadie Mac to come along for the ride. Thanks to all of your for your love, support and prayers over the past several years... but mostly unto Him who is able to do immeasurabley more than all we could ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us... Eph. 3:20.

It's Father's Day!!

Today was Stephen's very first Father's Day!! Woohoo! Sadie Mac made him a Father's Day card, (that was more like a book) with pictures of them together! We went to "the club" to go swimming and enjoy the day with friends. We are so thankful for him... the best dad in the world!! Here is a picture of them playing in her tent together.

Healthy Living...

We think it is a good idea to start in these early days of teaching Sadie Mac about living a healthy lifestyle. We've caught her in the act of a few things:

Bathing is always good after playing in the dust and dirt...


She now has 6 teeth, so she needs to brush them, even though she can't reach the sink...


And my personal favorite, she thinks cucumbers are the same as candy bars!

Sinking Sand...

The past few weeks we have been planning a trip to the Nile with some friends of ours that have a little girl about one month younger than Sadie Mac. Yesterday morning we left with sunscreen, water toys, a grill, and excitement attempting to find the place we were last time. Cultural Note 1: You have to understand that there are no signs that say “Nile Beach 12 mi.” like we are accustomed to seeing at Myrtle Beach. Also, we liked the spot we went to last time because there were no people around staring at us as we enjoyed our day, so we were wanting to see if we could find the same place we did last time from our markings on the GPS. (thanks Stephen and Janelle!)
We did find the general area and just wanted to find a spot close to the Nile with a smidge of shade so the girls could play on the mat we brought. Stephen and our friend’s husband went down to see if the spot would be suitable and it seemed to be, so we headed down to the beach in our cars. Bad idea. We were driving along leading the way and all of a sudden, our car sank! The top of the ground was hard and solid, but that was deceiving. Cultural Note 2: We live in the Sahara Desert and AAA is no where to be found. So, what was to be found? Shepherd boys and herdsmen!

A group of about 10 boys and men came out of nowhere, all with ideas and input and they were eager to help! They tried breaking branches and putting them down behind the tires hoping they would grab traction… but the mud/sandy-clay was too much for our heavy car. After about 2 hours of trying and sinking, our friend went to a village semi-nearby to try and find a tractor. Cultural Note 3: You have to have tea whenever you are on a visit. Our friend found a man with a tractor and was asking and negotiating a price (also something you have to do beforehand) and when this was done he said, ok… let’s go. But they were insistent he have tea. He said his wife, daughter, and friends were all down waiting… but NO(!)… he had to stay and have tea. So, he graciously did have tea and then returned with the tractor! All that time, Stephen continued to dig and try to work the car out of the clay. After a short while, thanks to the tractor (and Stephen's digging :-)!!) the car was out and we were so thankful! We know the Father was with us!!!
It was still early enough in the day for us to grill-out, swim for a few minutes in the Nile and enjoy time with our friends. We were so thankful they were with us. Stephen jokingly told us all to enjoy it because we were never coming back here again!
The girls enjoying the water

Sadie Mac... splish splashing

This is what the ladies did... sat in the shade and waited

First Pet

This is Sadie Mac's first pet... who is an uninvited guest, but none the less, we let him stay. We "let him stay" or have no idea how to keep him out!! We are still thinking of names, if you have any suggestions, feel free to add input. This is him, hanging upside down on our bedroom ceiling. I guess this is the African life. :-)

Dusty Days

Well, it is "haboob" season here, which means we have dust storms quite often! Last weekend we spent the day cleaning the entire apartment, including the balcony. And... of course (!!) that night we had a huge dust storm and the white balcony was brown the next morning. Because we missed making snow angels this past winter, we decided to teach Sadie Mac about a different kind of angel!! When life gives you dust storms, you make dust angels! :-)


We had just cleaned the balcony the day before this... ugh!

First Mother's Day...

WIth laundry still to be done, dishes in the sink, carrots all over her face, floors to clean from last night's "haboob" (dust storm)... I am learning how a mother's work is never done. But when she turns to me with open arms and wants to give me a big (carrot) kiss I wouldn't give it up for the world. This is my very first Mother's Day and I thank the Lord for the gift that Sadie Mac and Stephen are to me. Two red roses from them, give me a whole new meaning to the word "beautiful." What a treasure and gift today is.

We want to send special Mother's Day greetings to our mom's and grandmom's and wish we were near to give hugs and kisses! We'd also like to spend special wishes to special friends who are also celebrating their first Mother's day... We love you all... Hope you have a wonderful day and feel as special as I have.

Dancin' King

This past week we all went to a graduation party. We had a blast and there was lots of dancing! The host of the party came and grabbed Stephen's arm and pulled him up to the crowd of men to dance. The only other time I've seen Stephen dance was when he was dancing with me at our wedding! If you can't pick him out... he's the one NOT wearing the white man-dress!!