Kardamyli and Monemvasia, Greece. South peloponese was amazing, beautiful, and virtually no tourists except us.

HR=Croatia

Croatia started out alittle rough with us being sick, and the first place we rented was like a cold steam room, but with each place we went, things got better. We left Rovinj in a rental car and took a winding road along the ocean and through many tunnels to Zadar-a walled city with a sea organ and many churches.  The apartment there was recently remodeled, and felt much more homey than Rovinj.  The owner brought S some chocolate and I saved it rationing small pieces to him not knowing that all older people in Croatia use chocolate as their best used tool with kids. Everywhere we go I turn away for a minute only to look back and see S with chocolate. He happily tells me "that lady/man gave me chocolate."  What can ya do? Our little H usually gets in on it too. J and I laugh that S didn't know what candy was until he was over 2, but not this girl. We've eaten our share of pizza since we've been over here, and I can't seem to get over the observation that all the locals put ketchup on their pizza.  Zadar was nice but it rained and not much was open except churches. We hit the parks and just let the kids get wet.  Just fyi-I loved swiss air, they were great with the kids, their food wasn't bad, and you get swiss chocolate on your way off the plane. The sun was bright the day we left Zadar and the bus ride to Split was hard, because whatever bug we had was getting worse not better. I could hardly pull a wheeled bag and carry H. Split was so different than any other town we had been in Croatia,  there were Attractive people...I don't know how many times we approached someone to ask directions thinking we were asking a man only to get face to face with a woman. Haha. Split was full of young people with kids and babies. H loves babies right now, so as we walked she keeps saying "baby!" H and I rested for 2 days before I felt like I could walk much. We walked some beaches, watched excavators, checked out some churches and museums. J and S climbed the bell tower in the Diocletian palace. S was scared to come down because he thought the bells were going to ring right next to him. H has been putting everything in her mouth, which makes us cringe, but I can't carry her all the time.  It's nice to hear bells every half hour, most of them stopped after 9 pm, except here in Kotor, Montenegro.  We thought Split was our favorite until we got to Dubrovnik. It's another walled city, but so incredible-the history, buildings, bays, museums, people. We saw our first live starfish, walked the walls, S met a friend named Mary, from Nottingham, and we hiked 506 steps home to our apartment. The best place we stayed, the owners served us fresh lemonade fromher lemons in her garden, her son takes care of the apartments and was ever so helpful to get us whatever we needed. He offered to have his mom do our laundry, and she gave us some homemade candied lemon peels to take when we left.  They spoke just a little English but enough to know they didn't want to talk about certain parts of the war-their house was hit and he showed us where there was still shrapnel embedded in some of his walls he planned to fix.  We had a magnificent view of the ocean from our room and of the city. I haven't figured out how to do pictures fromhere yet, so be patient, I'll keep trying.  Oh, and H got bit by a dog in Dubrovnik,  she is fine, the police made a report and wanted to take care of us but the officer didn't speak English,  so we had an interpreter.  We are so blessed, it could have been much worse. I'm thankful it looks like a scratch, even though it's on her nose. We came to Montenegro 2 days ago and hiked a mountain to a castle/fort yesterday after it had hailed hard in the morning,  some places there were 3 inches of accumulated hail.  The beauty of this place reminds me of home. As I've traveled, I keep thinking "this is neat, or this is beautiful, but it's just not as good or as beautiful, or as wild, as Idaho. I love my home and could be content to never leave my familiar things again.

Start of the great adventure

So I'd love to report all sunshine and roses, but that just isn't the truth.  Nevertheless we have had fun. The kids have been real troopers hiking up steep hills, sometimes multiple times (because we don't know where we are and have to go back down for directions.) We started in Venice and it rained the whole time. The last day there we finally bought an umbrella.  There are only 4-5 times per year the water is so high they have to use the platforms to walk through parts of town and we were there during one of these times.  We saw 2 guys carrying sheets of drywall through the streets with plastic over the drywall, each of them in knee high rain boots, in 6-8 inches of water carrying umbrellas. Pretty funny to us because we weren't used to it. The kids have had the most fun chasing birds, feeding the birds, watching the dogs (there was not a dog in Venice without a raincoat), and looking at boats. We thought it was fun to ride the water bus' at first but after a while they lost their excitement.  I think we all really liked Murano, where we stepped into a shop to ask for directions to a glass factory and they invited us into their back room where there were two guys making glass.  It was a welcome sight-this hot industrial room filled with tools and hatch doors for furnaces. It had been raining and it was nice to dry out a bit and see some beautiful art being made.  We've been eating so much bread--it's so good! In Italy we ate cheese everyday with our bread.  We are now in Croatia.  Some differences between the 2 countries...Italy had hot water, hot showers, big towels, noisy streets, dog poop everywhere,  and incredible pizza. Croatia has nice people, towels big enough to dry your hands, dog poop all over the sidewalks, limited heated rooms and 1 hour of hot water to shower.  So it's fine, just some new things.  I guess we are just spoiled.  Language is a bit of a challenge because Croatian is not similar to English or any language with latin roots, where Italian was fairly easy to figure out even though we didn't know it. Many young Croatians know English so we are not getting into trouble. The past few days have be een sunny and we have been to parks and picking flowers and collecting rocks and pinecones.
Everyone is good, we have runny noses but we have been touching the world, so that's to be expected. S is drying out finally after Venice,  where he couldn't help but walk through every puddle in his path. We have done some laundry, well actually J did the wash and the machine malfunctioned and he lost his money and his soap, but we didn't wash everything.We are all prpretty dirty as it's spring here and spring equals mud when you have kids. Well that's all for now.

7 months old

 trying to get 2 children to simultaneously look at the camera and smile is like trying to get the planets to align, kudos to the professionals.

 smile, they may not, but look like they are scared...no problem.

 moose in our neighbors yard

 giving the monkey a ride on the bouncy ball

 my handsome boy

 and beautiful girl

the ultimate picture update

smiley girl

but much more serious than her brother

                                   the house we built in 2012 and we are hoping to close on next week

                                              I think this is one of my favorites

 she is so sweet and delicate, but has really found how loud she can be lately.

                                           the inside of the house we're selling.

                                                               a boy and his dog

                                                     she is happy to be independently sitting up

I don't know where the rest of my pictures went I guess I'll have to do another post

Just wanted to post some more recent pictures, these are from December, so I guess not that recent.

 S always seems to have us in stitches, here he had gotten carried away with the green marker.  One night I was up nursing H and I heard S shout in his sleep "Chile LAY DOWN!" and that was it.  Hahaha.

 We made this guy in December and I told him if it rained he would melt, so after we made him, he kept going to the window to check on him to see if he melted yet.  Then it snowed more and he was concerned that he was getting buried, but he told me he had a new hat (made of snow).  Almost all our snow is gone now.  We also made a snow hay bale.

 J actually rode the carousel with S this year, we all did, but H and I rode on the bench.

A day I was making cookies, S told me he liked sugar then asked to have some cream cheese please.  I said "no, honey it's not cream cheese, it's shortening or lard"  he then asked "have some lard please".  No, I don't think so.

4 years old tomorrow

My dear little guy,
  Tomorrow you will be 4 and I wanted to tell you some things... You won't probably read this until you are much older but I have to record even for my own sake so I won't forget the wonderful things in my life because of you.  Since you were born I have had sand in my bed, rocks in my bed, rocks in my washer, rocks in my dryer, rocks in my shoes, rocks in my pockets, toys in my car, my bed, my kitchen, my porch, my clothes, trucks in my cupboards, giggles in the mornings, trucks in my dish water, loads and loads of very dirty clothes, puke on my table, puke on my rug, sink parts down the drain, water all over the floor, mud puddles in my house, bike skid marks on my floor, water all over the walls, other brown material all over the walls, books in my bed, Moo in my bed, Bunny in my bed, rolls of toilet paper unrolled into the toilet, crumbs in all kinds of cracks, sticky hands smeared on my face and my hair, smelly feet in my face, cold feet on my back, boogers wiped in places other than a tissue, tears of joy, tears of sorrow, tears of worry, some nights without much sleep, some days when I could have worn earplugs all day, and other things mothers of boys have.  But all these things and more are what make me smile everyday, and your smile, your laugh, your words, your creativity, I'm amazed day by day at what a great gift  you are and you may never understand how much I love you, until maybe the day you have children of your own.  You are kind and forgiving, even when other kids have not been kind or forgiving. You are generous with your affection and your helping hands. You are always eager to say hi to everyone, even if they don't look at you or hear you.  I love that you notice the little things, and I'm trying to cherish the little kid things you do before you're all grown up and too mature to do them anymore.  You have a great memory and sense of direction.  I don't think you ever forget a person, and you break the silent tense awkwardness with strangers with your friendly "HI!" to everyone you meet.  Your language is changing daily, and I kinda miss the days when you called monkeys, mee-moos, and flowers, fhoo-fhoos.  It stills makes my day when I hear you say copcorn, or when you see a whirl iffin around the yard.  Hahaha.  You are such a good big brother, always trying to comfort your sister, talking to her, bringing her toys, swinging her in her swing, patting her hair down, or tickling her.  I have seen you just this week protecting her (from Chile), and proud of her (telling people out and about that you have a baby sister named...)  I wouldn't trade you for a thing, there is no one else that I wish was my son, I am so glad that God gave us you, just as you are, and just as you will be.  He made you, little love, and he knows you and loves you more than Daddy-o or I even could.  As much as I would love to always have a great relationship with you, what I desire more is for you to have a great relationship with your  heavenly Father and Jesus Christ the Lord over all.  That is really all that matters anyway.  Friends and family  just weren't made to be everything for you, but Christ was, so I will pray today and everyday that you go to him, inquire of Him, know Him, love Him, trust Him, put your hope in Him, listen to Him, believe Him, rest in Him, and speak of Him to everyone you know.  He will not disappoint, and what he has is eternal.  I love you little man and I am so blessed to see you unfold and grow like a beautiful garden, bearing good things.  4 years ago today I was in labor with you and had not a clue what I was getting into doing this parenting thing, but there is no place I would rather be, and nothing else I would rather do.  If nothing else, the Lord is stripping me of my selfishness so He can be glorified in losing myself to what he has called me to....the high calling of parenthood.  I trust Him with you and know you are in good hands, someday you must entrust yourself to Him too.  If my love for you is like a crazy rushing river in the springtime, I can't imagine what God's love for you is really like.  Know this--the Lord is good.  Better than the best thing you have ever known or experienced.  You know I'm a rambler, so I'll stop with hopes that someday you will read this and understand.  I love you more than sunshine, sleeping in, ice cream, knitting, a hot tub, a woodstove, homemade gifts, dark chocolate, a hike in the mountains, or fresh raspberries.
Love,
Your Mama (and dance partner, for now)