The Island of Malta - not to be confused with Malta, ID

We left after the kids' last day of school to go to the island of Malta. I didn't really know where it was, but it is located south of Sicily on the same latitude as Tunisia down towards Africa. It's a tiny windy island. There is another island even smaller called Gozo right next to it that is also part of it. It was "owned" by the British until 1979 when they finally pulled out. All the Maltese speak fluent English even though their main language is Maltese. It's a semetic language - more arabic-like than anything.

We spent most of our time swimming!!! The first night there we found a "Tex-Mex" restaurant that was fabulous. We were in absolute heaven. As we were looking out the restaurant window, we looked across the street and saw 'TGI Fridays"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, it may not sound like much to you, but if your only options for food were Italian food for the past 10 months, you would be excited too :) !!! Needless to say, we ate their a couple of times. We let the kids order desserts the last day we were there. We finally realized why "Americans are fat" as the Europeans tell us. We let the kids get a dessert. We couldn't believe the size of the TGIF desserts. We had forgotten how big US desserts are at restaurants!!!

Anyway, it was a wonderful relaxing time in Malta - not to be confused with Malta, ID where Blake grew up.

Sydney In All Her Glory

Sydney has had a great end to the school year! The last two weeks of school were spent pretending to be a "one room school house" from the 1800s. She was "Elizabeth Baker" for the 2 weeks and ended up the Valedictorian of the "one room school house".
She also had the "end of the year" dance recital. The pictures are of her class. The girls are so darling in her dance class. Sydney really can't communicate very well with them or them with her, but they're all good buddies and still play together. They will ask her questions such as "What is this called" or "You look pretty" and Sydney will speak in her limited Italian. It's darling!

Croatia and Venice

I have now been to Venice 5 times in the past couple of months. This last time I had some dear friends visit from Germany - Nancy and Mindy and Mindy's friend Jessica. Mindy, Nancy, Jessica and I spent a day in Venice -shopping, eating, enjoying the scenery, etc. Mindy and Jessica flew out the next day and Nancy and I headed to Rovijn, Croatia. Blake was in Germany for business, so I farmed the kids out for a couple of days. Croatia was absolutely beautiful. The drive from our home took us through some of the most beautiful countryside of Slovenia and Croatia. The northwestern part (the Istra Peninsula) is what they call the 2nd Tuscany. It had some of the most breath-taking views. The coastline of the Adriatic was also gorgeous!!! Croatia is not yet part of the European Union and is still on their own currency. Presently, their prices compared to the dollar are good - we'll see how long that lasts!!! :)

Florence and Sienna, Italy in Tuscany

The last leg of our trip was spent in Florence and Sienna! These are the pictures from that!

Rome, Italy

Our next stop was in Rome, Italy. All we can say is that Rome is amazing. It seems like every corner you go around there is something architectually amazing! For Mandy and I it was amazing to see all the Michaelangelo paintings in the Sistene Chapel as well as his marble statues he carved. We'd just read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" which brought it all to life. The kids did really well especially with all the walking we did. We rewarded them about 3 times a day with gelato!!!

Venice, Italy

The next day we spent in Venice enjoing the sites, food, shopping, water, etc. We were sooooo tired by the end of the day and the "water buses" were packing people in like sardines, so Kurt splurged and got us a "water taxi" which the kids thought was one of the highlights....that and feeding the pigeons......

Lake Bled, Slovenia and Gmund, Austria

On our way home from Austria, Kurt and Blake noticed a sign for a Porsche Museum....so we got to stop and check out the cars! The boys LOVED it!!! We also took a detour over to Slovenia and stopped in Lake Bled, Slovenia for lunch and to view the gorgeous scenery! The lake was absolutely beautiful. The boats that we took across the lake are called pletna boats which are handmade and this type has been used since the 17th century.