Whoa! I cannot believe it’s been almost two months since we’ve blogged. What is it about summer that makes us do such a poor job of keeping this thing going? Oh yeah, we’re so busy having fun that we just don’t have time. 🙂 Here are some of the things that have been keeping us busy over the last couple of months:
You can see A LOT more pictures of our adventures here: American Summer Tour 2011
We made it to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and it was awesome! I got to wear my “Snitches be Crazy” shirt which made me  super happy. We drank pumpkin juice and butterbeer, rode a dragon, visited Hogwarts, and walked through the shops in Diagon Alley. It was SO MUCH FUN! If you are a big Harry Potter fan, it’s definitely worth the trip. I’m glad Matt’s parents live here, because that means we can go again. 🙂 You can see a few more pics here: American Summer Tour.
We’ll be heading to America in just a few short weeks! Yay! Below is our general itinerary. We’ll update this as we figure out more specific plans. We can’t wait to see everyone. And eat steak.
June 17 – Arrive in San Diego – Proceed immediately to In-N-Out
June 19 – Church at Idyllwild Community Presbyterian
June 23 – Fly to Philadelphia
June 25 – Phillies Game!
June 26 – Church at Woodland Presbyterian
June 27 – Fly to Florida
June 29 – Going to Wizarding World! (It’s possible that one of us is more excited about this than the other.)
July 4 – Fireworks with the Klein Family
July 6 – Fly to Seattle
July 8-12 – Road trip from Seattle to Idyllwild with stops in Portland, Bay Area, and Santa Barbara
July 13 – Speak at Women’s Guild of Idyllwild Community Presbyterian
July 14 – Padres Game!
July 15-17 – Santa Barbara
July 17 – Church at Santa Barbara Community
July 18-30 – Idyllwild
July 30 – Fly back to Vienna
See you soon!
Carnivale di Venezia. The Carnival of Venice. Amazing. A couple of weeks ago, we traveled to Venice with our friends Amanda, Carrie, Nicki, Kristi-Anna, Amanda, RheaAnne, and Petra. Venice is about a seven hour drive from Vienna, so we left at 4:00am (yes, you read that right), drove to Venice for the afternoon, then arrived back home at 11:30pm. It was a whirlwind trip and totally worth it!
Carnivale is the celebration before Lent. Apparently, there are a great many of these celebrations the world over. At least, according to Wikipedia there are. The concept is to get all of your partying done before the beginning of Lent, so that during Lent you can focus on God. Here in Austria, the celebration is called Fasching. We usually celebrate Fasching by eating the donuts that Petra brings to school. 🙂
Carnivale in Venice is fairly tame. Nothing like what I’ve heard about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s a whole lot of people dressed in amazing costumes milling about, participating in parades, etc. You can have your face painted or buy carnivale masks. You can take gondola rides through the city or eat lunch along one of the canals.
Venice is such a beautiful city! Both of the times I’ve been there, it has only been for a day. I would love to spend a week there sometime and visit the various islands. While we were there we saw several people in kayaks. How amazing would it be to tour Venice by kayak!?! Maybe someday.
More pictures here: Carnivale
Summer has started which means I finally have some time to update the blog. Yes, I know, this is very exciting for everyone! I think I can hear some of you cheering. 🙂
May 29 – June 4 was the senior trip. We got to spend the week in Umag, Croatia. It was beautiful! Thank you so much to those of you who prayed for safety, fun, and quality time. It was an incredible trip.
We took two side trips while we were there. One day we went to Pula to see the Roman Amphitheatre. Another day we took a cruise down the coast of Croatia to the city of Rovinj. Beautiful!
By far the best thing about the trip was the opportunity for the students to spend time together and start saying their goodbyes. We had time each evening to talk with them about transition and life after high school. You can continue to pray for them in the coming months as they start school, jobs, and military service. It’s going to be a big year for each of them.
You can see lots of pictures here: CROATIA!
