Colorful Cinque Terre!

If you want to do nothing but relax on your vacation then go to Cinque Terre! It is composed of 5 towns and if you get the urge to exercise then you can hike from town to town. Greg and I hiked from Vernazza to Monterosso and it was beautiful. The views were amazing. The towns are so colorful, and in the summer months you can head to the beach. It's the perfect place to sit at an outdoor cafe...have some wine or coffee and read a good book. We loooved Cinque Terre!

Italy is full of hidden little narrow streets...so cute!

On our hike...looking down at the town of Monterosso

Looking back at Vernazza

Vernazza is so colorful! Feels like a little fairy tale village!

the main street through Vernazza. After you shop this one little street, there's not a whole lot left to do other than relax!

The best little breakfast place in Vernazza!

Vernazza is a town of steps!! You climb and climb and climb. These are the steps leading to our Inn.

under the tuscan clouds

well, we made it past the 7 year itch! on april 21st, greg and i celebrated our 8th anniversary! a lot has happened since the year 2001! we've lived in 6 residences, changed jobs, struggled through infertility, been blessed with 2 kids, said goodbye to friends and family, moved to austin, made new friends and learned a multitude of lessons along the way! i'm thankful when i look back and see where God has brought us. We have learned a lot and i can't imagine all that we have left to learn!

Greg and I went to Italy to celebrate the past 8 years and we had a great time...we relaxed, read books, sipped wine at cafe's, toured the sights, dodged the rain, spent time with friends who came over from Tunisia, Africa, ate a lot of gelato, and slept late....something we haven't done in a long time! Here are some pics from the trip. it's hard to sum up, on paper, 8 days in italy...so i'll let the pictures do the talking.

Siena's main square....Il Campo

a quaint street in Siena

Greg and I went to dinner at 6:45 pm on our 1st night in Italy...I kid you not, this is what the restaurant looked like! So, we had dinner at one table while the restaurant staff dined at another. don't go to dinner before 8 pm! unless you want the whole place to yourself


The Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence. Apparently, this was the only bridge in Florence left standing by Hitler. He supposedly liked to see the sunset from it.

A Razorback in Italy!??! I couldn't resist!


Greg and I did a 13 mile bicycle tour through Tuscany. Despite the rain in our faces, it was a fun time and the scenery could not have been more beautiful. We visited a castle winery...Castello di Pappiano. Great olive oil and wines! The count and contessa still live in the castle and this is their own personal church!

Some of the barrels used to "age" the wines

translation: you can plant and you can irrigate, but without the presence of God nothing is possible.


Relaxing at a cafe on the day we arrived.

An Italian sized cup of coffee. So disappointing on a cold rainy day to want to wrap your fingers around a warm cup of joe and get handed this!! And they look at you really funny when you order 3 of them!


Beautiful Tuscany...
I thought Tuscany was supposed to be sunny, but we dodged rain for about 6 out of our 8 days in Italy!


Greg getting "artsy" with the camera!

some yummy tuscan food! caprese salad and bruchetta

a little bit of AR in TX

Several weekends ago our good friends, Bruce and Susanne Clinton, came to Austin! We took our oldest kiddos to Sea World San Antonio....which was a tough decision b/c of the swine flu. Turns out is was the right decision b/c there was not a soul there! Even still, we used hand sanitizer all day and made it out of there flu free.

Thanks for a fun visit friends!!

Who's next???