Italy, Part 1

Our European vacation started in late July! I'm still in Belgium with our friends for another week. Jason headed home the other day but we covered a lot of ground while he was still here. We'll have lots of photos to share of our whole trip once I'm back home (along with better explanations and descriptions of everything), but for now you can check out our friend Maitha's photography blog to see some photos from our trip to Italy (bonus: they'll be better than any of our photos anyway)! We hit Venice, Rome, Pisa, and Florence in a whirlwind trip of four days where we walked all day every day to see as much as possible!

Stay tuned... once I'm home I'll post more of Italy... as well as Belgium and Amsterdam!

Go

This is something that's pretty important to us, especially while we're childless. I'm not really one for repeat vacations (other than our mini ones to the lake). We may fall into the repeat vacays when we have kids (but I hope we don't), but for now there are so many places in this big world to see! Each year, we try to take a big vacation and visit a new place. Last year, it was our drive down most of the Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to LA.

This year? Europe. More specifically, Brussels. Other than that? Probably France and Italy while we're out there... but we haven't really decided on anything yet other than we're flying in and out of Brussels so we can hang with our friends Maitha & Andreas (their wedding was part of our trip last year)! Jason is going for a week and a half and I'm going for three weeks before school starts. At this point we have less than a month before we're headed off - we're leaving later this month! Any suggestions for places to visit while we're out there? We're all ears!

[image from here]

T-Town

Tulsa, Oklahoma. A place I imagined at 11 as a wee Hanson fan (they're from Tulsa) and finally visited at 26, thanks to a work trip. It wasn't at all what I pictured it to be, but I'm not sure what I was expecting. It was WINDY and bitter cold in January - I now completely understand the lyrics, "the wind comes sweeping down the plain." I expected it to be mild but it certainly wasn't. I even saw some snow! It had a little bit of an old-timey feel, even within the downtown area, which I loved.

There are some really pretty bits of the city - you could see the river from my hotel room and the pretty sunset.



In my spare time, I drove past a few landmarks and things I remembered and recognized as a fan which was fun, although I wished that I had my friend (and fellow fan) Christine along for the ride to make it more fun!

Oh, and the plane ride home? One of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen.