A trip to the mountains

Right outside of Red River, NM, there is an awesome rock formation called the Palisades.





















We enjoyed this band, led by Dulcimer Dan. He played a lot of traditional instruments and explained the history of how they were brought out west.









I had to try horse shoes and calf roping... wasn't very good at either :)

A Week in South Padre

Everyone seemed to like this picture the best, so I thought I'd share it with you. Greg caught this the first night we were in South Padre. We went on a walk with Laura and had some fun trying to catch these.
My camera was fogging up, but I still think this is a cute picture of Dad, Greg and Luli playing in the sand.
One of my favorite things we got to see were all of the pelicans!
We got to go deep sea fishing, and even though I got pretty motion sick, it was still a fun experience. We caught a red snapper and had it for dinner that night!
Little Sofia just can't wait to eat crab legs like Erik did!

More Photos

This is the arena in Verona, Italy. The same type of things went on here as they did in the Colosseum in Rome.
This museum was inside of a castle in Verona. It had all sorts of examples of helmets, armor and weapons.
A beautiful castle in Lugano, Switzerland.


There were a lot of cool cars in Europe. I think I like that green one the best.

We're Home!

Well, we've been gone for a whole month and it feels pretty good to be back home in Texas. That was the best vacation that Greg and I have been on and we have so many fun memories! I'm going to keep this blog going so I can share a few more pictures from our trip and just because I've enjoyed blogging. We actually have a short vacation coming up next week with my family. We are all going to South Padre for a few days, so I will have one more vacation to share with you. Thanks for reading the blog and keeping up with me!

A Day at the Beach

Today was one of my favorite days on our trip so far. We took the subway and then a train for about 20 minutes to some ancient Roman ruins near the beach. We weren't really sure what to expect, but it ended up being an actual old Roman town that used to be a major port. A lot of the buildings were pretty well preserved and we walked on the original Roman road through the town. There were a lot of statues and mosaics that were still in pretty good condition. The ancient town had a theatre, temples, houses, shops and some tombs. It was pretty cool to get a better idea of what an ancient Roman town might have been like.

After walking around the ruins, we had a quick lunch and then took the train a little bit further and arrived at a really nice beach. We have been so busy on our trip, that it was really nice to just have an afternoon to be lazy on the beach. The mediterranean sea beach was a little different than beaches in America. The sand looked darker and there really weren't big waves, which made it more peaceful to float around in. It was a hot day, so swimming was just what we needed. (:

The Colosseum

This was our first sight of the Colosseum and we were really blown away!

Here is a good view from inside. The part in the middle where all of the action took place used to be covered with wood and a layer of sand. The part you can see now was hallways and corridors complete with trap doors so that wild animals could be suddenly brought into the arena from below.

A real gladiator helmet!

A little taste of Florence in pictures

The famous bridge in Florence, called the Ponte Vecchio, which is filled with little jewelry stores all the way along the bridge. It looked especially awesome during the sunset!









This is the cathedral in Florence that was really impressive from the outside.











Greg and I went to an overlook of the city called Piazza Michelangelo. It was a long walk but had a really good view of the cathedral and the bridge.