Tallinn, Estonia

This picture looks over the "old" city.
Marzipan was created here in Tallinn. This is a cake decorated with marzipan. Sidenote: Marzipan is my favorite especially with chocolate! The marzipan museum was here.
Town square, the buildings were homes and stores of the towns people. The more space (wide) the store, the more money you had. I would hate to be the gray one on the far left!
Ryan and I were walking through the streets and ran across this restaurant. The menu was full of Tex Mex things, it did make me miss home! The restaurant had the Texas flag by the door, very cool!
This is the wall that separates the "old" city from the new part. All of the government, shops, and more expensive homes were in the old part. The new part looked very different, more industrial or commercial astmosphere.

To tell you the truth, I had never heard of the country Estonia before the trip. It too was such a delight. The town was beautiful, very quaint feeling. Ryan and I took a 3 1/2 hour walking tour of the city. Doing this, I really felt that I got to know the city. The main "shopping" here was knitted items. Needless to say, I didn't get anything. They were neat items, just not my taste!

Rock Church In Finland

Pictures inside and out of the Rock church. It was amazing to see! It was one of the best "sites" on the trip.

St. Petersburg

St. Isaac's church with Isaac on the horse out front of the church. This is the 4th largest church in the World.
The Church of Paul and Peter, it is set like a fortress with water surrounding it. It has all the Czars, Queens, and Kings buried in it.
This is the Church of Spilled Blood. It is now a museum. Everytime I saw this picture before our trip, it just looked Russian. It is more beautiful in person than any picture I have ever seen. Across from this church was an open "tourist" market. I got a Christmas Russian doll set. That is the wooden figure that keep getting smaller and smaller.
These are 2 tombs from the church of Peter and Paul. I wanted you to see these tombs because they are each from 1 big stone. The green is jade, and I can't remember the red stone. They each weigh several TONS. Where are the bodies you ask? All bodies are not in the tombs up top of the church for people to look at, they are buried under the church in crypts.
Ryan taking his own picture with Peter the Great. The statue is very different. They actually took a real print of his head, and didn't notice that is was quite small to the rest of his body until after the statue was put together. The body was not done to size. You were supposed to rub his long fingers for luck, I didn't pertake of the rubbing!

Russia was a different country to visit. The historical buildings were beautiful. The rest of the city still had a very communistic look and feel. It is amazing how so many people lived for such a long time. We spent 2 days in St. Petersburg, and it was well worth it. We took 3 different tours and for the most part, we didn't overlap that much, except for the "tourist" market. We took a canal cruise through the outlying city, we did a walking tour through the subway, and the a historical all day tour through the city and the Hermitage. The Hermitage is one of the best museums for famous painters and painting. I took pictures of the paintings. I will try and do another blog just of the paintings. We spent 3 hours in the Hermitage and didn't see much of it. They said it would take a couple of years to see everything in the museum.

Helsinki, Finland

This is the center square in Helsinki. This was a famous church, now it is a church open to the public. It was a great place to drop us off to view the city. Helsinki was a neat town. If anyone has every been here, please let me know what you think of it. We went to the square, you can also see the picture below with Ryan. That picture was taken with the church to my back. But after visiting the square, Rock church, and the open market, what else is there to do in Helsinki? So let me know if you have been. I feel that is one place I cross off that I have visited, and I don't need to go back. Don't get me wrong, the city and people were great, just not a lot to do there.
Sometimes you must find humor in pictures.
Some of the food that was prepared and served the in open market down by the water front. Ryan one of the little fish in the middle. It reminded me of sardines, but Ryan said it was wonderful. He was even mad at me that I did get a "freebie" for him to eat it. I personally didn't want the smell on my hands! The open market had produce, flowers, places to eat, things to buy, etc. It was really neat. I always like going to the open markets because it says a lot about the town. One of the most popular meats in Finland was reindeer. The meat was super red in color, and "no" neither of us tried it. I am sure Ryan would have if the opportunity came.
This is the Rock Church. My inside picture didn't post. (I will try and post it separate.) It doesn't even look like a church on the outstide. It is amazing. The inside is all rock too, very natural. When we are visiting, an organist was getting ready for a wedding, so we had the nice classical music playing in the background.

Ryan and I did get dropped off in town to take the shuttle back later to the boat. We walked back down to the market and caught a band getting ready to perform. The musical band was pretty cool, their clothes were quite funny - a cross between jazz and punk! This was also a great place to people watch!

Sweden is SWEEEET!

This is the city hall building for Stockholm. Stockholm was a nice city, I just didn't feel we had enough time there. We only took a 30 minute walking tour through one part of the city. I did learn that the Nobel Prize was development there from the man it was named after, and that is where they hold the ceremonies to award the Nobel Prize. One thing we did was visit the Absolut Icebar! Which that sounds crazy, but the bar is made out of total ice! The floor, walls, seats, bar itself, and cups to drink out of - all made out of ice! Here are 2 pictures below. They give you the jackets when you enter.

Old town area of Stockholm. In pictures of Stockholm, I would always see these different colored buildings. This center square is very close to the Royal Palace.
Nobel Museum - you can't really read it off the glass. I didn't go in it, but thought the picture would be cool. Lots of buildings in Stockholm have the name Nobel in it, due to the fact, that family gave tons of money to the city!
Yes, sitting on ice. You could not sit for very long even with the jacket on you. You can see the walls behind us, just huge blocks of ice. They cut the blocks out of a river in Northern Sweden when it freezes over. The block of ice are kept frozen and sent to the Icebars located in other places.

Cruisin on the Baltic

After Copenhagen, we had 1 day at sea. So most of the day, I ate. I thought I would write the blog about the yummy food on the cruise. We were on the boat for 10 days, we started in Denmark, and then traveled to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, and then back to Denmark. The picture above was one of my favorite desserts. I can't remember the "technical" name for it, but the brown things are cream puffs. It was covered with fruit, chocolate, and cream. The only problem with a cruise, you fall in love with a dessert, but you only get it once!!! As you can tell, I am a freak that takes pictures of the food. Only I left my camera in the room for half the meals, the good meals: lobster, crab legs, etc. Here are just a few neat ones.
This one is called The love boat. It was pure chocolate and YUMMY! Believe it or not, I could eat it all. Or maybe it was because I had already had 4 courses before it! I thought it was nicely decorated!
Shrimp night, need I say more. My sister did it right, she just order shrimp. They brought her a full plate of just shrimp.
Ryan and I before dinner one night.
This was not my dessert due to the fact it didn't have much chocolate on the plate. It was a lemon poppyseed parfait. I thought it looked cool!



As you can tell from the above pictures, I ate my way through the Baltic Sea. And unlike my wonderful husband that worked out every night, I came back with a few, few, few pounds! Well, I hope I will be telling myself it is worth it this week while I am running off the chocolate I thought I MUST eat last week. The coolest thing about the ship was afternoon tea. If you don't know I am a huge hot tea junkie. I think coffee is over-rated. The real money is hot tea. So the afternoons we were on the boat, I was having high tea. I can still taste the warm scones with sweet cream butter, YUM! I had to drag my family with me the first day, after that they came on their own free will, except Ryan. I still couldn't convince him tea was for men too!

I love Denmark!

A canal in Copenhagen called Christianhaven were people dock their boatas, most live in the apartments in front of their boat.
Tivoli Gardens in the center of Copenhagen. It is an amusement part but is quite different from our Six Flags. It does have rides, but it is mainly musical based. Lots of ballets, symphony, singers, etc. Lots of good restuarants are located in here, it was about $15 US money to buy a ticket, well worth it! We went at night when it was lit up with tons of lights!
Little Mermaid statue, based on the fairy tale. The head has had to be replaced twice from people cutting it off. And the right arm was cut off once. Who would do such a crazy thing?
Rosenberg Castle - the crown jewels are here. We didn't go into the castle, but Ryan and I did have a picnic on the gardens on the day of our bike ride.
Ryan and I in front of the harbor!

I don't know if I like this country the best because we spent the most time there, or if it had more to offer than the others. We took a canal cruise through parts of the outlying city of Copenhagen the first day off the plane before we got on the boat. We had a fun morning enjoying the city. Copenhagen was so fun! Ryan and I rode bikes through the city for about 3 hours the last day. It is the coolest thing. The city has about 100 bikes for rent for tourist to ride. You put in your money it unlocks the bike, when you want to stop or you are finished, you lock it back and the money comes out. The bikes are placed all over the city, and you just lock it to any bike rack that has the city locks. The bike has a map on it to let you know where you are going! I also had the best hot chocolate I have ever had IN MY LIFE in Copenhagen (that could explain my love for the city)! The city had a walkway that was a mile long that was fun on shops and eating places, it was very neat to walk along and look at their culture. We took a tour of the city with an awesome guide the last day of our cruise. We found out a lot about their history. It was neat, their Queen is loved by the country because she is very active in the "Arts" of the country. She designs most of the costumes and background scenes for the theater productions in the city. The main food of the city were hot dogs; if you like dogs, this is the place to go!

We are BACK!

Uncle Eric with all 4 boys!
Aunt Rebecca with they boys, yes she is 30 weeks pregnant!
Boys having fun together.
Ryan and I at the airport ready to leave!
Eric and the boys again.

Ryan and I are back from vacation. The boys are back from a super fun trip playing with their cousins (pictures above are from Rebecca, she would send us updates on our trip). Ryan and I went with my family to Europe (Sweden, Finland, Russia, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Denmark) and the boys went to Eric, Rebecca, Wesley, and Harrison's house. I think the boys had more fun than we did, thats all they talk about now. Eric and Rebecca kept them busy, they even got to go to Vacation Bible School with Wesley and Harrison. As much as I love traveling, I am really glad to be home with my babies, I missed them! I didn't realize how hard it would be until I was driving them to meet Rebecca. I think I cried all the way home after passing them off. It was either that or the SPEEDING ticket I got in OK! Either way, when I got back home, I had released enough sorrow, I was ready to get going on the trip. Our flights were great, and we were on a cruise for 10 days. I think I ate my way through the Baltic Sea. I will try and highlight each city we visited over the next few days. We did take over 600 pictures, so I want to share the goods one with you (not all I promise). We can not thank Eric and Rebecca enought for keeping the boys, we never worried about them because we knew they were in good, loving hands!

VBS

Benjamin sitting listening to his tribe leader. We made a deal that he could wear his baseball outfit to VBS instead of Sunday morning church.
Front of the church - cool scene!One of the "shops" - Fisherman's Hut
Benjamin in the bakery making the bread for his tribe. He was showing Mrs. Karen that he knew how to knead bread!

We LOVE VBS!

Fun on the Fourth and More

Our family participated in the TC Family fun walk, but daddy turned into a family run!
Benjamin lending a helping hand setting up for VBS.
Carter covered in chips at a small airfield where we have lunch and watch the planes!

Wow, July has started and flown by quickly. Where are the days going? We had such a great family day on the 4th. Trophy Club really does a great job of getting the community together. We participated in a walk/run, we had a pancake breakfast at our church, we rode on a float in the parade, and then we had a hot dog lunch by the community pool! After that we headed to Ryan's family to play in the pool with the uncles, aunts, and Vaughn! On our way home, we stopped off at friends house to add more food to our bellies. We made it home just in time to bath the boys and tuck them in bed before the town's firework display. Benjamin is deathly afraid of fireworks, so he had to be asleep before the noise started! To finish off the evening, Ryan and I watch the National Hot Dog eating contest in NY! What sane person wants to eat 66 hotdogs?

We are in the midst of VBS at our church. It is incredible the talent of people and how they can turn nothing into something. I will try and add pictures of the scenes. There has been lots of time preparing for the next 4 days, thank you Paige, Rhonda, and Kelli for your countless energy and hours.

Picture Time

Carter at the Water day at Christ Haven, photo taken by p3!
Ryan "the kid" taking is turn down the water slide.
Bejamin wearing his Ranger shirt and Astros hat. The Biz family. When they came to see Ben (3 weeks old), David gave him the Astros hat.

More Beach Pictures

All of the gang minus Rebecca who was taking the picture. These pictures were from Rebecca, Ryan and I did take our camera, but only managed to take 10 pictures. Darby and Rebecca do a MUCH better job than we do!

I am proud to say we are FEVER free! Benjamin has been running around 104 temp since Wednesday night. We cut our trip early from my parents and headed back to the doctor. We left Carter to keep them separated! I find it interesting that when a child is running 104 for over 48 hours the doctor (after checking blood and urine (a whole different story) ) says, "No medicine needed, it will just run its course." Are you kidding me? Well we did, and finally on Sunday, the fever broke! No Ryan and I always thought that when a child runs a fever, they sleep more. Well, that is not the case for us. The nurse said that when it is that high, they are just miserable and can't do anything. I believe it, we were going on about 3-5 hours of sleep each night, having a newborn I slept more! Carter came back to us on Sunday, and so far he is fever free too! Except he is cutting his bottom molars, YUCK! If your child doesn't have problems ( fever, cranking, etc.) when they are teething, please consider yourself lucky!!!

Even though Wednesday night ended bad with Benjamin throwing up all over me and running a high fever. I had a wonderful birthday. Thanks to my sweet husband for your thoughtfulness. And thanks to my 3 buddies that showed up at 8:30 with my favorite doughnuts for breakfast. You guys are the best!!!

We have a special guy up in Monett, MO that is turning 5 today. Happy Birthday Wesley, we will see you on Monday!!