Quality time with the Folks

While David's parents were visiting we got around to several of the major tourist attractions in the area. We were able to visit the National Museum of American History, which has been closed for the past 2 years and has recently reopened. My favorite exhibit was to see the original Kermit the Frog muppet. We love the muppets!
We also spent some time on the mall, driving around and seeing some of the monuments.



Gettysburg is only about a 40 minute drive from where we live in Maryland, but David and I had never visited the battlefield before. It was a fascinating trip, and gave us a much better understanding of what actual happened during that battle and the entire civil war.

Unfortunately, David had to start his bar class, so while he went to class David's parents and I went to Mount Vernon. It was a beautiful day and the grounds and museums of Mount Vernon are amazing. Later that day we picked up David and headed over to Great Falls, a beautiful national park. We had a wonderful time, and hope we'll have more family and friends out to visit!

David graduates from Law School

Well he did it! David graduated from Georgetown in May. Law School is now but a fond memory and boy am I proud! We were fortunate enough to have David's parents come out for his graduation and had a great time visiting with them and seeing some of the local tourist sites. Sadly graduating does not mean that David is actually done with school. He had to start his bar class the day after graduation. He is busier than ever right now and working really hard to get ready for the bar at the end of July.

Versaille

Versaille is the location of one of France's most well-known palaces. It takes about an hour to get there from downtowm Paris, but was well worth the visit. Of all the palaces we saw in Europe, those in France were the most grand, colorful, and impressive (notice the gold gates!). Upon the grounds of the palace there were several smaller "palaces" one of which was the private home of Marie Antoinette.



This was a really funny fountain, you can't see it very clearly, but there are people with frog faces.

Marie Antoinette's house.

Looking back at the palace across the extensive grounds.

Enjoying a tasty treat from a french bakery.

Paris

Our trip to Paris was filled with art, pastries, and beautiful and unique cathedrals. Putting this together I realized just how many cathedrals we visited, here they are.


La Madeleine- A different looking cathedral





Napoleon's tomb at the cathedral in the Hotel des Invalides



Notre Dame





La Sainte Chapelle Cathedral



The Sacre Coeur Cathedral

Vienna pictures

Our train compartment-this is where we spent two nights.













The Vienna Zoo



























Staatsoper Opera House















The Spanish Riding School


















The gloriette behind Schönbrunn Palace

Slackers!

Yes it is true. David and I have seriously neglected our blog. Actually I'll be surprised if anyone even checks this anymore, but I'm holding out hope! We just had so much to write about the idea of putting it all up on the blog was daunting! So, to make things easier I will attempt to write shorter less detailed entries.
We are still alive and well. We are back in Maryland now after our fun adventures in Europe. David is getting through his final semester of law school and I am looking for a job and crafting like mad.
So, Europe! Yes we had an amazing and wonderful time. In fact I'm ready to go back right now! We ended up going to 7 different countries, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Austria. They were all incredible experiences and if you really want to here about them in detail please ask!
Ireland was definitely my favorite, such natural beauty! Living in the Netherlands was great, we are missing our little home there and the delicious food! We were lucky enough to have David's sister Kristen and her husband Tyler come and visit us for a week. My parents and sister Nikki and her boyfriend were also able to come out for a week around Thanksgiving. It was so great to have them there. Even though it was an amazing experience, being in a foreign country with no family or friends is a little lonely. We were very happy to see so many of our family members at Christmas and had a wonderful time, even though I was horribly sick with the stomach flu! We miss everyone and hope you are all doing well!

Vienna Day 1

These next few blogs are going to be rather detailed summaries of our trips in Europe. If you get bored or don't feel like reading it in depth, feel free to skim through it.
In November we went on a three day trip to Vienna, Austria. Being poor college students we decided we could only go if we could get there cheaply. We decided to take the train, a 16 hour trip one way! Not entirely sure what we had gotten ourselves into, we headed off to the train station. We got lucky! The train was Harry Potter style, compartments with six seats and a sliding door. Luckily, the train was empty enough that we had a compartment to ourselves. It wasn't the most comfortable night ever, but it wasn't much worse than a night on a stiff sofa.
The next morning (Nov 13th) we arrived in Vienna and headed to the Art History Museum. Here they had a nice exhibit from Ancient Egypt and Rome, as well as an art gallery filled with the works of famous painters. We had some rather disgusting pizza for lunch from a street vender, but made the most of it and headed of to the Hofsburg. The Hofsburg is the Imperial Palace where the monarchy used to live before Austria became a democracy. It is a large complex with many museums and interesting attractions. They had an exhibit on medieval weaponry, which David really likes, so that was our first stop. They also had an exhibit on musical instruments from the last few centuries which we enjoyed.
That evening we went to the Staatsoper Opera House. Vienna is well known for its love of opera, and we did not want to miss out on that cultural experience. This is a very famous opera house where Mozart used to perform. We got some cheap tickets and saw Madame Butterfly. The opera house was beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the performance. Each seat had access to a small screen that provided the English translation as the opera was in Italian.
That night we stayed in a nice hotel with a yummy buffet breakfast (hurray for the off-season drop in prices!).