A Three Week Holiday and Three Great Trips

On Christmas morning our kids opened up three surprise gifts...well, two of them were surprises.  Connor had asked everyone to send money for his Christmas gifts so he could go on a trip with his soccer team.  We decided that we wanted to give Brooke and Kyle each an "experience gift" rather than a "thing gift" also.  Brooke got to go to Macedonia to visit with some great friends for a week and Kyle got to have some special Daddy time on an overnight "you are the boss of what we do" trip to Belgrade.

I think we'll go with the ladies first idea and share a little about Brooke's trip:

Spencer, Janae and Kate came to visit with us for a few days between Christmas and New Year's.  Brooke was able to ride back to their town of Prilep, Macedonia with them for a fun filled week.

Here are the highlights:

Brooke put some of her "mad cupcake decorating skills" to use when she and Janae made cupcakes for friends in Prilep.  Chocolate with mint frosting....yummy!

They had a movie night when she enjoyed some pop corn and a very special Dr. Pepper.  I think that can has been from London to Bulgaria and on to Macedonia...an invaluable treasure that her generous hosts shared with her.

Janae taught her to make hairbows.  She loved all the creative fun she had on her special trip.

Brooke was able to do some shopping, play with her favorite two year girl friend and have some extra special girl time.  She started her own blog and is looking for followers...

http://briineurope.blogspot.com/

She spent some time with another dear family who brought her home to us, safe and sound, 8 days later.

Kyle got to go on an overnight trip to Belgrade, our capital city, where he got to choose what he and his daddy did for two days.  He was in heaven...he's very seldom the only kid.

Even though this is blurry I had to include it.
The guys slept on air mattresses at our company's office and made one of the conference rooms into an indoor soccer field.  This was (strangely enough) one of Kyle's favorite parts of the whole trip.  An empty room, a soccer ball, and his daddy's full attention.  What a blast!

They went to the military museum at the fortress in Belgrade.  Kyle LOVES the fortress but this was the first time he'd been able visit the museum.  Happiness is...a boy and his gun.

Kyle got to pick what they ate for every meal too...
They ate 5 meals in Belgrade.  Kyle ate pizza once and McDonald's FOUR times!!!  I'm sure this will never happen again.

They went down on a Thursday morning and came back Friday night.  They got to eat a lot, play some games, go to a movie in a real movie theater, go bowling and meet the cutest little strawberry blonde bundle of joy that Belgrade has ever seen.  (Our new friend Wilson had just come home from the hospital.  I'll always be jealous that Kyle got to meet him before I did.)

And finally, Connor's "super great awesome once in a lifetime trip"...

He was able to go with his soccer team on a whirlwind 10 day 6 country trip to play ball, sight see and watch some professional games.  The went through Croatia, Slovenia, France, Italy, Monaco, and Spain.  He spoke a lot of Serbian, got to see some really cool stuff, and make memories that will last a lifetime.

Here is a picture of his teammates walking around the stadium in Fiorentina, Italy on their way to watch an Italian league professional game.

This is a picture of the Mediterranean coast taken in Lloret de Mar, Spain.  It is a city near Barcelona where they stayed.   

Here is C man in front of one of the sites they visted while in Barcelona...a church that has been under construction for over 100 years.  (and some of us thought our churches had long building programs).

We are all back in town now and back in school.  The kids got a three week break and Trey and I had two weeks off from language study.  We loved our "odmor" (rest) and are are happy to all be under one roof again and getting back to "real life".
We hope you all had a happy new year.  Blessing to you all.