Donation Day

Tracy: They barely made the cut off to donate, but they did it. A year and a half of growth. (Thank the Lord, because mom was done with long hair). Jamie: This all started with a St. Baldrick Foundation event at their school our first year here in Colorado: story.

Me llama es a Decoration

Tracy found it at Target the other day. What has gotten into her?! Olaf and Spider Man wanted you to know they approve. Oh, and watch out, Spider Man is flinging some silk right atchya.

Strike up the Band

Matteo had his first band concert tonight! Short and sweet at 20 minutes long, but they were sharp.

Happy Birthday, Matteo!

We've got birthday breakfast down pat! Lexi and Matt were the only two to really try the Star Wars cereal. They said it wasn't bad. The rest of the gang stuck with old favorites like Lucky Charms and Trix.

At Vaqueros a few days later.

Two donuts!

Happy Birthday, dear Matteooooooooo!

"It's all about youuuuuuuuuuu."

Meanwhile, in the back yard...

What the Dickens?!

Look what Tracy and Fina did while Nana and Papa were out. All along the top of the kitchen cupboards. Fantabulous!

Halloween

Speaks for itself...

Northern Mediterranean and Champagne Trip

Here's an index to the port-by-port posts of Jamie and Lynn's European adventure this Fall. On October 8th, Nana and Papa hopped on a plane headed for Barcelona, Spain to start a northern Mediterranean cruise on Oceania Cruises (M/S Sirena) followed by a week in the Champagne region of France.

The cruise was the brain child of some Kansas City folks including my sister Vickie and our friends the Hess family. We ended up being a party of 16: three Hess brothers and their wives, Fosters, Siscos, Underwoods, Durkoses, and Schraders.

Each port listing below is a clickable link to its respective blog post. Each of the posts starts with some narrative about what we did/saw at that port, including links to more information about some of the highlights. The narrative is followed by a few representative photos. Lastly, each post will have a sentence something like "All the day's photos are here" where the word "here" is a link to the gallery of all photos for that port.

One other general comment about restaurants and cafes. You won't find much coverage about that in these blog posts. But, they were an important element of the trip. Seek out interesting little spots as best you can for meals, snacks, drinks, whatever, particularly if there's outdoor seating for people watching. Select local stuff to try. We enjoyed them all in every location.

Enjoy!

Barcelona, Spain
Provence, France
Cannes, France
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Florence and Pisa, Italy
Rome, Italy
Naples and Pompeii, Italy
Sicily, Italy
Corfu, Greece
Kotor, Montenegro
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Venice, Italy
Champagne region of France

A note about photos... For the last couple of decades, I'm usually seen on outings with a nice DSLR camera and a very handy wide/zoom lens. As cell phone camera technology has gotten pretty good, I decided to leave all the gear at home and use only my cell phone (Galaxy S9). While I missed the zoom a few times, I was quite pleased with the results. If you're interested in doing the same, click here for a good starter article.

The whole group at the Tuscan Steakhouse for dinner (on M/S Sirena).

M/S Sirena docked at Dubrovnik, Croatia.