Rome - 1st Intallement

In April, Michael and I went on a special vacation, without the boys, to Rome, Italy. It was to celebrate our birthdays, 10 year wedding anniversary... you name it. We had a lot of fun, in spite of the few little hiccups we had along the way. Including the Iceland Volcano.

In several places around the city we found these beautiful purple flowers. Sometimes in arbors or trellises, other times the vine was just growing up the side of the building.

The oculus of the Pantheon. Unfortunately most of the portico at the front of the building was covered up with scaffolding.

Chiesa Di Sant'ivo Alla Sapienza - part of the original University of Rome. Built over a long period of time, the last architect was Borromini.

View the Tiber river from in front of Castel Sant'Angelo.

View back towards the bridge, Ponte Sant'Angelo.
I still have a lot of pictures to sort through, so I hope to post some more again soon.

Easter

Before Easter Sunday, we did some practice egg hunting at Grandma's house. Christopher, Stephen and Cora had a lot of fun running around trying to find all of the eggs; even though they were empty!

Brothers...Aren't they sweet? (You should have seen the next shot when they were yelling at each other.)

For Easter Sunday; we headed up to Pacopson Pennsylvania to go egg hunting with my sister Christine and her two girls. We are invited by Christine's in-laws, the Haldemans, to join in the fun. The boys had the system down, and were all over finding as many eggs as they could. And this time they had all kinds of loot; candy and coins! Fun was had by all.

Disney Recap

Our trip to Disney back in December was probably our best ever family vacation. (So far of course!) The boys had a blast, and so did Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, and Pop-pop. I won't try to go back and recap everything, but here are some pictures with some of our favorite characters.

We met Donald Duck when we were at Animal Kingdom. Unfortunately Stephen was asleep by then.

We met Jiminy Cricket too!

And of course, no trip would be complete with out meeting Lightning McQueen at Mater.

When we visited Mickey's house in Toontown, I saw that they had the kitchen closed for remodeling. I'm not sure who his architect was; but I think they need to go back to the drawing board!

We met Donald again during Christopher's Birthday breakfast. Both Chris and Stephen said that Donald was their favorite.

This shot is from Canada in the World Showcase.

And this is a few over the lake that was outside our hotel near Epcot. We had a great time, and hopefully we will get to go back again, maybe for Stephen's 5th birthday!