Happy Birthday Darin!

You came into our lives when you stole the heart of our baby girl! Little did we imagine that when she went back to His Hill Bible College for her second year that she would end up getting married and living in Texas.

When you came up to meet the rest of the family it seemed as if the frame of our picture was being completed as you asked us for our blessing in making Jody your wife.

You had so much fun together and we could see that you were in love with one another.

Your wedding was an interesting mix of a Canadian wedding with a bit of southern flavor thrown in. It was great to meet your family and see this family that Jody was marrying into.

You love horses and you have passed that same love on to your little girl......

Caily is definitely Daddy's girl and she worships the ground you walk on! It's so fun to watch what a great Daddy you are to both your girls.

Darin we love to see how you love Jody and your girls.

We love spending time with the four of you and just wish that Texas wasn't so far away from BC.

You have been in our thoughts all day today and we hope you are having a wonderful Birthday today on your 'golden' birthday! 31 years old on July 31st!

Santorini - Where we left a bit of our hearts

We saw so much on this trip, including 6 Greek ports, but we both fell in love with Santorini. It was just so picturesque.

Of course the fact that we had another absolutely gorgeous day definitely helped too!

Since good friends were going to be there in July we paid extra special attention to the things we wanted to tell them about the Island.....just how beautiful everything was!

Beautiful buildings, hundreds of churches...........

turquoise waters.......

....houses built right into the volcanic rock ......

......this is what we will remember!

Flowers of the Mediterranean

As I have been going through all of our pictures of the cruise I invariably stop when I get to a flower shot and tell Dave that this is one of my favorite pictures. Because of that I decided to dedicate one blog post to my 'favorite flower pictures' of the trip.

 Right from the geraniums beside us when we ate our lunch on the first day in Venice.....

...to the incredible window boxes outside of homes and restaurants everywhere along the canals of Venice.

....to the bouganvalia in Corfu and throughout Greece for that matter.....

.......climbing, giving shade, adding color to white buildings......

....to the Yucca plants in bloom in Mykonos.....

.....beautiful plants growing wild in Ephesus....

....and sunflowers that made us think of an Alberta Farm girl who loves them...

......hibiscus were plentiful throughout the Greek Islands but I never tired of taking just one more picture of them....

....even the common Geranium wasn't so common in Santorini and they grew into tall flowers in some places...

.......so beautiful as you can see....

.......I just had to share them with you! Don't you agree?

Rhodes - A delightful surprise!

From Kusadasi we sailed to Rhodes, the most easterly island of the Aegean Sea. The most glorious episode in its history began in 1309 when the Knights of St John took control. The Knights were zealous about the rebuilding of Rhodes Town and the fortifications they built are still standing.

The Old Town is now a World Heritage Site and is surrounded by the Medieval walls.

This gate, the Marine Gate, with twin towers, is the main route into the Old Town from the Commercial harbour.

As we walked into Old Town it felt like we were being transported back in time. The city is built right into the old walls and everywhere you look there are reminders of bygone times.

We quickly found out that this was a great place to get some more of our shopping done....leather belts for the men in the family, jewelry, and some fun clothes for our grands.

Because of the history of the Knights, there were suits or armor everywhere! Lifesize and down....

Who knew there were so many different kinds?

I had a fascination with Clock Towers and took pictures of them in every port.

The Knights medieval citadel, dominated by the towers of the Palace of the Grand Masters, forms the centre of the Old Town.

The canons were a great place to sit down.

I had been looking forward to actually getting to a beach in Rhodes and being able to swim in the Sea. We hired  Costas, a Greek taxi driver who spoke excellent English to take us to a beach.

It was so fun to actually be at the beach(we rented an umbrella and lounge chair for Dave because it was really hot and the sand was 'burning'......). Dave documented the fact that I really did get in the water and swam...twice for about 40 minutes each time. I hated to have to get out.(that's me waving)

Costas promised to be back to pick us up in a couple of hours and even had ice cold bottles of water waiting for each of us in the taxi.

Too soon it was time to walk back to the ship.

As we sailed away we agreed that we would put Rhodes on the list of places we would like to come back to someday!

We had barely been able to start to see some of the sights of Old Town and this Island.

But we would remember the mystic of the Medieval citadel, the walls, the palace, the gates, even the moat around the town.