Esztergom, Hungary

Last Sunday we took advantage of our rented car and visited Esztergom, famous for its beautiful basilica.

We hiked the stairs to the top of the dome. Beautiful view of the Danube and Slovakia in the background

Rare photo of me

massive

Goulash Festival

The USA has chili cook-offs and Hungary has Goulash Festivals, all is right with the world.

Last weekend we rented a car and headed to Szolnok for their annual Goulash Festival

Scarlett enjoyed all the carni rides

Lila being cute while waiting patiently for her sister to ride ALL the rides

I wish this picture did this slide justice. It was SO much steeper in real life. The best/worst part about Hungary is they have no rules/limitations. Jared asked the worker if Scarlett was too young to go down the slide. He said, "Probably, but she can go if she wants."

My little Scarlett has no fear (she gets it from her daddy). The big kids were climbing all over and around her, but she kept on doing her thing. She climbed and went down the slide three times and probably would have gone more but a big kid nailed her at full speed as she was coming down.

Seriously, it was steep

After a long day, reading to baby sis before nigh night time

Norway

Norway was absolutely beautiful. It's a perfect place for nature lovers. Although it rained the WHOLE trip, we saw some amazing scenery and had a great time visiting with Kathy and Dave.

Bergen, Fisherman's Market

On our ride up the funicular to the look out

cold, rainy and windy at the look out

our little viking

We took an over night ferry (on very stormy waters) to Alesund to go to the food festival (found on joobili.com), but when we got there it was pouring rain and the food festival had ended the day before so instead of sticking around to do nothing, since everything was closed on Sundays we made our way to our next destination. Hellesylt.

We stayed in a cabin a little outside of town. There were lots of puddles for Scarlett to jump in

Our cabin with the awesome grass roofs and waterfalls surrounding us in every direction

The next day we took a ferry ride through Geirangerfjord. I wish these pictures would do it justice. There are waterfalls everywhere!!

Once in Geiranger we took a hike up to an old converted barn on the mountain for lunch. We are all drentched

View from outside our room. Hellesylt

The next day was a travel day with a series of buses and ferries so that we could get to Sogndal which was next to Haflso to visit the Hillestad family farm. Dave's Grandmother was born here

Hafslo

On to Flam where we saw the sun for the first time. We took another ferry through the narrow fjord

and then the famous flam railway on the way back to Bergen

along the railway

Back in Bergen. Jared made a quick trip to London and while he was gone we visited the aquirium

and did a little more shopping. this is as close as scarlett would get to the troll. Trolls are everywhere! I guess they are the link between human beings and human nature, weird.

On our way home we had a night stop over in Oslo so we went into the city to check things out. Scarlett did great the whole trip until this moment when she decided she was done. Time to go home

hehe. Oslo airport

Exhausted family

We had a great time but we are happy to be home. Thanks Kathy and Dave we would not have been able to do the trip without you. Did I mention how expensive Norway is? Be warned...

Catching Up

Here are some random pictures from the last couple weeks

taking a nap at Lake Balaton

Lila started rolling over right around 3 months, she now sleeps on her tummy

bath time

Jared's friend Zach Andrews and his parents came for a little visit. Jared and Zach had been talking about playing ping pong in the park on the communist inspired tables for weeks, they finally lived up to all the talk (and there was a lot of talk)

SAS

jumpy jumpy

Scarlett "helping" me pack for Norway. She emptied the entire contents of her drawer into the suitcase