Croatia

After Slovenia, we headed to Croatia, which turned out to be one of our favorite places we visited.  Our first stop was Krka National Park, where we took a boat ride to an area with lots of waterfalls.  We got to swim there, but it was hard to maneuver through the rocks with the kids.  Some of the rocks were slippery and a little sharp.  There were also deeper pockets of water.  I had one scary moment when I was trying to help Weston navigate through the water.  I thought I might be able to swim with him on my back, but he just ended up pushing me under.  I was having trouble keeping him and me afloat!  I started to panic there for a bit, but we made it.  Aside from that, the kids enjoyed playing in the water.   

We hiked around after swimming - such a pretty place!

The next day was Sunday, so we went to church in Zadar.  There are only 6 congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Croatia, so we had to make sure we were near one of them on Sunday.  We were headed to Dubrovnik, but there are no congregations south of Zadar, so we stayed in Zadar on Saturday night. The ward had about 50 people in it.  We were lucky to have English translation for most of it.  The missionaries assigned there had a lot of responsibilities - assisting the branch president in translating during conducting, helping with the sacrament, playing the piano, teaching Sunday school, primary, and Elders Quorum.  A sister missionary that had been on her mission for just 4 days got to give one of the talks in sacrament meeting.  The sister missionaries also got to teach primary during the 3rd hour, which consisted of 4 of our kids and 1 local boy.  There were 7 ladies in Relief Society, but 3 of us were visitors.  (There wasn't translation for that 3rd hour, so I didn't understand any of that hour.) 

I think it was a good experience for the kids to see what it could be like for their missions.  We told them they better start preparing because they could get called to serve in a small branch in Croatia!  The building was also a different experience, because it was part of another building.  We took a picture by the small silver sign outside and took a picture of the building.  

 

We drove down to Dubrovnik after church and walked along the walls of the city.  The views were great, but it was really hot.  I was soaked with sweat by the time we got done walking around.  

On Monday, we did a pirate ship day tour.  We sailed to 3 different islands, enjoyed some swimming, ice cream, and lunch on the boat.  It was another hot day, so the water felt great!  If we had a do-over, we would just figure out how to get to the nice sandy beach and stay put for a while.  We all loved the beach, and I felt like that was the first time I had really relaxed in a while.  (With our move and all of the stresses of travel, I hadn't actually sat down much.  So to kick up my feet or float around in the water was great!)  Unfortunately we didn't have much time at the beach, because we were on a time constraint with the pirate ship tour. 

We had a little bit of entertainment on the boat:

After Dubrovnik, we headed north towards Plitvice Lakes National Park - this was one of my favorite places.  The clear aqua water was beautiful, and I loved the hike, with wooden planks that weaved along by the water.  We walked about 5 miles that day - and Savannah walked the whole way (she is a great little hiker.) 

The owners of the place we stayed near Plitvice had kitty cats - Savannah really loved holding the kitten.  We couldn't stay and hold the cats though, because we had a long drive back to Prague (8-9 hours).  That was the last day of our vacation.  

We got a kick out of the German signs, particularly the ones that said "Gute Fahrt!"  The boys especially thought that was hilarious.  

We had an early flight out of Prague to Edinburgh (woke up at 5:45am) - I guess it wasn't as early as later flights we took... but we got used to flying those early cheaper flights during our travels.  From Edinburgh, we took a tram to the train station.  We had a few transfers on the train until we got to Durham.  From the train station in Durham, we walked a mile to pick up our rental car.  As soon as we got a car, we drove to the rental agency to sign our agreement and pick up keys to our place.  

Lots of new travel experiences for the kids on this vacation - planes, boats, buses, trams, and trains.  And a lot of time in the car too!  Exhausting...