A Little R&R

So the US government pays for their Embassy and military etc to have 1 R&R trip after each year they serve. This was our first trip. The amount you can spend is based off the cost of a round-trip ticket from post to a certain location randomly determined as far as I can tell. Ours was to London. So we can spend up to that much money on our travel(plane/train). We cost-constructed a ticket to Croatia, a train to Germany, then flights to the US for our trip this year. It was a lot of planning on Matt's part and the amazing Travel guy at the Embassy basically knows how to work miracles. 

Our flight left at 12:35am. Oman is pretty notorious for middle of the night flights. This one was better than the 2am to Paris.

Don't be fooled, these clowns were cracking themselves up, they weren't watching anything. I love them fresh and excited before all the challenges of travel wear us all down.

I can't remember why he was annoyed. Apparently I found it amusing. 

I had all the cards. I am the one who spent the night getting this girl to stay asleep in her 18x18" space with a handrest that only came up half-way. While I could barely move, she never seemed comfortable. It was a long night. She fell asleep right after we left(she was having allergies so I figured why not give her Benadryl) apparently she's really sensitive to it and she even stayed asleep for our Damaam, Saudia Arabia stop and almost 7 hrs after.

Sennia was a brave soul. She dozed on and off but really couldn't get comfortable.

Glad he could sleep. He claimed he felt great!

Waiting to get our rental van. Hot, tired, and hungry. I need to add a photo of our van. Definitely reminds us of Fezzik. AMazing to see all those happy faces after that night. 

One of our first views of the ocean. We were stunned. Little did we know, the entire coastline of Croatia is stunning. I will say, something about the charm of the south is so attractive.

We really didn't have the energy to search around much and ended up with a sub-par first meal. Eli enjoyed his squid ink risotto everyone loved the deep fried cheese. The rest was negligible. 

This was the first of much driving we did. We were soon to find out one big difficulty in Croatia is parking. 

Although everyone was exhausted, we decided to ride the funicular before checking into our hotel. Brigham was the one who really wanted to do this. We drove to old town Dubrovnik and drove, and drove and drove. We ended up going through this archway 3 times by car and 2xs on foot that day. After figuring out parking was ultimately impossible, we went to our apartment. 

The view from our room in the apartment was stunning. Every house in Dubrovnik was charming and perfectly manicured. They often have arbors with grapes or kiwi plants growing on them.

The walk to the bus stop was all about stairs. We soon learned everything in Croatia was all about stairs. The bus system was easy to use though.

There were so many beautiful fruitful plants. We saw pomegranates, tomatoes, loads of citrus of every kind, fruit we couldn't recognize and much more.

Everyone had a hard time wanting to go do anything I offered to stay with Elise. Then Matt threw out a carrot-ice cream and she was suddenly all in. The view from the funicular was unbelievable. Honestly, it was hard to really take it seriously, it was that incredible.

It reminded us of the game Carcassonne. Walls, monasteries, red tile roofs.

We are always drawn off the well-worn paths. This bit of climbing around was also incredible.

Always someone who blinks with Stechers and their sensitive eyes.

It's very different having a real for-real man child. He's a good person. I hope our time together blesses his life. I am learning so much.

For Elise, I'm pretty sure the delicious Croatian ice cream is going to be the highlight. After living in Oman who has pretty lousy ice cream, we're making up for it. This Hazelnut ice cream was so roasty and memorable.

Learning the value of potable fountains. They had several in Dubrovnik.

This is our apartment. It was incredibly charming and simple and clean.

When we came back up the stairs the moon was rising. Matt stopped in the grocery store to buy breakfast ingredients and I go the girls started toward bed. I want to be right behind them but this view and finally having some time to myself was intoxicating.

There was music coming up from from the beach. We slept sooo well.