Mostar to plitvice lakes-day 5

More driving fools! We left Mostar and headed back to croatia. Originally we were going to spend some time in Zadar, but decided to stop in krka national park instead. We got to drive on the fancy pants new tollway, which made traveling so much quicker!!
Turns out i forgot to take pictures of the park/waterfalls with my iphone. Sad! We saw lots of prettiness, swans and their babies, ate gelato. Good day.
1. Magda loves stairs.
2. Krka national park
3. More krka!
4. Skradin, our base town for checking out krka
5. Magda chowing down more black risotto
6. Sad magda, trying to get her to sleep on the way to plitvice lakes...

Driving fools--day 4

Josh woke up early today, found us breakfast and yummy cappucinos, and found a market--and brought home a bouquet of calla lilies! So pretty! The bakeries here are sublime. Lots of filled filo pastries, and lots of savory things for this meat eating minnesotan man i know. Yum.
Magda and I headed to the market while josh packed up (i can't resist a market...), amd picked up lovely strawberries, dried figs, beans and carrots!
Then we jumped in the car and made our way first south (had to get a picture of the dubrovnik old town harbor, ok?!?) and then north. We headed to mostar, which is in the hertzegovina region of bosnia and hertzegovina, with a waterfall and medjugorje stop. Magda tolerated the driving well!! And turns out B&H is beeeeauuutiful. Must come back and stay longer, i love Mostar!
1. Breakfast on the veranda
2. Dubrovnik old town harbor
3. Magda's first international driving
4. Funny motorcyclist at the border patrol
5. Kravice slap, aka waterfall . Suuuuper cool.
6. Mostar's famous old bridge. It was rebuilt (finished 2002, maybe?) since the city was so damaged with the fighting.
7. Street life
8. View of one of the mosques on the Neretva River
9. Damaged buildings from past fighting

Dubrovnik--day 2

Beautiful, warm days. Mustn't think of the snow/mush we'll be going back to. Maybe it'll be gone by then! Today we went on an excursion. Don't you love the word excursion?
Anyway, we jumped on a boat to visit three of the Elafiti (or Elaphiti) islands- Kolocep, Sipan and Lopud. The island are northwest of Dubrovnik in the lovely Adriatic sea. Most are uninhabited, I think our guide said the total population is less than 1000.
1 & 2. On our way-magda trying on her sunglasses. That lasted less than a minute.
3. Pretty coast!
4. Dubrovnik-the old town.
5. Flowers. They have such gorgeous gardens and flowers here!
6. Pretty islands!!!
7. Josh is very multitalented-getting magda's afternoon nap while drinking his beer. That ergo is coming in handy!!
8 & 9. More prettiness
10. Family photo time!

Old Town--day 3

Wandered around Old Town today! Dubrovnik was known as the 'Pearl of the Adriatic.' In the Middle Ages, (together with Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Venice and other Italian cities), it became the only eastern Adriatic city-state to rival Venice. In 1991, after the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was besieged by Serb-Montenegrin forces for seven months. The city had received significant shelling damage, but has repaired most of it.
Today we walked the walls, ate gelato and pizza, rode on buses. Josh picked up the rental car. Lots of fun!
I was holding magda both times when we took the bus today, and both times nice people gave me their seats. Yay for nice people! Magda is also a great way to make friends, turns out. They love babies here.
1. Breakfast time
2. One of the entrances to Old Town
3-7. More pretty Old Town
8. Family picture!!
9-10. Fine dining with Magda.
11-12. Bath time! I dig that hairdo.

Croatia!

Four flights and 21 hrs later, we're in dubrovnik! Magda was a trooper-she didn't sleep too much on the planes, and had a few crying spells, but who could blame her? :) she tolerated the ascents and descents well, which is what i was worried about most!
I haven't figured out how to get text by the pictures on my phone, so here's the rundown (i hope in order):
1. Magda on a plane!
2. See 1!
3. View out our vila (it's an apartment, really, but sounds cooler, no?)
4. The sherpani gets a lot of stares- unless it's just magda.
5. I love old stonework
6. Gorgeous water on the Walk down the promenade

Happy birthday, baby girl!!

December?

Already? How did this happen? Our girl is super fun, getting very grown up, and i swear she is picking up new things daily! Turns out she's way too mobile for any magda scenes, but it was fun while it lasted!