It's a ______?

G I R L !!

Here are some pictures of the ultrasound pictures.

Sweet baby face. I think maybe she's going to look more like Ezra.

Very definitely a girl!

Picture of her arm and profile.












Little baby foot.


Ezra and Jonas holding pictures of their little sister.





















Baby #3 at 5 weeks. The day we found out I was expecting.










Baby # 3 at 22 weeks.

Look for a comparison picture next week!


I thought the boys looked handsome in their vests.





Silly Jonas, gnawing on some corn. Yes, he's wearing a spaghetti noodle in his hair.











I went to a Book Club dinner and ornament exhange at a really nice restaurant way out in the woods. Rachel and I rode together and as it turned out, we had a lovely dinner for two. Not sure where the other girls were, but a moment to ourselves, sans kiddos, is never wasted. I'm sure no one cares about seeing pictures of this, but I thought we both looked particularly pretty so I wanted to share. :)

Thanksgiving and snow

Finally, after all those cruise blogs, I am back to the normal routine of posting random pictures and videos. :) The first pictures are from Thanksgiving dinner (a few days early) with our LifeGroup. They are our closest friends here in Germany and we love them dearly. This is just a few of our kids. Oddly enough, 4 of the 5 families are represented by 1 of their 2 children.


This is a picture of our uneventful dinner on Thanksgiving day. We had all our favorites and it was yummy!










Here is Ezra helping to put the angel on top of the tree.


We had our first few inches of snow this past week. The boys had a lot of fun playing in it.



Silly smiles.











A baby update. We have an appointment to find out the gender on Dec 23rd.


This is a funny video of Mike and the boys. Ezra was saying "tunnel".



Big boy Jonas eating oatmeal with a spoon.

Crete

As you have probaby seen from the pictures, we did not see many "pretty" parts of Greece. Our cruise didn't stop at some of the more scenic places like Santorini or Mykonos. Obviously I knew that when we booked, but I guess I didn't think it would make that much of a difference. It did! I think we probably missed an opportunity to "go scenic" in Corfu. In the other places, I would not have wanted to give up seeing the historical sights to see something more scenic. So, Crete was our last opportunity to see pretty Greece, and I was not going to let it slip by.

I'm standing funny in this pic because I didn't want the waves to get me while I was posing for the picture and not watching. They DID get Mike. Ha!











In a Greece book we had borrowed, I found a beach that I wanted to take a taxi to. We asked the taxi driver to take us to Vai, and he said it was 3 hours away. Boo! So I told him that I didn't care where we went, I just wanted to see something pretty. He took us out of the city to a place called Aghia-Pelagia. It was a very small beach, but I guess it mostly satisfied my need to put my feet in the water at a beach in Greece. We snapped a few pictures, and got back in the taxi.
He asked us if we wanted to see citrus groves or olive grove. I said citrus, so he took us to a town called Fodele. It happened to be the birth place of El Greco-the famous painter. Again, we took a few pics, got in the cab, and went back to town.

Our first stop in town was the tomb of Zorba the Greek. I don't much about who that is, but apparently he's big stuff to the Greeks, and people of Crete especially. He and his wife are buried here. I think legend says that Zeus was born on the island of Crete. The taxi driver said his profile could be seen in the mountain. Next, we went to an old church. The smaller one, the driver said was 700 years old. The bigger was was built to accomodate the increasing size of the city.
Then we went to the market/shopping area and picked up a few goodies. We got some olive oil. At every stop, the people claimed to have the best olive oil, but the driver said Cretan (?) olive oil won second place in big olive oil competition, so that sounded impressive. This was Lion square where we enjoye some ice cream. I am forever sampling ice cream and coffee nearly every where we go. :)











This was a meat market we passed. Yuck.

Had to get a video of the beach.



I took this video over our balcony. Pretty cool huh?



And that is officially the end of our cruise pictures. Whew! Saturday we spent the day with friends in Aviano and then flew home. Mike's car died on the way home Saturday night and we had to call the Staffords (friends who kept the boys) to drive an hour out into the woods at 1 am to come and rescue us. The boys were a bit groggy when we picked them up, but on the way home, every time I would turn around to savor their precious faces, Jonas would give me a big grin from behind his pacifier.

Turkey:Ephesus, Magnesia, Miletus, Didyma,

In Turkey, we visited 4 historic sites and a carpet weaving demonstration in the port of Kusadasi. It was our longest day--8 1/2 hours. We got to sit on the bus and ride to the next location, so there was a rest in between. Thank goodness!

We saw this sign on a booth in Ephesus. Not sure if they were being brutally honest, or if something was lost in translation...

One of the most interesting things about Ephesus is to keep in mind it was a port that sat directly on the sea. Now, the sea is like 3 miles away.
I can't remember what the tour guide said these were. It was right next to the bath house.

This was a smaller arena used more for the arts. It was located across from the Agora.

Me in the arena.

The Library.












The Ancient Road. Pretty cool to be where John, Mary and other early Christians tread.

Our tour guide and a well, I think.











Thought this was pretty.

A Maltese cross. After the "fish" was found out, early christians began using this sign to identify one another. In a Maltese Cross, each letter of the word "ichthus" (fish) can be seen.











Trajan Fountain. (Reconstructed on a reduced scale)

The market place. The booths are different "stores".










The Temple of Hadrian. The pictures don't do the the ornamentation on these buildings justice. Even as ruins they are breathtaking.

Mike in the Latriana; public toilets. There was a trough of running water about 3 feet or more below the holes (not anymore though).















The Library. It was built as a mausoleum/memorial/library. Amazing isn't it? Another shot where you may be able to see some of the detailing.















The entrance to the giant outdoor market.

Mike and I in the giant arena. And another view from farther away.












Some actors did a short recreation of a show in the arena--complete with dancers, a juggler, and gladitorial games. Obviously, some of the more grusesome sports were left out--such as christians being fed to the lions.



Some stationary actors. A leather worker, basket weaver, and sculpter.

Then we drove just 5 or 10 min down the road to Magnesia. It is a very recently discovered site that is still being excavated.











This was the inside of a temple. Mike and I in the doorway of the temple.

Mike and I in another random doorway.










The next stop was Miletus. There was a super huge, incredibly preserved arena there.
















Another part of Miletus.


We stopped for lunch, (which was interesting)then went on to our last site: The Temple of Apollo.
This temple served mostly as an oracle, so worshipers when summoned, would come stand where the picture was taken and inquire of the priests. The priests would emerge through these doorways and with the sun behind them (there was no roof), and impressed worshipers with their "holy" aura.













This is inside the holy chamber. There was a well (upper left corner of the pic) said to give holy water which the priests would consume to recieve diving insight. Also, there was deep hole in the ground--said to be a shaft directly to the underworld (center of pic behind the rocks). It's filled in now of course.

Tunnel from the holy chamber out to the common area.












Fallen column. The temple had the tallest columns in Greece.











Our carpet weaving demonstration and the carpet we bought. It's small, but silk, high quality and not cheap! I'm glad we got it though. It's really the only valuable souvenir we purchased.
















Mike and our towel bunny. A picture from our other formal night.