Bulgaria Part 1

In May Dad, Lauren, Dan and I all went on a choir tour to Bulgaria and Turkey. After a long plane ride, we were excited to finally arrive at the Sofia airport.

 

We got to our hotel, and even though we were looking pretty special we decided to check out the neighborhood. There was a park across the street from our hotel with a strange monument - we weren't sure if it was supposed to look like that or if it was just never completed. 

The next morning, after a rehearsal, we set off to explore the city. Our first stop was to purchase gelato, obviously.

Lauren was pretty excited to find Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle car to ride. 

I tried to push Dan into the pretty fountain we found. 

I loved all the old tombstones around one of the museums in the city. 

I really felt like I was back in Russia for most of trip. I loved that I could figure out a lot of the signs and read their alphabet! 

I also loved this old church in the middle of their government complex. 

By the statue of Saint Sofia in the middle of town. 

With the invisible man street performer. 

I had read about a mineral spring that people would come from all over to drink from. It was kind-of a let down once we found it, the bath house was closed and it was just this little drinking fountain, but I still had a nice drink of warm water, yuck!

 

I never realized how old Sofia is. They are very careful to preserve the ruins when they find them. I love this subway station which was built around the ruins they found while they were excavating. 

We stopped at a little street cafe for lunch. Lauren, Dan, and JP were pretty thirsty, so when the waiter asked if they wanted large or small bottles of water they said large and I said small. They ended up with HUGE bottles, and I ended up a normal bottle - the waiter thought we were crazy!

We really wanted to try authentic Bulgarian food. The minute we saw the words "in the form of a ship" we were sold. So, we ordered the meat boat to share. 

 

It really was a meat boat! I think this was one of the best meals we had on the trip!

We did pretty good going through the entire boat!

 

We jumped on the subway and headed back to our hotel to get ready for our concert that evening. 

The poster advertising our concert, which was a live broadcast on Bulgarian national radio. 

After our concert we walked back to hotel while being serenaded by Bon Jovi. That concert was right next to the radio station. It was a little surreal hearing "living on a prayer" while wandering the streets of Bulgaria!

Seattle Trip

After seven long years, I FINALLY made it back up to Seattle to visit Morgan and her family. The last time I was there it was just Maggie, so I had two new kids to meet! 

Morgan and the kids picked me up from the airport and we went over to the aquarium. 

Troy wasn't too sure about me at first, but when we got back to the house I got out the presents I brought for the kids and he warmed up a little after that. 

All of the kids were pretty excited about their presents. 

I introduced them to video star - where you create a music video of yourself lip sincing to songs on your ipad. The rest of the weekend Boyd would randomly start singing "It's raining men" which Jeremy just loved! Haha 

Troy was going through a "oh" phase, he wander around the house all weekend saying oh and making this surprised look. I spent all weekend trying to get a picture of it, and finally, on my last morning - I got it!

When I got home, I discovered that Boyd discovered the photo booth app on my ipad, I had about 100 pictures of him making crazy faces!

I'm so grateful for Morgan's friendship, and that she is so willing to share her fun family with me!