On October 2, 2012, at 8:53 AM, I started my newest adventure and the best one!!  I'm a GRANDMA!  My wonderful grandson's name is Ethan James. 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 we toured Vienna.  We started with a tour of  the Scheonbrunn Palace where Marie Antionette lived (and the rest of the Austrian Royalty). It was beautiful, inside and out.  We also drove through Vienna and our tour guide did a great job of explaining everything that we went past, but I was too busy trying to look at everything... I should have taken notes, huh?  One of my favorite places was St Stephens Cathedral.
Then we had a couple of hours of free time to eat lunch and shop, before returning to our hotel to rest before our "farewell dinner".
Our dinner was at another farmhouse, a little ways outside the city limits. It was a beautiful drive, but when the bus driver dropped us off at the bottom of the hill and Ans told us it was "just a short walk" I'm sure more than a few of us were not sure that we could take another step.  But we did, and it was worth the walk.  We had the whole upstairs of the farmhouse/cottage/resturant to ourselves. We had a buffet style dinner, so we could try any of the local food we wanted too.  We also had our own entertainment... two guys sang to us (one played the guitar and the other the accordian).  It was great.
We left around 9:30 PM, since most of our group had a 3:00 AM wake-up call to leave for the airport at 4:00 AM.  The second group had to leave at 7:00 AM.  The last group left at 10:00 AM.  Luckily, Evelyn and I were part of the last group.
We made it to the airport in Vienna in plenty of time, but we were a little confused because our tickets said we were leaving on an Air France flight, but Air France France told us that we were flying Austrian Air.  We both loved Austrian Air... we had more room on this plane than any other plane that I have been on.
We arrived in Paris on time, but then the confusion started again.  First we had a hard time figuring out where we where and where we were supposed to go to catch the next flight.  We finally figured it out and after a lot of walking made it to our next gate.  While this plane, from Paris to Atlanta, was a huge 777, it was a "tight" fit for a long 9 and half hour flight. I think I'm going to stay away from any more "long" flights for awhile.
We finally made it to Atlanta, and that's when things started getting real crazy.  First we only had a little over an hour to catch our connecting flight to Jax.  Before we could do that we had to wait in a LONG line to go through Customs (they didn't care how soon your next flight was leaving).  Then we had to pick up our luggage to go through another Customs line. After waiting for every piece of luggage to go through, we realized that our luggage was MISSING.  It didn't make it to Atlanta.  They told us to go to Lost Luggage at the airport in JAX, to file a report.
In the meantime, we had to go from Terminal F to Terminal A to catch our JAX flight.  I didn't think that we'd make it in time, but we did. Of course, they closed the door right after we boarded the plane.
We finally made it to JAX... exhausted (after all, we'd been awake for 22 hours).  Scott picked us up at the airport, then I drove Evelyn home.
As soon as I got home, my puppies were happy to see me!  I said a quick hello and plugged in my cell phone to charge, because I was anxious to read the text message that Todd told me he would send as soon as they finished at the doctor's office.  Within 5 minutes, it was charged up enough that I could read Todd's message.... "Still at the doctors but we are having a baby boy!!!"

Monday, May 14, 2012 was another "drive" day.  On our way from Salzburg to Vienna, we stopped in Melk, Italy.  After walking through Melk, we took a short drive to the dock to catch our boat to cruise on the Danube for approximately 2 hours.  It was absolutely beautiful, but COLD! (almost as cold as our cruise in Alaska... LOL).  We sat outside most of the time to make sure that we were able to see everything.  The Danube flows between the mountains and past some quaint villages. It was really amazing to the see the ruins of some castles on the top of the mountains. We stayed on the boat until we reached Krems, where we got back on the bus and travelled the rest of the way to the "big city" of Vienna.

Today was our tour of Salzburg, with our local guide, Marena. I will have to go back to a map to tell you all the places we went to! But the short version is, we went to all the places that the Sound of Music was filmed. Including the abbey and the church were they got married. We also took a walking tour of the old part of Salzburg. This included the house that Mozart was born in, lived in, and the church where he played the organ and composed some of his music. This is the same church that John Morh (I think that's his name), but I do know that he is the man that wrote Silent Night. Tommorrow, we are on the road again as we head to Vienna.

05/12/2012. Another day of driving... from Florence to Salzburg, Austria. Ans, our Italian guide, started off by telling us that we were going to see a drastic change in our surroundings, and he was right! The closer we got to Austria, we found ourselves going through the Pre-Alps (that's what Ans called them). Now, I've seen mountains before from Alaska and CA to Nebraska, the mountains in the eastern part of the states, but I've never seen anything like the Alps! They are truly beatiful. We stopped for lunch at the Austria version of a "truck stop/rest stop". It had a very nice resturant that is kind of a cross between a Morrisons Cafeteria, a Cracker Barrel, and a fast food resturant. We arrived in Salzburg around 3:30, in the rain. According to Ans, it rains a lot here (if it's not snowing). The difference in the tempature between Venice (where it felt like 90 degrees) and Salzburg (in the 40's), is a welcome change. We ate dinner at the resturant and finished eating around 9:30 pm, then we had no problem going to sleep.

Today was the day we finally made it to Venice! We took our bus to a dock and took a water taxi to St Mark's Square. It was amazing! I still can't believe that we walked around Venice. We also took a gondola ride. I can't wait to post the pictures. I forgot my hat, so I probably got way to much sun, but it didn't stop me. I can't believe how much walking we have done either. We are not letting anything stop us!