Croatia Aug 1 -8, 2012

What a treat for Troy and I! 2 vacations in about 3 weeks!  We returned from Italy on a Thursday and the next Wednesday we were off to Croatia!  The start to the Netherlands summer was not summer at all, but more like a Portland late fall/spring.  Rain, rain, wind, and cool temperatures even into July!  We decided we needed to go south for a family trip to soak up some sunshine.  We also have met a family who have become great friends and they have kids similar ages (same family who also watched our kids while we went to Italy), so we all went to Croatia together.  We stayed at a hotel/resort outside of Zadar.  There are no flights out of Eindhoven to Croatia, so we flew out of another Ryan Airport in Wheeze, Germany.  We kept teasing Ryan that this was his airline and he would have to be the pilot.  The flight into Zadar was beautiful.  Mountains, crystal blue water, and desert like.  The landscape actually reminded me quite a bit of Bend, Oregon.

The week was lots of fun, hot (85-95 F all week), and relaxing for us all.  Everything we were looking for.  The hotel was a family hotel, so there were lots of activities for the kids and really geared for the kids.  They had 2 big pools, a baby pool, indoor pool, and a water slide.  Plus, the hotel was on the beach, so we also played in the ocean a bit.  The coast of Croatia is actually very rocky and small cliffs, so it's not great for children, but some of the hotels have made a sandy beach, which ours did.  If you went off of this sandy beach, though, it was very rocky very quickly.  We did see some little fish close to the shore.  The kids, especially Ryan and Kalean, had a blast swimming.  They were probably in the pool for about 5-6 hours a day.  Abby is just a busy little girl.  Troy and I would take turns, but definitely not a whole lot of lounging on the beach chairs when you have an almost 2 year old running around!  She wants to do everything Ryan is doing, so she'd play in the baby pool for awhile, but then would be looking for Ryan.  It is really cute how much she adores him.  This was Abby's first time in the ocean!
The hotel provided all the meals, so we pretty much stayed at the hotel for most of our stay.  We did go into the city of Zadar one afternoon for some sight-seeing and dinner.  It is a fairly small town, but we saw some ruins and the St. Donat church, the ocean of course, and some yummy gelato next to the St. Donat church.  At the end of the boardwalk is this sea organ, where as the waves crash into the rocks it makes music that sounds like an organ.  It was very peaceful to listen to.  Our other excursion was to the Krka waterfalls in a national park.  Beautiful waterfalls, but we were not warned about the mass amount of tourists that we would find there! You have to take a boat ride to get to the waterfall spot.  It was insane and not a relaxing day as we were hoping.  There is also quite a bit of hiking to other falls, but it was a bit uphill and a very warm day, so it was best for us not to try this adventure with 4 small children.  It was probably around 95-100 degrees. The boys took a dip in the water while the girls stayed on the sand.  

Ryan taking a swimming lesson

 Abby's first time to the beach!