Our June 25th weekend

June 25th is Independence Day for Slovenia, strangely enough it is not widely celebrated nor do a lot of people even realize what holiday is being recognized other than the fact they have the day off from work. My neighbor told me that not everyone supported the decision for Slovenia to become their own country and a lot of those people are the ones that are in charge and hold high governmental offices.

Either way we took advantage of the three day weekend. On Friday we drove up to a beautiful lake in the Julien Alps our garmin GPS led us up and over the alps on a very narrow dirt path with frightening drop offs down the mountain. It was slow driving, we did NOT take that way home! We forgot our camera :( The rivers and creeks are so clear and an amazing blue. We stopped along the road to take a peak and could see tons of fish swimming, Keenan asked if he could taste one and was fairly disappointed when I told him we had to catch one first. (So precious) .

We set up camp next to the lake in a quiet area and let Keenan play around in the water. He was pretty determined to try and catch a fish with his hands, he REALLY wanted to taste one. Afterwards we checked out the campgrounds for future outings and was pleasantly surprised with what we found. The campground not only had running water, bathrooms, areas to do your laundry but a playground and a restaurant with free wi-fi. Unfortunately they don't allow fires on the campground... and isn't that half the experience of camping out??

Saturday we worked around the house, cleaned and all that fun stuff.

Sunday we drove back into the Julien alps to the Soca Valley to do a family hike. Once again we found ourselves driving up and over the alps on a slightly better paved road but still with the freightening straight down drop off that had 50 switchbacks. The road was narrow with lots of bikers and bicyclists to share the small space. All the switchbacks make me sick to my stomach but the views were amazing. On the way there I was a bit too white- knuckled to suggest pulling over on the occasional shoulder but was a lot more relaxed about it all on the way home... maybe I was just exhausted from the day.

Switchback #50! Woo-hoo that means we're done... until the drive home.
What we drove up and over

We went on a nice easy hike that took us along the river, through the alps and along a World War I sight. The easy hike was made much more difficult by the fact that we were pushing our 20 pound stroller loaded with about 50 pounds worth of kids. Keenan walked some, rode some and complained some. Van mostly just rode in the stroller and slept. Some of the hike was on dirt roads/path, some on pavement and some on a narrow uphill path. A few times during our hike we had to unload the stroller and pretty much carry that too.

Stroller with two seats? Check. Extra sun shade? Check. Ready to hike? Check.

Keenan taking a break... actually he was pretty pissed that we were making him walk...


Eric trying to get Keenan to hurry up


Sierra too

The Soca River

We went over a long bridge over the river that swayed quite a bit. We took the kids over first then Eric went back and got the stroller.

Me and the boys on one side of the bridge
and Eric bringing over the empty stroller

Taking a break so Van can have some lunch.
Keenan peeping out some large stone cave thing... this is immediately before he found the stinging nettle or some other plant that hurt and left red welts on his arm.

My cheap pedometer said we went about 6 1/2 miles but more accurately took a little over 13,000 steps. Afterwards we were hot and tired. We got a bite to eat then followed up with some tasty gelato! Then back in the car for the 2 hour ride home... with one unhappy baby. I guess the day was too much for Van, he cried what seemed like all of the way home. We stopped a few times trying to console him but nothing seemed to work. Just when I thought his colicky episodes were passing. The pediatrician here suggested giving him bio-drops, basically probiotics and my neighbor told me about some breast feeding tea that is supposed to help with colicky babies. Those added with me eating a fairly bland diet sans dairy seems to helping a lot but that morning I did splurge on quite a bit of yogurt. So, I guess it's back to no dairy!

We kept seeing signs in Bovec for "Free" apartments. Wow, we were thinking we definitely need to come back and stay at a "free" place. Wrong, turns out that "Free" simply meant that the room was "available" to rent with money!
While I tried to get Van to stop crying Eric took a few pictures