Loooonnnggg time...no post!

Okay, so I don't even know if anyone is even reading this blog since I stopped updating it about a century ago, but I thought that with the free time of X-mas break, that I'd put a few things down.

Let's skim over the past few months. Amy has just been plugging along at work and I started back with a new group of kids in September. The year has gone pretty well so far and they are really nice kids. It's just always hard to start over with a new group after two years with the previous group. This group of kids is a high functioning academic group though and very personable so I think that we are bonding quickly.

Brent (Amy's brother) and I had season tix for Duck football and the first part of the season was unreal, but with all of the injuries towards the end, it was a bitter finish. I'm going to watch the bowl game by myself so that I can turn the tv off and do something else if necessary.

In October, we hosted our annual F-day again. It was really great. Lots of: friends, family, food, fun, and the Fumpkin patch. I'll try to post some pics from this, but my computer is crazy slow with the 'ol dial-up.

We hosted Christmas Eve at our house this year and I was worried about accomodating all of the people in our little home, but it went really well. On Christmas day, Amy and I both had killer headaches and so we just stayed home and chillaxed all day.

Oh, I also started a new wrestling season in November, we are not a very athletic or experienced team, but we are trying our best. It just sucks to get beat on by almost everyone. Oh well.

Well, that pretty much sums it all up for now. Hope everyone had a great X-mas and will also have a good New Year's. Take care, Dave n' Amy.

Been awhile, but here's a new update

Okay, so it's been a little over a month since our last blog entry, but we've been experiencing computer difficulties for almost that entire time and it now looks as if we are going to have to buy a new computer. Ours keeps shorting out the phones in our house. We've paid a computer guy to put in a new hard-drive and a new modem over the last couple of weeks and it is still acting weird, but I guess it's almost 7 years old. I don't even know how long a computer's life span should be, but 7 years seems pretty good.

Anyway, I have just one question...where has the summer gone? After Europe it seemed to just fly by and I'm not sure I even did anything. I did have an entire week of studying. I read two social studies text books all the way through. One on World History and the other on US History. I didn't do this for fun, but rather I had to take the Middle School Social Studies Praxis Exam to qualify for Bush's Highly Qualified Teacher stuff. The tests are completely bogus and in contradition to any kind of assessment of concepts and intelligence. They are merely 90 multiple choice questions pulled from 10,000 years of history that test specific dates, people, ideas, events, etc. Basically the kind of test that makes you memorize stuff, reguritate it and then forget it....no learning what-so-ever! I will find out in about two weeks if I passed, but even though I studied so hard, I didn't feel good about it.

The next week we had a big family reunion at the beach. It was fun. We stayed in Lincoln City, pretty much right on the beach. I got to meet a bunch of the Dukes family that lives in Iowa and all over the US. They are all really nice people. We pretty much just ate, talked, and relaxed. It was fun but not necessarily good for my ever-expanding waist line.

Amy and I have also bought a new vehicle, a Honda Pilot...some new furniture, leather, easy to clean....and are moving into a phase where we can start thinking about children. We are just really trying to set our ducks in a row before we go there. We want to have two reliable, long-term cars paid off; a bunch of debt paid off; and some money in savings. Now that we have Europe done, the cars being taken care of, kid-friendly furniture, we are working hard to pay off all of that debt and we are hoping that in about a year from now that there will be a bambino. We shall see. I like the country lyric that says, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." I'm a planner, but things don't always work out the way I plan.

So this is now my last week of summer. I go back next week and so that raises the question again...where did summer go? I guess it was Europe, car shopping, dealing with the computer, studying and taking a test, going to the family reunion, house work, going to the gym, a few days of golfing, and then it was over. Ah well, bummer...at least Duck Football starts soon. Well, if anyone is still reading this blog, take care and we love comments. Dave

p.s.-I'd tried to put some pictures on here, but our stupid computer isn't appearing to be able to do it right now. Sorry

Some more pics from Santorini and Athens

So I know it doesn't sound like we had fun on our trip...but we did! It was just not a vacation. I learned that there is a clear difference between traveling and vacationing. It was fun, but it was also tiring and a lot of work. We feel good to have seen so many historical landmarks of the ancient world and to have had the opportunity and so I will share some of the pics we took with you all. We have nearly 650 total...we really slowed down towards the end...the pics I will post are either in Santorini or Athens. Take care, Dave and Amy

Back home now

Alright, so we've got some catching up to do, but let's start with the fact that we are now home. The flight home was long and we traveled for almost 22 hours. The length was due to a postponed flight in Frankfurt and other various things, but we are just happy to be home now.

Let's go back to the day after my episode in the hospital. We went to a beach on Santorini called Perissa. It is the black rock beach. We rented these lounge chairs and an umbrella and began to sun ourselves, intermittently taking dips in the refreshing ocean. It was beautiful and we had on plenty of sunscreen. What we didn't know was that the sun was being reflected off the rocks below our chairs and radiating back up onto us. It was literally cooking us. After a few hours, we decided to call it a day and we drove back to the hotel where the effects of the 'cooking' began to set in. Amy's back, stomach, and legs were bright red. My legs and back were pretty well done for, but it was mostly my legs. Almost a week later now and my legs are still red! We paid for this burning for the next few days as we couldn't hardly move. Laying, sitting, or moving...it didn't matter...it all hurt! Later I'll talk about that more. That evening we were able to make it to a little village called Oia and take in the sunset. It is supposed to be the most beautiful sunset in the world...yea it was nice, but the nicest? Nah. Anyway, we had an adventure driving there as the roads are so antiquated, narrow, and dangerous. There are straight drop-offs to the ocean below with absolutely no shoulder on the roads, and the people there, in fact in all of Europe, are incredibly reckless drivers. They go so fast, they pass with abandon, and almost run others off of the road. We noticed this in all of Europe. Also, Europe must be the scooter and motorcycle capitol of the world. People everywhere had them and the people who ride them all seem to have a death wish. They skirt in and out of traffic, switch lanes without warning, and drive so crazy. A man in Athens told us that about 5,000 people a year die in Athens because of the way they ride scooters. I am so thankful to be back to the states. Being in Europe was like taking all of the worst drivers, removing all rules, and saying: go for it!

Anyway, the next day we took a high speed ferry to Athens. Luckily, I GOT SICK! This trip really hammered me. My feet hurt and had blisters from all of the walking the first two weeks. Then I ended up in the hospital. Then I got sunburned. Then I got sick on the ferry. I'm still sick and feel horrible, but anyway,we got to Athens after about 4 hours of being on the boat where we were met by our transfer and driven to our next hotel near the Acropolis. WE should have been excited to explore Athens, but with our sunburns and my sickness we just wanted to stay inside our air-conditioned room. It didn't help that it was 101 degrees the first day we were there and then in the high 90's the next two days. So our first day in Athens, we just hide in our hotel trying to recover.

The next day, we took a tour out to Ancient Corinth. We spent an hour-and-a-half driving in the bus to pick up people, then anther 1.5 hours getting to Corinth. WE definately should have done Athens before Santorini, because we were no longer in the tourist mode. We were in the "we just spent 5 days relaxing, being sick, and getting sunburned, so we don't care anymore just get us home" mode. Seriously, we just walked around Corinth, the place where Paul converted many Romans to Christianity and were just very much 'ho-hum'. So it was interesting, but we just wanted to get back to the air-conditioned bus. It was still very painful for us to move. After getting back to our hotel, we just hide some more. We started day-dreaming about our home, our friends and family, and our pooch. We were unbelievably home-sick and ready to be done. If you could have given me a ticket to return home without seeing Athens, I would have taken it.

Our final day in Athens we were feeling better and we had one last tour. We were a little more excited and ready this day. Our tour took us to all of the major places of Athens. The temple of Zeus, the original Olympic stadium, the parliment building where the guards are famous for never moving until they switch posts ceremonily, and the Acropolis. It was all very interesting to see and think about. We saw the Mars hill where Paul tried to preach Christianity to the Athenians and was rejected. On the hill of the Acropolis we saw the ancient temple devoted to Athena and the other devoted to Poseidon. It was a good day and we had a great tour guide who made it all very interesting. After the tour, Amy really had a bug to get some shopping in, so we walked through this huge shopping district...but it was just all souvenir stuff that was silly and overpriced. We really did look for things to bring home to people, but in all of the areas we were in, it was all so touristy that we would just be spending a small fortune on crap that people would probably look at and be like, "oohh, a glass bead, that's special, thanks" and then throw it in a drawer. So sorry. We kept looking for things that we thought would be cool, but didn't really find anything.

The next day was our last and it was the travel day I started off with at the top so that pretty much wraps it up. Some final thoughts: 1. Italians have no idea what a line is...it's just form a large group and push your way to the front. 2. Europeans are the worst drivers in the world. 3. I don't want to eat any pizza, pasta, or gyros for awhile...although I'm still up for some gelato. 4. Never pre-book any tours, they offer them all when you arrive somewhere and for a cheaper price than pre-booking. 5. Europe is covered in sidewalks and roads that are cobble stone, stone, or marble...so bring very squishy shoes to protect your feet if you every go. 6. The dollar sucks in comparison to the Euro. 7. The French are actually realling nice people. 8. Kids in Europe have no questions as to the anatomy of the human body. There are naked statues and paintings all over the place. 9. WE had a great time and would change a few things, but overall loved it. We are blessed to have had the opportunity and can't believe it's over as we have been talking about it for so long. I guess it's on to kids now.

Thanks everyone for your comments and for supporting us while we were gone. I will continue to update and use this site so keep checking back in. WE will post more pictures soon. Our computer is on the fritz and so I'm using my neighbors right now. Take care, Davie

Sicker than a dog in Santorini

I believe we left you last in the city of Rome. We weren't sure we were going to make it to Greece after a long wait for our flight in the airport. We were boarded onto a bus to be taxied out to the plane and then brought back into the airport to wait for another half hour. People around us were getting pretty colorful and there was no order, which seems like an accurate way to descibe Italy. The descent on our flight into Greece had us saying our prayers. Our pilot took a very sharp angle down and we weren't sure we were going to enjoy the sunsets on Santorini, but luckily we came to a safe landing. After an evening of sleeping, or in Davids case not sleeping in the Athens Airport we boarded a plane to Santorini. We arrived at our hotel to find that they had painted the steps leading to the reception area!! It was 7:00 am and no one was there yet. We were so tired we sacked out on the stairs in front of the hotel. Not one of our finer moments!!! We had breakfast at the hotel and ventured out into the town of Fira for a couple hours until our room was ready and took a delicious nap. We spent most of the next day on the beach, and David was able to make it around the island dodging scooters and tour buses in our rental car. The next day we went on a boat ride out to the volcanic island. We met some great people from North Carolina and ended up hanging out with them the whole day. This morning David woke up feeling wretched with stuff comming out both ends. After several hours of not being able to keep anything down we headed to the hospital to try and get him an IV. The clinic on the island of Santorini is a scary sight!! Luckily our hotel manager dropped us off and was able to urge the people in emergency to help us out. After nearly passing out from dehydration David got an IV and some pain medication and with several hours of resting we were sent on our way. Apparently there is a reason our gyros were $1.80. David's plan to save us money on food ended up costing us $67 Euros, which was supprisingly affordable. We have lots of fun stories from our time in the clinic to share. Thankfully he is feeling lots better, and with any luck we will be able to spend our last day on the island without too much more excitement. I am not sure I can handle anymore. We are looking forward to getting home and being in our house with our cute dog. The island is full of stray dogs, which make us miss Toby even more. I pet one the other day and realized they don't see a good bath very often. Now I just admire them from a distance!! Just a couple more days and our adventure is over!!!

The apple

Oh, the apple in the toilet picture below is one more incident from Florence. Amy handed me the apple, which we had been looking forward to, and I accidently dropped it into the toilet. Florence was cursed.

Rome

So after the Florence episode we got into Rome. We took the metro to our stop and as we got out of the metro station...BAM!...there's the coloseum! It was impressive. We went through the initial, "we're lost" thing again, but found our hotel pretty easily. We checked in with this cute little Italian lady and quickly crashed.
the next day we had to be early risers because we had a tour of the Vatican. We were still in line for 3 hours though! We met a couple from Australia and another couple from Canada. We ended up hanging out with them all day and they were great people. The canadians really did say "eh" after a lot of things and the Australians had some funny terms too...like they call a line a que. Anyway, after the Vatican, where Amy almost got into multiple fights for trying to stop people from taking pictures of the Sistine Chapels...tell you more about that later...we went to St. Peter's church. It is the biggest church in the world. We went up on top of the dome, then down into the basilica, then into the tombs underneath. It is unreal and impossible to describe. It is so huge and every inch is covered with something beatiful and priceless. That was our entire day. We wearily headed back and crashed after saying goodbye to our new friends.
The second day we spent doing a tour of the ancient ruins. We went to the capitol hill and saw the roman senate building. We went into a dank prison where Peter and Paul had been imprisoned. We walked throught the ruins of the ancient Roman temples and ended up at the Coloseum. We walked through the coloseum and were impressed. We finished the day walking on the Palantine hill where Romulus and Remulus, the two brothers raised by a she-wolf and who started Rome, were supposedly raised. That again, was an entire day of waiting in lines and walking around. It is good that we are walking so much though because our diet is pretty much pizza and gelato. My feet are freakin killin me right now though!
Today is our last day in Rome. We are going to try to see the Treviti fountain, The Spanish Steps, and The Pantheon. Then we have to take a train to the airport where we leave this evening for Athens. This is our 'not-so-fun' night where we are in the Athens Airport until 6 am, but then, we get into Santorini tomorrow. We will try to find computer access there asap to update the blog, but it may be a few days. Take care until then, David and Amy

Florence

So our time in Paris and Venice was awesome. We loved every minute and we were looking forward to Florence, but it was a disaster from the start. We feel bad about this because our neighbor's son told us that Florence was going to be our favorite...but ooooohhhhh noooo...it wasa not-a!
We got into the train station just fine, but after that it was all down hill. We got onto a public bus that we were told to take in the directions from the hotel. But Florence has such horrible street labeling that it is easy to get lost. So needless to say, we missed our stop and ended up going way out into the country where the bus just stopped. We were the only people left on the bus. I asked the driver in Italian if she spoke English, she rudely shouted "No!", waved me off, and turned away making it obvious that she wasn't going to entertain any more questions. So we ended up just sitting there for awhile and finally she started the bus again and we were headed back to the city. We were able to ask someone who got on the bus where to get off and we finally found our hotel. Did it get better then? Nope! The girl at the hotel was arguing with someone on the phone for about 20 minutes while we just stood there waiting for her to acknowledge us. Then we found out our room was on the top floor of a very tall building..you guessed it...no elevator, just stairs to lug our bags up. The room was dissapointing and the bathroom smelled. It was also very strange...the toilet and the sink were in the room with a a drain in the floor and a shower knozzle sticking out of the wall. The shower was just that and it got everything wet when you showered.
We tried to get over it by taking a nap and then going for a walk to the ponte Eveckio...I don't know how to spell it...it is some famous bridge. I'll put a picture taken of Amy and I on it. That pretty much wrapped up the first day...getting lost, taking a nap, and going for a stroll...oh I forgot, the streets were more narrow than any other place we had been and the scooters, buses, and cars all seemed to be out to hit us. It is unreal how badly people drive over here. I haven't seen a speed limit sign for 10 days. Oh yea, it is also the stinkiest city. As we were on our stroll we were frequently accosted with the nasty aroma of sewage. So needless to say, the first day was not nice.
The second day we were signed up to do a tour of the Accademia museum and other Florence museums, but Amy really wanted to switch to a tour of the Tuscany countryside by going to Sienna and San Gimannono. We are so glad we did this trip. It was incredible. Driving through Tuscanny is beautiful. So many vineyards and olive trees leading up to these beautful villas. When we finally arrived in Sienna we were in awe of the architectural history and diversity. We walked on roads that pilgrims have walked on for centuries. The same rocks that people strode upon during the middle ages, we saw amazing works of art by Renaissance artists, and much more. They have this horse race twice a year in the plaza that we will tell you about when we get back. We took a thousand pictures we will share when we return. Anyway, after our wonderful time in Sienna, we then traveled to San Gimannono. this is a middle ages town completely presereved. It has castle walls, towers, and all. It is of course completely touristized with little shops and what not, but it is also a very cool experience. So our second day in Florence was great, because we got out of town!
Our third and final day in florence we decided to beat the crowds and get to the Accedemia museum early. It was supposed to open at 8:15 but it didn't open until almost 10:30 due to an employee meeting...then after standing in line for almost three hours we found out the museum workers were going on strike. Apparently they strike all the time in this region of the world. So we didn't get to see David which really bummed me out and we had spent our entire morning standing in a line. Discouraged we headed back to a famous square area with a replica of David, but is wasn't the same thing. We did have an overpriced lunch and then headed back to our hotel since we only had a few more hours until we left. We decided to go to the train station early to see if we could get out of town. It had just been such a horrible experience. It was so overcrowded, stinky, hot, and uncomfortable that we just wanted to leave. Our gamble at the train station didn't pay off. We had to wait for our train. After a couple more hours of sweating and waiting, we finally got onto our train. Thinking we had cleared the mess that is Florence, we sank into our seats and started to relax. Then the conductor came along and asked for our tickets. He studied them more than any of the other conductors and then informed us that we had failed to write in the date of our travel and that we were being fined 50 Euros...that translates into almost 75 dollars. After the day we had I turned into an ugly American traveler. I dropped a few curse words and wasn't very nice. I fumed all the way to Rome, but I'm glad to say that our two days in Rome have been fantastic and i will be happy to inform you of them in our next blog. We do leave rome tomorrow, but we will try to squeek out a blog before we leave. Take care and sorry for the novel. Dave

\here's a picture from our room in Venice. \one of Amy feeding the pigeons in San Marco square. David in our sleeping car on Eurail before the transformation into beds. One of the Eiffel Tower at dusk. Finally one of Venice from atop the basilica tower overlooking the palace and some gondolas. Enjoy.

So Much to see, so little time

Hello Blog Fans,
David is relaxing after a long day seeing the Vatican and I thought that I would give blogging a try. We had hoped to have more time to record our adventure, but each day is so full of running around that we come back to the hotels exhausted. We are in Rome now and have a computer in our Room so we have a great opportunity to update everyone on our travels. David left off with our time in Paris, where we boarded our train to head to Venice. We reserved a couchette or cabin, which was about the size of a bathroom for our 11 hour ride. Bunks folded out of the wall and turned our bathroom into a semi comfortable sleeping environment. Our sleep schedules were still haywire and we both ended up awake at 1 in the morning and we were able to admire the view of the Swiss Alps out our window as we passed through Switzerland. We arrived the next morning lacking a goodnights sleep and a bit motion sick from a long night of swaying back and forth on the train. With the entire city of Venice operating on a canal we had to catch a giant barge to our hotel called a vappertto. It was about a half hour ride through the heart of Venice to make it to our hotel. Our stop on the vaportto was luckily very close to our hotel and for the first time on our trip we didn't get lost finding our accomadations. After checking in we went out to find a local market that was said to be a 5 min walk. An hour and a half later we stumbled on the market after getting lost on the small poorly labled streets. It was a definite change of pace from the busy streets of Paris. We visited San Marco square and fed the hundreds of birds that cover the plaza, took a trip out to a neighboring island for what we hoped would be a day laying on the beach, and generally just wandered around the canals and tiny roads, that many times led to a dead end. The people in Venice were very friendly, and the view from our hotel room onto the Grand Canal was well worth the trip. Here are some pictures of the sights we have been taking in. The architecture is truely amazing!!!!

Bonjourno from Florence

Hello everyone Amy and I arrived in Florence this morning and after missing our stop on the bus, took an unplanned tour of the countryside. It is very pretty, but we were hot, tired, and hungry...so needless to say, the tour went unappreciated. The biggest problem we have experienced on each leg of the journey so far has been the initial arrival to the new destination. We tend to get lost and wander for awhile before finding the hotel. After that, it usually works out well and we become acquanted with the local geography.

So let's talk about the trip here. Our flight went well, not exactly the most comfortable, but at least we arrived! We got to Frankfurt where we encountered a host of people that had been delayed due to a huge storm. Our flight was a little delayed, but there were literally tons of people trying to get onto our flight as theirs were cancelled. They were crowding the poor flight attendants working that little booth and it looked very unpleasant...so though our flight was long, it was not as bad as it could have been. We arrived in Paris alive and well...thought I hadn't slept in over 24 hours.

Our hotel in Paris was quaint (spelling?) It had tons of charm and was in the main part of the tourist district...although the night we arrived was the first night of summer and so apparently on that night, it is an annual concert night. Every district of Paris had different perfomers on street corners, etc. We lucked out and had total rockers in front of our hotel. Okay, not so lucky...but we packed ear plugs. The next day we started the first of many "walking" days. We walked for hours all over the place. We hit the Eiffel Tower (very cool to see in person and some part of me wanted to spit off of it), we then walked across the Ponte Nuff to the Trocodero and over to the Arch de Triomphe. It started to rain, but we still snapped off some nice photos (which we will try to post on the next post). We then took the metro over to a beautiful church called the Sacre Couer. It has unbelievable architecture and beautiful motifs...but so does everything over here. After awhile, you stop being so impressed with the churches and other gothic buildings...you're just like "oh look, another midevil building...how interesting." Anyway, we hiked through some colorful neighborhoods after that, will tell more in person. That pretty much sums up that day. The next day we went to the Louvre for hours. I was stoked to see the Mona Lisa since I teach the Renaissance and so I stood and admired it...but then outside heard a stupid tour guide tell his group that it was not the real one which was being restored in New York...what a cotton headed ninny muggin for sharing such information...consequently we are now telling everyone we see about this. We like to see the looks of pain and disappointment on their faces...misery loves company. After the Louvre, we went into Notre Dame and that evening returned for my favorite part which was a hike up into the bell towers and uppermost levels of Notre Dame. Quasi Moto wasn't there, but it was an amazing evening view of Paris. The next day we took a river cruise on the Seinne river and walked down Champs Elysse street. We then boarded our sleeper train that evening just in time to start heading down to Venice. We will tell you all about that in a post tomorrow. Hope all is well with everyone and if you need to get into touch with us immediately, apparently you can text message us and it only cost 35 cents for us to check. Take care until tomorrow. David and Amy

Just a quick check in from Venice

Howdy all- Paris was awesome and we are now in Venice. We dont have much time on the computer so Im just letting you all know we are alive and having a great time, we will have a computer in Rome so look for a big post then: Dave

Europe Bound

So tomorrow is the big day! Amy and I are leaving for Paris. We are going to take Toby to Brent and Jen's (they have graciously offered to watch him). Then Jen is taking us to the airport. We have all of the neighbors on watch for our house and the alarm is set, so hopefully the house is good. Our neighbor Tylor has offered to mow the yard and water everything in our absence. So I think we have everything taken care of, but finalizing the packing today has been stressful. Trying to remember everything we need to take is a lot of work! Anyway, I checked the 10 day forecast for: Paris, Venice, and Florence. Looks like we'll be getting wet in Paris (sad story), but Venice and Florence should be beautiful. We are super excited, but it just seems so surreal right now. Keep checking for updates while we are over there. When I can find a computer I will try to make an entry. If anyone needs to contact me you can do so on this blog or via email at: dnasheldon@msn.com That's it for now. Keep praying for us and adios! Dave

Blog'n is fun

I showed Amy the blog (as I was excited about it) and she said, "You should put a picture of us on it." So...I will put one there. And a super cool one of us on our way to an Oregon game at Autzen stadium. Who am I to ignore the words of my wife? Also, I am excited because this weekend I'm taking the 8th grade wrestlers camping. It's our annual trip, but this time the kids from French Prarie are coming too. I think it'll be fun. Then next week we have the PBS field trip on Monday and the 8th grade field trip on Tuesday. Then it's just time to hang out with the kids and celebrate our two years together. I'm sad that it's coming to an end with these kids. They are an awesome group and we are finally at a point where they are independent learners and my job is just to be a facilitator. Next year I'll have to start off all over again holding their hands through every part of any though process. Ug! Oh well...that's why we teachers make the big bucks right!? :-)

First Blog

Well, with two weeks left in school I thought that I would set up a place for people (friends, family, and students) to check up on me when we are apart. Also, it is a way for me to hear from all of you. Please be looking for updates from my trip to Europe with Amy over the summer as well as all of the other things going on soon. I am also hoping to post some pictures of our trip to this site for people to enjoy. For now I'll put a picture of our kids and us at Breakaway two years ago. That's all for now. David