Monday, December 30, 2013

Venice: Part 4

I am so behind on our vacation posts. Part of the reason is that most of the pictures that would be next, chronologically, are on Brent's phone and for some reason my computer won't let me upload them.
I finally decided I'm going to skip that part and move on! I'll come back and post that part of the trip when I get it figured out.

Our last full day in Venice we decided to go over to Murano Island. It is a small island just a few minutes away from Venice where Murano glass is made.

This is a picture of one of the glass factories as we were coming up to the island in the water taxi.
This is one of the master glass blowers demonstrating the process of blowing the glass.




There were many glass pieces we saw that were over a million dollars! 
The whole island was lined with store after store of little shops selling the glass. There were many that were selling knock-off pieces. 

This was some glass sculpture on the island.



Our last evening we decided to venture out and look for a little hole-in-the-wall type restaurant Brent had heard about.  It was quite a ways from our hotel and it's really difficult to find things there, as the streets are not labeled well.
On our trek across the city we saw a cruise ship coming through. 


 It was kind of funny to see all the people in Venice lined up to watch as it passed so close to us. Then as it got even closer, we could see all the people on the ship that had come out to the balconies to look at us in Venice as they passed.
It was HUGE!!
 When we finally found the restaurant it was closed! Many restaurants close after lunch, then open back up for dinner, but later than they probably would in the US. I think they opened back up at 7:00.
It was really interesting because you could tell it was a "locals" type restaurant and not geared toward tourists. It was out of the way in a neighborhood area and most of the people who were inside seemed to be local. There were lots of people just sort of hanging around outside and would come in and visit at the bar with the staff. I think they were people who lived nearby.
We really enjoyed seeing how the people there really lived and getting away from the touristy area for a change.
 While we were waiting for the restaurant to open back up it started raining and was still raining when we were walking back to the hotel.  It was like a scene right out of a movie.....wandering through the small alley streets of Venice in the rain.

Venice was amazing. We feel so lucky to have had the chance to go and would LOVE to go back someday!

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!


"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."  Luke 2:11

Friday, December 13, 2013

"Aye, Aye Captain!"

In the fall, Hollace participated in the theater program at UAFS. They worked all fall and did a production of Little Mermaid, Jr. in December.

She LOVED it and was so sad, when they had done their final performance, that it was over. I'm sure she'll be doing the program again.

WARNING: You are about to see a LOT of pictures!:)

Her main part in the musical was "Pilot", the captain of Prince Eric's ship.

 Here are a few backstage pre-show pics.
Pilot with some of the Mer-Sisters.



 Pilot with Sebastian.
 With a Mer-sister, King Triton, and Sebastian.

 Hollace's slide on the pre-show cast slide-show.
 Some pre-show cast pictures.

 of course a silly one.......
 

 Finally it's SHOW TIME!




 She had a couple of smaller parts. One was Gull, a bird.
 The birds were suppose to be funny. This song/dance was really cute and silly.




 This is the scene where they were sailing into a storm. It was quite dramatic and Hollace did a great job on her speaking parts!



 For this scene she played a Chef.












 Flowers for the Star after the show.




 She even got to sign a few autographs.

 A quick pic with Ursula and Ariel......

...and the her Director and Choreographer.


and with her biggest fans.

 She had SO much fun and did such a great job. We were very proud!