Celebrating 30 years of marriage!!!

We have wanted to get away somewhere with dear friends of ours, but we never seemed to get organized enough to put our desires into action. Well, with some help and pushing from the kids (in both families), we finally were able to spend four days in Florence, Italy with Daniel and Pierrette to celebrate 30 years of marriage for both couples. We love Florence and were thrilled to act as tour guides, even if we don't speak Italian. The good thing about Italian, is that half of the language is hand gestures.

Here are a few pictures on no particular order to give an idea of the fun we had, and of the beauty of this place.

Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge)

We ate pizza… a few times… really good pizza.  

Back to school as we tried to soak in as much art history as we could in four hours. 

Ponte Vecchio again. (Just can't get enough of this bridge) 

View from Duomo, the main cathedral of Florence and the largest brick dome in the world.

Being silly in Pisa before our flight home. 

Celebrating 25 years

Philip and I celebrated our 25th anniversary on March 2. But since Philip's dad got married in March, we had no chance to really celebrate. But the children wanted to make sure we didn't let the occasion slip by, so they purchased tickets to a surprise destination (well, Philip knew where we were going, but I didn't).  So on June 18th, I got on a plane with Philip for... Pisa, Italy! We spent an afternoon in Pisa, and then went on to Florence by train. This was a special destination because we had visited Florence quickly on our honeymoon 25 years earlier, and had always planned on going back.
Stéphane has a friend from the Doulos living in Florence, so she met us at the train station and took us to the church that was letting us use their apartment for missionaries. And the next three days were like a dream! Florence is such a beautiful place! We have lots and lots of pictures, so just stop scrolling down when you are tired of seeing photos of Florence!

Battistero in Pisa (the tower is in the back right)

Copy of David in Florence

 Ponto Vecchio

 Being silly!

 Battistero and Duomo in Florence

 Church on Sunday (couldn't understand much, but singing to God in Italian was fun!)

 We enjoyed trying the famous gelato

 Scooters are everywhere, and always parked like this.

 We are used to open-air markets in France, but they were beautiful in Florence!