Lithuania

Last weekend we drove to Lithuania to meet Kelly's best friend Joel. He is also from Arizona, he wanted to meet us in Vilnius Lithuania because his grandfather was born there. He is Jewish and his grandfather lived in an orphanage there. It is really sad because there used to be something like 250,000 jews in Lithuania, now there are only 4,000. About 40 % of Vilnius was Jewish and now there is only 1 synagog left standing. Very sad. On the way to Vilnius, we stopped at the "Hill of the Crosses". This place is really interesting. Crosses started appearing here after the 1831 uprising against Tsarist Russian rule. More and more appeared there, then during Communist rule, they were seen as an unnecessary religious symbol, the hill was hacked down in 1961, but crosses reappeared soon after. It was Bulldozed in 1973 and again in 1975 with sewage poured over it, but they kept reappearing. Finally it was left in peace.

We also went to Trakai to see the Island castle. This was a really beautiful castle. The boys had fun running around it. I bought swords for them, Kelly thought I was crazy, but you can't go to a castle and not come home with a sword. This was a fun trip and the kids did really good. The driving took longer than we thought with bad roads and a crying baby, but it wasn't so bad. This was our first overnight vacation with Isabel. Not so bad. We are ready for more.