Grandma Buttons

Zac's mom came to visit us! For FIVE days. Yep, she traveled halfway around the world for FIVE days. Thanks to that lovely volcano in Iceland... She was stuck in London for a week, and ended up having a pretty cool vacation there, but we still wish she could've been with us for longer. At least we got her, though! Nuala and Bran were soooo excited, and kept having to wait "one more day..." for her. They were thrilled when she finally arrived. Finally. She got here April 22 (late), and left April 28 (early), so this post is a little late. Yeah... I'm slightly behind on blogging. And lots of other things. Eh.

In downtown Sofia.

Perched on a reclining lady. Grandma Butt-Butt was sliding off the statue's tooshie. Kinda fitting, huh? haha...

We took her up to Rila Monastery, which we love. You've no doubt seen it before on our blog, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll see it again. It's a very cool place.

A COLLAGE of photos outside the monastery... the neat frescoes, etc. Aren't collages great for people who post bazillions of pictures? Not that you know anyone like that...ha.

Me and Maeve. She is so cute and awesome and adorable and sweet and we love her.

Grandma and the kiddos gettin' a drink.

And doughnuts! Yum. Nuala loved this cat, and there was a gigantic dog there that Bran kept throwing pieces of his doughnut to. And we gave the dog all the sheep's yogurt we bought. It was gross. Last time we got yogurt there, it was quite tasty. We think it must have been the water buffalo variety that time...

After seeing the monastery, we hiked up to Saint John of Rila's (Ivan Rilski) cave. He was the "first Bulgarian hermit" and lived in this tiny, damp, cold cave for several years. The hike was fun, even with a bit of drizzle along the way. Z's mom kept scoffing at me for wishing it wasn't raining on the hike... she lives near Seattle, so it's all perspective... ;) There are so many rocks on the mountain, and so much green on the rocks! It's really beautiful, and N&B loved climbing all over them!

Bran and a martenitsa. Now I will copy from my facebook album.... ahem: During the month of March, Bulgarians wear little red and white tassels or dolls to ask Baba Marta (Grandmother March) for mercy... to make winter pass more quickly and bring on spring. Then, on the first official day of spring, they tie the martenitsas to tree branches, etc. We missed the whole martenitsa thing, since we were in Texas until a couple of days after the first day of spring, but there are still a few martenitsas hanging on here and there...

The bottom two pictures show Nuala and a little dog, Bellana, who "works" at the cave/nearby church. She kept begging Nuala to pet her, and Nuala kept doing it, of course. We would love to get a dog or cat, especially for them! But the lifestyle... so not conducive to owning a pet. At least for us. We do have a vase full of tadpoles.

The bottom right pic in the collage above shows Nuala near a little shrine up the trail from the cave. There are folded up papers with prayers and petitions written on them stuffed between all the rocks. Rila is the "Jerusalem of Bulgaria," and is a center of pilgrimage for people of the Eastern Orthodox religion. You can even stay the night at the monastery.

Here's a cave collage. Only those who are "free from sin" are able to go all the way through it. It was a bit tricky negotiating the exit tunnel with Maeve wrapped onto me, but obviously I couldn't be the only one NOT "free from sin." Z would never let me hear the end of it.

Plovdiv. We went to Plovdiv also.

Saw the amphitheater...

Nuala and Bran entertained us on-stage.

There's a lady there who makes beautiful Bulgarian pottery, so we stopped by her shop. It's located in an old guardhouse in the Old Wall, so that was pretty cool, too.

Fun on the trampoline...

...and with bubbles...

...and in "our" field (just down the road from our house). This was the beginning of a not-so-great-ending walk. A Nuala meltdown and a paranoid Bran (worried about being run over. At least it was that extreme instead of the other) made for an entertaining trek. But it was still fun.

We had such a great time with Grandma Buttons, and are so glad she was able to come visit!