Oh the Foliage!!

Hello Friends and Fam!

Since as long as I can remember, it's been a family joke that my mom will brake for pretty foliage.. As in, when passing a beautiful hillside or perhaps a reddish-orange tree on a the way to the grocery store, Talia and I would find ourselves being hurdled towards the front seat of the Trooper, only to hear Mom say "Girls, look at the pretty tree!!" We would look at the tree, then at each other, rolling our eyes and chalking it up to our mother's perma-Vermont nostalgia, a condition that affects VT transplants, only treatable by copious amounts of maple syrup, Cabot extra-sharp cheddar, and the occasional Mary-Lou Donut..

Well I know everyone says that you turn into your parents, so I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise... but man oh man the FOLIAGE!! I'm so turning into my mom, filling up my camera's memory card with pictures of LEAVES. I'm falling in love with fall! (Kristina and I are trying to come up with a way to make pumpkin-spice lattes to enhance the experience. Yum...)

Besides watching the leaves change colors (totally worthwhile way to spend the afternoon), life has been busy with a long trip to Croatia followed by an active long weekend. Last Friday morning, we met the team on the bus at 9 am, embarking on a 8-ish hour journey to Split, Croatia. Fortunately, Lina brought a season of Sex and the City to help pass the time, and we broke up the trip with a stop for lunch and some rest-stop agility again. We got to the gym around 6:30 for an 8:00 match, and while I would have loved to go explore Split, we were there to play a game, so eploring wasn't in the cards for the evening.. I did manage to snap a pic of the gym, but that's about it!

We played OK but couldn't manage to take a set, and ended up losing 0-3. I think we're all getting somewhat tired of the losing streak, and realizing that we had an 8 hour trip home was kind of like pouring salt in the proverbial wound. Thankfully, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte entertained us on the way home, and we rolled into Klagenfurt at 6:30 on Saturday morning.

We spent the day relaxing around the house, recovering from the 18 hours on the road, but that night Kristina decided to try a new dessert experiment, making a chocolate-chip cookie pizza (brings me back to pizookies at BJ's) and it turned out to be dessert heaven. Later we went to watch our guys volley team play, and then met up with some teammates to celebrate Lina's birthday (it was a while ago, so we were celebrating birthweek? birthmonth?).

Sunday was lazy, so we decided that Monday should be adventure-filled. We decided to hop on our bikes and head on the path around the Worthersee, a 50 km ride in total! We packed our ipods, a lunch, made many stops along the way for photo opps, and had an awesome time!

Yesterday brought another German lesson, and we're on to talking about months and seasons. Yep, go ahead and ask me what "autumn" is in German? I so know it: Herbst. (Pat on the back for me!) Post-German lesson, I got to chat with my Mom and Anthony, interrupting breakfast to wish Mom a HAPPY HAPPY Birthday! Wish I could've been there to celebrate!

Off to practice in a bit, hope all is well back home!

XOX

Anna