Ryan's First Europe Trip

 The last day!  We didn't have much planned for today since we are traveling home tomorrow and want to be well-rested. That being said, we still wanted to be able to get the kids out of the cabin for at least part of the day. Again, we were up against the weather forecast which was showing thunderstorms for much of the day today.  We took our time waking up, having breakfast, and getting ready. We got lucky and the weather in the morning was great. Our cabin is located just next to the Strachankovo family park, so we were waiting for that to open (at 10AM) so that we could take the kids over and have some fun. At the park, the kids saw cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, kittens, and more. We had just moved up to the playground area when we felt the first raindrop. Hoping that it would pass, we kept playing and Luke even tried out the jumping bag, where he jumped off a platform onto a big inflatable bag about 15ft below. He seemed to enjoy it at first, but then ...

Only one more day to go! It feels crazy that we've made it 13 days so far. Day 13 began with an early wake up call around 6:15am to finish packing and have breakfast before checking out of our forest cabin/chalet. Jessica and I discussed and we definitely think this was our favorite location that we stayed so far during the stop - so it was sad to be leaving. With the weather being a bit troublesome the last couple days, we were hoping that our fortunes would change. After checking the forecast for today and driving to our next destination about an hour away in Zdiar, it seemed it was going to be a cloudy day with light rain showers off and on. At this point, we deemed this weather acceptable because it still allowed us to be outside. We could not afford to be cooped up with the kids all day!  Zdiar is located on the eastern side of the Tatras mountain range in northern Slovakia, right along the Polish border. Today our main plans included visiting the Bachledka treetop walk and fo...

Jessica writing today. Happy Thursday (and my last blog writing day!) We all slept in a little today, waking up around 6:45am. Adam made a delicious breakfast using the farm fresh ingredients we received yesterday, scrambled eggs, bread, and cheese. Both boys loved the bread and had seconds. The only thing on our agenda today was exploring around our chata (cabin) and taking a tour of the farm nearby. Around 8:30, we all got dressed and went outside to go for a walk. It was brisk, especially when the clouds and wind rolled in, but we enjoyed our walk. Luke even found some "bungleweeds" (a made up plant from one of his favorite TV shows - Dino Ranch).  Because we had plans to cook dinner in tonight, we drove to town to have lunch and stop at a grocery store. And if there was one lesson we learned today, it was DON'T trust google maps. The roads they had us going on were matted down grass/gravel pathways at best. At one point, Adam got out of the car to run ahead and check ...