Even though it was a cold day in Vienna, the animals were out at the zoo. It was an awesome day. We even went into a bat cave where bats flew all around us.  

The last three weeks have been full of adventure for us. Stacy's mom, Deborah, came for a visit and treated us to a European vacation. We went to Croatia, Venice, Austria, Slovenia, and of course various places in Bosnia that we still had not seen. Our favorite was Venice even though we were dissapointed with the food. We walked a lot and got rained on, but it was worth it. What an amazing place! 

The boys really liked the pigeons at the piazza San Marco in the heart of Venice. Well three of the boys liked the pigeons landing all over them; Braden was stradling my leg and screaming when I took this picture. 

Thanks to Grandma Debbie for taking us all over Europe and for coming to visit us here. This picture was taken at our favorite restaurant just five minutes from our house. We all agreed that the service and food here was the best of our whole trip. 

I couldn't help but send this adorable picture of Caleb. He's 3 1/2 now and loves to sing. You can give him any topic (birds, boats, trees), and he will make up a song for you. 

Here are the Long boys enjoying the cool of the evening in Orebic, Croatia. We are quickly learning all the best places to go during the summer. We camped for four days and Stacy taught the boys how to snorkle.  

Stacy found a starfish while snorkling and brought it to the shore to share with the boys. None of them wanted to put it on their face like Daddy. The european vacationers didn't think it was a very good idea either as they screamed in horror and gave looks of disgust. 

With a little help from Kara (our nanny from Canada), I planted my first ever flower garden. A lot of my neighbors help as well by giving me different things to put into it. I quickly discovered how important it is to know what a plant is going to do once it develops. So it won't get any awards from Better Homes and Gardens, but it's been an awesome tool for relationship building with my neighbors.  

We took some pictures for those of you wondering what a new kitchen in Bosnia looks like. The table is much bigger than it looks. It's nice to be able to finally keep salt and pepper on the table and elbows fit quite nicely as well. We are trying to go easy on the boys as the table gets loved with new scrapes and scratches. Thank you Remley's, Brandon's, and friends. 

We mop the floor in front of the dishwasher often to clean up the tears of joy from the sound of our new machine. Thank you so much Canadians. 

It has turned out to be a very warm summer here and we are enjoying playing in the river close by. The boys catch lizards, frogs, and lots of tadpoles. Braden is displaying his current lack of teeth. 

We were so blessed to get away to the coast and see the sights we've been hearing about all this time. This is Dubrovnik, the castle city on the coast of Croatia. It is so interesting to walk around in the middle of it. The picture below this one was taken on the rocks to the far left (where that little boat is). After the picture was taken, the boys decided to jump in and swim in front of the castle. 

We are kicking ourselves because this beautiful coast is just four and a half hours away from us and it took us two and a half years to finally go. Okay well it does cost a bit, but we saved some since we camped. If you all come visit us, we'll take you here, okay. 

Caleb really enjoyed his first ever camping experience. His favorite part was roasting marshmellows on the fire. Some french people joined us because you can't get marshmellows in most of Europe and we had brought some back from the States. It's a good way to make friends. 

This is the spot we camped at for four days. We didn't expect that we would be swimming much but it was so warm the boys didn't care that the water was cold. 

Here we are in Mostar. This is the famous old bridge (except it's not old anymore because it was destroyed in the war and then rebuilt). Our favorite part of this town was the cantalope ice cream. 

Once again our cat had kittens. Our cat's name is Pepper so we decided to name all four kittens after pepper's. This one here is Cayanne Pepper. We also have Chili, Jalapeno, and Dr. Pepper. 

We decided to finally visit Vranduk, a castle just 20 minutes from us. It's really small, but interesting. We had fun getting out of the house for the afternoon. 

Kara took the girls up on the hill behind our house and took a ton of pictures of them. This one turned out great so I thought I'd share it with you. Her name is Munira and she is 16 years old. She had spent her whole life in the orphanage. She looks tough, but is sweet as can be. 

And here's Jerica, our new teammate! She's the one in the white shirt. She's got her arms around Bozana, one of the orphan girls. Jerica is planning on sticking around Bosnia for a long time. 

Our nanny Kara is enjoying hanging out with the girls. Kara is the one right in the middle. She's a great help around the house, and the boys love her. We will be very sad to see her go in June. 

Hey everyone. Spring has arrived and now we can get out and ride our bikes! 

We celebrated Christmas with a few other missionary families at our house this year. We sang english worship songs and tried to sing some Christmas songs, but it's just not the same without the big choirs and celebrations of all the churches in the states. You don't know what you have until it's gone. 

Goodmorning Christmas! A kids favorite morning of the year. 

What do you do when someone wants to get baptized in the middle of winter but it's too cold to do it in the river? Well our bathtub seemed appropriate. Here's Stacy and Sasha laughing because they weren't sure if his head would fit.