merry christmas!!

i freakin' love christmas, the whole season. i love the smell of christmas trees, i love christmas music (which is a point of contention in our household, by the way- dave doesnt like my christmas music...can you imagine?), i love christmas lights, i love the colors red and green, i love christmas candles, i love christmas ornaments, i love christmas gift wrap (is that weird?) and i LOVE getting christmas cards in the mail. so, if any of you havent sent one over, its not too late. or if you werent even planning to send us a christmas card, but you have extra, theyre all welcome. our address is 231o elliott ave. #506 nashville 37204. please feel the freedom (and the urge)...

we're about to head to knoxville for the holiday...just cant wait. the barnes family spells F-U-N. (we actually verbally spell it out before we open christmas gifts...its strange, but awesome.) although, i must admit, it doesnt get any easier to spend christmas away from my fam. does that happen to everyone??

ill finish my posting about africa after the holidays...im still in the processing phase. yesterday was the first day that i didnt cry...im slowly getting back to normal. here are some things to look forward to:

1. barrett ward on a camel. (that will always be #1, by the way)

2. baby elephant orphanage

3. really, really small planes

4. and the little girl who stole my heart, abuk.

merry christmas yall. hope you have wonderful family time...and i pray that we will all remember what we are celebrating and how blessed we are!!

italy part II

although a handful of pictures and a few words could never do our time in italy justice, im making an honorable attempt.


this first picture is of us outside our hotel in florence. we stayed in one of the most well known piazzas in all of italy, piazza della signoria. its in the center of florence- our hotel was next door to the uffizi, 2 blocks from the ponte veccchio, 4 blocks from the duomo...it was awesome. they even had tons of individually wrapped, extra large tic tacs...yes, they were free and believe me, i took the liberty of stocking up.





the next picture is in lucca. we had to document the view from our tiny little rental car as we (dave actually) were driving through the streets. lucca was one of my favorites. we got there as the sun was setting, and it was exactly what you would imagine as a little romantic italian town during christmas time. there were lights strung all around the city, there were string quartets playing in the squares...it was perfect :)



the next pic was in sienna, the heart of tuscany. although we look immensly happy and carefree,
at this point we were totally lost and we had no
idea where we had parked our car. hmm...how do you lose a car?i dont know, but it happened to us in 2 different towns, so it must be easier that you would think.
it really wasnt so bad because i mean, we were in italy.






i had to include at least one picture of a duomo
(cathedral,) even if its not the most entertaining
thing to look at...every town has a duomo. they are just so beautiful.
most of them have very elaborate artwork oftentimes portraying specific scenes from the bible. dave and i would have competitions to see who could figure out the stories first. this particular one is in orvieto. the inside is all black and white marble...loved it.








this last picture is also of orvieto...i had to show yall what these towns looked like with the christmas lights everywhere. it was awesome. all the little streets had lights strung from one side to the other and it definitely got us in the spirit (although i was missing my christmas music!)


well, there it is...a rough summary of our wonderful week in italy :) it was definitely one of the best weeks we have ever had. wouldnt trade it for anything...

after the week was over, we flew from rome to nairobi thus beginning the africa leg of our 3 week world tour...more to come...

we're home!

man, this particular post is so daunting...i dont even know where to begin.

our trip? incredible. unbelievable. life-changing. it couldnt have been better.

as you can imagine, i have a LOT to share. too much, really. at least too much for this format. i still havent even processed most of it. in fact, every time i look at pictures from our time in the sudan, tears come to my eyes. im sure that will fade away, but i pray that the reason behind it never will.

ive decided to blog about our trip piece by piece. that will be easier for all of us. plus, it will give me time to figure out how to possibly convey into words what i saw, learned, felt, and experienced in africa.



so we start with italy. we were there for a week, and i cant remember ever having more fun with dave. we had a blast. im so thankful for that time. sometimes you just need to get away and be together. we learned new stuff about eachother, we laughed (a LOT), we cried...we made memories. it was an adventure!

these are some pics from our first few days...im going to try to spare you the 350 pictures we took of the things you see in textbooks and just show you some of the either cool, artsy pics (courtesy of dave) or ones with people (mostly just dave and me) in them.

the first picture is of 2 statues with the moon between them (im afraid you are going to be robbed of the chance to appreciate the full value of this shot due to the fact that it has to be sized down so much for this blog.)

the second pic is of this random church off the beaten path. we happened to walk in as the sun was going down and we got some really awesome pictures. thats what i love about rome- there's
cool stuff everywhere you look, even if its not even mentioned in the "let's go italy" book.

then we have a picture of us with toy (o'ferrall) and doug harmon- we met up with them for a night of dinner, gelato, and lots of wonderful conversation. they live in a church steeple overlooking a famous piazza in rome.
that night was awesome. we didnt want it to end.

and lastly, a picture of the famous leaning tower
in pisa. the most memorable thing for us about pisa was getting stuck driving on tiny one way streets in the middle of the city. people were having to move out of our way...it was crazy. i thought dave was going to have a heart attack.

just realized that this post could go on and on just about italy...so, italy part II is coming you way soon...stay tuned :)