The National Opera House in Prague. It is on the street where the USSR tanks came to put a stop to the Revolution there.
This is Charles Bridge and it stretches over the Vltava River
This is Antygl in Sumava. Samuel, Jane, and I hiked along the river Vydra, which means riveotter. Unfortunately there are no otters here.
St. Vitus's Cathedral lies in the area of the Presidential Palace. It has a magnificent rose window and a primarily gold mosaic. 
Yesterday, we all had dinner together and said our farewells to the Johnson Surfer, the boat that 3 generations learned to ski and wakeboard on. A nice family from Mariposa will use this boat and create memories for their children with it. This was the Cadillac of boats when Mom and Dad bought it in 1967 and we've had so many great vacations with it (Trinity Lake, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Kentucky Lake, Lake Nippissing, and Lake Erie to name a few). Our families are closer because of it.
This is Hbluko castle near Ceske Budejovice. Marketa's Family only lives in a suburb right outisde of the city.
This is the Vaclave Square in Prague. It is filled with shops and tourist attractions. At the top of the Square is the Czech Republic National Museum.
This is me in the Terezie Valley. It is such a beautiful place which is near Nove Hrady.
This is Marketa and me going down the river Vlatava. This river is extremely cold, but the scenery makes up for it.
Evan is shown here on the top of the castle overlooking the Czech countryside. With him are Mom and Dad Hezinova and their 16-year old son Frankie. Evan said that it is so green and lush there. He has been canoeing on the rivers there, swimming in lakes, and visited many castles. He said that he is going to talk at a Rotary Club meeting there this week as a Rotary exchange student.
This past weekend, on July 8th, Alana and Grammie (aka Helen, Mom) celebrated their birthdays. It started by surprising Grammie with Helen and Allison flying in from Sacramento and meeting us at Mimi's for the birthday breakfast. That night we had a small party with family and friends for Alana and Grammie. Sunday, we all said "goodbye" to Evan at the airport for his month in the Czech Republic as a Rotary Youth Exchange student.
Today we celebrated Honey's 14th birthday. She enjoyed a great day by doing some of her favorite things - sleeping, taking walks in the green belt, resting on the cool terrazo floor in the entry way, rolling around on her back on the front lawn and eating a special dinner of roasted chicken breast with Purina One kibbles (thanks, James!). Honey is still as sweet as ever! Best wishes for many more! Bunches is a good dog!
The real hit of the Duarte 2nd Ward party was the Karaoke machine. The young people really got into it, especially when they were singing songs from the "Grease" sountdtrack.
Ian and the girls all went to Downtown Disney after a day of watching World Cup Soccer at Il Fornaio and riding the waves at Huntington Beach. He stayed outside while Whitney (from Seattle), Erin, Alana, and Adrienne (from Houston) all tried on their favorite Disney princess dresses. Whitney and Adrienne drove down from BYU to visit Ian for the long 4th of July weekend.
Dad turned 81 years old today. Larry and Susan Marino dropped in from across the street, Marshall Jackman dropped in from Burlington, Iowa and Shing dropped in from the aerobics class. . .we had a Mexican food feast, with Dad's favorites of enchiladas, tacos and chili beans.
This is a picture of Jeannie doing her watch on the lookout aboard the cutter Boutwell. It looks to be a might chilly and windy there! Her cutter docked in Alameda on Sunday, June 11 and we were there to greet it. Jeannie took us on a tour of the cutter and we were able to have lunch on board too. Natalie joined us and enjoyed the experience. The crew thought it was cool to see Allison and even stood at attention when they saw her, thinking it was Jeannie! On June 16, Jeannie leaves for 6 weeks aboard Eagle, the 300 ft. sailing ship along the East Coast. Fair winds and seas, Jeannie!
Alana and I went to Washington D.C., Annapolis and Greenbelt, Maryland for the National League of Cities Board Meeting and the Small Cities Council. We toured the oldest airport in the world at Greenbelt, where the Wright Brothers flew their airplane in 1908 (to get the U.S. military to order a contract from them). We also toured Greenbelt, which was the first planned community in the U.S., under FDR (Small Cities people on the steps of the museum). We also went down to Chesapeake Bay, had more crabs for dinner than I have ever eaten, and toured the old capital building in Annapolis. It was great for us to be with all of the Small Cities people again.
and the adults loved seeing the beautiful styles on them. Mom, you must have turned quite a few heads when you wore those gowns at the weddings. The weekend was fun - just wish we could have had the entire family together!
Brad, Shirley and I just got back from Australia about 7 a.m. this morning. The speech in Melbourne went well but I am glad that it is over. These are some of the pictures that we took. ..saw the penguin migration to their nests one night near Melbourne, walked around the Sydney harbor (cleanest harbor I have ever seen), saw a lot of kangaroos (this one with a baby in her pouch), and then went scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. The people were very friendly. . .I would really like to go back again to see this country that is about the same land mass as the continental U.S. but only has 20 million people.
Two weeks after returning from Guatemala, some of us are still fighting off some sort of sickness. I am not really sure why I am quite the lucky one, but everyone else claims that these pictures explain why.
Did you know that termites taste a lot like carrots? Neither did we until we found ourselves on the location of SURVIVOR GUATEMALA. We voted our guide off the island to say the least.
