Rome

I haven't forgotten that I never finished pictures from our trip to Europe this summer. The Rome pictures are extremely intimidating because we saw so much (and it was all new to me). The first day we went to the Colosseum and Palatine Hill.

Chris in the Colosseum.

Ceasar's burial site (and people still put flowers on it!)

They're still doing excavations.

The next day we went to the Vatican Museum. The tour guides love to tell you that the line is horrendously long and you should pay (an extra $50 per person) to go on their tour and they'll get you to the front of the line. The guidebook said to go Wednesday morning, so we did and it worked like a charm - I think we spent 20 minutes in line (it isn't uncommon to spend at least 2 hours in line). The museum wasn't very religious, it was more like the British museum with all sorts of statues and paintings and artifacts. The part I really liked were the marble floors. They were in so many different colors - and most people didn't even notice them.

Welcome Home Christa!

Jamie's sister Christa recently returned from an LDS church mission in The Netherlands (she was gone for 18 months). The entire family was all very excited to go meet her at the airport.

One big happy family (minus Chris - poor guy was home studying for a big mid-term, but he got to hang out with the family the next night when Christa wasn't suffering quite so much from jet lag!)

Jamie and Christa

Christa saw the signs on the garage (I think we did a pretty good job!) and said, "Oh, I really am in Utah now!"

This was just too funny to miss. We caught the brothers-in-law with posters and balloons (aren't they good sports?).

We're Approved (Again!)

So our adoption profile is back up again! We moved a few months ago and finally have everything back together. You can visit it at www.itsaboutlove.org. We went to P.F. Chang's to celebrate and got the following fortunes (in our fortune cookies):
"Good things come in small packages. Yours is coming!"
"An unexpected visitor will bring you good blessings."
On the way home we picked up our mail and found Chris' retirement account statement - his account increased about 20% just last quarter! I'd say that's good news. But I was hoping for news of children in our family. That will come too. :)

Family Picnic

In September, Jamie's family had a picnic in the canyon. We had dinner and then played Frisbee and talked (until it was too cold to stay). Some of the pictures are rather dark, but they were too fun to be missed:

Jamie's mom and sister pose on top of a climbing rock.

Chris playing Frisbee (I'm amazed at my timing on this one!)

Chris with our niece (I know it's a dark picture, but it was just too cute!)

Hiking Mt. Timpanogos

A couple of weeks ago Jamie got to hike Timp with her dad, and two sisters (Alisa and Katie). Poor Chris was at home doing homework. :( It was a great hike, but an exhausting day. Alisa promised me a "long" break half-way up at Emerald Lake, but was ready to go again within 15 minutes. That sure is not my idea of a long break! But we all survived. The views were gorgeous (it reminded me of the Swiss Alps - yes I'll post on that someday)!

This was by far the weirdest toilet I have ever used, but it had a great view!

At the top! (I've looked better, but I think it's okay to look a little wind-blown after such a serious hike!)

I've always wanted to see some real mountain goats, but they got a little too close for comfort for some of us! They had awfully sharp horns, and it makes you a little nervous when they block your only path! (Kind of ironic that I didn't take any up-close pictures!)

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Congratulations to our Fishies!

When we moved we decided to get an aquarium and some fish. It was only a few weeks ago that we got some starter fish, some neon tetras and platies. We thought that the female platty looked really fat and I guess she was pregnant! The other night I saw a baby fish swimming in the tank, but it disappeared and I was mourning our loss, but this afternoon we found at least four or five baby fish swimming on the bottom! Hooray! I just hope they don't continue to multiply or we'll be swamped with fish!
Here are some pictures of what our fish look like (from the internet).

Venice

After London we flew to Venice (flights within Europe are cheap!!). We got in pretty late and had an adventurous bus ride to our hotel (we only had a 20 Euro note and the bus driver wasn't thrilled that we didn't have change, but we worked it out). We got a little sleep and then spent the day in Venice before our flight out that night to Rome (it was a REALLY short trip - if I ever go to Venice again I need to spend more than one day there). Here are some pictures:

Cruising the Grand Canal

We went to St. Mark's Cathedral (they've basically stolen stuff from all over Europe and put it in their church - even Mark's body!). The entire ceiling is covered in mosaics (unfortunately you can't take pictures, so these are from outside).



(Isn't he cute? Even in a hot, sweaty, crowded city!)

We stopped at a sandwich shop for lunch. Chris was excited about his cheap salami sandwich. What a find in an expensive city!


Then we went to an outer island and watched a short glass blowing/shaping demonstration that was cool. And then it was off to the airport for another (late) flight.

BYU 14 - OU 13!

What an amazing game! BYU (ranked #20) beat OU (ranked #3). People may tell you it's because their quarterback went out at half time with an injury (and that helped), but up to that point BYU was still very much in the game. How amazing! What an awesome start to the season! I called my little brother after the game (a Freshman at BYU) and he was out in the streets celebrating!

(picture from KSL.com)

Hello London!

Ever since we were married, I've been telling Chris that "one day" I would take him to Europe. Well, with Chris beginning his MBA we decided to go on my dream vacation! We started in London, then flew to Venice, Rome, and Switzerland (flights within Europe are SO CHEAP!). Here are some fun pics from London. Of course, with just the two of us there wasn't really anyone to take a picture of us together, and I had the camera most of the time so I put Chris in any pictures I could get him into (until he started offering to take my picture).

Our room in London with a VERY jet-lagged Chris. He really struggled to adjust, poor guy!

Jamie in front of the British Museum (The British Empire's attic full of stuff from their global conquests. They even have a Greek temple in there!).

Jamie in St. James' Park

Pretty good for taking that myself, don't you think? :)

We got to go see "Wicked" and I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture outside. But here's the stage inside. The dragon roared and moved - it was so neat! Chris even enjoyed it.

Chris inside the British Museum with the Egyptian artifacts (we went back for a second visit - it's too much to take in in one day!).

We went to the Hyde Park Ward and this is the church building - it still looks like an LDS church, but it's mixed in with a bunch of large buildings - right across the street from the Science Museum (that's how we found it!). The people were very friendly and we even ran into someone from our old ward who was in London doing graduate studies with his wife! It was fun to see a familiar face - and he even got home before we did!

Will we go back? Of course. I already talk about our next trip to London! But I think it will be a LONG way down the road. Chris wants to go to Jerusalem. That's a serious trip!!

Happy Birthday Jamie!

So that was quite awhile ago, but the day was rather hectic. For the first time in my life, I forgot it was my own birthday. We were moving that day (after painting and carpeting our new place that week. We worked four 16-18 hour days in a row. I can't remember ever working such long hours) and I totally forgot it was my birthday until Chris reminded me. But thanks to A LOT of help from our family our place was painted and carpeted in time to move in (and they helped with that part too!). They all sacrificed to come help us. And then without time to unpack we went on our trip to Europe. We got back and had 2 1/2 days to unpack before my teacher work days started. I wish I could say that everything is unpacked and unorganized. We found the front room Monday night! :) Here's a fun picture from our trip:

I believe this is at St. James' Park (that's the London Eye in the background).

Happy Birthday Chris!

Today is Chris' birthday! I even got him a present, which sounds pretty pitiful until you look at his wish list (yeah, he asked for gift cards). He was happy to tell me everything he wanted, but it came with the fact that HE wanted to pick it out. He can be very difficult. :) We tried to go shopping together before his birthday, but things are SO hectic right now that we just ended up shopping for paint for our new place. Here are some fun, favorite pics.

With our adorable niece
Showing off the catch of the day

Showing off his monster tomato plants (Sad, we're moving so no real garden this summer, but we're growing bell peppers in pots on our front porch.)

This is a funny one. This is back when we were engaged and Chris was desperately trying to take a picture of the both of us (yes, he's holding the camera!). :)

Eureka!

Or: How I made my vacuum suck!

My vacuum was dying a slow death. When my parents were visiting, my mom tried to help by vacuuming and all it did was spit out gunk. I'd tried unclogging the hose (YUCK!), but that didn't seem very effective. Then as I was packing (we're moving next week and so that's partly why I haven't been a dutiful blogger) I found the vacuum manual and noticed there was a section on "How to unclog the hose." As Chris left for work I became and engineer and started taking apart the vacuum. Wow. I won't even tell you how much stuff was stuck in the top of the hose - but it's incredible how much dirt could be crammed up there! So I saved our vacuum, which is kind of sad because I was working on convincing Chris that we "needed" to buy a Dyson. :)

Things that make me laugh

I was out running errands today and came up to a stop light. Right next to me was a car all decked out as the Ghost Busters mobile. No joke. It even had blue lights on top and a carrying rack full of fake Ghost Busters stuff. I think I laughed out loud. It was one of the few times that I wished I had a camera phone.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

To celebrate that school is out (HOORAY!), we went to a baseball game with Jamie's sister, her husband, and their daughter. We especially chose this game because they were doing fireworks after the game. (Jamie LOVES fireworks shows!) Chris gets this great deal through work where we only pay $9 and get these awesome seats right behind home plate. It was a lot of fun! Oh, and for the "seventh inning stretch" they all sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Bryce Canyon: Day 2

After a relaxing Sunday in the small town of Panguitch, Utah, Chris and I were ready to get out and do a real hike. The forecast was for heavy rainstorms after noon, so we got up early to begin our hike. We started at Bryce Point and hiked down (from the top of the canyon) along one of the longest decents to the canyon floor. The views were amazing, the weather was amazing, and it was just an amazing hike. I just uploaded my pictures. I took over 150 on the hike! Needless to say, we won't torture you with all of them. Here are a few of my favorite.
Can you see the trail behind Chris? This was just the beginning. It really wasn't bad because it was all going down. I seriously stopped every few yards to take pictures!

This is camel rock (we named it ourselves!). Can you see it?

A Triple Arch!
After hiking along the valley floor, we hiked up "Wall Street." From this picture, you can see why they call it that. I love the trees growing tall in this narrow canyon.

When the slide show starts to feel long, feel free to just stop watching. Just remember, this is a little more than one tenth of all the pictures we took! :) Needless to say, it was a wonderful day and we would recommend Bryce Canyon to anyone. But the storm clouds were rolling in as we left.

Bryce Canyon

For Memorial Day weekend we took a much needed vacation to Bryce Canyon National Park. We had been there a few years ago, but it rained (we got drenched!) and so we didn't get to hike through the bottom of the canyon. (It's a lot like a mini Grand Canyon, but with very different formations.) So we went back. And it rained. Yes. Their chart said that it rains an average of five days in May. So we took the ranger's advice and just hiked along the rim (on top) the first day. Here are a few pictures, and then a slide show. I know it's hard to believe, but there are even more pictures than this. :)

We came prepared for rain.

This is the clay that stuck to our shoes. We were glad we weren't at the bottom of the canyon.
After an hour of so of walking in the rain we gave up and went back to our room. Luckily, the weather on Monday worked out better and we got a gorgeous hike in that morning (more pictures to come).

One Day More...

Did anyone catch the allusion? I'll give you a hint: think military (kind of).

Anyway, ONE more day of school! This week I feel like I've taken a beating. But when I see my principal, I guess I'm doing okay. On Tuesday he said he felt swine flu coming on and would be back in a few weeks. Hah. I have a lot of amazingly wonderful kids, but (especially in the last week of school) it's the difficult ones that require 95% of my attention. Oh well, usually only the good kids show up on the last day. :) And today I got to read them my favorite math book: The Math Curse. If you've never seen it, you should definitely check it out!

Happy Birthday Erica!

This is a bit late (2 weeks?), but better late than never, right? Happy Birthday to my amazing sister! Here are some great fun photos:

I love this picture of Erica and me when we were little.
Can you tell who is who?

Making Christmas goodies

At our niece's sealing with our sister Katie.