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. :)