Life grows lovely!

This and that

2011-11-09T21:30:00.007-07:00

With Thanksgiving on its way, I wanted to share a few little blessings in my life right now. In the last couple of months I feel like I've done a lot of learning and growing as a person. I don't like it all the time, some days are good, some are not - others are just exhausting. But I've caught myself counting my blessings more often than I ever have and accounting for each one individually.

Things with State Farm are moving along. According to this chart I think we're doing great!

While I'd like to believe that we're about half way through the tangle and will be seeing sunlight on the other end at any moment, I know we probably haven't even come to the first bend yet.That's totally okay. While I would probably fast forward if I could, this is really good for us.

Matthew being gone so much as actually been good in some ways. We've never really been phone talkers, and now we talk on the phone all the time! I really love it. Would I rather just have him home with me? YES! of course! But because this is the way it has to be right now, I'm soaking in every minute he is on the line and looking forward to every text and call more than I ever did before.

The days are going by SO FAST. It's forcing me to savor them. I'm becoming more accountable for my days. With so much to do, in so little time I'm beginning to feel the passing of every day and feel its worth. This is something I'm really grateful for.

Audio books and music. Maybe those seem like things that aren't important enough to make the list, but some days they save me. I can't do ANYTHING else if the television is on, but if I can turn on a good book or music I'm all set to go, it lessens the quietness in my house, and because I'm not glued to the television, I get so much done!

Food. I love food. Probably to much. The first day that Matthew is gone, I usually spend sulking and eating things that do me more harm than good. Then I usually live on cereal and peanut butter toast. This last time he left I told myself buck up and be responsible. So I've been trying to eat better and make more health. Instead of leaving candy out to snack on (because I don't snack, I gorge) I chopped up a head of roman lettuce and made sure that a bowl of it was out on the counter when ever I've been in the kitchen. I also made a batch of Tomatillo Cilantro ranch (think Cafe Rio) and made sure that there was a little bowl of that out as well. Its turned out great! Instead of a bowl of cereal late at night, I end up eating salad, because it's right there. I've also been trying to take lunch to work at least every other day.It's been nice to have some kind of control and routine again in my life! This weekend I took time to make home made hot pockets and monkey bread - I forgot how relaxing cooking is.

My amazing neighbors. This is waaay above the books and food on my thankful list right now. I have the most amazing neighbors, Shirley, Jared and their little boys make my life so good. Living next door to them as really made me look forward to having our own family some day. I want to cry every time I think of moving away. When we rent out the house, I'm considering charging an extra fee just for having awesome neighbors.

Tithing and primary - Now I am teaching the 10 year olds and they are way too smart and way too big. Apparently I haven't gotten any taller since I was about 10 because many of them are my size.

You're going to make fun of me but I'm adding How I Met Your Mother to the list tonight- I'm not a big television person so I'm adding this sheepishly. But I can't help it I LOVE this show. When I'm feeling pouty or lonely I jump on hulu and watch an episode (or two or three or....) between statistic chapters. Seriously. Hilarious.

I'm grateful for my statistics class. :: shutters :: Well, technically I HATE my statistics class. But I'm also really grateful for it. I'm about half way through and while it makes me cry on a pretty regular basis, when I DO understand what we're talking I almost enjoy it. I am taking the course through a private tutoring company called Ology and while it's a little more expensive, there are only 3 people in my class and I am by passing having to take FOUR other math classes by taking this course. NICE!

Well, the gratitude month is long and I've used up my allowed break from homework. Now I have to get back to identifying "whether or not the statistical procedure is robust in respects to Normality when alpha is equal to 0.53791 and when the z* of the standard deviations of the population in a randomly selected matched pairs sample test is > 600"...

A nice visit

2011-10-29T23:20:00.001-06:00

Mom, Sarah and Paul came to visit Matthew and I this weekend. We met up in West Valley where Matthew had been staying for work. Matthew had to go back to work Saturday morning, so I took the family out to Stansbury to show them around.

We had some trouble with the Jeep, but it proved for a good adventure.

Paul didn't think it was a very fun adventure...

I love them!

Yep, that is Sarah's finger in the picture. :)

I miss them so much!

Phoenix

2011-10-09T20:40:00.006-06:00

Matthew is gone on a two week stint in Arizona for training - and I'm going crazy. I HATE being home alone. Sweety foresaw this and booked me a ticket to fly down and spend the weekend with him!

Getting there was a little rough, after a full day of work and class I arrived for my 9:50 flight. Delta postponed it to 11:15 and then around midnight announced that because of problems that they were canceling the flight altogether. They booked us on a 6:30 flight for the next morning that then carted all 150 of us, luggage-less off to hotels for the night.

While it broke my heart that my already short weekend with handsome was just made shorter, I have to assume that there really was something unsafe about the condition of the plane, if they were willing to get each person a room and food, rather than just letting us fly as scheduled. Even so, the next morning people looked ragged - my makeup-less, second day clothes-clad self included. My heart poured out to the children on our flight. This little girl was honestly the saddest/cute thing I saw the whole weekend. She had some serious bed head. She probably got to sleep around 1:30 just to get back up at 4 to go to the airport!

Poor thing!

Things continued in their rough fashion, as it does some days, my luggage had taken a serious beating, and the bottom was broken out. Lucky, all of my things were still inside and in good shape. Then I was missed by the shuttle - twice! lol.... oh... good times. So, a little worse for wear, i arrived at our hotel 12 hours later than expected. By the time I made it to the hotel husband was long gone for the day to his traings. My 2 1/2 day weekend had turned to 1 1/2 - but that was SO much better than being at home alone.

When I finally got to see him that afternoon I nearly cried i was so happy! These training are a regular thing now, and I've turned into a little bit of a baby.

That night we went to dinner at Rokerij with some of Matthew's good friends who have a State Farm office in Phoenix. The rest of the weekend was amazingly uneventful! Matthew took me to see the State Farm Training Center, we picked up groceries for him for this next week, got ice cream, did laundry,

had some GREAT sushi

walked around the temple and visitor center

and tried to get at one normal picture of ourselves.

It was so nice to spend some time with Matthew and to see his second home for the next few months. Now I'm going to buck up and try not to whine about being all alone this next week!

More Primary

2011-09-19T22:35:00.001-06:00

I LOVE our primary class. They are so adorable. This week our lesson was on the temple.We talked about how we all want to prepare to go to the temple and I pulled out Matthew's Ipad and showed them this clip.

I showed it to them with the intention of having the music to sing along to in class. But they were AMAZED at how many children ALSO loved the temple! How cute! To them, it looked like there were "millions" of children singing about the temple. This was a wonderful twist on our lesson. I decided to roll with it. We talked about how there WERE many many many people and children all over the world who loved the temple and who were also trying to be good and keep the commandments so that they could go to the temple too. They were so impressed by this.

Then we made color flip books so that they could teach their families about the temples when they went home. Then I showed them this clip.

Honestly, I showed them this clip just to take up a little more time. :) I worried that they might think it was boring. But they were captivated. I was so surprised. When they started showing pictures of the temples the kids got so excited. I thought that was great - but when they started showing pictures of the INSIDE their eyes got as big as saucers! "WOOOOOOW!" "I wannnna go thereeee..." "Beauuuutiful!" "Is that OUR temple?"

My very favorites were:

"No wonder I feel good when I see the temple, because its beautiful INSIDE to!" and "I'm going to be so good so I can go there and get married!"

I loved hearing this so much. I could have cried to see them so excited. I love the temple so much and I felt so happy to be able to share this with our primary kids. I'm so grateful for the temple, the church and this teaching opportunity.

Get to a better State

2011-09-19T21:09:00.005-06:00

When I’m avoiding writing about one thing – I don’t write about anything at all. But that just isn’t going to do because I’m going to look back and have no idea what we were doing with our lives. If you see us on a regular basis, this is going to be old news, but I just keep putting off seeing it in writing.

So that I stop putting it off, I’ll just get it all out. We’ll see how it looks.

We’re opening a State Farm Insurance Agency, so we’re moving to Stansbury Park!

Stansbury Park is by Tooele. Yes. Tooele.

And we’re kind of opening an office. Really, we’re taking over a State Farm office. There is a gentleman in Tooele who is retiring, and his giant office is being divided between us and another agent. We will be opening a new office physically, in Stansbury Park with half of his clientele.

Yay! I’m excited, apprehensive, scared spitless and can’t wait!

It’s such a long story, which is the real reason why I’ve been avoiding writing about it. In March Matthew’s work Fortune Learning Systems closed their doors. We were really lucky to have a rainy day fund as well as my income from UVU, so there wasn’t a big rush for him to find work. My biggest concern was him finding something that he LOVED. Husband is 100% dedicated to his work, regardless of what it is and if he was going to dedicate that much of himself to something I wanted to know that it was something that he looked forward to every day. Plus, we were leaving for Europe in 6 weeks and felt like it would be hard to start a new job and then leave for the better part of a month.

So we waited. We Europed. We had an amazing time.

When we got home, Matthew got right to work doing research on where he want to work. We both had some ideas that we hoped to find in a job for him. Like everyone, we wanted job stability and long term financial freedom. We were looking for entrepreneurship and employee satisfaction to boot. Something Matthew brought up was finding a family friendly company. While working for Fortune was wonderful, and a blessing – it meant that he was working well over 45 hours a week and that meant little family time. When it’s just the two of us, that’s not a huge deal. But when we are greater than two, we have to be able to spend time together with our family. We also were travel happy from our trip and wanted to find something that would allow us to do more of it in the future.

That's a pretty hefty list and I wasn’t sure that it was possible to find all of that in one place. But we could dream.

Leave it to Husband. While I was dreaming of it, he went out and found it.

I came home one day and he announced that he was going to work for State Farm and proceeded to demonstrate how it satisfied every. single. thing. we were looking for. Goodness I love him.

It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. Then interview process was grueling. Once he was accepted as an agent, we would be put on a list of “approved agents” and would wait our turn for an office opening. We thought it would be at least 9 months to a year before we were considered for anything. But, in true Matthew Yack fashion, the day after his interview corporate called him up and asked in if he wanted to take over/open an office in Stansbury Park. :) He still had to interview for it, but it all fell into place and we accepted. Our office will open March 1^st.

This has thrown our entire lives into a frenzy, but if you know us well, you probably realize that its usually like that anyways. :)

So now Matthew is passing off his financial certifications, and spending a lot of time in Arizona for training. I’ve finishing up at UVU and trying to wrap my head around the responsibilities that I’ll have with our office and slowly but surely pack up our house. Life is good. Busy. Crraaaazy busy. But oh so good.

A good day

2011-08-27T23:46:00.002-06:00

It’s been a busy day! This morning we went a primary activity. After a lesson from a bishopric member, we split into groups and went on a treasure hunt around the church. It was fun to have all of the kids together when they didn’t have to worry about talking quietly or folding their arms. The treasure hunt ended in a ice cream party in the gym. WOW. Our primary presidency is amazing. I love event planning, but I’m not sure I’d ever try to hold an ice cream party for 100 kids. It was so fun though, scooping ice cream, dishing out sprinkles and Oreo crumbles. I had the job of whipped cream and spoons. I seriously had so much fun!

After primary we went down to the Spanish Fork Farmers Market. It’s one of my favorite things about living here! I’ve been waiting impatiently for mooonths for it to start again. We bought honey, peppers, squash, zucchini, peaches, corn, beef jerky, and a big fat loaf of herb bread. I love supporting our city and the locals here, not to mention fresh fruit and veggies. During the winter we usually get our veggies from Bountiful Baskets, but going down to the Farmers Market is just such a treat! I HIGHLY recommend that if you live nearby you check it out. It’s Saturday mornings from 8am to 1pm at Center and Main in SF.

After that we made a trip to Home Depot for paint. A few months ago we were trying to decide what color to paint our basement bathroom and never settled on anything. Finally we got re-motivated and picked a green. It looks very close to this:

It's a small bathroom, so we were able to put on both coats today. It's looking wonderful! Now we're just waiting for it to dry so we can pull off the tape and put everything back together.

It's nice to get things done around here. We've been so crazy busy with other things that although today was busy busy, it was almost like a little vacation.

Primary

2011-08-25T23:26:00.000-06:00

About a month ago a member of our bishopric came over and called us to be primary teachers. I giggled nervously when we accepted. I’d ALWAYS been in Relief Society. ALWAYS. We had avoided being called into primary for nearly three years- so it was definitely our turn!

We are teaching the 5 turning 6 year olds. They are CUTE. We have eleven on our roster, but usually see between six and nine of them. They are so talkative and energetic and curious about everything. They love to answer questions, tell stories. Many of our lessons go like this:

Sister Yack /Miss Tiffany: Why is it important that we remember Jesus?

Child #6: Because he –

Child # 3 Interrupts – THIS ONE TIME- I FELL OFF MY BED AND I WAS BLEEDING ON MY NOSE! – THERE WAS BLOOD – BLOOD ALL OVER MY NOSE AND MY JAMMAS – they were my best Spiderman jammas…)

Child #8 WOOOO…. I have spiderman pajamas TOOOO. Heeeeyyy did you bring treats today...??

Children # 2, 5, 3, 4 – Treats?? YOU got treats?? But I didn’t get oooooone! You said that you would bring treeeeeeeats! I got blood out from my nose one time too because I got hit in nose like - BAM!!

Mean while original Child # 6 is looking confused and trying to decide if it’s still her turn to keep speaking or if she is missing out on treats too.

I love it.

The kids really like object lessons and to help them remember what we talked about we’ve been making them their own “lessons” to teach at home to their families. A couple weeks ago we gave them each a little rock and piece of cloth. All together we practiced putting the rock in our hand without showing anyone and covering it with the cloth. Then we practiced asking our families questions about faith. Then they pulled off the cloth to show that there really was something under there – just like everyone had faith that there was. They return and report to us on their teaching the next week. For the most part, these activities have been a hit! It’s so fun to see them learn, and we have a good time putting lessons together.

We just love our little class. They are so sweet and rowdy of course! So far, so good!

Printable coupon round up

2011-08-22T23:54:00.002-06:00

Head over HERE and use zip code to print:

$.75 off any brand gallon of milk

$1.00 off any brand 2 pound of cheese

$1.00 off a bag of Skittles, Starbursts or Lifesavers

$1.00 off 2 Ziploc bag products

$1.50 off 2 Ziploc containers

$.75 off Philadelphia Cooking crème

$.80 off 4 boxes of Hamburger Helper

and a lot more!

Head over HERE to print $.50 off one pouch of Starkist Tuna

HERE to print coupons for Goldfish cracker, Campbell’s soups V8 juice and others!

HERE to print $2 off of one Neosporin product

These can be printed in black and white –and you can print each of them twice per computer

still kickin - just busy!

2011-08-21T02:05:00.002-06:00

I forgot about this picture from our Europe trip.

Who knew that Einstein was still alive!

2011-07-17T23:02:00.000-06:00

2011-07-14T21:47:00.000-06:00

Life is changing faster than I anticipated

Pinterest is addicting

Am I getting old?

I really want to borrow a dog. Just for a week

Husband is really wonderful

I'm prepping myself for a big adventure

That will do for now.

2011-07-06T22:51:00.027-06:00

I love food storage. It makes me feel safe and like I'm being a good wife. But our pantry is looking awful bare so I decided that it was time to start couponing again. I was sure that Matthew was going to groan when I suggested it, but he actually brought it up first!

So, I stopped by Walmart yesterday to get back into it.

Here is what I rounded up for just over $10.00 thanks to Utah County Walmarts now doubling coupons on Tuesdays.

Apple Vinegar

Mayo

Canned chili

an onion

2 cans of pineapple

1 I can't beleive its not butter

2 Jack Daniels BBQ sauces (our fav)

2 Tabasco sauces

4 jars of pickles (thats a lot.. but they will be gone in no time.)

3 free hot sauses

4 free boxes of brownies

2 free boxes of K-Y

(which were not only free, but I made about .76 by buying them. nice.)

All I used were free printable internet coupons, which means you can do the same thing too. Here are some of the coupons I used that I know are still available.These are the prices after walmart doubles the coupon up to $1.00. You can print two of each from each computer. Easy-peasy.

Vlasic Pickles (depending on what size you want) = $1.98 - $0.55/1 Vlasic Coupon = 0.98

Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar 16 oz = $1.28 - $0.50/1 Vinegar Coupon = $0.28

Franks Red Hot Sauce 5 oz = $0.98 - $0.50/1 Franks Coupon = FREE + $0.2 overage

Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce 19 oz = $1.98 - $0.75/1 Jack Daniels Coupon = $0.98

Uncle Bens Whole Grain White Rice Box 5.3 oz = $1.76 - $0.75/1 Uncle Ben Coupon = $0.76

Dole Pineapple 20 oz = $1.08 - $0.50/2 Dole Coupon = $0.58

Goldfish Crackers = $1.98 - $0.55/1 Goldfish Coupon = $0.98

Duncan Hines Snack Size Brownie Mix = $0.94 - $0.50/1 Duncan Hines Coupon = FREE

I'm thinking about ordering the Sunday paper for the coupon inserts again, it by far the fastest way to coupon and build a useful food storage. The Herald has a special where if you order 5 Sunday papers, they are only .93 each. If anyone wants to split a subscription, let me know - because I DEFINITELY don't want 5 Sunday papers myself! We would have food storage coming out of our ears!

Darn.

2011-07-05T12:09:00.008-06:00

Why do my chocolate chip cookies always come out flat like buffalo turds?

Anyone??

hahaha.....

2011-06-24T16:29:00.000-06:00

Excellent work Target!

Spaetzle

2011-06-21T20:54:00.005-06:00

When we were in Germany we had a dish called Spaetzle - a dumpling like noodle covered in cheese sauce. We’ve tried to duplicate the recipe since being home, but the cheese sauce never comes out quite like we want it. The noodle however are WONDERFUL and so easy that’s it’s a little ridiculous.

The noodles are think and soft. mmmm so delicious.

Here is the recipe.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

(if you are making these noodles for soup, leave out the nutmeg)

Mix all the ingredients together until you get a smooth dough. Bring 6 cups of water to boil in a deep pot, I like to add a chicken bouillon cube for every two cups of water. It gives the noodles just little extra flavor. Because I don’t have a spaetzle maker, I poured the dough into a zip lock bag and cut a little snip off of one corner.

Squeeze the your bag of dough over the boiling water until you have a string of dough the desired length of your noodle. Then with a clean pair of kitchen shears, just cut the sting! For the soup I made longer noodles. When we make meat or cheese dishes with them, we like plump short noodles.

The dough will sink to the bottom of your boiling pan. When it is cooked through it will float back up to the top.

As you cut more noodles into the pot, scoop the cooked noodles that have risen to the top in to another bowl of cold water to cool them. Then move then over to a strainer.

 When we make meat or cheese dishes with them, we like plump short noodles like these. YUM.

We tossed them in to some HM chicken noodle soup and they went together wonderful. We're still working on the cheese sauce. :)

Praha! 1

2011-06-19T00:46:00.000-06:00

The train ride from Vienna to Prague was seven hours. Looong. So we listened to audio books, watched shows on the iPad, slept as much as we could and looked out the window.

But we finally made it. :)
Here are a few things we saw.

Powder Tower. Built in 1475 under the reign of King Vladislav II Jagiello in case you were wondering.

We went to Old Town Square or Staromestske

The statue of Jan Hus - The Martin Luther of the Czech Republic (Martin Luther as in religious reformation, not African American rights...)

The Clock Town and Astronomical Clock. Hundreds of people gather here every hour on the hour hear the clock chime and statues of the 12 apostles nod their head in approval.

The Church of Our Lady before Tyn

The tower leading to Charles Bridge from Old Town Square

A view of Prague castle from the bridge

A man with a monkey music cart. :)

a little street

The love lock bridge. Lover write or engrave their names and the year on a lock, then attached it to this bridge. How fun!

The Lennon Wall. Very cool.

More of Prague to come!

Vienna!

2011-06-18T21:50:00.003-06:00

Schonbrunn Palace and the Gloriette

The Gebiet Market

Eating at the Schnitzelwirt - trying Schnitzel. Good thing we ordered two.....

St. Stephens Platz and Stephens Dome

We toured the treasury of the Hofburg Imperial Palace

The Austrian Crown Jewels

I will take one of each please

Reliquary with a Nail from the Cross

This was one the most interesting things I think we saw. Its not very clear in this picture, but housed in the center is supposedly the nail that pierced the right hand of Jesus Christ. True? False? Who really knows. But it has been inspiring people for hundreds of years.

2011-06-18T19:37:00.001-06:00

More Slovenia. :)

Francesca and Matthew looking at pictures. She was amazing by the iPad!

Tanja, who showed us around Metlika.

Who wouldn't want to live here??

The Winery

This was our favorite sign we saw driving in Slovenia. We assume it means "Warning space men, your droids wont work up ahead".

Anton, Tanja and Matthew looking through genealogy.

This isnt the most flattering picture, but its the only proof we have of all the laundry that I did in the sinks of Europe!

Happy Birthday!

2011-06-17T23:33:00.001-06:00

Handsome hit the big 3-0 today!

I consider myself lucky. Matthew is as wonderful in real life as he was the day I met him. He has proven over time, to be all of the silly things I wanted in a husband I was too young to know better and still everything my prudent mother wished her daughter would find in a companion. He works hard - at everything. When he is passionate about something it glows in him. I love being married to someone who is that driven and focused. It is nice to know that in our relationship Matthew is both my friend and leader. When a wife has a good husband, it is easily seen in her face – and I am definitely a very lucky women.

Love you!

Metlika, Slovenia

2011-06-09T23:13:00.003-06:00

Slovenia was a true highlight of our trip – and one of the main reasons we decided to go. Generations ago Matthew Great-great grandfather left his family in Austria and came to the United States. His last name was changed from Jakljevic to Yack and eventually his family ended up in Roosevelt Utah raising honey bees. Not much was known about the family that he left behind until the early 80’s when a couple, descendants of another Jakljevic brother (whose name was changed to Yok when he came to America) made a trip to present day Slovenia to find out what happed to the rest of their family. They were found living on a family farm, raising sheep and running a winery. In the last several months this has brought together a whole new side of Matthew’s family. We had a “reunion” of sorts in March, where everyone from the different Yok and Yacks and others got together and shared genealogy, storied of their line of the once Jakljevic family.This really solidified out desire to see Europe. And so away we went!

When we arrived in Ljubljana from Venice we rented a car to drive the hour and a half to Jakljevic farm in Metlika. This was one big massive hairy adventure. Lets just say that 4 ½ hours later we were relieved to make it to the farm. :)

It was late and dark by the time we made it and we were well past exhaustion, so we went straight to bed. We woke up the next morning to the most beautiful scenery I think I’ve ever seen. The Jakljevic farm and country side was like a dream. Trust me when I tell you that these pictures do it no justice. The older generation on the farm (equivalent to our grandparents) Joze and Franscesca speak no English and have lived on the farm their entire lives. They have lived morning to night their entire lives, raising sheep, caring for the farm and making wine.

The next generation is equivalent to our parents’ generation. Anton and Tanja. They run the farm now. They speak very little English, but understand a little more. They hearts are no doubt the size of Slovenia. They work the farm from sunrise to sunset, and beyond. They not only work the farm, but they also cater group parties and weddings at their banquet room overlooking the farm. They work extremely hard. Tanja could speak to us enough to explain that no one there spoke English, but that at some point their niece (also named Tanja) would come to the farm to translate for us. Until then we could do anything we would like, and they would continue to work.

So, in short we wandered the farm. My portion of heaven is going to look a LOT like this.

I was walking the farm our last full day there when Tanja came up and said “come!” So I followed! This is where we ended up. Picking wild strawberries! (Don’t ask me whats going on with my hair.) This is one of my favorite moments of our trip

Later we left the farm and drove the country side, but that's just going to have to wait. More tomorrow!

Venice to Ljubljana

2011-06-05T19:17:00.000-06:00

From Venice we caught a bus that was to take us to Villach, Austria. I just have to say that the rides between countries were one of my very favorite things about this whole trip.

This ride took us through the Alps. Just a small section of some of the smaller mountains, but the Alps none the less. Here are a couple of pictures and a little video clip. (I wanted to take SO many more, but we got busy as you will see.)

While we were riding, a man came up to us and starting chatting in English. His name was Stephen and he is Austrian. (Austrian meaning Sound of Music, not Australian meaning Kangaroos and Hugh Jackman) Stephen and everyone else on our bus level were coming back from a cruise sponsored by their work. We spent the next 3 hours talking about the differences between our countries, the history of Austria and Germany, and anything else you can think of. They spoke English very well, even with their strong accents. I loved the sound of it and they really enjoyed practicing their English with us.

When we told him that we would eventually be visiting Vienna and Salzburg the whole bus erupted in German! Before we could say anything else they were planning our trip for us, they shuffled a paper around and everyone excitedly wrote down their favorite things to eat, see and do in both Vienna and Salzburg. They gave us bus routes, restaurants to look up, desserts to try, phone numbers to call in case we had trouble. We were suddenly part of a big, Austrian Family! They argued back and forth in part English part German about what places were the best for us and what places should serve as our second choices, if we liked cake we should go to such and such, if we wanted to shop then we had to see this and that. There was was a fun park we could see - but on second thought, America is full of fun parks, so we shouldn't bother with it.... and on and on. It makes my heart happy to think about. They were so wonderful! We are excited to keep in contact with Stephen.

Here they are – our big, loud, excited Austrian family.

When bus pulled in to Villach and we said out good byes and caught a train that would take us to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Most of the trains we rode were old like this one. This was a long train ride, but it gave us time to write some thoughts down about our trip thus far and look out the window at the country going by.

Venice!

2011-06-05T12:37:00.000-06:00

Venice was one of my favorite places. It was BEAUTIFUL! While everywhere we went was an experience, a lot of the other cities consisted of somewhat "normal" activities, like figuring out the subway, riding the subway, walking to where we were trying to go etc. (Okay, so that's not Spanish Fork "normal" but big city normal) One of the things I loved about Venice was that I felt like I was having a new experience every single second. Not a moment was wasted in the normal or mundane, every second your senses were taking in something new and 100% different from our normal way of life. I LOVED it.

Gondolas are just for tourists, but still really cool. Everyone else rides the water bus or taxes taxi boats. At the bottom is a little clip of riding one of the water buses.

The details on some of these buildings was amazing. The architecture was beautiful!

Rialto Bridge

St. Mark's Square

Below is the street our Guest House, Alla Vite Dorata was on. I wish you could all see it in person. I was in love. Dont let the chiped paint fool you. This street was straight out of the movies. Just a few yards from our Inn door was a fruit stand every morning, where we bought big fat Italian grapes and other good things.

I wish this video showed more clearly on blogger, but you'll kinda get the idea.

The Coliseum, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, House of Caesar, and the streets of Rome

2011-06-02T21:02:00.001-06:00

Europe!

2011-05-31T21:40:00.001-06:00

Europe was AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING!

Things started out a little bumpy, we got to the airport and found out that our seats had been changed so that we wouldn’t be sitting together on the 10 hour flight in to Paris! Yikes. Not what we wanted to hear. The two people in front of me were so rude to the airline clerks that I felt sorry for them by the time I was able to get up to the desk to see if anything could be done. After a few nice words the clerk looked up at me, WINKED and said “Well, good behavior is rewarded, I’ll see what I can do.” One hour and THREE upgrades later we were happily situated in Business Elect Class - together. :)

I LOVE flying. Here’s a of picture of the French country side as we flew into Paris! Beautiful!

Via Nazionale

I am by far one of the sappiest people I know. Waiting to board that plane, I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas. I don't mind admitting that I got a little teary eyed I was so excited!
From Paris we flew into Rome exhausted but excited. We stayed on Via Nazionale at Rome Sweet Rome. It wasn’t fancy, but it was everything we needed. The location was perfect. Within eight blocks of everything we wanted to see, except the Vatican, which was a short subway ride away. There was an amazing bakery around the corner that we had fresh croissants and nutella at every morning. Mmm…

Our first stop, early the next morning was the Vatican and St. Peters Basilica and square. This meant our first go at riding a foreign subway. Sounds easy right? No friend. Imagine going to a big city subway station and discovering that every sign, map and ticket machine are written in braille. Hm.. difficult. But these are the exact moments that I brought along my handsome husband. :) Somehow he always got us where we needed to go.
I wish I had words to describe how amazing the Vatican and Basilica. We spent the entire day taking them all in. Here are just a few pics but they do them no justice.
We have SO many pictures, but because I love you, I won’t make you look at them all. :)

The Sistine Chapel alone was worth the trip to Rome - literally. We spend a good hour in this room just taking in the history, the art and the meanings of this awe inspiring chapel.

silly picture wont rotate...

We took an extra trip to the top of the Basilica Dome. SO MANY STAIRS but the view of Rome was beautiful! - I’m definitely going to run out of description words about this trip…

the view from outside the dome

Looking down from the inside of the dome

so tired so happy!

I couldn't believe that we were really truly in Rome. I'll bet 20 times that day I turned to Handsome and say "oh my gosh! We're in Rome!"
We eventually caught the subway back to our little part of town and found a recommend restaurant for dinner. (While we were looking for it we "accidentally" found the Coliseum - crazy.) Matthew had a pizza (nothing like American pizza) and I had a tortellini and cream. You could taste that the noodles made been made just that day - they were so fresh and delicious. I still crave it. Of course a little gelato finished off the night. Phew.. one day down 16 more to go....

Forgive me for not taking time to edit our pictures before posting them. That will come eventually. :)

2011-05-10T06:15:00.003-06:00

Hello again blog friends!

Today is a pop quiz!

Question: What do all of these places have in common?

Answer: They are waiting for us to arrive!

Yes! We are going on vacation! We have talked and talked and talked about it for such a long time and finally we decided that if we don't go now, we never would. So come tomorrow we will hop on a plane and make our way to Europe. We will visit Rome, Venice, Ljubljana, Vienna, Munich and Prague. I want to give a huge HUGE shout our to our amazing friends Becky and John who will be watching the house and keeping my plants alive. Seriously you are life savers! I also want to give a huge shout out to God. Who has blessed us so incredibly much. He is the true life saver.

We wont have access to download a lot of pictures while we are gone, but if we have time, I will try to post one or two every couple of days. But... I can't promise not to totally forget about everything outside of Europe, my handsome hubby and me! But... I will try. :)

Pint size Greatness - the Story of Jonah

2011-02-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

The song in my head

2011-01-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's so nice to be in love. Still.

a funny

2011-01-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Top 10 of '10 - KKkuuurrn

2011-01-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

So apparently I'm not very good at consecutive blog posts... oh well...

Another favorite from 2010 was my weekend with Karen! My rockin lil' sis came to spend the weekend with Handsome and I and boooy did we have fun! We got manicures, ate, shopped, ate some more and got our craft on and watched movies. Oh yes - we also went to the Krishna Festival of Colors. How could I forget? K is one of my very favorite people in the world. I am so lucky to have her!

Top 10 of '10 - I want that.

2011-01-09T00:15:00.002-07:00

Next top 10 0f '10 happened in my pajamas. It was Saturday afternoon session of General Conference in April. Elder Perry was the first speaker and started off by talking about his mother and what a wonderful teacher she was. I'll quote a few paragraphs from his address.

Teaching in the home is becoming increasingly important in today’s world, where the influence of the adversary is so widespread and he is attacking, attempting to erode and destroy the very foundation of our society, even the family. Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. While other institutions, such as church and school, can assist parents to “train up a child in the way he [or she] should go” (Proverbs 22:6), ultimately this responsibility rests with parents. According to the great plan of happiness, it is parents who are entrusted with the care and development of our Heavenly Father’s children. Our families are an integral part of His work and glory—“to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). On God’s eternal stage, it is usually intended that parents act as the central cast members in their children’s lives. Fortunately, there are understudies involved in the production who may step in when parents can’t. It, however, is parents who have been commanded by the Lord to bring up their children in light and truth (see D&C 93:40).

Parents must bring light and truth into their homes by one family prayer, one scripture study session, one family home evening, one book read aloud, one song, and one family meal at a time. They know that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily parenting is among the most powerful and sustaining forces for good in the world. The health of any society, the happiness of its people, their prosperity, and their peace all find common roots in the teaching of children in the home.

Listening to this talk was a really defining moment for me. The more I listened to him the more something grew inside my heart and my mind really caught hold of his words. "wow...I want that." " I want to do that." I want to be that kind of family", these kinds of thoughts played over and over in my mind. A strong testimony was born to me that our family would and should be the most important priority to Matthew and I and that my most important job would be to raise my children and care for my family. It also confirmed to my that I had a lot of preparing to do to be that kind of mother and that like anything worth while, it was going to take a lot of hard work and preparation to be the best I could be. Truly a glimpse into the future that I am grateful for.

You can read/listen to the rest of Elder Perry's address here or watch it below.

If this top interests you (it fascinates me) here are some other really amazing talks you might enjoy.

The Joyful Surprise of Motherhood (please read this)
Mothers Who Know (and this also)
Mom-at Home
Finding My Happiness at Home
Proverbs 31: 10-31
I also recommend reading or listening to The Mormon Way of Doing Business. While its focus is on business CEOs and Executives, the wives of these multi-millionaires have some really wonderful things to say and some points of view that I love.