Part 2: And it continues

Day #5 continued
Tash's dad has a mission companion who lives there and we were going to spend the night with them. We laughed and assured him we were in the right place.

Brother Marchisini came and picked us up, about got attacked by some flying bug that we were informed if bit/stung us we'd have to go to the hospital, and we had dinner with his family and another family from the ward. The food was great, real Italian food, and the dessert was amazing, still wondering if I can find out the recipe-some kind of layered mascarpone cake with cocoa on top. The area was beautiful and foresty and just a really comfortable place to be.
Day #6
Left early, after splitting the last piece of cake for breakfast, and headed on to Florence. Stayed with the cutest little Italian lady who went off in Italian and somehow you understood her. Wandered through the street markets, loads of leather jackets, purses, shoes, and scarves. Don't worry, I didn't even buy a purse! Went to the Duomo and walked through it, saw the replica of the David since my reservations were 1/2 hour after we needed to catch the train the next day so we missed the real thing. The main thing Florence is known for and we missed it! We met up with some of Tash's friends she studied with in France and had dinner and finished it off with some more gelato.
Day #7Got out early to hike up the Duomo. Wow, winding stairs and straight up, 400 and something steps to the top, did I mention it was hot and humid? We headed back to the market's in Florence to find some souvenirs: italian leather sandals and a couple scarves. Stopped at the fruit market for a pastry and some fruit for the ride to the Cinque Terre then headed to the train station and on to the coast. The Cinque Terre is five little villages that are on the Mediterranean coast of Italy just above Pisa. Each basically has a main road with buildings/houses up the mountainside on each side.
The mountains are covered with vineyards tiered up the sides. Trails connect each town that you can hike, between 20-90 minutes each. . .

Part 1: My flight flew!

Day #1
Flight flew. Yeahh!! I was able to get a nonstop flight from Salt Lake to Paris this time and oh man I can't imagine doing it any other way. Left SLC at 5:00 p.m., watched a couple movies, read my book, oh and didn't sleep at all.
Day #2
Arrived in Paris at noon, got lost in the metro, found Tash and made it to our hotel. Spent the afternoon walking along the Seine from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, ate baguettes and cheese, yogurt, and fruit with the locals on the lawn in front of the tower, felt like we walked forever but I think I was just super tired and hot.Day #3
Had a yummy chocolate pastry on our way to the Palace of Versailles just outside of Paris, crazy big Palace and gorgeous gardens. Back in the gardens is Marie Antoinette's hamlet that is so picturesque. Each little building had flower or vegetable gardens surrounding it, looked straight out of a movie. So so cute.

Flew to Venice, found a bus to the island, figured out how to use the Vaporetto boat system at midnight, there are absolutely no cars after the bus station on the island, even the ambulances are boats! To get to our hotel we rode down the Grand Canal, so cool at night.Day #4
Happy Birthday! Yep, the big 24, the last respectable age before it all goes down hill at 25. Good thing I started it out in Venice. Spent the day wandering Venice which honestly you can do in less than a day so we got a little bored. Found the absolute best gelato shop thanks to our new friend Rick Steves. Went to St. Mark's square (opening scene on the Italian job) and walked through St. Mark's Basilica. Listened to the bands, more like small orchestras, outside the shops in the square that night.
Day #5
Took a boat out to Murano island to the glass blowing factories, watched a man make a horse out of a ball of glass and it took probably 5 minutes or less-way cool to see. Got some more gelato, don't worry, Tash surprised the boy and got the 5 scoops and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

Took the boat back up the grand canal and caught a train to Bologna then on to Pioppe di Salvaro. We're leaving the city and getting into some serious country side, a little nervous we're going to miss our stop but we find it and get off. Obviously looking out of place with our bags the man in front of us turns around and says, "This is Pioppe, did you mean to get off here?" Favorite quote of the trip. . .

My almost trip to Europe

Most of you probably already know the tragic story that should have been THE trip of my life but for those who don't here goes. I've been planning for a couple months a trip to Paris, Italy, and Malta. Leaving Thursday, April 15th, traveling from Salt Lake to Chicago and then on to Paris to meet up with Tash. I won't even bother to detail the plans of the trip cause it just makes the outcome even more tragic.

Thursday morning I got up bright and early ready to leave the house by 8, my flight out of Salt Lake was at 11:15. While I was in the shower my mom called so I called her back only to have her tell me about a volcano that had erupted in Iceland that is disrupting flights in the UK and Scandinavian countries. I thought, why are you telling me this right now and I wasn't going that far north so what did I really have to worry about. My mom took me down to the airport, I got there in plenty of time and sat at the gate waiting for my flight. The flat screen flashed news of the volcano but with everyone around me clearly not going over seas I had no one to share in my worries. Then I heard a couple sitting next to me start talking about Amsterdam and I asked them if they were on their way there which they were. We talked for the rest of the wait before our flight left, the volcano more of a concern for them since they were on their way to Amsterdam through London which had definitely been affected by the volcano.

The flight to Chicago was uneventful, I did start reading a really good series called The Hunger Games, highly recommended. When we landed in Chicago I turned my phone on and had a voice mail waiting for me. My heart sunk a little even before I knew it was from American Airlines confirming my fears, my flight to Paris had been canceled and I was to contact them to make further accommodations. I immediately got on the phone with one of their agents who found a flight to Frankfurt that night so I booked it and waited. It was about an hour before that flight was supposed to depart when we heard the inevitable, "Ladies and Gentleman flight number XXXX to Frankfurt has been canceled, please contact American Airlines at blah blah blah." With no chance of getting another flight to Europe until the next week and that was if the air cleared, I decided to cut my losses and head back home. By this time it was about 7:00 PM in Chicago, the next flight to Salt Lake was the next morning at 8:30. The airlines gave us a hotel voucher for the night and so I didn't feel completely exhausted the next day, I took it, got a hot shower and about 4 hours of sleep.
Getting out of Chicago the next morning was another struggle. We were supposed to begin boarding about 8:00 and at 8:15 they got on the intercom and told us they were doing some maintenance checks on the plane, not exactly what you wanted to hear, and that they would have more updates at 8:55. At 8:55 they got on and changed our gate/airplane with a new departure time of 9:20. By the time we got all boarded and the luggage situated we didn't get in the air until about 10:00, only an hour and a half behind schedule. My mom made the trip again down to pick me up and in an effort to make up for the missed trip, took me to Spaghetti Factory for lunch, which I love, but sadly not an alternative to where I should have been at the time. Planning right now to rebook for the end of June, should be a good birthday present, and if that one doesn't work out it's just not meant to be.

Card Night!

So it was about the end of 2008, my friend Jamie invited me to stamp club and I've been hooked ever since. A group of girls get together once a month and make a scrapbook page learning new techniques each time, chat, eat food, you know the normal girl's night! It's actually run by a Stampin' Up demonstrator, we basically take turns each month being the 'host'. Now I don't scrapbook, at all, so I make my scrapbook page into a card and also join in the card trade. This month we made mother's day and father's day cards. I make six of each card, we get them all together and end up with a set from each person. I probably have more cards than I'll ever use but it's a good excuse to get out for a night and try to be creative. Most of my cards I find the idea somewhere on the internet, other's ideas are way more creative than mine!
Here's my Mother's Day card:

And Father's Day, I found the tie pattern online:

And here's the card I made with everyone else. The pink butterfuly is a stamp cut out but the green butterflies are diecuts:

If anyone wants to join in just let me know, we love having new people come!

Weekend in San Fran

The first of many over due updates:

Back in the middle of December, Tash and I took a weekend trip to San Francisco. Tash had to apply in person at the French consulate to get her visa so we made a weekend of it. Thursday morning, we flew from Salt Lake to Denver, randomly met a guy at the airport that has done some modeling for Icon and guess who ends up sitting by us on the plane?? How does that happen? So we chatted the whole plane ride, this guy has done some amazing things, made me feel a little underaccomplished if that's a word. Anyway, once we got to Denver our flight got delayed almost an hour and a half which along with our layover was way too long and ended up having a 'Taken' moment at the airport. There was a man waiting for our flight as well that apparently had a pretty great weekend planned and since he was going to miss most of it with the delay was trying to find a fitness spa nearby, don't ask questions. Don't worry he asked me and Tash if we wanted to go since we had plenty of time until our flight left and yes, we could even share a cab! Having seen 'Taken' we immediately looked at each other and thought, creeper! We politely declined the cab ride as well as some high cocoa content chocolate.

We finally got to San Fran and weren't sure if we would make the airport shuttle to our hotel but called and they came and found us. This was the first trip I'd taken not having a car which was pretty interesting. We made good use of the public transportation system and had fun with it, especially since it was pouring rain the entire trip! This is us waiting for BART at the airport:

Friday morning we ran, literally ran, to make the appointment at the consulate. Once that was done we acted like tourists, went to China Town so I could buy a purse (some say it's a problem but I don't think so) and found these to be slightly hilarious:

I only wish we'd first found a sign that said "Quality T-Shirts $2.22"-seems quality decreases the price in China Town. After China Town we went to the Golden Gate Park and did I mention it was pouring the entire time? The one downside to public transportation, you're never quite sure how long you'll have to wait or where the best place to get off is. We got off the bus on the outer corner of the park and didn't realize how big it really was. We finally found the Conservatory of Flowers which was pretty cool.

Most of this stuff was made of random parts, like computer parts including keyboard keys.

Friday night we went and saw 'Wicked' which was so good. It was my second time seeing it, nothing can beat the first time but still so good.

Saturday we spent most of the day on the pier visiting the classic Fisherman's Wharf, ate lunch at Boudin's and had sourdough soup bowls-so good, went to the Aquarium of the Bay, mostly just to get out of the rain since our pants were soaked up to our knees, though it was a lot more interesting than I expected. Stopped at Ghirardelli Square, kind of a let down after seeing the huge building from further back, and had some pretty intense hot chocolate. Road the cable car back to the shopping center and spent the rest of the day shopping (three H&M's in only a couple blocks!!) I'm pretty sure by this time we looked a mess from being in the rain but we had a good time.

Uneventful plane ride home on Sunday, too bad huh?

Random updates coming, you'll have to keep checking!

So I know that I have neglected this blog over the last 9 months, but really what could top the chocolate covered cotton balls in reading enjoyment? Absolutely nothing but keep checking back and I'll work on the updates.

Couldn't have planned that better if it was scripted!

Today was the funniest day I've had in a long time. To keep up my recent prankster reputation I had to come up with something fantastic for April Fool's Day at the office. I searched the internet and had my mom ask around for ideas and my Uncle Boyd gave the idea of chocolate covered cotton balls! I had never even heard of it before but I had everything already, including an old Blue Bird chocolate box from Christmas, so I decided to try it. Here's a picture of the finished product:

I dipped most of them in coconut, nuts, or butterfinger to disguise the impurities of the cotton balls but they turned out looking really good. And the reaction was perfect! I set them out after lunch and said I'd gotten the box from a vendor last week and had forgotten about it-not unusual at all. Andy was the first to fall for it but he played it cool so it wouldn't ruin it for anyone else. Then, the alarm clock, used in the previous stint with aluminum foil, began going off in Jeff's ceiling. I think he was just ticked he wasn't tall enough to get into the ceiling to find it but it may have been because it was going off for 10 minutes before he got it down. As soon as it was out it was thrown against the floor and deposited on my desk in pieces so it wouldn't happen to him again, at least I got him twice, what a party pooper. After being ticked from the alarm clock, Jeff came over to my desk with chocolate box in hand, not suspecting anything, bit right into one of the chocolates! I couldn't stop laughing. Jeff offered the box to Shelly and being a sucker for chocolates she bit into one and pulled it out thinking it was marshmallow and just started laughing. We asked Nicole, our assistant, if she'd tried one and she said her's had a really weird center almost like an old marshmallow! I hope she didn't eat it.

On my way out, I stopped by HR accross the hall and offered the two guys a chocolate. They suspected a little something but who would disbelieve me when I assured them I wouldn't do something like that :) Pretty sure one of them popped the whole thing in his mouth and didn't notice anything! I had to leave before the other bit into it and discovered the trick embarrassing the other guy-terrible I know.

Don't think I didn't get fooled too-walked out to the parking lot to leave and somehow my car had driven away! And I thought I had been so careful to watch my desk all day I didn't even go to lunch. The best part of it was that I'm pretty sure it was Jeff and I'm sure he thought he was so clever getting me not realizing the alarm clock and chocolates that awaited him later in the day!