Last stop- ROME

We woke up early Wednesday morning to drive the 3 hour drive to Rome. Cortona was my favorite, so I was sad to leave. We got stuck in major traffic heading into Rome ( I didn't realize Rome was such a big city). People and roads in Rome are CRAZY! They have huge roads with no lanes so people are just everywhere with these teeny tiny cars and mopeds everywhere. I am the worst passenger, so had to close my eyes for most of our driving.

Rome ended up being my second favorite place- mainly because of the places we went and things we saw. Our hotel, once again, was in the middle of everything so we were in the perfect location.

I can't believe I forgot to put this up on the Cortona post!!! We saw the town of Montepulciano where the Volturi scenes were filmed in New Moon!!!! Do you seen the clock tower where Edward was going to show everyone he was a vampire! Oh, Edward........

When we arrived in Rome, we met a van in the middle of a street (literally) and handed over all our luggage. The people in the van were going to take our luggage to the hotel while we went to the Coliseum----this made ALL of us nervous. We weren't sure if we were ever going to see our luggage again, but we just trusted Russ, our guide. Sure enough, when we got to the hotel our luggage was already in our rooms and they had people there to walk us to our rooms. Somehow I got separated from Bryan, so I went to our room by myself. This lady took me to the 4th floor, then started taking me up a spiral staircase to what looked like outside. I kept telling the lady (who didn't speak English) that I was trying to go to my room. She just kept nodding and smiling. Turns out, Bryan and I got the rooftop terrace room with our own wrap around terrace that overlooked the city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't wait for Bryan to see the room! he had someone walk him up and I caught him walking up our staircase. We kept wondering if there was a mistake. Really what happened was we were the youngest ones who could walk up the small spiral staircase without a problem!!! Fine with us!!

Our view when we walked out of the room.

Our outdoor seating area! Can you from all of our pictures that this was one of our favorite things we loved about Rome! During some of our down time we would put on our bathing suits and lay out while having wine and beer!

The Coliseum

The Vestal Virgins at the Forum, where women lived for 30 years around the age of 6-10. they had to take a vow of chastity and if they did anything wrong they were buried alive!

Trevi fountain, with Rick, my dad's longtime friend and now Bryan's buddy (they had fun together- same sense of humor!)

The Pieta by Michelangelo- Jesus in Mary's lap. It was beautiful and one of Michelangelo's best pieces. It is the only sculpture of his behind glass b/c years a man jumped on it and began hitting a hammer on Mary's face.

ARRIVEDERCI Italy- we had a blast!!!!

little fish

I haven't finished posting my Italy pictures yet, but I had to show you how well the girls are doing at swimming lessons. Christian was swimming without fear on the first day, and Emory has cried every time it's her turn to swim and wakes up saying "No swimming pool mommy". But today I figured it might be better b/c she didn't mention anything about not wanting to go. Today after her first turn, she was actually laughing instead of crying when she got out of the pool.

The first and last video are of Emory swimming and the middle one is Christian. Can you believe how well they are both doing?! I'm so proud of them. We have one more week of lessons for them to become even better swimmers!

3rd stop...Cortona

After Florence, we took an hour drive to Cortona- which was my FAVORITE! It was absolutely beautiful.

Have you ever seen the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun? It was written by Frances Mayes, who owns a home in Cortona and the movie was based there. While on a walk, we were stopped in front the author's home and she peaked her head out of her window. She was so polite and let us open her gate to go into her garden!

Our hotel was nice and had a wonderful view from our balcony in our room. The only problem we had was the shower and the power. Our corner tub/shower was so tiny you couldn't move your feet or you would fall over and the shower curtain wasn't big enough. So by the time we were finished with our shower, the entire bathroom was soaking wet- even the toilet paper.

And something was wrong with our power- every time I turned on my hairdryer or straightener the power went out! It must be a common problem b/c we had our own circuit breaker thing in the room so we could reset it. I eventually just went to my parents room to finish getting ready. We really hated to complain though b/c everything was so beautiful.


Our guide had a friend, Ivan, who dug his gallery out of the ground. He was so interesting!

We went to a winery and saw the process of making wine.

We had a wine tasting and lunch. Bryan became quite the wine expert!

2nd stop.....Florence

After Venice, we took a 3 hour bus ride to Florence. Our hotel, once again, was right in the middle of everything and very nice! There was a rooftop bar that overlooked the city and really great rooms. Our only mistake was not closing the window all the way the first night, nd it felt like Bryan and I moved our mattress to the middle of the street it was so loud! Luckily, we figured it out for the next two nights!

Everything was beautiful and the shopping was great!

We (okay, I) wanted to get our picture drawn. It does not look a THING like us at all. In fact the picture of me looks very similar to the sample he has in the background. And when it was Bryan's turn, I had to walk away a few times b/c I was giggling so much. Oh well-

The first night there, we were walking around while our guide was telling us different things about the city. All of a sudden, he quickly said, "Oh, I'm sure no one cares, but if you do, Snooki from MTV is down there." My ears perked up and I went running to get a picture. Apparently, the cast from Jersery Shore had to get jobs so they were trying to get people to come into the pizza place where they working. Really, no one in Florence cared about them at all. They were walking around with a camera man filming and no one following them.....still fun to see Snooki!

One morning we went to an indoor food market and outdoor shopping market. We did a lot of shopping and bought fresh meat and cheese and had lunch on the stairs of the Medici Chapel.

view from the Uffizi Gallery

And last but not least from Florence........ Bryan made me do this (and if you know my hubby- you know it's true!) We must have been loosing interest in all the art and decided to act like teenagers~! Hehehehe

Ciao Bella!

For the past two weeks we have been in ITALY!!!!! Venice, Florence, Cortona, and Rome. It was the trip of a lifetime (thanks mom and dad) and we loved EVERY.SINGLE. SECOND of the trip. My dad's childhood friends came too, and the eight of us had a blast. We went on a tour group of 27 people and our guide, Russ. Everyone in the group got along and really became friends by the end of the two weeks. Russ was a FANTASTIC guide and made the trip stress free for everyone. He had every hotel, transportation, and tour lined up for us in every city. There was not one bad thing to say about the trip.

I was an absolute nervous wreck about leaving the girls for 2 weeks. I finally had a chance to calm down on the 9 hour flight over! But they had a wonderful time with their Mimi and Granddaddy- so much fun they didn't want to talk to us when we called!!! Thank you so much Mimi and Grandaddy...the girls are still talking about their 'vacation' with you!

We flew into Venice and our first adventure we taking a water taxi to our hotel! We stayed in a little family owned hotel that was in the middle of the everything. It was perfect.

Awwwwww!

We began our trip Gondola rides, tours, drinking wine in St. Mark's square.

The food was GREAT! Bryan and I have a little Italy belly to prove it!

Can you even believe this is real!?

Pigeons were everywhere and kinda gross. They feed them corn with birth control in them so they can't reproduce as much!

The view from the Bell Tower in the square

The people their own boats or gondolas instead of cars! How cool would that be!

More pics of Florence, Cortona and Rome to come!

FUN FUN FUN!!!

This weekend we headed to Ross Bridge for a 'staycation'! We had THE BEST TIME! I wasn't sure how Emory was going to do in the water since she won't move a muscle in our pool at home (ya know- the fancy blow up pool in the backyard!)
Christian was so excited and couldn't stand waiting on us to get settled at our chairs. It reminded me of when I was little and would beg my parents to hurry up!

I was COMPLETELY wrong about little Emory. She was swimming all over the place and couldn't wait to go down the slide. She was squealing at the top of her lungs and laughing so hard her face was turning red!

Can you see the excitement on her face!

She even went down with CC a few times and ended up in a water slide train a few times! I can't believe I was letting my 2 year old go down with the big girls!

We went back to the pool today before we left, and Emory wanted to go down by herself (screaming "ME DO IT" over and over- the girl knows what she wants and won't stop until she gets it- I think she has caught on that if she is in public mommy and daddy might let her get away with more so we don't cause a big scene!), so I walked up with her and got her situated and Bryan was waiting at the bottom to catch her. As soon as she started going I could tell her it not going to end well! She starting spinning around and around, then was head first at the end. As it was happening I yelled to Bryan "This isn't good!". All was fine after a few minutes of crying, but it did bring an end to her water sliding!

No one got much sleep b/c of this little one. She feel asleep fine but then woke up and kept staring at us. We brought her in the bed with us and she would not fall asleep. FINALLY around midnight she fell asleep and they both woke up at 6:30. So we hit the ground running with the breakfast buffet and swimming by 8:30! I guess Emory was tired from the night before b/c around 11:00, she went to the chairs -found her ishy and paci- then looked at Bryan and said 'Night Night" So, we took the hint and headed up to the room to check out.

We had so much fun on our 24 hour 'staycation'. We'll definitely do it again this summer!

After we all napped, we played outside. Bryan was watering the new plants in our backyard and all of a sudden we looked up to find this!!! We couldn't stop laughing!

they played in the sprinkler for over an hour! Christian told me she wants to do it every day of summer! So, now we know what we will do on our memorial day Monday and the rest of summer!

Movin' On Up!!!

Yet another change!!!

Emory had her 'moving up' ceremony and end-of-the-year party today!

Someone's happy to party! I'm surprised she still fits in these table chairs!

She was so excited to have her Daddy there! (I couldn't make it since it was my students last day of school! I cried (surprise, surprise!!) at the end of my day with my students....I sure did love to grow my little friends. One of my friends who I spent most of my day with actually cried too when I was saying bye, which made me loose it....not sure what I'm going to do when I'm not having conversations about various tree/plants and I don't hear "Congleton" 2,000 in one day!)

I'm in TODDLER 2!!!!

Emory loves all of her friends! Such a sweet group of little kids

Daddy said she was such a big girl during the ceremony. She sat in the chair the whole time clapping whenever her friends got their diploma. Christian was in the video they showed interviewing the younger kids, and Emory got so excited!

Here is their new classroom:) Looks like they are on their way to sitting quietly in a circle!

Toddler 2 HERE WE COME (where we begin potty training and leaving our paci at home!)!!!!!!