Staying Young in Vegas

Venizia!

2011-08-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

Our original trip plans included only one stop in Italy...Venice. We instead spent our last week in Italy, and for two fantastic days, we experienced this unique city.

One little story before I begin the photos: We got to the busy train station, had directions to get a vaparetto, or public water bus to get to the apartment we were renting. We were shocked to find out it cost $6.50 each just to ride to the stop we needed. The boat was packed, we were hot and sticky, we tried to have someone text our host to let them know we were on our way so they could meet us at our stop. In all of the stress, we got off the taxi at a stop on the opposite side of the island, no one was there to meet us, and then Danny realized he left his backpack on the boat that just pulled away. (Danny has been SO careful about his backpack with our passports, all our money, eurail passes, and laptop. AND Venice is crawling with pickpockets). I started to freak out, he stayed calm on the outside, but was panicked on the inside.

The next vaparetto that stopped, we told them what happened, described the bag, and Danny jumped onto that boat as they called to the boat ahead of them. Meanwhile, I have a cell phone number (but no cell phone) for the guy that is supposed to meet us, but the address is in the backpack, no one will let me use their phone, no one speaks enough english to help me, I am feeling stranded and desperate. Tania and I huddled the kids together and we said a quick prayer. Then I left them on the dock to go find someone to help. Finally a sweet, kind lady tried to dial the number, but it was the wrong number, so I needed the internet, but there is NOTHING around us but homes. She speaks NO english, but understood internet and she motioned me to follow her to her home (what an ANGEL!!!). Finally, I look up the number on her computer, and call Pietro to let him know we are at the dock, and he said he would send someone right over. I quickly run back to the dock (after kissing my angel, Marina) and find Danny (and his backpack) safe and sound with the kids!

That was the worst hour of our whole trip, and I am grateful we were watched over and protected. We quickly prayed to thank Heavenly Father for sending helping hands our way.

And now, I present: Venice, City of Bridges, Floating City and "one of Europes most romantic cities"!

We were so happy to be in a wonderful, clean new apartment with AIR CONDITIONING! That saved us, since it was in the high 90s with humidity while we were there. We wandered around the first night and found a great little place to eat dinner. The next day, we were off to walk the 1/2 mile to Piazza San Marco.

The thing about this city is...there are NO cars, no streets, no street names. 3 story buildings built hodge podge and helter skelter. You wander and wander through the MAZE. the 1/2 mile to the square actually was 1 1/2 miles because there is no straight shot to anywhere!We found a little butcher shop that made delish salami sandwiches and had a bit of picnic on a bridge.

We were back in the residential area, and felt like we were the only tourists. It was so neat to see this part of the island before getting to the "touristy" places. That is my favorite part of travelling.
We took in the sights as we wandered. It really was incredible to think of people living here and especially running a business. Any supplies or goods has to be brought in by a delivery man with a hand truck. Even that is a feat to take that dolly up and down stairs through narrow alleys!
The locals don't have cars or bikes...there would be no where to drive them. They have boats, or good walking shoes.

About every 5 minutes of wandering, we crossed a canal like this.

We finally ended up with lots of other tourists in Piazza San Marco and St Marks Basillica. The history of this city is amazing and has stood the test of time. Slowly, though, the city is sinking and when the tide is higher in the winter, this square is sometimes covered by water!The church was neat inside. One thing that was interesting (that we found only here and at the Vatican) was that you had to be dressed modestly to enter the cathedral. You could not wear tank tops or short shorts or miniskirts. Here, they would hand you a piece of material to wrap around your shoulders or your waist to cover your immodesty!

The kids had a great time feeding the pigeons, while the adults ran for shade. We felt like we were melting in the humid heat!
Tania was SO excited to be in line for the gelato!

While we found this city unique and interesting, it is kind of decaying and old. It adds to its charm, but I wouldn't say it was beautiful.

After a short siesta in the air conditioned apartment, we went back out to watch the sunset and get some food.

I was glad our apartment was on the outskirts of the island so we were so close to the ocean (not that you are ever very far from it) but we were on the quiet back side to enjoy a beautiful sunset.
The next morning, we found a man with a private boat offering tours and we asked him how much to take us around the island to the train station. We would have had to pay 40 euro for all of us to take the public water taxi, and he only charged us 15 euro! Plus, we weren't stuck with tons of people in a vaparetto stopping at all of the stops along the way.

This was a FANTASTIC way to see the last sights of Venice and to say Ciao to the "Floating City".Coming back around to the main port by the train station.

I am so glad we got to come to Venice!ARRIVEDERCI!

In Fair Verona

2011-08-27T07:29:00.001-07:00

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

This is the courtyard originally owned by the Capulet family. This statue of Juliette is a popular place for photos. I couldn't figure out why people, men and women kept touching her breast while they were taking pictures...I thought it was a bit crude. Even one family had their little boy put his hand there. Then I found out that their is a saying that if you touch her right breast, you will have the love of your life, if you touch the left, you will have money, but you cannot touch both! I decided I would just touch her hand instead of jinxing myself!
Here is the balcony that legend says Juliette stood and said,

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
Another thing for which Verona is famous is the "Arena" which was originally built in 30 AD. It is only about 1/2 the size of the Colliseum in Rome, but this one is actually still in use today. We were there for the famous Verona Opera season. The arena holds 25,000 people, and I think it must have been full for the Opera the night we were there.

We went inside the next day and it is impressive that it is still standing!The lower portion has modern seats, but up above is still old marble benches.

Here are a few things I thought were beautiful.

There was lots of shopping in the center of town. All of the streets in this area are paved with old pink marble. It is a pretty impressive sight.

This Roman Soldier didn't let us cross this bridge without having the girls take a photo with him.

It was SO hot for sight seeing, that this was probably the best part of the day. This water was so cold, and we wished we could jump in.

We had a great view from the balcony of our Bed and Breakfast "Ai Leoni".

Look at me, blogging away in a warm room without AC. A fan made it bearable.
We were excited to get back in a train the next day to drive through the alps. This was the first class cabin that the Danny, Tania and I shared. The three kids were back in 2nd class, and were happy to have some independence.

The Alps were beautiful, but we were on a high speed train, and the pictures don't do it justice.

The Hills are Alive!!!

2011-08-27T06:27:00.001-07:00

Our last day with Christl, Marita and Volker started with a lovely train ride to Salzburg, Austria.

I will get to the "Sound of Music" later, I loaded my photos in the wrong order since I thought those sights were the most exciting parts to see, but there were tons of things to see in Salzburg before we got to those sights!

(Tania's Aunt Christl, and cousin Volker)

We stayed in an unassuming hotel, which actually was pretty nice inside, and a great breakfast the next morning.
This is Getreidegasse, a famous street for shopping. One person told us it wasn't very crowded this day, but we would disagree! The Salzberger Festspiele is going on right now, and that means every theater in town has huge productions at all hours of the day. We even went to part of a free opera that the kids actually really enjoyed. The performers were american college students and we were all impressed with their talent. We couldn't understand the Italian lyrics, and it was a warm afternoon which made us start nodding off!

The gelato was a definite must, as it got a bit warm!

This is the fanciest golden arches we have ever seen. Even the ornate sign couldn't draw us in!

This is a great view of part of the city and in the background, those famous "Hills". All along the river, there was an outdoor market of craft and goods stalls. All three kids were so excited to look at all the various tents. There was a lot of beautiful hand made jewelry, and artwork. Taylor was so excited to find a wooden cross bow, but he was too tired to have a photo taken!Tania and I were pooped from the shopping, if you can believe it!

We didn't go up to this fortress, but it was an imposing structure overlooking the city.
It was definitely time for some food. We discovered a new favorite drink in Bavaria "Spezi" which Josephine has here. It is a mixture of cola and lemonade. It is quite good, and we will have to tamper with the mixture at home to figure out how to make it.

There is a mountain the cuts right through the city. Here, we are walking through the tunnel from one side to the other.

There is a strip of buildings built right into the rock. I am not sure if it just butts up against the rock or if it goes further back, but you would not have to have windows in the back of your house!

Isabelle: "Josephine and I watched The Sound of Music" on the train before we went to Austria. When we walked around, we saw a lot of the things that were on the movie, like the fountain with the horses, and the statues of the men facing each other with their arms up, and the stairs and bushes at the park. My mom made us sing "do re mi" when we ran around the fountains. Tania wanted us all to sing "Eldeweiss" as we were getting off the train. We watched the movie again after we left Austria."

In these photos, just picture the children skipping around in clothes made from flowered curtains!

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do!!!

The thing that Salzburg is most famous for is it is the birthplace of Mozart. There are pictures of him everywhere. On candy, jewelry, clothing, any souvenir you could want.There were many people in typical bavarian clothing. I really loved seeing the different styles.
Isabelle: " The park was really fun, there were a lot of things at the park that I like to do. One thing I've seen in Europe a lot was this weird swing that is shaped like a circular net. You can go really high on it and it's scary because you can't hold on to anything."

"There are also a few spinny things, and a really big slide that is hard to climb up, but you go really fast down. The kids made the adults go on the slide, and I thought it was funny."

The kids wanted to keep playing, but all of the adults were worn out!

After all this togetherness time, they are still friends! Danny and I have loved spending so much time with them. They are really great kids, and are growing up so quickly. I feel so blessed to have this experience.

Neuschwanstein Castle

2011-08-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

We took a 2 hour train ride to a beautiful area area with farmland, mountains and lakes. We got to go with Tania's Aunt Kristl and her cousin's fiance, Maretta. We had such a nice time visiting with them on the train.

Up on the top of one of the mountain cliffs was one of the castles of King Ludwig II. His parent's had a castle just down the road, and he built this "fairy tale" castle that was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle.

It was a 1 1/2 mile hike up the mountain to get to and we had a nice time walking up in the shade.

The castle itself was pretty amazing. It took many years to build, and was never really completed before Ludwig's mysterious death. He only got to live in it for 172 days. The inside was in homage to Operas of Wagner, with frescos all over the walls that depict scenes from his Operas. Wagner never got to step foot in the castle before he died. They still have Wagner concerts in the concert hall that was built for him.

This was the last place I could take photos inside the castle, which is too bad, because it was pretty incredible inside. It was decorated over the top.

Once we got to the top floor of the castle and looked out on the veranda, there was no question as to why he built his castle here. There were lakes every direction you looked. The land was all so green and beautiful. There were a few villages below and a lot of farmland. It really was the most breathtaking thing we have seen in all of Europe.

This was looking down on his parent's castle.

After we finished looking through the castle, we went down the back path over to a bridge over a waterfall. This gave us a perfect view of the castle and the land around it. We could have stood there all day (but we were getting hungry!). Danny really wanted to hike down to the waterfall, or hike to the top of the mountain area and take the tram down, but no one wanted to embark on a 2 hour hike after the hike up and through the castle.

Danny said "Truly one of the closest experiences I have had to living in a fairy tale. Even more magical than Disneyland. I just thought it was idyllic. If I could build in a castle, it would be right there in that spot."

Landshut, Germany

2011-08-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

Our friend, Tania Schmidt is originally from Germany and now lives in Las Vegas. She has become like a sister to us , and Josephine, her daughter, is Isabelle's best friend. They have been in Southern Germany with family for about 10 days, so we met up with them in a quaint town called Landshut, just outside of Munich.

It is in the heart of Bavaria and it is a beautiful place, one of my favorite so far. The downtown area is so clean and the buildings are all painted in nice pastel colors. This is not a tourist town, yet it is picture perfect as if it were made just for tourists. This old part of downtown is closed to car traffic, and during lunch and late into the evening, all of the cafes have tables set up in the street area and they are full of people leisurely dining.

Isn't it so picturesque? It stretches for a mile on both sides of the street like this.

Here is the view of the downtown area from our hotel. We went in the church that you see here, and climbed up to that white fortress on the right to watch fireworks.

This is the bridge from our hotel to the downtown area, a 5 minute stroll. I really thought it was lovely and wished we could have spent a bit more time here.

Isabelle said, "It was really pretty and I looked standing by the water at night and looking at the fountain in the water. I also shopped with Josephine and we had fun trying on clothes and being "girly". I even found a hat and a scarf for 2 euros!"

On Friday night, there was a festival in town. I think the whole town showed up for the first night of a 3 day celebration! It was crowded!

The kids had fun riding the rides and playing some games.

We had some bratwurst and huge pretzels for dinner. We opted NOT to eat the whole fish cooked on a stick!

There were tons of people wearing traditional clothing. Tania said that about 10 years ago, no one younger than 60 would be seen wearing lederhosen and the girls in dirndl but now it has become popular again. People of all ages had them on in different colors and patterns. I felt a little out of place in jeans and a t-shirt!

This was a HUGE tent that served as a "biergarten" and place to sit and eat and listen to the polka band.

We walked up the hill to that fortress to watch fireworks, and it was a nice way to end a pleasant day.

Lodging

2011-08-23T10:05:00.001-07:00

We had a great apartment in Paris. It was a newer building and Michel, the man who lives there was so kind and picked us up from the subway station. He showed us around and then left. We were so comfortable there. It was a great place to cook meals, watch a movie in the evening, or lounge around and read a book.

Here is the kitchen. Everything was so EFFICIENT. I guess in small spaces you have to be inventive in ways to best use every corner. This kitchen has a refrigerator, freezer and dishwasher all in this one bank of cupboards.

We went from Paris to Munich, and then 45 minutes more to Landshut, Germany where Tania's family lives. We were so excited to meet up with Tania and Josephine. Especially the girls who haven't seen each other for 6 weeks!

We stayed at the Hotel Insel. It was a charming 3 story building with a restaurant on the bottom floor, and rooms on the second two floors.

Our room had a double bed and single bed in the room, and two more couches in the living room that fold out to beds and a large bathroom. We were right in between a river that splits in two, so we had the calming sound of running water on both sides of us.

It was great to be in back in Germany, but this time with people that can translate for us!

A day at the Eiffel Tower

2011-08-23T09:53:00.001-07:00

Our last full day in Paris, we decided to sleep in, enjoy a leisurely morning, and spend the day at the Eiffel Tower. It was a warm day, and the lines were HOURS long to go to the top, and we decided we would much rather spend the time in the parks around the tower, than climbing to the top.

This was our first close up view:

There is a mall about a mile long from a building on one side of it to a park on the other. We had such an enjoyable, relaxing time watching people, eating crepes, playing on the playground and taking TONS of photos.
Isabelle said "In movies and TV, they always make it seem so romantic, but really it is just a big tower with lots of tourists walking around." Sorry that her image of romance was shattered!
It was so great sitting in the shade relaxing all afternoon.

I wanted to stay there until the lights came on, and it was worth the wait. It is such an iconic structure, and we were constantly reminding each other "hey, we are at the Eiffel Tower!!!"

Of course Tay couldn't miss this opportunity to plank!
We feel like our life is complete!

SO FAR BEHIND!!!

2011-08-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind, and there is so much to catch up, so I will try! Monday was the Louvre and Champs-Elysees down to the Arc De Triomphe.

The Louvre was what Taylor was really excited to see.

"I know so much about the Louvre from my Explorations Class. It was HUGE! All I wanted to do was see the Mona Lisa and take a photo with my phone so it could be my screen saver. The line to see Mona Lisa was more like a crowd of hungry savages elbowing their way up front. When I got to the front of the line to take the picture, my phone ran out of battery and shut down."

Luckily mom was there to take a photo of him by the Mona Lisa so he could prove he saw it! And yes, the picture is really much smaller than you expect, especially next to some of the huge canvasses around it.

This picture is inside the glass pyramid looking back at the north part of the Louvre. On both the east and west sides of us, the building extends and makes 3 sides of a rectangle. Here is a photo of it at night. It is MASSIVE and we wanted to mostly hit the hightlights, but they are all on different wings and different floors, of course!
This is Venus De Milo is a sculpture of Aphrodite and is thought to date back to about 100 BC!!! No wonder her arms didn't last that long!
This hall of other Greek statues was pretty impressive to see.

This is "Winged Victory" the sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike. Now I understand why Nike shoes picked that as their brand name.After the Louvre, we walked right out and down the famous street Champs Elysees which has other famous buildings and monuments along the way, a park and then a mile of shops and restaurants ending at the Arc De Triomphe.
It was a LOT of walking today, but we saw some very iconic images and landmarks that we will never forget!

A Sunday Stroll

2011-08-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we walked past the famous "Hotel De Ville" on our way to church.
We turned down a small street looking for the church, and we found this door with the sign we were looking for! When we google mapped the church, we looked at the street view so we would know what building we were looking for. On the google street view, there were two missionaries standing out in front, so we knew we found the right place! This is actually a visitor center, maybe the entrance for institute, but just to the right, there was a big courtyard entrance.It was such a neat building that was converted into a church. We were greeted at the door by several missionaries and were told there was an english sunday school class, and that they had headphones and translators for Sacrament mtg in english and chinese...we picked the english ones.

Church was lovely and the ward was so diverse. We found out later that it was the same ward my sister Amy attended while working in Paris a few years ago!

After church, we brought a nice picnic lunch and we wandered back over to the Notre Dame cathedral so we could see the inside. Mass was just ending, and the organ was still playing and it was so neat to hear it. The interesting thing about the cathedral was that you don't have to pay to go in to the main part, and hundreds of people are walking through there at all hours of the day, even during mass. I thought it was a bit irreverent and I was sad that they couldn't close the doors for 30 minutes so the congregation could have a quiet mass service.
The cathedral was pretty impressive, but it wasn't my favorite that we have seen. The stained glass was amazing, but it made it quite dark inside. It was also not as well kept as some of the others we have been through. Maybe it's because of the high traffic level they have going through there every day. I don't know.

After that, we wandered over to the Pantheon. Taylor learned about it in school and gave us a bit of a history lesson. We didn't go in, but it was an impressive structure from the outside.

We ended our Sunday stroll by going through Luxembourg gardens. It was a nice Sunny afternoon, so there were lots of people enjoying the weather and the view. There were chairs set up all over to sit and read or people watch.

The French Senate is housed in Luxembourg palace behind us and is surrounded by a huge park or garden, the second largest in Paris. It was a great place to end our Sunday Stroll through Paris. What a peaceful and enjoyable day!

Notre Dame Cathedral Towers

2011-08-19T00:57:00.001-07:00

Saturday after the market, we walked the streets to see what we could see. We love this classic Parisian look of rounded corner buildings with the iron balconies.

Taylor is in the park next to Notre Dame. The kids played in the park while Danny and I waited an hour in line to climb to the bell towers.

Notre Dame was started in 1163 and took almost 200 years to finish. It seems amazing how old some of these places are. We have NOTHING in the United states to even compare!

Here is a view from the Seine. Notice all the padlocks on the bridge. We have found this all over Europe just like we did the first day in Frankfurt.

We were excited to have our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.
On the first layer of walkway on the cathedral, there were gargoyles on every corner. Some of them are so strange looking, and I am not sure their significance. This one reminded me of the flying monkeys on Wizard of Oz that my dad is afraid of!

Below this is the bell tower. We are going to have to read the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and not just watch the Disney movie to really appreciate the history of this building.

Here is one of the bells. This part of the bell tower is built with wood so that it would vibrate the sound better.

This is the view from the highest terrace looking down on the back of the cathedral and the Seine River. These greenish statues were of the 12 apostles.
Here is a video clip to put all the photos together.

The crepes were well worth the long wait to tour the top of the cathedral. There were vendors all along the side street where we had to wait in line and it made us so anxious to have one.

First morning in Paris

2011-08-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

This is a little cafe right outside of our apartment building. It looked so Parisian, I just had to take a photo.We went to an outdoor marketplace to see what we could find. It started raining, so we they were starting to shut down. But we did buy some fresh produce and some delightful pastries! I was a bit overwhelmed at the cheese counter by all the choices, and with my lack of french vocabulary, I didn't dare try to ask any questions!There were all sorts of finds here!

Of course, Tay was drawn to the weapons!

This is a cute little pink building around the corner from our apartment. It is unique because it stands alone, where most of the buildings last a whole block, and of course the pink paint was charming! The area we are in is in the South West corner of Paris called Boulogne-Billancourt, we can see the tip of the Eiffel Tower from this location.

Oui-Oui!

2011-08-16T04:32:00.000-07:00

We were all very excited to start our Paris leg of the trip, Taylor especially. We had a smooth travel day and our the owner of our apartment picked us up from the Metro stop, gave us a tour of the home and where the store was and then left us to have a peaceful evening.

Here is our dinner the first night...when in France, right? YUMMIOSO!
This is the beautiful sunset out our window that added to the beauty of the evening.

Last Day of London

2011-08-16T04:15:00.001-07:00

Here is our London home: 24 Chudleigh Road in Lewisham. There was a nice backyard with a garden and we were happy to have delicious fresh tomatoes and blackberries. We have really enjoyed having a kitchen in these apartments to prepare meals. It is nice after a day in the city to come back to a home and relax in the living room, and have a freshly prepared dinner. We just had to walk around the corner to get to the bus stop and it was quite convenient!
We saved the "Changing of the Guard" for the last day, which was not great, because it was quite rainy. I guess that thinned the crowds a little bit, but there were still hundreds of people there.It occurred to me that they do this every single day and have this kind of crowd to deal with. We were standing up on a wall to see, which was a good vantage point, but we couldn't see what they were doing when they were actually "changing the guard".
But it was really cool to see them march by and have the band playing. The ceremony lasts for more than 30 minutes, and the police have to block of traffic and pedestrians off and on the whole time. Seems too much of a hassle for my practical self!
After we watched that, we stopped at a store we saw at one of the train stops. We were curious about it, so we got off and went in. It was ASDA which is part of the Walmart family. I can actually say I was giddy as we walked in and saw some similarities of our modern conveniences of a "super center". We were able to get some things that we couldn't find at any of the other local markets like microwave popcorn and cheap sweat pants for me!

Our week in London left us satisfied and exhausted!

Wednesday...

2011-08-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

The Globe theater was built in London in 1599, and was used for 45 years before it was torn down by the Puritans. In the 1997, it was rebuilt close to the original site and is used today for many Shakespearean plays. There is an exhibition next to it that tells all about Shakespeare and the theater's history.
Tay really wishes he could dress like this!
Inside the theater, our tour guide told of the great acoustics of the theater. The actors still today do not use microphones.
There were actors on stage going through some rehearsals. It was interesting to watch them.

In Shakespeare's time, the floor surrounding the stage was for the commoners which cost a penny. When they say "standing room only" they really mean it because people stood for the entire play. They could fit up to 3000 people in the theater, mostly because so many people stood. Even today, there are no seats on the main level. People stand...through an entire Shakespeare play...SOUNDS AWFUL!

This is the Millennial Bridge. It is a neat foot bridge across the Thames. St Pauls Cathedral is right behind Tay's head.
The dome on the cathedral is the second largest on a cathedral after the Vatican. We got to climb the 528 steps to that very top viewing area. It was quite incredible.
It was built between 1675-1705 after Henry VIII took the control of the Church away from the Pope, and began the Anglican Church. We couldn't take pictures in the cathedral, but it really was one of mine and Danny's favorite places in London, so I took some photos off their website to post here.

This is what you see when you first walk in. In the middle of the cathedral, right under the dome, is the main alter. The feeling was so light and bright and really peaceful. They had afternoon eucharist going on while we were in there, and I listened a bit while they prayed, and it really was a spiritual experience for me.

This is the area behind the main alter. You can see the choir pews and there is a huge pipe organ that was playing for a while. The painting on the ceilings was accented with gold, so it looked like the pictures were glowing or lit up in some way.

This is the view from the first dome looking over some more modern parts of the city. Lots of the places we visited had audio guides that you could listen to along the way. This one had a really cool guide, and there was even one for children that was much more interesting for the kids to listen.

This is from the 528 steps up. We are looking down on the front part of the church.

There is one building behind Danny that Londoners call the "Gherkin" which is a type of cucumber. Can you tell which building it is?Another perk of our London Pass was discounts in different restaurants. We picked this absolutely divine little Italian place called Cafe Pasta.
After lunch, we had a little bit more time to use up our last day of the pass, and Danny said "I have seen enough old stuff, let's go to the zoo." So we hopped on the metro and used our pass to go to the zoo. By this point, it was almost 4:00 in the afternoon, we were all exhausted, and walking around a zoo might have not been the best idea. There were some cool things to see, but as you can see, we were too exhausted to even take many pictures at this point!
All in all, we are HUGE fans of the 3 day London Pass for 65 pounds. You know me, I like a deal. The last three days would have cost us 195 pounds! We definitely got our money's worth, and saw so many more things than we would have otherwise.

Tuesday in London

2011-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Royal Mews at Buckingham PalaceSuzanne has put me in charge of the text for this section and honestly I won't have many details about the names for these carriages or their significance. I will know the people posing in front of them quite well as I have been living with them 24/7 for the last 2 weeks. :-)
Those sexy headsets were attached to little audio players and if you punched in the number that corresponded to the one on the carriage / whatever it would tell you all about it.
This 2 ton golden monster is for coronation ceremonies / processions and was really quite something. To get it in and out of the stable where they keep it they have to remove a window and disassemble a wall.
A side shot of the 2 ton golden monster with two beautiful people improving the shot.

One of the royal carriage horses in what I'm sure was the nicest and cleanest stall I have ever seen. A bit different than the sheep stalls I mucked out for Cahoon one time with 24 inches of stale manure and straw mashed together.

Wellington Arch
There are some impressive mounted parades in and around the royal parts of London. We have no idea what this one was for but it was an impressive sight of order and display through the famous arch.
Taylor had to be careful not to step in the manure left by the passing horses but he put on a happy face anyway in exchange for a small bribe (biscuits to feed pigeons)
Isabelle had no problem avoiding the manure as she tends to be more cheerful and eager to dance about without bribes.

Kensington Palace and Hyde Park
Really beautiful gardens outside the palace with palm trees in each corner of this pond . . . didn't seem to fit but it was exotic. On the far side of this garden they were redoing the entire front entrance to the castle in preparation for the coming olympics; come to think of it the whole city seemed to be in some state of renovation for the same reason. We should have come after the games to see everything all finished like we did when we went to China.

This was inside the palace where they had an enchanted / mystical theme in the areas still open while the construction raged about. There was a bit of a historical treasure hunt as you went from room to room looking for the names of princesses whom had lived in the palace and a short story about each.

This was a fun room with a throne where you could speak into a microphone and have your voice turned into a ghost like quality over speakers.

A Ball Gown of Princess Diana

This was a room with a wartime theme and a strategy game that Taylor, Suzanne and I all played with each other.

After Kensington Palace we walked through Hyde park and talked about President Hinckley's missionary experiences there. It was fun to be there and think about him trying to get busy people to stop and talk about faith and religion.

We then went to the Queens gallery where they had two art exhibits. One of Dutch landscapes and another of Treasures from the Royal Collection. They were both really fantastic and set in a beautiful gallery. Of course they won't let you take pictures while you are inside but take my word for it it was great. The remote audio guides were a huge plus to those of us less schooled in the arts and if you sat long enough on a bench provided a wonderful lull into peaceful slumber until you wake with a jerk and hit the person next to you . . .

Queens Ice and Bowl

Taylor's favorite part of London . . . so far we have been unable to surplant culture for entertainment as his preference, but it's not for lack of trying on this trip for sure.

Isabelle had a good time but spent some time "cooling her jets" but I don't think it's because she felt warm . . .
Don't know if you can zoom into this picture but Isabelle has a priceless face caught on camera for the world to enjoy for eternity

Monday in London

2011-08-12T03:22:00.000-07:00

We were so excited to get started on our sightseeing extravaganza. Our London Pass offered over 100 venues to enter in for free (well, for the one price of the card) so we wanted to get as much use out of them in the 3 days it was available. First stop: Westminster Abbey.

Isabelle: "There was a scavenger hunt for kids and I had to look around and answer questions on a paper. They were hard to find, even for mom. The inside of Westminster Abbey was BIG. There was a lot of stained glass. Every hour, they said a prayer and everyone stopped what they were doing and joined in. There were a lot of statues and a LOT of tombs and chairs. At the end I got a BIG chocolate coin."

Big Ben was right next to the Abbey and is part of the Parliament building. It is really an amazing structure (I posted a photo in the last post).

Taylor: "It looked like it was falling over because of the way the clouds were moving, but we didn't go inside"

We then took a Thames River boat cruise up the river.

It was cool to see all of the buildings from the river to get a better idea of the layout of the city. They pointed out many of the different buildings and gave a bit of history about different areas.

Next up was the Tower of London. It is a 900 year old fortress. It has an outer wall all around, and a castle in the middle, and several other buildings around it. Today it holds the "Crown Jewels". They are wonderfully displayed. Of course we couldn't take pictures, but we saw The Crown and other orbs and sceptors and rings and royal platter, etc. It is crazy how much pomp and circumstance still goes into the monarchy today.

This is inside the outer wall (which has a walkway around it, and spikes and weapon holes to keep others out)

This is the "White Tower" which is in the middle of the fortress.

There are displays all along the outer wall that talk about those that stood guard for the king.

This door fit Isabelle perfectly!

After lunch, we went to the Tower Bridge, which is obviously right next to the Tower of London! I always thought this was the famous London Bridge, but I, like many others, was mistaken. The London Bridge is a plain looking regular bridge just 1/2 mile down river.

This is as ou start walking across. The exhibition starts at the second arch you can see below.Do you see the elevated walkway up above Danny's head on the picture two up, that is where we got to go. This was one of my favorite places this week. It was cool to be up so high above the river, and to look out, and to learn the amazing history of the area. There are two walk ways that run parallel to each other. This is the view of one of them while standing in the other.

All along the walkway, there were pictures and history of the bridge. They were also very smart to put different children's activities along the way (like this bowling game) to keep kids occupied while the parents read all the signs!

This is the machinery which was the old coal driven steam powered hydraulic system used to elevate the bridge. (That was a quote from Danny!) Now it has a different system, but it still opens about 3 times a day. We didn't ever get to see that happen.

The sun came out for a few minutes to have one more bridge photo.

After this, we went to a place called "The London Bridge Experience" which I am glad we didn't pay for. It was kind of an interactive telling of the hundreds of years of history about that area and the actual London Bridge. There were different rooms, and actors, and then at the end, they take you down to the dungeon, and it is basically a spook alley with all sorts of special effects, blood, gore, strobe lights and people jumping out at you. Not what we were expecting, but apparently, that kind of thing is popular here-not just during halloween time.

We took the riverboat back to where we started. This side of the Thames is where the "London Eye" is, that huge ferris wheel. It was not included in the price of our pass, and so we skipped it, but the sunset was beautiful.

And then our pass gave us some free tokens to an arcade right next to where we are standing in this picture.

Is anyone else exhausted???

Architecture

2011-08-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am really amazed by the architecture. Especially when you think about the lack of modern tools and equipment they had in building all of it.

Saturday in London

2011-08-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday we wanted to just wander around the city and get our bearings. It was a very busy day in the city. I can't imagine how crazy and packed it will be next year during the Olympics here since it is already such a busy tourist city. The architecture in London is incredible. It is hard to remember to take time and look up!

Trafalgar square is one of the places I remember going when I was in London many years ago. I thought it was a good place to people watch and take some photos!

Danny was not keen on climbing up for a picture on the lion, but I told him everyone has to do it! There is a photo somewhere of my sister Amy and I in the same place!

Admiralty Arch on "The Mall"
Our first real British lunch was at a pub right next to Trafalgar Square. The ambiance was really cool and the pub had been around for over 100 years.

The food, however was sub-par, so my fish and chips were not what I had hoped for!
Isabelle did like her Bangers and Mash (Sausage and mashed potatoes)

When we got our metro passes, we also bought The London Pass, which allows you entrance into over 100 different venues in London. We decided we needed a 3 day pass which cost about 60 pounds each for adults, kids were cheaper. We wanted to make sure we got our moneys worth, so we mapped it all out Sauturday and Sunday and came up with a plan to start on Monday. Soon you will see why we are behind on blogging, because we have packed A TON in during the last 3 days. More tomorrow!

Travel Day

2011-08-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

Time to say goodbye to Amsterdam. At the train station ready to move on to LONDON!

When we bought our Eurail passes, we had to buy first class, which we thought was really dumb, but after we saw how noisy and crowded it was in second class, we didn't feel so bad. That is where all the true backpackers are! The icing on the cake for us was when we just got started going (180 mph) and they brought us a delicious lunch. of Chicken and cous cous, eggplant (you all know how much I love that...Danny got 4 helpings) delish cheese and a tomato sauce and yummy belgian wafflish cookies. Of course bread and drinks with ICE made it perfect.

Some hard core rounds of "Presidents" to pass the time. It was nice that our four chairs faced each other with a table in the middle!
We were looking for platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station, but we didn't ever find it...

Goodbye Amsterdam (Saturday, Aug 5)

2011-08-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

We have gotten a few days behind on blogging...you will see why once you see how packed our days in London have been! Here is the last night in Amsterdam. We had seen lots of people all week eating these french fries out of paper cones, usually with a big huge blob of white sauce (basically mayo). We just had to try it, minus the mayo. They were steaming hot, which was nice, because it started raining. And they were YUMMIOSO! Can you see that the cone is bigger than my head? Of course we shared!
Here is 24 Cabralstraat where we stayed for the past 5 nights. It was right around the corner from a big grocery store and a very convenient tram line.The main bedroom:Tiny bathroom, the shower is in the same space as the sink and toilet (right next to the sink). The shower curtain was actually in the door frame, so you could do all of your bathroom duties (haha) at the same time!
This is the front room where the kids slept on the pull out futon bed. It was actually quite comfy. It was nice to have a big table and chairs because we made many of our meals at home.
This is obviously the kitchen, which is just a small hallway of a room. There was a tiny fridge, a small compact dishwasher (IKEA), that surprisingly held lots of dishes! Then there was a MASSIVE nice oven with 6 gas burners. The microwave and small freezer were out on the patio. Kind of crazy set up!
There was a backyard with a covered patio and some grass, but we had to kick the cat out of the apartment for the week, so that was his domain, and it rained too much to enjoy it!

Once we figured out the tram and bus system, we were rarely lost and could make it from place to place with ease! It is a great system that runs down the middle of the roads, buses go on the same tracks, cars can go on each side of the tram, and then there is a whole lane for bikes on EVERY ROAD! It would be a great place to have our bikes. SO many of the bikes look as old as my dad's bike from the 1960s, but it doesn't seem to matter, they just keep riding them.

We feel so blessed that we had the opportunity to be in Holland. We wish we could have gone to some of the other areas of Holland, but we did take the train through some of the beautiful country side.

A day of family history

2011-08-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Today we went just north of Amsterdam to a Village called Tuindorp Oostzaan where Danny's Grandpa Johann Zippro lived when he was younger. It was really neat to be in the neighborhood and look around. We have read his incredible history and thought about his family actually being there...We also could picture the place nearby where he hid from the soldiers during the war and to realize how far his mother rode her bike to Rotterdam to check on the Saints there after it was bombed. It all just became so much more real and we loved being there.

These were the townhouses, his door is on the left.

This is from the corner of the neighborhood.
This was a picture I took of his home from outside the window. You can see a small living area and the kitchen behind on the right. It is two stories with two bedrooms upstairs.

The kids both found snails along the way.

The next door neighbor came out when we were snooping around taking pictures. Her name was Mrs. Ekelschot, and although she didn't live there when the Zippros did, it was great to talk to her about her own experiences living in that area. She was very interested in the stories we knew about the Zippro's life there. It made the experience even better.I doubt this wading pool was there in the 1930s, but it was a great open wading pool and a big grassy area right in the middle of the neighborhood. Isabelle enjoyed splashing around.

Later that day we went to visit with some of the Zippro's close friends Rob and Els Goudsmit. Els lived in the same neighborhood (as above) with the Zippros and was best friends with grandpa's sister, Cory Zippro. Then later in life, the Goudsmit's lived in Salt Lake City for a medical internship and became very close to John and Marion and their young children in the 60s, and then visited when Danny was a small boy. WE FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES!!! I was so upset about it after I wanted to turn around and go back! We visited with them for a few hours and it was one of the best opportunities. To hear more about family in Holland and family in Utah. It was priceless to have that time with them.

Wednesday...a bit of Van Gogh on Vacation

2011-08-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Van Gogh museum. After 5 minutes, the kids were already anxious just to see the classics and get out, but luckily they had a great "Treasure Hunt" activity for the kids, and they both went their own way to find all of the answers. We didn't see them for about an hour, which was quite a nice way to visit a museum. There was so much info on his life and development as an artist. He started his training in Holland and much of his first 5 years of art are scenes from the farmlands and hard working people of this area. The second half of his life was mostly in Paris, and being there really changed his style. The kids got a post card as a prize for finishing the treasure hunt. These were their picks:

The area below is called Museumplein, which is obviously an area with Museums. Part of the Van Gogh museum is on the left in the round museum. Below is the Rijksmuseum which has the history of Amsterdam and Holland. We didn't think we could handle two museums in a day, so we settled on Van Gogh, which Danny and I really enjoyed.

This was a park at the Museumplein that the kids enjoyed. Unfortunately it is also where Isabelle sat her purse down, and someone took off with it :( She was sad to loose her camera and her iPod. We were glad she didn't have any money in there, and she will have to make more of her dramatic videos on our camera in the future.

Taylor found a great place to practice "Planking"!

These next photos are of random doorways. These were some of the coolest that I saw, but there are so many with different colorful tiles and designs. It is something unexpected.

These next two pictures are of Magna Shopping plaza which we drove past several times on the tram, but Danny wanted to stop and go inside. We later found out it was the central post office built in 1899.

The inside was pretty impressive, but all of the shops were small little unknown designer shops, and the mall wasn't very busy.

First Sunny Day!!!

2011-08-03T11:45:00.001-07:00

FINALLY a sunny day! Isabelle: "We went to the beach and I had a picture in my mind of what it was going to be, and it was more like a creek or a lake. The water was murky and there were no waves and it felt like I was in a big bucket of wet slime. But the sand was fun. I made sand legs."

Taylor didn't even want to get his swim suit on, much to my dismay-had I known he was going to get so dirty, I would have insisted. Taylor: "I was not happy when we got there and saw the shore, but I did like the sand. You had to pay to get into the bathroom (like everywhere). We passed lots of people sunbathing on the sand. There was a bit of a drop off before the water, so I played in that and made a little cave for myself." Taylor even got to see his first topless sunbather (don't tell him I said so) luckily it was not an impressive sight!!! It is amazing that people are so comfortable in their skin!
Danny and I just enjoyed the weather and watching the people so excited to be in the water.

The Anne Frank House was such a neat experience. It was the main thing Isabelle was looking forward to, "I have seen the movie of Anne Frank several times and I like the story. I wanted to go to the museum and I thought it was an interesting set up. It was designed to look just like the warehouse and the offices of Anne's father and the annex was cool."

There were so many bits of information and quotes from her writings. Even though I have read the book I learned things I didn't know before. It is amazing that so many things were recovered and protected. There is an interview with her father (the only one of the 8 people hidden to survive) and it really makes you want to cherish your time with your children.

The Westerkerk (Western Church) is the church right by the Anne Frank house that she speaks about hearing the bells ring at different times of the day. It was built in 1631 and is quite different than the other churches we have visited.
It is a protestant church so there isn't an altar and all of the crucifixes and paintings of Jesus. These organ pipes and the paintings around it were the most beautiful I have seen.

We are enjoying "tramming" around the city. The tram and bus system is so great and we can get on and off with ease. The above station was one of the only that was not right in the middle of a main street because it was the one on the edge of town that took us out to the beach. The area below was the theater district with tons of restaurants and beautiful buildings on the canal.

Isabelle Playing in the water near our appt in Amsterdam

2011-08-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

Monday in Amsterdam

2011-08-02T13:15:00.001-07:00

This was a really beautiful building in the middle of the city which, upon closer inspection, we realized was a movie theater.Can you really take enough pictures of canals in Amsterdam? It was warm but Taylor was so excited about his hat he kept putting it on especially for pictures.
Such beautiful architecture with the bridges and buildings along the water. With that and Suzanne, Danny almost looks tolerable :-)
We just loved it when we would get up on one of these bridges and could look down and see. In so many cities you don't get these views because the streets just run into each other. The canals really open things up so you don't feel closed in.
This is a great picture to show the contrast between very classic and older buildings right next to more modern ones. This is right on the Amstel canal, one of the main ones running through town.
This is right where Taylor bought his hat. Mostly he was excited about showing his friends and his anticipated reaction from them. Fun to see him growing up and being more interested in how he looks, even if it's just to look different :-)
This was lunch at The Pancake Bakery which is just down the street from the Anne Frank house (which was also really worth seeing). We got sweet and savory "Dutch Pancakes" which are just thicker crepes. Isabelle had Pofferjtes which were also delicious. Taylor and I also had omlettes and when you add in drinks we spent . . . well with tip €60,00. Way too much for pancakes and eggs. The rest of the week we will be eating at home :-)

Do those walls look straight to you? Unless the contact high we had from all the marijuana smokers effected the camera too those wall are waving like a flag in the wind.

This was a really fun open market where anything you like could be found. One of the coolest was the food and what can be better than good dutch cheese?
This is just a shot of the open market so you can get a feel for how long and crowded it was.
There were even things to interest Taylor and Isabelle, like these little music box players.

Walk to Church

2011-08-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

We got to our Amsterdam apartment Saturday evening and we realized a bit too late that the church was on the other side of town, and the train station to buy tickets was already closed SOOO we decided to go for a Sunday morning stroll. Taylor was still feeling sick and needed to sleep, so the three of us headed out for the FIVE MILE walk!

One thing that is hard about Amsterdam is the street names are impossible to say (Kloveniersburgwal, Sarphatistraat, Vijzelstraat) and the other thing is that one street changes to another and curves in an octagon around the center. We ended up finding the church just in time, and we got to see a lot of awesome sights along the way:

We loved seeing all of the bikes ALL over the streets. Amsterdam is the bicycling capital of Europe. Not only were they locked up everywhere, but we saw all sorts of people riding in the specified bike lane all over the city. We saw old couples riding to church, moms riding with kids on the back, dads riding with kids in wooden boxes in front. after two hours of walking, we wished we had a bike to ride!
This is Molen De Gooyer at Funenkade. It is more of a museum now as it is right close to downtown. We just happened to walk past it, along with a lot of awesome sights. We would turn a corner and realize we were somewhere important, even though we weren't sure where!

Below is the Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam, where the royal weddings take place. It was cool to see this courtyard early on a Sunday morning before it was crowded with tourists.

Isabelle said of our walking experience, "I felt like a pioneer walking to church, I think mom is crazy for running 5 miles every morning. It felt like we would never get to church. I was thinking after we crossed the first canal that maybe we would get there after crossing 5 of them. Once we crossed over 10 canals, I thought maybe we would cross over 20, and that is exactly how many we crossed before getting there!"

We forgot to take any photos of the church building. It seemed very similar to any of the older church buildings in Utah, just smaller.

We were not the only english speakers at church so they had a translator with headphones for about half of the congregation. Isabelle wasn't so lucky with Primary "There were about 5 kids in all of primary and one of the teachers translated for her part of the time, but it was really hard to sing the songs in english while the people all around me were singing them in Dutch...ACHH" (That is her guteral sound heard in so many of the dutch words!!!)

The walk there took 2 hours and then after we walked about an hour to Centraal station and got the passes to use for the week! We had seriously TIRED FEET! Talk about a LONG Sunday!

Traveling from Frankfurt to Amsterdam

2011-08-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

What a cute girl on the train from Utrecht to AmsterdamTaylor was feeling sick so we got him a double latte to try and make him feel better :-) Just kidding it was hot chocolate that we got in the Frankfurt station before boarding this speedy train to Utrecht. Not kidding about Taylor, he was feeling under the weather. Seems like a pattern with him to get sick on our vacations!
This is one of the first things you see after coming out of the Centraal Station in Amsterdam. You can see that the same gray weather from Germany followed us to the coast :-)
This is the Centraal Station in Amsterdam; really a beautiful old building. We ate at Burger King as soon as we got off the train as it had been nearly 6 hours since we had eaten in Germany. The dining area was decorated with beautiful carved oak, it had to be the best looking Burger King dining area anywhere!
This is nearly 30 minutes of Isabelle shooting the train we were on from Frankfurt to Utrecht. There are some great moments of the nice 1st class cabin we rode in, the beautiful countryside, and her being a spontaneous girl singing to her ipod!

Isabelle's pictures of Wednesday in Germany

2011-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Isabelle took some great pictures of Frankfurt on Wednesday before we went up to the temple and this is on the one end of the footbridge.This was in the downtown shopping area of Friedrichsdorf.
On the footbridge over the Main river in Frankfurt there were lots of locks with couples names on them and Isabelle had to take some shots.

Some very classic looking German dolls.

Here we are standing on the footbridge in Frankfurt and the picture is looking back at the historic square where all the other pictures were taken.
Awe, what a cute couple!

Franfurt Temple/Friedrichsdorf

2011-07-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night, we took the train 20 minutes north of Frankfurt to Friedrichsdorf. We then wheeled our suitcases over cobblestone sidewalks and streets for 15 minutes until we found the temple. Attached to the temple there is patron housing or the temple hostel as they called it.The building just to the left of the steeple is the entrance to the temple hostel. There are 3 floors of rooms and an underground hallway to the temple so the patrons can go back and forth easily.
Everyone was SO kind. The hostel was full of members from the Dusseldorf stake (2 1/2 hours away). It was their stake's temple week and several families babies, teenagers and all got to stay in the hostel. They also have several full time couples serving in the temple and living in temple housing.
The town was so quaint and quiet. This little shopping town square area was a half mile from the temple. We got some groceries and let the kids play on the play ground.
Isabelle just couldn't wait to try german chocolate. This was not anything fancy, just a store brand, but she was thrilled to try it. She sat in our room all day watching movies while we did temple work. The bedroom had a bunk bed, and two single beds and a separate bathroom. It was a very nice and comfortable room. There was a kitchen and dining area downstairs for everyone to share.
Taylor got to go to the temple in the morning with us to do baptisms with a group of German youth. There were 4 other boys and 1 girl from the stake and a few other adults. We did part of it in German, and then Danny did some of the baptisms in english. He really struggled pronouncing the german names, but everyone gave him kudos for even trying! The german youth enjoyed hearing the english as well.

These lockers behind Danny are numbered with the room numbers so you can put your food in them. Also there a refrigerators with numbered cabinets. Everyone made food and cleaned up for themselves in the kitchen.
After lunch, Danny and I got to do sealings and initiatories. Most of it was in German, but everyone was so accommodating and kind. We met some lovely people and really enjoyed our time with them. It really made me think how EASY we have it being members in Las Vegas. Although our kids are not surrounded by LDS friends, they are not the ONLY ones in their school. These families spend their whole week serving in the temple. Most of them were trained to do be temple workers for some part of it, and so they take turns being workers and patrons. We enjoyed a lovely Italian restaurant with one couple and talked all about their day to day life as LDS people with 6 children outside of Dusseldorf, Germany. I have so much respect for those saints that work so hard in their own little part of the kingdom.

Frankfurt

2011-07-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

The Main River in Frankfurt. There was a foot bridge that took us across the river.
The weather was quite lovely in the afternoon. We enjoyed walking all over downtown looking at the sights.
On this bridge there were hundreds of padlocks, many of them are engraved with people's names. There were a lot with a man and woman's name and a wedding date. We saw other bridges with the same thing!

This was the coolest part of Frankfurt. It is called Romerberg, and is located in the city hall square.

Taylor was sure this was a good place to try another "wurst". This time it was a beef bratwurst and was much more like he was expecting! It was a huge one sold with a hard roll and mustard.
There were several beautiful churches here, and we could go inside most of them.

When we first walked into this square, we all kind of got excited realizing we were actually in Germany! It was neat to see the detail in each building. There was a lot of construction going on to restore other buildings around this area. There were several restaurants and souvenir shops in the bottom parts of all these buildings.

Day 2

2011-07-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

Here is the restaurant from last night. It was pouring rain as we were leaving, so we didn't take any pictures. This area was surrounded by camp grounds...some of them seemed like permanent residences...tiny little campers with tents built right out from them.

The Holiday Inn had an interesting breakfast buffet. Taylor really loved the croissants with jam. I think they wanted to fool people into drinking whole milk by calling it 3.5%!
There was an interesting array of meats and cheeses for breakfast. Nutella spread, yogurt and granola with chocolate were some of our favorites.

Instead of "planking" the new fad is "owling" Taylor is displaying a perfect owl pose in the Frankfurt train station.

EUROPE 2011

2011-07-27T23:15:00.001-07:00

Gutentag! We just spent our first night in Germany and we woke up (quite early thanks to jet lag) feeling ready to go!

We first flew to DC and then embarked on the 7 hour overnight flight to Frankfurt. After settling down, Isabelle fell asleep on mom's lap, and Taylor kept sinking lower and lower in his seat until he was kneeling on the floor with his head on his seat...totally asleep for several hours. I wish we could have taken a picture, but I couldn't get to my camera!

They served breakfast right before we landed, but it was actually lunch time, and so we were pretty messed up timewise by the time we got to the hotel.

Walking through the Frankfurt airport, the kids were surprised that most signs were in German and English, and that most people we talked to spoke English. We were glad about that, because we had to find out where to go for the shuttle bus to the hotel.

We each took a nap and woke up starving. The Holiday Inn Express is outside of Frankfurt and we are surrounded by trees and fields. Down a tree lined path, there were two restaurants, an Italian one, and a German one. We decided that we should definitely have our first authentic German meal.

Isabelle stayed safe with chicken with spaetzle noodles. She liked the chicken, but "the noodles tasted like boiled potatoes and looked like soggy french fries"

Taylor: "I ordered my meal because it had the english words bread, butter and salad. The other words I didn't know, so it came out and it looked like stringy bologna and onions. There were blocks of butter on the lettuce and the bread was hard like jerkey. The funny thing was that it was called "Wurstsalat" and I think it was the "worst salad" I have ever had!"

Danny had delicious schnitzel and mom had yummy bratwurst, both served over potato salad. There was plenty of food to go around and we enjoyed the quaint german restaurant and walked back to our hotel in the rain!

Summer

2009-09-04T15:11:00.001-07:00

Our summer has been crazy busy, and now that it is September, I guess you could say it is officially over, but it is still 100 degrees daily, so I can't say goodbye yet. Here are a few of the things we did this summer to keep us so busy:

Danny designed and landscaped the backyard. The pool has been the only feature in the backyard until now. Here is the before:

I left for 3 weeks and came back to this:

It's so fantastic! It's so nice to relax back here in the evenings. It has also been great for entertaining, and we have maxed out the capacity with a few parties this summer. Thanks Danny for all of your hard work. It was a lot of hours in the hot sun, but sooo worth it.

We took a quick trip to San Diego for the 4th of July to see baby Sasha be blessed. It was fun to hang out with my little brother and his family and to have the parents and Aimes with us too...we all got some sun, and saw a few fireworks too!

We took a trip up to SLC for the open house of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is of course beautiful inside, but it was great to take the kids, they were so young for the last two open houses we attended. Taylor loved the Celestial room because he said it was the place he felt the most peace (the open house was really crowded and busy, and this was a bit of resting place...plus his sunday shoes were giving him blisters and he didn't want to walk anymore. So not that it was ultra spiritual, but it did provide a bit of reprieve!)

Danny had a mountain biking trip planned for the weekend. Had a great ride on Friday, and ended up doing some emergency bathroom remodeling for my parents the next several days until he flew home Tuesday.

My family humored me by going to the 24th of July parade...the WHOLE thing. My parents, Amy, and the kids and I were big troopers and endured the heat to relive some of my favorite childhood memories of the pioneer parade. Of course when we were little, we would watch it from Dad's office window right on the parade route where it wasn't hot and crowded. Also for some lame reason, they don't throw candy any more, so what is the point for a kid, right? There were some really cool floats, good marching bands, and we waved to Elder Eyring. Even being that close to him, I could feel the spirit witness of his testimony. I have always loved Elder Eyring, and so that brief moment made the parade worth it to me!

We took a fun hike with my sister Kath and fam to Donut Falls. Of course we had to eat Donuts for breakfast on our way up.

These three rascals are Crrrazy, especially the smallest, Noah. He and I ran almost the whole way up the trail.

Isabelle just loves to pose:

A big part of my summer was spent at USA cheerleading camps. I spent 3 weeks at USU in Logan, UT working as Medical staff. I got to take care of all the high school cheerleaders coming to camp to learn routines, pyramids and stunting (oh my).

Amy and Taylon are some of my fave staff, and Cheryl (above) and Wayne Moon (below) are the best part of Utah camps! Also my friend, Miranda joined staff this year as a head counselor and it was so much fun to have her there.

This was our awesome staff for the last week of USU camps.

And this is our really good attempt at instructional staff stunting with support staff!

No major injuries again this summer some stitches and a torn shoulder (later needing surgery) were the only notables. I also went to Carson City, NV and covered one camp there. No photos, but the highlight of that trip was seeing my two sister in laws and their husbands (and the chocolate and almond dipped delight we got for dessert!)

PHEW...no wonder I was EXHAUSTED at the end of August when it was time for school to start again!

ISABELLE

2009-07-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Isabelle has had a lot of fun the past few months. She had a darling recital. Her group performed a jazz/tap routine and were great to watch.

She had a fun time at field day and finished 2nd grade with high marks on everything!

She swam:

biked:

and ran her way through her 2nd kids triathalon.

She didn't place in her age category and was a bit bummed because she said, "I felt so confident." She did her best and was so determined in doing it. I love that about her. She may be the only other family member that will continue to compete in races like me!

Isabelle has seen all of her cousins in the past few months and is always so patient with them. She is the oldest girl cousin and always tries to set a good example, even though all the boys are closer to her age.

Isabelle is a very fun cousin to Matilda (above) and Katya (below)

TAYLOR

2009-07-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Taylor has had a busy couple of months...

He turned 11 and had ALL of 19 of the Youngs there! It was quite a celebration with his favorite present ever (he says that about every present) his long awaited Heelies!

His best friend in the whole world, Wiley Jacob, came on a surprise visit from Omaha. These two are "brothers from another mother" as they like to say and picked up where they left off like they were together every day. They played in ookalaka land, played video games, stayed up late laughing and sleeping in a twin bed together like they were still 5!

Taylor fell in love with another cousin. We had a great weekend trip to San Diego for the 4th of July for her blessing. Taylor is the oldest cousin on both sides and thus is the "protector"! So tender.

He enjoyed his last field day at William Wright Elementary school...

and will be heading to MIDDLE SCHOOL next month! He looks thrilled about it, you can see.

Most recently he went to the most "awesome" birthday party the other night for Carson and Connor Brown. They got to ride in a stretch hummer down the strip, but that wasn't the best part...it got a flat tire and so they got to be picked up by the "Rock Star Party Bus"...equipped with leopard print seats, a disco ball that came from the ceiling and, as he put it, "these fun polls you can swing around on". Wowzers! He said it has been a long time since he danced that good. You can see him in the red shirt in the back getting jiggy with it!

Sasha

2009-06-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the world to my new neice Sasha. She was born right in between her mom and dad's birthdays this week. We are so excited to see her and happy for Katya to have a sister. Isabelle said today that she was glad for a new baby cousin because "Lucy is getting SO old!" (she is only 18 months!) Congrats Dave and Marina. So happy to have another "PettPett"!

des six

2009-06-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

I was tagged to do this challenge, but didn't even know about it for the past few months because I have been a slacker at blogging, so here is my sixth picture in my sixth file:

It is SO random, but it is Isabelle and I at the Childrens Museum in Kansas City, MO. We went there with Nana and Taylor in 2004, so Isabelle was about 3 years old. You were hooked to this spider web of robes and you had to go over and under to get across. Sorry, Aimes, not as exciting as your babydoll hooks in the bathroom.

April...a bit late!

2009-06-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a few late highlights of April:

SALT LAKE 1/2 MARATHON

I went for a girls road trip to SLC and ran one of the most fun races to date. We had a team dinner the night before at mom and dad's house and stayed up way to late giggling. A few of us almost missed the Trax to get up to the U, and when we did get up there, couldn't find our running partners...but it was SUCH a great race. Perfect weather, lots of crowds to cheer us on, great course, etc. It was the first time my parents and sister have seen me race. Hopefully I have inspired them to do it with me next year. After I was done, I was ready to do it again the next week...it really was that much fun!

This is me passing through Sugar House, close to my sisters' house. My 7 year old nephew ran down the street with me and yelled to his friends, "That's my aunt!"

It is so much more fun to run with friends. Some were cheering for me when I came through, others I cheered for when they came through. What great memories!

Karen, Miranda, Me, Amy, Marissa (just half of our Mountains Edge team that ran the race)

Amy Simmons, Miranda, Christa, Cheryl, Karen, Marci, Suzanne (after a yummy breakfast)

YOUNGS VISIT and TAYLOR'S 11th BIRTHDAY

All of the Young family came to stay at our house for several days. Mark and Rosy came from Orlando for a vacay, and Vegas is a good meeting place for everyone else. It was quite convenient that they were all here for Tay's big day. He was thrilled that everyone was there, and that he got new Heelies. He has been waiting for a long time.

Marissa took family pictures for us. It was freezing cold and windy, and no one was prepared for bad weather, so the little girls had a hard time. I will post some of the other awesome pictures next time!

Isabelle Is EIGHT!

2009-04-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

A little late on the February excitement, I know! Our baby girl turned 8 on February 2nd. We had a very special weekend with family and friends to celebrate with her. I think we counted 24 people sleeping on any spare corner of floor space! We had so much fun with everyone here.

We were surprised by Isabelle's Great Grandma Zippro showing up just as the service was starting. She didn't let any of us know she was coming. How special to have so much love and support!

Isabelle has made some great girlfriends here. She was the first of the group to turn 8. She got some play make up and nail polish as a gift. The girls wanted to have a posing session to show off their glam look.

(Emily, Isa, Maddie, Isabelle)

January Brrr Project

2009-01-26T20:39:00.000-08:00

My computer time has been a bit occupied lately with a little thing called Facebook! I just created a profile at the end of December and I have been amazed at all the old friends I have connected with. Since I haven't lived in Salt Lake for 17 years (besides summers) I haven't kept track of many people. What a unique tool to connect us all! So now it's time to get back to the blog world.

Here are some photos from our fun time in the snow. Taylor is doing a "January Brrrr Project" on winter and we had to pick our favorites!

We took the kids to Brighton Ski Resort. The boys snowboarded and the girls were on skis.
This was Taylor's second time and I was thrilled to see how well he did.

It was Isabelle's first time and she picked it up pretty quick and had a lot of fun.

We had to really be bundled and huddled together up the lifts...brr it was cold.

Isabelle and Katya (my neice) had so much fun building the "no-man". Katya lives in San Diego, so this was really a treat for her.

Taylor, Curtis, Noah and Isabelle labored for several hours, with tremendous help from Danny to build the coolest snow fort. Danny shoveled the six inches of snow off this whole deck in my parents back yard. It took him over an hour to shovel it and dump it all in one spot. Then the kids got to work with shovels and kitchen utensils to tunnel through.

I just love this picture because I am stylin' with my mom's famous H&R Block Green boots! But they kept my toes warm! Also, you can't see the other hand, but I have 2 right hand gloves on...all we could find under the stairs!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2008-12-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all of our dear family and friends!

This year has been wonderful for us. Here are a few highlights:

Isabelle is 7 years old (almost 8 she reminds me). She is loving the second grade where she excels in everything she does! Isabelle loves reading and has read most of the American Doll series (which are fantastic) and is almost finished with a series about fairies. She has been taking dance this year and has fun group of girlfriends that get together once a week to play and do crafts. (Isn't she beautiful?)

Taylor and Isabelle both did the Diamond Kid Triathalon in June, and just completed the Las Vegas Kids Marathon where they ran all 26 miles over a 10 week period. They got to run the last mile through the actual finish line.

Taylor is 10 and surviving 5th grade. He has a great teacher this year who does fun projects which Taylor enjoys. He took art classes and had a nice gallery showing, and was selected for the Lego Robotics team at school. Besides that, scouts and training for races has kept him quite busy. He and some neighborhood friends love to play in "Ookalaka Land" which is a big empty lot at the end of our street, eventually to be a school. They have fun finding buried treasures and keeping their fort free of enemy invaders! He is almost as tall as his mom and will probably pass her up before his 11th birthday.

Suzanne has kept busy with a variety of things. This summer she worked for the United Spirit Association cheerleading camps as an Athletic Trainer. She got to travel to California, Utah, and northern Nevada for a week at a time to treat all sorts of cheerleader injuries and ailments! Next month starts competition season, so she can see all of the pyramid practicing pay off! Also Suzanne is on our neighborhood HOA board, and the Mountains Edge Social Committee. She has kept active running two more half marathons this year (which makes one full, right?) One in Bryce Canyon and one at Valley of Fire (North of Las Vegas). She has a great group of running friends to keep her motivated. Staying involved in the school, our church, and our community really make life rich and full.

The highlight of the year for Danny and Suzanne was their trip to China in October. You can read all about it on this blog. It was a once in a lifetime trip! The whole family took a great camping trip through the National and Utah State parks this summer (also on the blog) and had a great time hiking, biking and water rafting!

Danny has enjoyed having a full year of teaching under his belt. Starting over this fall was still challenging, but a lot less stressful after having gone through it before. He has spent a lot more time doing research and writing and just sent off his first paper for publication. He has great coworkers and students that make going to work fun! Danny is also part of the Mountains Edge Running and Cycling team, but sticks with the cycling side of things. In addition to riding part of the way to UNLV everyday, he loves to go out with the guys a few times a week to the rugged trails that surround our area. He is so thrilled about his early Christmas present, a brand new custom mountain bike. He is just putting the finishing touches on it and can't wait to go wild!

We feel trully blessed this year. We have been able to spend a lot of time with family. We had a great week at Disneyland with the Petts, and had the whole family stay with us at Thanksgiving. We get to see the Youngs a lot more regularly and it is great to have them nearby. We miss dear friends that are so far away, but invite you all to come and visit us any time!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

(PS: It is SNOWING today in Las Vegas...really snowing big flakes that melt when they land!)

First sledding trip of the winter

2008-12-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today we are in Caliente NV and we went sledding with cousins and grandma.

Not what it's cracked up to be

2008-12-19T14:31:00.000-08:00

I hear from people all the time how great it must be to be a professor on a 9 month contract. Here is what US News and World report had to say about my job.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2008/12/11/overrated-careers.html

Of course "physical therapist" made a more desirable list:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2008/12/11/the-report-card.html

35

2008-12-10T16:27:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I entered my "mid-thirties"! Oh boy!

I had a really nice day:
Started out with a good workout, and then came home and got back in bed (Isabelle told me the night before, "Mom, when you get back from running, will you get back in bed...and don't eat breakfast!) So it was chocolate chip pancakes in bed, calls and texts from friends and family, then a brand new Mac (Yeah--no more frustrating crashes) from my hubby, lunch and shopping with Karen, fantastic friends showering me with love and gifts all day, and a double date dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant with Danny and the Morgans. Absolutely perfect day.

Here is a pic of my PERFECT new apron from my friend Marissa. Shout out to her! www.marissamagnolia.blogspot.com

(As if I needed a BIGGER computer, but it runs so smooth and doesn't have all the glitches the last one had. The kids can play on the old one all they want, but they can't touch this!)

Thanks to everyone who made my 25th...um, I mean 35th birthday special.

2008-12-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

Today they came to the university and interviewed me for a short news clip. Check it out.

A Bit Busy...and Tired

2008-11-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

It was so great to have so many friends follow our blog during our trip to China. Everyone has told us that they felt like they got to have a bit of our Chinese experience. It made it more meaningful for us to share it with everyone while we were away.

Since we got back 3 weeks ago, you can imagine I have been a bit busy playing catch-up...and also training for the most grueling half marathon I have run!

It was at Valley of Fire state park...which was beautiful, and it was PERFECT weather. But, the whole race was a series of hills. Steep ones. I finished with my second fastest time, which should feel like an accomplishment, but right now it is tainted by how difficult it was! Taylor ran the last 100 yards with me.

This is a group all from our Mountains Edge Running/Cycling team. It is so great to have a group to train with and share in the experience!

There were also 3 of our friends that ran the 10K portion of the race, but were gone before we finished. Good job to all of my friends...it is time for the HOT TUB!

2,490

2008-10-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

Any guess what that number stands for?
a. Was it the number of dumplings Danny ate while we were in China?
b. The number of grams we added to our weight?
c. The number of kilometers we traveled in China?
d. The number of KFC restaurants we have seen here?
e. The number of steps we took to get to the top of the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!

This was a sight to behold. We are so glad to have this happen to us on our very last day here. It has been such a long and adventurous trip, but we have been anticipating this day from the beginning. I mentioned it was a beautiful autumn day. The sky was blue, the air was crisp, and the colors of leaves were turning all the shades of fall.

This is an inscription that says, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man" I am glad we can BOTH say, we are true men...especially since I beat Danny on the way up.

This was the beginning when the steps were small and even...This did not last for long. I think they got more careless and tired and the steps started becoming so high that my short legs could barely get up them!

Just when you think you are close to the top, the wall turns to the right and keeps going up!

I couldn't believe that after a half hour of hiking, there were tables set up with people selling their souvenirs...Can you imagine that commute each day. We were sweating and huffing and puffing. We could tell the air was a bit more thin. We were so high up in the mountain at this point. The view back down was incredible. You could see Beijing skyline which is 45 miles away! Look how steep it is. I cannot imagine being the poor men who built this wall.

And then, you finally get to the top, and inside the tower you see this stair case:

Each step was about 18 inches apart and kind of sagging in the middle. It was a bit perilous.

Here is the view of the loop from the top of our side of the mountain. It goes down across the valley and the water and up the other side, just not as high.

Here we are back down the the beginning. We got up to the 8th tower..I don't know if you can even see it from the view. Going back down was a bit easier but my knees were killing me, and Danny's legs were shaking like jello.

Tonight we had to go get massages so our legs wouldn't feel so cramped up while sitting in a small airplane seat for 13 hours! What a fantastic experience. Never would we have believed we would be at such a world famous wonder. I remember seeing pictures (or slide shows..groan) when I was younger of my Grandma Pett in China. I always thought it was so amazing that she got to travel to so many wonderful places, never thinking I would be there one day too!

It is hard to describe what this trip has been like for us. Through the wonderful technology of the blog world, we are so glad so many of our friends and family could share it with us. It has meant even more to us because of that. Also, spending 2 1/2 weeks together as a couple, celebrating our 12 years of marriage, has been magical. Thanks to great parents that would take our children, and especially to Mr. Cyrus Tang who made our wildest dreams come true!

Ming Tombs and Peking Duck

2008-10-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

Today was a BEAUTIFUL autumn day in Beijing. We were picked up by Dr Xue and his wife who drove us up into the mountains to see the Ming Tombs. There are 13 of the 16 Ming emperors were buried in various places in these mountains. Most of them are not excavated, but we went to 2 different tombs. They have palaces (like the one behind us) and tall head stone markers high on a hill.

One of the tombs is open. The Dingling Tomb contains one emperor and his two "consorts". You descend 27 meters into the earth and there are large tunnels and huge marble doors to protect the coffins. There are 3 large marble thrones (just in case they want to sit on them!?) And several large boxes next to them...proving you CAN take your riches to heaven.

After a very long day, we went to one of the most famous restaurants to eat the most famous Beijing dish, Peking Duck. It is roasted in a brick oven over a wood fire, it was DELICIOUS. We told Dr Xue that he saved the best meal for last (at least in my opinion). The man behind us brings the whole roasted duck (yep, head and all) and slices it in front of you. Yummo. What a way to end our trip with a good taste in our mouth ( literally).

This restaurant is one of the largest in the world. It can seat 2000 people. It is 4 levels and it is run so efficient, your food comes out quick, and the staff was so polite. What an enjoyable day!

BEIJING

2008-10-30T07:26:00.001-07:00

We said goodbye to Wujiang and Mr. Tang on Wednesday and flew from Shanghai to Beijing. We were taken to our hotel (a beautiful full service Holiday Inn) and ate a DELICIOUS dinner. We were pretty exhausted after travel and we had a big day ahead of us.

We went to the Imperial Palace, the Forbidden City. It was huge! It kept going and going. We had done some reading about it, and had watched some movies about emperors that lived there, so it was really interesting to see.

Inside one of the courtyards:

These are the back doors to one of the throne rooms:

Then we went to the Olympic Village. I watched every single second of the Olympics that I could, and at that time we had NO idea we would actually be going there to see these areas. It was almost magical. We got to go inside and see the "Birds Nest". I never imagined I would stand inside it and look around. I have to admit I almost got choked up.

Inside, they had on display all of the different costumes from the Opening Ceremonies. Danny made fun of me because I had to photograph them all, but I was so excited about seeing them. I will soon make a slide show so you can all see them too.

Then of course, the WATER CUBE. This wasn't open, but it was cool to see. Both of these structures are very close to each other. Then we went down the LONG Olympic walkway, saw the Gymnastics and Basketball venues, the Olympic village, and so much else. It reminded me of being in the middle of the 2002 Winter Olympics in SLC. So much excitement, even though the games are over.

After that, we drove to the Summer Palace, where the Empress would spend her summers. I think it would be better during the summer, you can see I am feeling a bit chilly! As the sun was going down, it was cold. Again, so many buildings, each for a separate purpose. A lot of it hundreds of years old.

There was a large lake on the property, and we walked all the way around it. The taxi driver told our guide, a very nice graduate student that took us around all day, to enter in the west gate and exit the east gate...however, the east gate was a few miles...past all of the different palace buildings, and around the garden and lake, and out the back gate...however, it was now 5:30 PM, and there was not a single taxi to be found. Our friend (we can't remember his name) was so flustered, and we walked along this rural road until we finally found a bus that was going towards a busier area!

Luckily we found our way to the restaurant where Dr. Xiue and his wife were waiting for us at a nice chinese restaurant. They did a good job of ordering some good chinese food for us to share. Now it is late, and we have another busy day tomorrow before we head home.

THE BEST KIND OF GIVING...

2008-10-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

A must read:

Mr Sun (runs the Foundation in China), Stella Liang (runs all of the Foundations world wide and lives in Las Vegas) Mr. Cyrus Tang (Entrepreneur and Philanthropist)

The Cyrus Tang Foundation Motto:

"THE BEST KIND OF GIVING IS THAT WHICH INSPIRES OTHERS TO DO THE SAME"

Mr. Tang came to America in 1950, attended college and started a small steel business. It has grown into a many very successful businesses.

A tour of SKD, (automotive tooling) one of the businesses that is in 4 countries worldwide.

From the beginning, Mr. Tang wanted to find ways to give back to society and help others also to serve.

The Cyrus Tang Foundation is just one of three foundations. The main focus is education, especially to those in rural areas.

This darling little girl in rural China has a sign that says that she doesn't want to be different from the children in the city, she wants to go to school. The Foundation, CTF, has helped to build hundreds of schools in Rural areas. There is also training for teachers, and adults in the area to keep the school running.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Mr Tang always gets the local government involved in the process, and now the national government has taken over the plans and is rebuilding rural schools on its own...which is part of the goal is to help others become self sufficient.

Now most of the focus is on scholarships. Hundreds of college, high school and primary school scholarships are given each year. The main requirement for these scholarships is that the recipient has to find ways to serve and give back. Many of the college students become mentors for the young children in rural areas. They write letters telling the young children how important going to school is. They provide good examples of what an education can do.

The main purpose for Mr Tangs' 6 week long trip is to have reunions with all of the alumni from the college scholarship program (they all call him "Grandpa"). He told us tonight that it is the most rewarding thing to come and see the success stories of those that were recipients, and also hearing the stories of the ways those people were able to give back.

This is only a small portion of his contributions. He does these things quietly, without a lot of name recognition. He would rather others get credit. It has been so inspiring to be here with him these two weeks and see some of what he has done. What an example to follow of the "Best kind of giving".

For more information, check out:
www.tangfoundation.org

Embroidery Institute

2008-10-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is the Embroidery Institute in Suzhou. This handicraft is so amazing. They have to go to school and train for several years, and if they are good enough, they get to work here. The pieces that are produced here are high quality and often large pieces that are commissioned for special buildings, or people. From a foot back, you cannot even tell it is stitched-it looks like a photograph.

Click on these photos to see them up close.

This lady has a drawing of a tiger and from that, she will copy that with thread on a cloth.

Even dow to the very last whisker. So fascinating to watch.

This group of ladies were working on a commissioned piece for some government building. A bamboo forest. Bamboo is straight (honest) and Chinese people also believe that bamboo represents the modesty, strength, and never gives up because it continues to grow taller and taller. It will take this group of ladies several months to finish.

These women were laughing and talking and seeming to really enjoy themselves. There was plenty of natural light so they could detect the difference in each of those green threads laying there!

Fun stuff in Wujiang

2008-10-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Where in the world do you think they would identify handicapped bathrooms as being "For Cripples"? China of course.

The garbage cans in the city all have one for normal trash and one for recycling. Some of the time it will say "organic" on one and "inorganic" on the other however we weren't quite sure what to put in this can marked "organism". The translation on signs into English continues to amuse us. You can also see the man in the gray shirt standing behind the garbage can. He was a relentless beggar with his pan shaking in my face. We had to run around in circles to get him behind the can so we could get the picture we wanted.

This is Wujiang park skate rink. We have walked by a couple of times at night. They rent roller skates at the building there and some people bring their own roller blades. It seems to be a bit of a teenager hangout but a very peaceful one at that.

This is a nice plaque at the main entrance to Wujiang park that talks about the park development. This city is really growing with lots of new development and it looks like most of it began in the mid to late 90's

More of Shanghai

2008-10-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

I didn't get all of our day in Shanghai posted the other day. Amber, our guide for the day is a darling girl that works for one of Mr. Tang's companies here in Wujiang. She was given a very specific schedule to stick to for the day. We joked that we didn't want to get her fired, so we tried hard to stick to the schedule. Here is Danny enjoying a little american ice cream snack...sometimes the cravings are too great! And it was the first time we had seen a DQ and we couldn't believe there would be one in China!

The skyscraper skyline goes on and on and on! This is taken from the corner of "The People's Square" which seems to be right in the middle.

This is the opera house. We were hoping to go inside, but they were only open on Mondays from 1-3:30 or some crazy schedule like that!

This a view of the Huangpu River. The other side is the Pudong area. It was NOT part of our agenda, so we got to view it from "The Bund"...the street that is famous for it's colonial style buildings.

This is Nanjing road. It reminded us of Michigan Ave in Chicago. It was about 2 miles of shopping. Every store imaginable. Some very high fashion, and some not so fashionable. We didn't really feel a need to do too much shopping of this sort, but it was sure interesting to watch people.

The one annoying thing was every few minutes we were stopped by someone asking "You want to buy a watch, a bag? Cheap,cheap" When we would say no, they would go over to poor Amber and try to get her to translate how great of prices and selection they had. If you did say yes, they would take you off one of the small alley ways to their shop onto a stinky smelling street like this:

In the Yu Yuan shopping area with all of the fantastic old style chinese architecture, there was a cultural demonstration going on. There were costumes from the various regions and music and dance. We had to leave when one lady started singing in that high, whiney chinese voice that you may have heard. Even Amber didn't like it, so I didn't feel bad.

And even amidst the Chinese culture and products in abudance, what shopping area would be incomplete with out a Starbucks!

A Little Potty Humor

2008-10-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of one of the public bathrooms in an outdoor shopping mall. They don't seem to try to hide the urinals out of view...as you can see Danny standing there (luckily on the other side of the wall). The women's restrooms are a lot of fun too, because they have "squatter toilets", it's like a toiletbowl in the ground...and toilet paper seems to be optional depending on the place you go. I have gotten quite well at it, thank you very much, but try to limit my usage to our "western toilet" at our apartment!

Here is a HILLARIOUS story that I didn't write the other day. While I was getting my facial at the very girly salon, Danny was out in the waiting area--for the full two hours. Thinking I surely would be coming out any time soon, he didn't want to go too far away to use a public bathroom, so he tried to ask the girl at the desk if they had one there that he could use. He got the dictionary out and kept pointing to "bathroom"..wondering why it seemed like such an odd request. The girl was looking soo flustered. Finally he walked out and found one in the outdoor mall.

Later, when he told Stella about it, she LAUGHED and LAUGHED. She told Danny that he was asking the poor girl if he could take a BATH at the girly salon. No wonder she was so flustered. He should have asked where a TOILET was, and it would have made much more sense. We still laugh about it every time we pass that salon!

Friday in Shanghai

2008-10-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

I will take you through our journey backwards (since that is how the pictures loaded and I am too tired tonight to change them.)We had a fantastic day in Shanghai with Amber Xiang. She works for one of Mr. Tang's companies here, and she is so sweet and fun. Her english is great and we enjoyed the day with her. We did NOT however, enjoy our dinner. It was kind of like a chinese buffet, but you only go through once, and pay for what you got--so more like a cafeteria. We thought it would be good because we could see what the food looked like, and pick from a HUGE variety. However, we made some poor choices, nothing too outrageous, just "not tasty"! (Our new favorite phrase, coined by one of our guides the other day!)

This place was amazing. The area is called Yuyuan and it is near the City of God Temple. It dates back to the 1800s when the area became more of a market place. The architecture is so great, and there are hundreds of shops-anything you want, you will find (Even a Starbucks) It was so clean and beautiful that Danny even enjoyed a bit of shopping. More fun at night because it is all lit up.

Danny spent quite a bit of time picking out some really nice chopsticks to bring home. So polish up your skills if you are invited to eat at our house next time!

We went to the Shanghai museum and saw all of the brass carved relics. Really cool stuff.

This is the People's Square. Several museums, opera hall, huge mall, etc.

We went to an urban planning museum that was interesting for a (few minutes). This was a model of all of Shanghai, so you can get an idea of how massive it is. The skyscrapers go on and on!

This was the beginning of the day at the train station. Danny got his shoes polished for about 50 cents. The lady said we should pay her extra because they were the biggest feet she had ever seen! Especially in his Birkenstocks!

So, ending at the beginning makes me more exhausted. This picture seems like it was taken yesterday, but it was just this morning! More tomorrow! Also, thanks for all of your comments and emails. It is exciting for us to wake up each morning to have some correspondence from family and friends at home!

Thursday in Shengze

2008-10-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Mr Tang's hometown, Shengze. It is about 30 minutes from Wujiang. Mr Tang is building a hospital there and we were accompanying him to see the progress. We had no idea what we were in for. There were TV cameras, police escorts, and many dignitaries all waiting for him to arrive.
Mr Tang is here with the gray hair. We will get a better picture of him soon. We knew Mr Tang was important in this area (the main street in Wujiang is named after him) and they said the hospital is being built in the "village" Shengze, of close to 100,000 people, but we had no idea it would be like this!

A beautiful 500 bed hospital-a state of the art facility that has many special arrangements by the government. This is the projected picture in one year. They started it exactly one year ago, and are ahead of schedule. It was so crazy to be a part of this visit and see how well respected Mr. Tang is.

After the tour, every one loaded up in cars (vice mayors, town officials, hospital coordinators, etc) and we all drove (with hazard lights flashing so everyone would know to get out of our way) we went to a BEAUTIFUL restaurant in a high rise building. It was the kind of occasion that wasn't really appropriate to take lots of pictures, but let me just say, the meal was NEVER ENDING. And Mr. Tang had asked for a quick lunch. It was 90 minutes of tray after tray being served. They kept taking away our plates and bringing in more food. Just when I thought we were being served the main course, there would be something else put in front of us...always on a new plate. Besides that, the circular table also had a really nice glass lazy susan filled with other foods (appetizers, I guess. I thought it was the main meal) Danny tried these tiny little red things with spines that turned out to be DUCK TONGUE. I couldn't do it. Not with that many people watching. There was enough variety that there was plenty to eat. They put one dish in front of us and Mr Tang and Stella started laughing because they said it was a type of Tofu from that area, but they both thought it was disgusting. Stella couldn't even stand to smell it. We both tried some and it DID stink, though it didn't taste too bad. We could only stand a few bites, then they came with another plate of the same stuff, but this time fried...Not as stinky, especially dipped in hot pepper sauce. Then they came out with whole crabs on a plate for everyone. Danny is allergic, and Mr Tang is always very cautious of that for him, but I had no excuse, except that it was like the 8th course, and i couldn't eat any more. It was crazy to see all of these dignitaries digging into these crabs. It reminded me of Sebastian the crab on Little Mermaid. Whole thing, sitting there on their plate!
I could go on and on, but I now that pictures would have been more fun. It was an experience I am sure we will never have again.

After lunch, they sent a few of us to the main silk factory. This area produces 1/6 of the worlds' silk. We went to the largest of these factories, and got a tour from the general manager (who spoke pretty good english, thankfully) The process is amazing. These are the silk worm cocoons. They have to be in a certain temperature of water for a certain period, and the air gets taken out of them, then they go through several machines.

This brush gets the silk strands attached and then it goes through other machines to get the perfect amount of strands. It unravels the one individual thread and then combines them with other threads to make the desired thickness, then it is either woven or knitted into the fabric. It really was fascinating how the machinery worked.

The tour was quite extensive, and there was a store at the end with different apparel and quilts that you could by. The quilts had pure silk batting (like a down comforter, but much softer) and woven silk on the outside. Mr. Feng, one of the Vice Mayors of Shengze presented us with one of these quilts as a gift.

Yesterday, we found some great bagettes for about 35 cents, but the cheese selection was a bit sparse. It is a nice evening meal after such large and diverse lunches.
So this evening, while Danny went to do Mr. Tangs stretches with him, I ventured out on my own to the grocery store. I took some of the side streets to avoid the crazy driving, but went a bit too far on the side street and ended up in an area like this:

At one point I was in a dead end with an old lady who was brewing something over some coals looking strangely at me. Luckily she pointed the way out, and I quickly found the safety of the busy streets!
Tomorrow we are off to Shanghai-finally. We can't wait!

Wednesday-The New Suzhou

2008-10-22T04:19:00.000-07:00

Today was a little more low key. This morning we went to SooChow University in Suzhou. We saw a whole new side of this city...key word NEW. The other areas of this big city were older and had all of the old temples and gardens and crazy shopping areas. The east side of this city is modern and houses several Universities, and many big foreign business headquarters. These pictures are of BingLing Library which was funded by Mr Tang. BingLing is his father's name, and it was quite an impressive building. 8 levels, and the outside shape is supposed to resemble a Lotus flower.

We went with Dr. Joung, a chinese physician that is a friend of Mr. Tang from Beijing. He had never seen this library, either, so we were sent together. He tried his best to translate and he was a darling, smiley man. (you can see why people stare so much at Danny-he is huge next to Dr Joung)

We also got to see Mr. Tang's corporate office in Suzhou, it was housed in a nice big corporate office building. One of the girls from the office got to come translate for us and take us to Jinji Lake. There were all sorts of new offices, shopping and restaurants all around it. There was a nice park and a walkway around the shoreline. It was quite an overcast day (still warm and muggy) so it is hard to see the coast line across from us. There were two islands, and we took a boat to one of them. It was beautifully landscaped, there was a modern pagoda and a nice tea house. We did think we got left on the island without a way back because no one could speak english, but we made it back.

Because there are so many foreign businesses here, they had all sorts of restaurants (that weren't chinese) We picked mexican because my brother was just in Mexico City and it made us crave tortillas and black beans. We were so excited that the waitress spoke some english, there were some americans behind us, the menu was in chinese and english-AND she offered us ice in our diet coke. (We haven't seen much ice OR diet) The other great thing about it was they had WHITE MEAT in our chicken burritos-another first. We decided we needed to give kudos to all those of you that served foreign missions and lived for more than a week without some of the comforts of home. Our hats are off to you because after one week we were feeling deprived! Isn't that pathetic? After we finished eating, we were so excited there was a cold stone creamery nearby. Even though the prices were outrageous, it was worth every spoonful! I think after the fermented glutinous rice balls, we deserved some tex-mex, right?

Tuesday Adventures

2008-10-21T00:48:00.001-07:00

Danny has been needing a haircut, but he hasn't dared to go ask for one. Not so hard when you just need to buzz, but we found a place today with a lot of young guys working there, and I made sound effects and sign language to show he just wanted it all off. We haven't seen anyone here with a shaved head, so it's not common, but they brought over a NBA magazine and pointed to Kevin Garnett's shaved head and I gave him the thumbs up! So Danny got a shampoo, hairbuzz, wash off, neck trim for about $1.50. The people were all so nice and after we took this picture, they wanted a picture with us on their camera. I think they must have thought Danny was a famous basketball player!
Also on our walk there was a nice beauty treatment salon. We got a flyer the other day and asked Stella to translate. So today I took it in and pointed to the place where it said "facial" and they took me back to a room. The girl started out with a 30 minute back massage, and I figured, oops, that's what the flyer said, oh well because it was an AWESOME massage, then she had me turn over and proceeded with a 90 MINUTE facial with all sorts of oils and creams and a lot more massage. After TWO HOURS (poor Danny didn't know what was taking so long) they told me the price- 80RMB which amounts to about $11.50. Not bad for a day on the town-and there is no tipping here, so we REALLY got a bargain!

We are getting a bit more daring with restaraunts here in Wujiang. We went to one last night that had some pictures on the menu, thinking we would just point. These darling teenage waitresses were trying to use their english to ask us more questions, but it wasn't working. Then all of a sudden, one of the girls comes running over with a lady and says "My english teacher". What a crazy coincindence! So this lovely chinese english teacher tried to translate for us, and did pretty well, and we ended up with a really decent meal--for about $6 total!

After that experience and armed with our dictionary this time, we went looking for some pork dumplings and rice for lunch. Remember the picture of the fermented rice balls? Well, we kind of ended up with that! A HUGE bowl of it. Of course we both had to try it, and it was just kind of blah. Nothing fermented tasting about it. We figured the little balls were dough balls and the fermented part of it had to do with a yeast rising process, because they were just little dough balls in some kind of creamy, starchy liquid. I will say I tasted it, but that was it. Danny felt bad leaving so much left on the table, but I told him he didn't need to force feed himself.

Here is a side note from last night. We were walking down the main street and saw these two little boys (who were there the night before doing the same thing) unsupervised with a lighter and some newspaper to burn. They thought they were pretty clever! We wondered where in the world were their parents, or child protective services. We have realized our society is a bit more paranoid about safety than the people here!

Lastly, there is always fresh fruit on our table when we get home every day. Today, there was something a bit unusual. We still aren't sure what it is, but we figured how to open it and cut it up.

Let me just say that you can't judge a beautiful looking fruit by its peel. The inside was the consistency of a kiwi-also the seeds were similar, but the taste was kind of earthy. We tried it, and then tossed the rest out.

Mondays Travels Part 2

2008-10-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

After lunch, we headed off to the hills, first we had to cross the very large Tiahu Lake. It was a series of 3 bridges, with small islands in between to get us to this small village called Xishan. It used to be completely shut off from the mainland before the bridges were built, but this high producing agricultural area was important enough to build the bridges. Now the whole region has become quite a tourist area-many large hotels and villas around the lakeshores. In the middle of the island, there is a large cave that was a holy place of Taoists during the Tang and Song dynasties and then rediscovered 30 years ago (filled with ancient relics... which are now in museums)

(I know..i look like a little midget next to him, especially at this angle!)

The cave was really cool, several large openings, cool temperature in summer (it stays warm in the winter) below sea level in parts.

Mondays Travels

2008-10-20T01:32:00.001-07:00

Today we went back to Suzhou. We had the same translator/guide, Jessica. We wanted to see a Buddhist temple and this was a good one. It is one of only 4 in all of China with all 500 statues of the Arhots, or disciples. There were large statues of Buddha and the creator of Buddhism, and several other of their gods. We couldn't take any pictures of them, or inside the temple where the statues were, but it was pretty impressive. There were several monks that live in this temple area, and many visitors coming to bow and worship at the feet of each of the statues. They also leave offerings of flowers or fruit on the alters, and then stick a coin in the slot so their prayers will be heard. Jessica is not Buddhist, but the tour guide at the temple tried to explain and answer all of our questions and then Jessica had to figure out how to translate all of it into english. It was really interesting. The religion comes from India, and all of the statues had Indian faces, except one, which was adopted from Chinese folk lore. Usually people will come to the temples on the first day of the Lunar calendar, but today it was pretty slow and quiet, so we could take our time looking.

This pond is right behind the temple and they have two ancient tortoises in there. They don't come out often because they are huge (2 meters long) so if you catch a glimpse of one, it is good luck and longevity. We didn't stay long enough to see either of them...we also didn't spend much time in the temple of the goddess of fertility ; )

FOOD part II

2008-10-19T05:34:00.000-07:00

I mentioned the eggs-they are called 1000 year old eggs, and I spoke to soon, because just a few hours after typing about it, it was in front of us at our dinner table. It was chopped up and served cold over chunks of tofu. Danny was shocked that I dished some of it up, but I will have to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought, but everytime I think of it now, I gag a bit in my throat!

The other thing that we saw yesterday that we swore we didn't want to try was this strange fish dish. And Stella ordered both of these things for us-not knowing we had talked about it. Ironic, eh? The fish is cut in a strange way and deep fried so that it looks decorative. They call it "Squirrel Fish" because it looks like it has puffed up fur around it when it is cooked up this way. I was going to die! Plus, it was after we had already eaten quite a few other dishes when they brought this out.

But, big shocker here-it was actually really good. Danny ate more than half of it by himself, only after Stella, Mr Tang and myself had a serving. We took a good walk after this dinner and feel just fine now!

The FOOD in China

2008-10-18T23:41:00.001-07:00

So many of you (including myself) wondered how I would do with the food. So far, Danny has done just fine...and I have to say I have fared pretty well myself. The above picture is of us at a nice restaurant with our tour guide Jessica and our driver. The menu had english under the chinese so I could point out some things I would like. Our friends did all of the ordering, and the food dishes kept coming. It is always served "family style" as we would say, so we got to try a bit of everything. There was some vegetable I hadn't had before that was really yummy, some soup, some sweet and sour pork, which was good, and a lot like what we are used to, a chicken and green pepper dish that was delicious, and a few other dishes. Against Danny's nature, there is often food left on the table after eating.

The other night, we went to eat with Mr Tang, Stella and Mr. Sin (who is from WuJiang) Mr Sin ordered for us and it was a bit less appealing fare. I drank some cucumber juice, which at first was nice and refreshing, but served room temperature was hard to finish the whole glass, but they kept refilling it. Danny downed his quickly and then asked for a different drink. A lot of the dishes were tofu, which I can handle a bit, and some large fish served whole, Mr Sin ate both the heads and I was grateful to him for that.

Last night, we went to the grocery store. It was really a nice clean big store, but we could not find much of what we would want to eat or we just didn't recognize what it was. Here are some of the favorites. WHOLE COLD CHICKENS...just laying there featherless with heads and feet. Right next to it was the feet-which they like in all different flavors, and is found next to the beef jerkey section vaccum sealed.

I had to quickly walk through the meat department because it all made me dry heave. Then there was a little aquarium section...oh cute little froggies and turtles...TO EAT! Live fish, eels, squid, crabs, in all different varieties.

Next are some photos of the breakfast buffet at the hotel. I might be a bit more adventurous here, but for breakfast, it is hard to think of eating fried rice and preserved (black and foul looking) hard boiled eggs. We both had some pork dumplings (delicious-even at 8:00 AM) and noodles.

Last, here was something we could not stomach: The sign made up our mind "Small dumpling with fermented glutinous rice". So, to answer the questions on your mind, we are managing the food, but I don't know how long it can last! Luckily there is always fresh fruit in our apartment!

ODDS and ends of Day 1 In CHINA

2008-10-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

This kind of rock is everywhere. This place is in Mr Tangs garden.

Ornate sidewalk.

No more bugles??? Actually we figured it is because EVERYONE honks horns. The driving is CRAZY chaos and people don't stay in their lane, so as they are driving, they just honk so you don't get in their way. Certain areas you are not supposed to honk, thus the silly sign!

Here is typical scene:stacks of people on a scooter. This one had TWO children on the front, one little girl who was falling asleep. No car seats or safety harnesses here! It is uncommon to see helmets, too. This yellow helmet is more like a hard hat. You can be sure she was honking her horn!

Here were some apartments right behind the nice walking mall.

Right outside our window, is a very large park. At night the people of the city come to the park to dance. I think it is every night, but Friday night it was an especially popular place to be. There were hundreds of people there, and they just come to gather and someone brings music and they all dance. They have certain choreographed line dances-kinda like the "Electric Slide" that they all start doing together. We couldn't believe how many people there were. Whole families were there, the kids were on the sidewalks around the common area playing games and rollerskating. There was a bounce house set up, and some vendors. Danny and I took a walk around and several of the pre-teen boys came up to us to say "Hello...Goodbye" wanting to practice their english on us. We were the ONLY foreigners there, so it was fun to talk to these kids and see which phrases they knew. "My name is... I live in China...How are you". Maybe we will get some better photos to give a better understanding of how many people were there.

Tong Li

2008-10-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon we went to a city called Tong Li. It is a historical area that is 1000 years old. It is a waterside town that is famous because of it's buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. We got to tour several ancient homes and gardens. It was amazing that everything has a meaning; the direction your house faces, what trees and plants are placed where, where vases and mirrors are placed. Some of the areas were preserved well, and some (where people still live) were in bad shape. We got to go on a boat ride through the town, there is a picture of the lady that rowed our boat. There is also a photo of an opera stage that is still used and a lot of photos of a noblemans home, along with the gardens and pond in the courtyards of the home. We went with a group of people that work with Mr Tang's foundation. Luckily there was an english speaking guide. You will see some pictures of him with Danny, notice how Danny really stands out in a crowd here. There are not many foreigners that come to Wujiang area, so we get a LOT of stares. We did see a few other Americans in Tong Li, but that was the first since leaving the airport!

Ni Hao

2008-10-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hello from China!
After a long plane ride on a 747 (first time for both of us) we made it to Shanghai last night. We missed a day somewhere in the air and are now a half day ahead of all of you in the US. We were picked up from the airport and driven to Wujiang, about 90 minutes away. We were told it was a small town, but it really isn't small. We are staying in the guest house of Mr Tang's home. It is above the garage and is really a nice 3 bed 2 bath apartment. We both fell asleep easily (even though the mattress is very firm). This morning we woke up and had breakfast (oh boy: it was a buffet at the hotel, and I wasn't feeling quite adventurous this early in the morning. Maybe tomorrow, and I will take some photos)
Danny had a good therapy session with Mr Tang, and then we went off on a walking tour of the city. There is an outdoor shopping mall close by. You could find just about anything you need...except a size 7 Nike running shoe. (I left mine at home) They had plenty of size 4.5..too bad my parents didn't bind my feet when I was young. Danny also had quite a hard time finding a jacket that was long enough for his gigantor arms! The nice guy went sprinting back to the back of the store and brought back a 3X that did the trick! Here are some photos from the morning.
Here is the lunch we had today at McDonalds. It looks better in the picture than it tasted.
Here are some pictures of our apartment.

Here are some pictures from the outdoor shopping area in Wujiang.
It was interesting that often the girls walk holding hands or arms.

This guy was selling tiny turtles in front of McDonalds . . . I wonder???