Friday, November 5, 2010

Moving the Blog

I'm moving to WordPress and a personal domain! :-)

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thankful Thursdays: Friday Edition

I'm thankful for:
  • the beautiful fall weather
  • a fun night at home with Mike
  • knowing our families will be here in a few weeks for Thanksgiving

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Wedding Weekend

A dear college friend of mine got married this weekend and I had the honor of serving as one of her bridesmaids.

The wedding was in the town where Mike and I (and Bev and most of our friends) went to school so Mike and I had fun looking around campus Saturday morning before the wedding as well!


The girls taking pictures before the wedding. The weather was beautiful but it was windy!
At the reception. Lisa, Bev and I were all communications majors. We're missing one of our four - we missed you, Kelli!
Mike and me back at our hotel.
Congrats, Bev and Johnny!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Thankful Thursdays

I'm back!

I'm thankful for:
  • God's plan
  • my wonderful husband
  • a weekend with friends coming up

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Europe - Day 13

Our last day in Europe was spent in London. My friend Cristen and her husband are living the ex-pat life there and Cristen served as our tour guide since she had the day off!

We loved the cloudy, rainy weather but it did hamper our photography for the day and I just realized that Mike and I didn't take a picture of ourselves when we were there. Ugh! I guess we'll just have to go back. :-)

We walked around and saw Westminster Abbey...


Big Ben and the London Eye...
Some of the soldiers guarding different government buildings...

Walked by Trafalgar Square...
And, of course, visited Harrods and met up with Lauren (who is working at our alma mater's program in England while her husband studies at Oxford) and enjoyed tea and macaroons at Laduree. Oh, and Mike officially wins the "Husband of the Year" award for hanging out with a bunch of girls for the day! :-)

Cristen and Jason, thank you for being such wonderful hosts. It was so good to see both of you and Lauren!
We ended the night at Cantina Laredo for dinner with Cristen and Jason and then headed back to their house to call it a night.

Mike and I flew home the next morning and can't believe our amazing trip has already come and gone!

Europe - Day 12

We got up early the next morning and headed to Rome. We had grand plans of going in to the Colosseum and touring the Forum but the lines were already incredibly long (since we had to wait in line at the train station to check our bags, get metro tickets, and get bus tickets to the airport later that day) so we had to be content with just seeing the Colosseum.


The "wedding cake" - I cannot remember what this thing is called!
More ruins along the walk.
I wish we could have walked through the Forum but, unlike when I studied in Italy almost 7 years ago, you now have to pay to get in so we settled on seeing other random ruins.

After seeing all of that we went back to the train station, grabbed lunch, took the bus to the airport and waited for our flight to London for the last leg of our trip. We got to the airport really early so that we had plenty of time in case we ran into trouble and were SO thankful we planned on that when someone forgot their bag hear the check in and the police cleared the terminal.

On to London!

Europe - Day 11

Wednesday morning we got up early to beat the lines and go up into the dome of the Duomo. We got there a little early and got a cappuccino while we waited. The little cafe had the cutest cups and I wish they sold them so I could have brought one home!

Us at the top of the dome. We didn't get any good pictures of the hike up but it's very narrow and rather steep in some places. Mike ended up filming the entire walk down but that will have to be saved for another time.
The view from the top.
After the Duomo we headed to the Pitti Palace so we could visit the Bobli Gardens.
So pretty! Mike called this the garden of randomness because nothing seemed to flow and we found random statues and sculptures that just didn't seem to fit such a pretty garden behind an old palace but what do we know?
Another view of the Ponte Vecchio
Our final big stop for the day was Piazzale Michaelangelo. This plaza has an amazing panoramic view of the city and I had fun using the panoramic function on our camera.


Europe - Day 10

We got up the next morning and hit the town. We walked along the Arno and enjoyed the views. The Ponte Vecchio is kind of in the background of the picture below. :-) We also went to Tuesday Market. The market occurs every Tuesday, obviously, and is filled with food and clothes. It is much more of a local thing than a tourist thing and I loved being around it again.

The Ponte Vecchio
After the Ponte Vecchio we walked around the Uffizi, bought a watercolor from one of the artists outside (I have decided I could fill a wall with watercolors from Florence), and then headed to the villa that our school owns for lunch.
We had a great time meeting the current HUF students and teachers and it was so nice to see Kyle! Kyle and I studied at HUF during the same semester in college and he is now the Assistant Director there. We picked an incredible day to visit the villa because the ladies made lasanga - Mike's FAVORITE. (Thanks again for lunch, Kyle, Robbie and Mona!)
After lunch we grabbed some gelato in town while we explored more of Florence.
The sky was amazing and I can't wait to get a copy of this picture for our house!
The Arno as the sun sets. I was pretty proud of this shot, too!

Europe - Day 9

The next day was filled with more travelling. We left Interlaken (it was still raining) and went to Spiez for an hour until we caught our next train to Florence.
Of course, the sun decided to come out in Spiez so we walked from the train station down to the lake to enjoy the view and back up in time to catch our train.


We got to Florence late that night and had a terrible time finding our hotel. Our original hotel had to schedule us somewhere else because of issues with pipes and when we went to find the new place nobody had heard of it so we ended up picking a place and while it wasn't fancy it kept a roof over our heads so I won't argue. :-)

Needless to say, we were just ready for sleep and to put it behind us.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Weekend (and a little) Project

I finally followed through on this post. This past weekend Mike and I built our headboard and we finished it up this evening. I am thrilled with out it turned out!

We have towels behind it for a little while because some of the finish was still tacky and we didn't want it to get on the wall.


Europe - Day 8

It was still raining the next morning so instead of sticking around Interlaken and hiking like we had originally planned we headed to Lucerne in hopes that the sun would be out there.
Unfortunately, the clouds followed us but we still had a good time. A bridge in Lucerne that was rebuilt after it burned in the 80s or 90s.
Us. We were a little wet...
Back in Interlaken - my favorite church there!

Europe - Day 7

After Salzburg we headed to Interlaken, Switzerland. We had a Eurail pass for our trip and since we were too old for the "student" pass (or whatever it's called) we had to get a Saver pass for multiple people. That Saver pass also meant that we would travel 1st class and never did we feel more first class than on the train to Switzerland. We got juice boxes right when we got on the train and had 3 waiters constantly checking on us throughout the trip.

A view from the train.
When we got to Interlaken it was raining and after checking into our hostel we were ready for a hot meal. We found an Italian place and enjoyed lasagna and some of the best gnocci I've ever had!

After dinner we grabbed a few postcards to send to our families and headed back to our hostel since it was still raining. This is a picture from our window.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Europe - Day 6

Our first morning in Salzburg was spent taking the Sound of Music Tour. :-)

Not going to lie - a lot of it was kind of disappointing because you couldn't actually be at the sites, only drive by (like the front of the house used in the movie and the tree-lined road) but the Lake District featured at the beginning of the movie was beautiful and well worth seeing.
The house used as the back of the Von Trapp home.
The gazebo! It used to sit outside of the building below (which is now used as a conference center) and the people who run it got tired of people hopping the fence and trying to get to the gazebo so they moved it to outside of Hellbrun Palace. The doors are locked because, as our tour guide told us, an 80 year old broke her hip trying to dance around the benches and it was decided that it was a safety hazard. Who knows if it's true but it makes for a funny story.
The lake district. Isn't it amazing?!
The church used for the wedding scene in the movie.
Inside
We had apple strudel in the town of Mondsee. It was wonderful!
The lake next to Mondsee.
Back in Salzburg - Mirabell Gardens.
THE stairs. :-)
After the tour we walked up to the fortress in Salzburg. We walked around the inside on our own but the pictures aren't that exciting.
But the view from the fortress is incredible!