the bikes

Cloe with the her purse she sewed

Brody on his Spiderman bike

Abbey didn't want to sit on her bike but wanted to show off the water bottle that came with it

Cloe loves to do crafts. About the last 2 months of Italy she kept asking to do crafts but I had already gotten rid of all our craft things. I kept telling her "wait until we get to UT, I'll take you to the craft store!" But her most recent idea was she wanted Grandma to teach her how to sew. She picked out some material from my moms scrap and made a little purse. Brody also wanted in on the fun and sewed himself a "man purse".

I never got a picture of the final project because things got rushed that evening and then I discovered Abbey had photographed the house and the batteries were dead.

I've been looking into CNG cars and found this

home again home again jiggety jig

we made it. we arrived last Thursday at about 1 am. All the flights worked out perfect and I got to fly business class! My wonderful mother-in-law, sat in coach with the kids and gave Ryan and I business! There is no other way to travel if your not in business. And from what she said, the kids were great ;) But I knew they would be because they were so excited to get to UT. When we landed on SLC, Brody was smiling and told Ryan "I'm so excited to be in UT I can't stop smiling".

We're living at my moms until our renters move out, end of July. It's nice to be home with family but Ryan and I both agree we really enjoyed life in Italy. But I've also decided no one in Utah cares to hear about how I like Italy better so as of now, I'm done telling people when they ask. It was such a blessing to have lived there and experience the things we did and I'm so glad we went for the adventure. Now it's time to adjust to life here.

My mom bought the kids bikes which they absolutely love, I'll post them tomorrow. And last night we went to a family BBQ with Ryan's family. The kids LOVED playing with all of their cousins again. One thing they did at Grandma Brown's was the slip and slide, big hit.

this is it

we move back to America tomorrow. I'm not very excited about it but I wanted to "document". I've really enjoyed the life here and have made some really good friends. I was really sad to say good bye to our wonderful neighbors. They have made our life here so much easier and are such an example of how to serve. The kids called them "nonna and nonno". That's Italian for G'ma and G'pa. But I know we will get back to Utah and slip back into normal life and it will seem like this last year and a half never happened. But at an attempt to sound positive, I am SO ready to drive a car. But then I will also miss the option of walking and biking everywhere. I love the "small town" feel here and all the little shops that are individually owned and friendly. It's nice to be walking down the street and wave into the store to say "ciao" to the shop owner.
So be prepared for "I miss Italy so much because..." type posts ;)
And see all you American's soon!
And to all my Italy friends, grazie per tutti! Ti voglio bene!

Happy 8 years to the coolest couple I know!

Our actual anniversary is today and therefore pretty uneventful. A day full of cleaning and packing. But with the certificate Ryan got from the school for free dinner, we counted that as our anniversary and used it Thursday. It was awesome, minus the 45 minute bike ride each way. My tail bone can't handle it anymore, pregnancy does wonders to the body.
We didn't know what "dinner for 2" meant but soon found out it was anything on "today's menu". We each had an appetizer, 1st plate, 2nd plate, Ryan had a side and we each got dessert, for FREE!! fo show! Good thing we rode home because I consumed some serious calories of delicious Italian food. Ryan and I are getting sad too leave so we videotaped our bike ride home through the city. One of my favorite things to do is ride my bike at night through the city, it seems so romantic. And I also enjoy eating out here. It is so laid back and not rushed. You ask for the check when your ready. I have to also mention we got rained on, on our way there and it was pretty humid the rest of the evening, that explains my trend setting hair do.

Happy Father's Day to all you wonderful Father's. If your not wonderful, that wish was not going out to you. To name some of my favorites that we're thinking of today:
Ryan of course!, his dad, Chris, my dad THE Steve Young and my step dad Gordo!
We love you and hope you have a relaxing day.

today was my ultrasound...

Slugs, Snails and puppy dog tails
is not what this little one is made of :) We are adding another
little princess to our family and everything is looking good.

painting with the stars

Look who Ryan painted with today!

He's on vacation and just wanted to go into the school and draw from the model, no big deal. At least he has good taste, meaning he knows classical, realistic training when he sees it. Ryan said he has soft hands. It pays to not do hard labor for most of your life.


FYI, if you don't know, it's Tony Bennett

This is the painting that Ryan won "Portrait of the year" with. If you saw Ryan's portraits before Florence, I'm sure you'll agree that he has improved a ton! Good to know we're not wasting our money.

20 weeks. okay more like 19 weeks and 4 days.

Cloe my wonderful photographer took this picture so that is why I look like I"m in the middle of a sentence. Because I was.
I've really started to enjoy and embrace my pregnant body. Jogging is getting too uncomfortable and I get winded so fast and I don't bike ride so much because 3 kids and 1 bike don't quite work. I did take a 40 minute ride on Saturday and those are now becoming more enjoyable rides rather than get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Sometimes I pretend I'm racing Lance Armstrong and of course I always win. He's really good about being a gentlemen, he always lets the ladies win. So anyways, my days of "vigorous" exercising are over and now it's onto walking. Which in my opinion just doesn't feel like it does anything except take me further from my house at a slow pace. So I might as well enjoy my belly and the perks that come with it, prego boobs. it also helps that I look pregnant now and not just fat, so it's more fun to show off my belly.

One of the days while Sydney was here, she ventured into the city alone and it happened to be raining. I went outside with her to see her off and also to finally take a picture of what it's like to ride a bike here when it's raining. Not only does it take some getting used to to ride with an umbrella but the brakes of our bikes aren't so great. So add some slippery rain and they pretty much suck.

Which brings me to a story. A few weeks ago, Brody and I were going to church on a rainy day (mistake #1). And because the bus stop is so annoyingly far, we rode the bike. I got to a construction area with a bit of a slope and mud and found that my breaks were useless. To make a long story short, we ended up eating it! First bike fall. Brody fell into the rain gutter and ended up with a filthy sleeve and for me it was more of a stumble trying to catch the bike but I didn't hit the ground. My language became very Sunday appropriate and I cursed the city of Florence, this mode of transportation, the Italians for taking too long to finish their construction and myself for being such a spaz. Yes, i still went to church, I needed to pay my tithing :) Anyways, all that just because I wanted to post a stolen picture from Sydney's blog. But I guess I'd rather fall on my bike on a rainy day than be paying the gas prices in America.

Our last and final guest has come and gone. Our cousin Sydney came to visit us for the week from Dubai. I had a great time with her and was sad to see her go. She is one of those types of people that is very talented and very inspiring. She always makes me want to be a better person in different ways. Don't even get me started on her cooking! We had some good times and she got to explore Florence by bike which I think she really enjoyed. But lets be honest, there's no other way to see Florence, the bike just adds so much more charm and romance to the experience. I rode with her a few of the days and boy howdy has it been a while. This big belly didn't help much either, I was quite winded. I didn't go jogging at all while she was here because of the bike riding and I'm worried my jogging days may be over. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow morning.

she brought us some good souveniers

and found some good ones for herself at the local market. We thought it was quite funny that they would be selling this shirt.
June 11th is my ultrasound! I'm putting money on a girl. Judging by some wives tales, signs point to a girl. With my boy children and girl children experiences, a girl wouldn't be so bad.



having fun at the park. This is how you kill 3 birds with one stone and avoid the constant "MOM!!! come push me!"

Graduation

Friday the 30th, Ryan officially graduated from the Florence Academy of Art. But still has 3 weeks of school. If I haven't said it already, I'll say it again, FAA is the best classically trained school to go to in the world. That's why we're here, only the best for our little RyRy. We got a babysitter and our cousin, Sydney, Ryan and I went. It was in a really cool garden of some royal family in Florence and they also had it catered with yummy food. Ryan got some recognition that I was very surprised and proud about. He received "best painting of the year" and the prize was a nice frame and then they gave him an award for being such a hard worker and having a good attitude in the studio. It was a dinner for 2 at a restaurant that just happens to be right next to the apartment we lived in back n 2003. cool, huh?

Best Painting of the year


Dinner for 2

getting his certificate




On the beach blog, I got comments about how I never appear on the blog. Well, I thought for sure after graduation there would be a picture of me to post. Nope. Then Sydney and I were going to Venice today and I figured of course I would get a picture of me in Venice. Well as my bad luck would have it, the trains are on strike today and no Venice trip. It's good to save the money but I was looking forward to a nice day trip with Syd and seeing Venice one last time. Maybe tonight at our picnic I'll get a photo?? I'll leave you in suspense.