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our townhome is up for rent if you or anyone you know is looking for a place in Springville, UT

I'm a proud wifey

A couple weeks ago while we were planning our trip to Utah, Ryan came across an art school in NY. Coincidentally, it ran Aug 13-31st and we were going to leave on the 15th. The session is at the Hudson River Landscape School and is being given by Jacob Collins. This all probably means nothing to you, but he is a well respected and huge artist and it's an elite school for landscape painting. Oh, and the 2 week session is free and so is the housing! You had to apply with pieces of your art work as your application. Well....today we found out he got accepted!!! We were so stoked!! It works out so perfect and it is going to be an awesome experience. He is the bomb, he is an amazing artist, and I am not at all surprised he got in.

The pictures are of one day Ryan decided to do a quick study of a rose, and he created a bit of a fan club. (this is outside of our apartment building)

Just a little day trip

One city my mom has wanted to see then changes her mind about is Venice. So with some convincing from my step dad, she said we had to go. Because there is no way in hell I'm taking my kids to Venice w/o Ryan, the only day we could go alone was Sunday and we couldn't stay the night because Ryan had school early the next morning. Venice is about a 3 hour train ride depending on what train your on. We left at the beautiful time of 6am to catch the bus to the train station. The train ride was actually a close tie for my favorite part. 3 hours of relaxing and reading a good book! So easily pleased when your a mother of 3 :)
We got to Venice at noon and navigated our way through the city. It is such a charming city and so unique. The buildings and windows are so different compared to Florence and Rome and the windows have character. The word "character"may come up often, just to warn you. A lot of them had flower pots in the window and it made the city look a lot nicer. We of course bought some lace, that is one of the things Venice is known for, I bought little white baby shoes that had pretty lace on them. No, I am not pregnant, just planning ahead for the next baby blessing, no, 3 is not enough for me. We want to make sure we multiply and replenish the earth. Oh and be as non Italian as possible. So we worked our way towards San Marco Piazza which by the way was SO much better than taking the vaporetto (water bus).
On the Grand Canal was a big boat race. It was neat cause it wasn't an intense race but more for fun so people wore costumes and did crazy things. My fav was the boat full of Scott's, one person playing a bag pipe, a couple of them banging their paddles on the boat, one chanting/singing and the guy in the back was chugging beer.

San Marco square was amazing, again so different than the Italy I have seen. My second favorite piazza, Pisa being my first. For some reason, a big tourist attraction was buying seed like stuff and feeding it to the pigeons. Not just throwing it, but ALLOWING pigeons to land on you and eat. "Hurry Hurry mom take a picture, the pigeon is on my head, isn't it so cute!!" no, it's disgusting. That thing is infested with who knows what, something Italian. Then we went to the top of the Campanile di San Marco, which is a 300 ft bell tower with an awesome view of the city. So I guess we DID have time to see all of Venice. ;) We went into the Basilica, just another European church if you ask me. And since we were in Venice, all the tour books said you HAD to ride the vaporetto. At 6 euros a pop, not worth it! I do not have the patience to ride that thing. I thought it was much more scenic to walk from the station. But then again, while on the water bus, it started to rain, so good thing we were on the bus. Then we caught the 5 pm train back to Florence. It was a fun trip, got a lot of reading done but wish I had more time to shop and wander through the city.

because I am an athletic suporter of my friend Lindsey

I will participate in your game of TAG.

What was I doing ten years ago?
let's see, may of '97.....haven't a clue, I can't even remember who my prom date was that year. maybe if I had some photos to refer to that would help.

What was I doing one year ago?
uh, uh, uh, in utah....trying to lose weight.....selling bodyshop....just maxin and relaxin

Five snacks I enjoy:
oh, please don't make me think of lovely american food!!!
1. almonds
2. mother-in-laws cheese ball
3. watermelon
4. string cheese
5. chocolate

Five songs I know all the words to:
1. counting crow's, you name the song, I'll sing ya the lyrics
2. bob marley
3. steve miller band
4. bone thugs and harmony "crossroads"
5. cocaine blue's johnny cash

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire?
1. invest so that work would not be mandatory for me or any of my family (aren't i just the sweetest thing?)
2. buy houses, i guess that is the same as investing, but these are vacation homes
3. big family vacation and often
4. blow about $10,000 of it on whatever the hell I wanted...look out Target!
5. of course i would donate a lot of it to a worthy causes
But I WILL be a millionaire so I'm glad I wrote some of this down so I don't forget :)

Five of my bad habits:
1. picking my nose. no joke, I've always gotta check it to make sure there is no moss in the cave!
2. swearing. but you have to admit, sometimes it is funny to swear.
3. not writing in my journal...is that a habit?
4. i'm really struggling here, i can't think of anymore, i'll let ryan add the last 2 if he ever reads this :)
5.

Five things I like doing:
1. exercising
2. baking from scratch and making up recipe's ( you know ryan loves those nights!)
3. looking up things on the internet, that is why I LOVE my kids nap time! the house can wait. that should be one of my bad habits
4. going to the beach
5. reading

Five things I will NEVER wear again:
1. CKone perfume
2. bare tummy shirt. oooohh, sexy on a mother of 3! but i will wear a 2 piece swimsuit, it is totally acceptable here, isn't that great! and scary!
3. deodorant, i wanna fit in with the other immigrants.
4. sorry I'm no fun at these types of questionnaires, did i spell that right? i can't think of anything else. the 80's were terrible so i don't think i will wear much from those days
5.

Five of my Favorite toys:
1. heart rate monitor, it's new.
2. internet
3. pampered chef tools
4. my euro bills. I tease ryan that it's so easy for me to spend it because it's just like toy money to me, it's monopoly money, it isn't real, the real stuff is green and worth less.
5. suburban, i get to drive it in august!

well I will tag anyone on my links list who would like to be tagged. or any other person reading this. But no means no and I don't want to pressure you into doing anything you don't want to do. That isn't why I asked you out, I like you, I'm not just interested in you for your......answers. No pressure, you just do it when your ready, i promise I'm not mad.

the little hair dresser

i passed my room while the kids were on the computer and noticed abbey fixing cloe's hair. too cute. isn't like the first rule of photography to always have the light/sun be behind the photographer? nice one court! so pretty much, here's a silhouette of abbey fixing cloe's hair.

she also fixed my hair and i love the feel of her little fingers barely touching my hair.

spiderman returns

it's been a while since spiderman has spun his webs in our house but with a recent viewing of spiderman 2 the other night, spiderman has been present ever since. For some reason when Brody started making his webs and climbing up the furniture like it was a building and he even jumped to the wall like he was sticking to it, I couldn't resist making sure I had these memories forever. I love his chubby little fingers when he throws his webs. of course ryan worries about his abbilities to palm a water polo ball or basketball with those small hands. And the sound is so cute phsssssst!!!! And of course he has his faithful follower Abbey. I'm glad our landlord doesn't read our blog becuase I'm sure he would be just thrilled to see my children climbing on the television!

ryan's first haircut

that is why he thought I was taking these pictures. To document his first haircut in Italy. Heck no! I have to take a picture of you with the girls ribbons in your hair! He got sick of his long locks blowing in the wind so he had my mom give him a trim. She needed clips to hold his hair and this is all we had. I didn't take a picture of the final result because he took the ribbons out.

who knew? i didn't!

I went to the market the other day and saw crates of orange zucchini blossom's among the other vegetables. and people were buying them. i asked my friend antonella, we always go to her stand and she gives us quite the hook up, "per cosa?" for you non bilingual "what for?" i sure do think I'm quite awesome with my pocco italiano don't i!!?? anyways enough mocking myself, in broken english and italian, she explained to me how to prepare them and cook them up. who'd a thought those blossoms served a purpose besides flourishing a zucchini!? oh, and they were quite good. if only you could see me attempting to converse among these people, you get quite a laugh, especially with the "sign language" I add.

find me a pool!

today we took the kids into the city to ride the carousel at Piazza Republica for a little treat. dang, it was so hot today and like my mom continues to say "this is only the beginning". annoying but true. anyways, enough of my whining, at least we have an "air conditioner" it is considered even more of a luxury than our dishwasher! oh, and my children wear long pants by choice, abbey insists on wearing her pants. time to lock those babies up till the winter. at least I was able to convince brody to roll his a little.

kite tales part 2

our last attempt at kite flying required the kids to run as fast as they could through the park in order to keep the kite up. but we finally got some good wind and mom finally remembered to get the kites out. the wind was good and the kids loved it. i myself found it to also be very fun, i kinda liked the challenge of keeping it up. and have no shame in admitting that i am quiet skilled in the driver's seat of a kite. my kids don't call me "mom the bomb" for no reason! anyways, abbey was the best because all she did was stand there and hold the kite with 2 hands like she was told. brody and cloe on the other hand thought they had to downshift the gears when the wind got weak. they would pull the string or put the string up in the air and just moved around too much which would cause a crash landing, and mom to retrieve the kite from the weeds of the river bank. is that how you spell river bank? not to mention the italians riding by on their bikes.
so grazie grandpa allen!!!

ryan calls them the glam squad

You've seen this stroller before but the girl cannot get enough of it. And she plays so cute with it. always taking care of her babies, animals or whatever junk she puts in there. Oh and the convincing it takes to get her to leave it at the house when we go somewhere. We have to act out like we are taking the stroller to the babysitter (my moms room) and she leaves it there until we get home.
So today I decided it was about time I get some shots of her being mommy and the proud mother that I am, I couldn't help but post them. Of course it turned into a little photo shoot with Cloe and then Cloe wanted to actually take the pictures. I have to give her credit because I think she took the sweetest one of Abbey.


Cloes photo skills

A little shout out to mi madre!

First of all Festa Della Mama! ( a day late). I'm not writing this because of mother's day, it is a coincidence. Since Friday I have had the craziest virus. My throat kills, burns, is closing off and when I sleep it tickles. miserable. Then on Sunday it felt like it spread to my chest and I was fevering. (is that a word?) Today, some minor improvements. BUT if my mom were not here right now, I don't know what I would do. I know what would've happen in my house because I cannot function so well. So I'm giving my mom a big shout out and saying thank you, I love you and appreciate you so much!

are you kidding me!!!???

The other day the kids were in the front room and yelled to me that there was a big fly in the house. I went in and it was the hugest freakin' wasp that must be known to mankind!! First of all I freaked out, and then I laughed at my kids because it freaked them out. I went to get the fly swatter and to delay the swat I moved around furniture to get the perfect angle. This thing is like 2 inches!! and I have no clue what their temperament is etc. So I made the first swat and missed! pathetic. and it freaked me out so I gave out a nice yelp and that made the kids scream. I thought to myself, "i;m sure it sounds like we are being murdered up here!" Brody ran to his room and closed the door and him and abbey were crying. Then I swatted it again and missed! screamed and danced away with my athletic skills. The thing is still buzzing on the window. Part of me wants to grab the camera but I didn't want to let it out of my sight. Then I readjusted the couches and swatted again and knocked it to the floor. It buzzed in circles on the floor so I threw a phone book on it. And I could still hear it buzzing, so I threw 3 more phone books on top of that and left it until my mom came home. I told her the story and told her to take the phone books off. The kids and I are in terrible suspense, curled up in the corner waiting to see if it died. Success! But I don't like the pictures of the aftermath, they do not do justice to the size of this beast. Keep in mind this is a wasp!

Now the pictures from the birthday

The birthday queen. If you look closely, you can see a little crown on her head (it's on the wall) a little trick photography hehehe

For my moms B-day she wanted to go to the Pitti Palace. While there we went in the Boboli Gardens, the Apartments in the Palace and The Modern Art Gallery in the Palace. What I loved about the Modern Art Gallery is that in Florence modern art is considered paintings done in the 19th century. None of this post modern crap with paint splattered and a 2 page description of what the painting "means". And then it is labeled as "art". whoo, we'll save that for another day :)
But it was just me and my mom and we had a great time and went to lunch at La Galleria Ristorante and had a nice lunch.


This was the most amazing painting. It was huge and a very intense painting. I bought a couple post cards of it because I loved it so much! Come to Florence just to see this painting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!
Today is my moms birthday and I am so glad I get to spend it with her in Italy. She is an awesome Grandma "Nonna", Mom and Friend. I love her so much and have enjoyed my time in Italy with her.

apparently April didn't get the memo that she was suppose to bring the showers, so May has had to pick up the slack and is taking her job very seriously. It has been raining since May 1st, which is a good thing becuase the rain washes all the urine off the sidewalks. We usually have a playdate with Brody's bud Tony on saturdays but because of the rain, his mom took us to a new place called Mondobimbo. This place was awesome and the reaction they had when we walked in was priceless!!! It does my heart good when the kids get extremely excited over things. especially since I debated about bringing them in the first place. Every city that has cold winters NEEDS a mondobimbo! Everything was deflatable and they had an area for kids 4 and under that had all kinds of fun climbing, cars, slides and a ball pit (which I did my best to stear the kids clear of). I hope these photos do this place justice!







her comes Brody!

such a good big sister