Florence in Florence

From Buon Natale

Finally. The first part of our trip was more about letting things unfold, but we had plans for Florence. See the Duomo (but don't climb the dome. No more stairs, please.), Uffizi Gallery (paintings), Bargello Museum (sculpture), Ponte Vecchio (famous bridge), gelato. Done, done and done.
Pleasant surprises: Santa Croce church, people watching (it was a holiday weekend with lots of Italian families in festive spirits), and of course, the food. (Oh, the food!)

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

Special highlights for me were seeing Ghiberti's bronze doors at the baptistery

From Buon Natale

and Donatello's David. (Not the more famous David, but the one I really wanted to see because I remembered studying it in Art History.) I almost talked myself out of the sculpture museum, but Rob talked me back into it. He's a good one and he made good on his promise to take me to Florence. Time to come up with another lofty goal...

The best day of my life

It started with this: A sunny day when rain had been predicted. A good night's sleep even though our train arrived in La Spezia at 1 am. The loveliest breakfast buffet ever (croissants, Nutella, fresh eggs with orange yolks, cheese, bread, prosciutto, fruit, juice, more Nutella)

From Buon Natale

When Rob opened the shutters and took this picture, I knew it was going to be a great day. I just didn't know it would be one of the best of my life. Several people who had been to Italy told us to go to Cinque Terre and I'm so glad we trusted their advice. Cinque Terre means "5 lands", which are five villages built along the cliffs above the Mediterranean. They are connected by a trail (and a train line), but we decided to hike all five villages. It took the whole day and we were exhausted and sore by the end, but I loved every minute of it. Even the minutes I was sweating and sick of climbing stairs, I loved that my body can do it. I loved just walking with Rob, watching him take pictures, people watching, seeing the sun set over the ocean. We even met a great family from North Carolina and visited with them throughout the day, ending with a fun friendly dinner and an invitation to go waterskiing at their house this summer!

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

One of my favorite things was the variety of plant life along the trail--it varied from arid sagebrushy cliffs to dense, green grottoes, with olive groves and orange trees all along the way.

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

My happy spot, where I paused to cry for a moment and remember that I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

From Buon Natale

We took a late train to Florence that night and got in around 10pm. After we checked into our sketchy hotel, I took off my pedometer and saw we had walked over 15 miles that day--even more than a half marathon! A beautiful, memorable day and I'm pretty sure I burned all my gelato calories.

From Buon Natale **If you click on the Buon Natale link below any picture, you can view the condensed album of our entire trip.

What I got for Christmas:

A trip to Italy. It was difficult to wrap and I opened it a few weeks before Christmas, but it will always be one of my favorite gifts from my sweet husband. We returned to a crazy blur of Christmas preparations, houseguests, holiday parties, and finals and grading for Rob. Italy was a photographer's paradise and Rob took over 1200 pictures, so we've been sorting through them all.
Sorry for the wait (for those of you who have been patiently waiting)! I will do 3 posts with a few highlighted pictures. If you want to see more, click on a photo to link to the entire album.

Our first stop was Turin, where Rob was presenting a paper at a conference. Poor Rob only got a few hours to see Turin and then was locked up in his conference for 2 full days. He presented with his colleague, John, so I hung out with John's wife, Martha. She is also a professor at UNCC and was lots of fun. She and I had some fun adventures on public transportation. We took an old-fashioned cog train up a 20% graded hill to an cathedral with a 360-degree view of the city and surrounding Alps. We had amazing pizza, visited the city park, a medieval castle & village, and the open-air market.

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

From Buon Natale

Turin is the birthplace of Nutella and Ferrero Rocher--basically the beginning of chocolate in Europe. There were beautiful pastry shops on every street and I had a taste of heaven in the the AMAZING hot chocolate we had in a small cafe near the market. It was like molten dark chocolate pudding and a taste I'll never forget.

From Buon Natale

I had no expectations for Turin and was very pleasantly surprised with how lovely it was. I felt sad Rob didn't get to see and do the fun things I got to do. (But he DID get a 12 course Italian meal at the conference that apparently made up for it!)

From Buon Natale

14 years of Wedded Bliss...

Our dream is happening...we are growing old together and it makes me so happy. As we've been going through our Italy pictures (they're almost ready to post!), I keep saying, "We look so old!" It surprises me to see those wrinkles sometimes! But I love this song called "Prettiest Eyes" by Beautiful South.

Lets take a look at these crows feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Sixty 25th of Decembers
Fifty-nine 4th of Julys
You can't have too many good times, children
You can't have too many lines
Take a good look at these crows feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes

Every line has a story and there are lots of laughs behind those crows feet. I'm happy I married a man who makes me laugh. He takes me on fun trips. He played the bells on the organ for me in church. He has been with me for all the happiest moments of my life, I'm crazy in love with him and he's pretty sweet on me too. Happy Anniversary, mi amore.

Is Santa real?

Sarah has been serious in her quest for an answer this year. No matter how many times I try to evade the conversation, she keeps cornering me with her questions. The other day she said, "Fine. If you won't answer me, I'll just look it up on the internet." I had the computer on, so she turned and googled "Is Santa real?" She read all the opinions and then said, "I think Santa Claus was a real person and he really gave toys to children, but I don't think he's still alive. I just can't figure out who brings the presents. Is it a grandma?"




I'm telling you, that girl is too smart for her own good. In the last week, we've had conversations about interest and collateral, the various definitions of the word 'suit' (and also 'suite' and 'soot') and the origin of the term 'shotgun' in a car. She proposed the theory that if policemen are riding in a car, one needs to drive and one needs to sit in the other seat where he can shoot the shotgun at bad guys. She also wrote a note to her teacher right before the break requesting a seat change. Sarah wrote, "I'd like to be moved away from the other kids because they are distracting me. I'm a high level thinker, and I need more quiet so I can think." She got the seat change.

The Man in the Mirror

This is the best thing I've seen all week--photos from Grandma Baker's famous Halloween party. Second place goes to Jon and Melinda, who came as Kay and Cecile Christensen. GRAND prize to Uncle Wally and his family, who arrived as the Jacksons this year. It's so awesome I can't stand it. You can see more creative and silly costumes here. (You may want to go there to enlarge the pictures anyway--so worth it.) Thanks for sharing the pictures, mom!

Our Boo-tiful Dahlings

Cinderella, a Japanese Geisha, an Autumn woodsprite, and an 80's girl complete with leggings and lots of blue eyeshadow. We're spanning the whole range of Halloween ages and costumes, but they all still came home with WAY too much candy. We spent the early evening at our church Trunk or Treat, then headed back for a few turns around our neighborhood. Maddie went to a church youth party at a friend's house and the other girls engaged in a good round of candy trading.

Bea Gets a Haircut

The 2-year old mullet was getting out of hand. Just enough for little ponytails up front, lots of crazy, curly mess in the back. One morning I decided to try my hand at it--figuring that if it turned out okay, I would have saved $15. If not okay, I could run her over to the salon for a fix up.
The hardest part was wondering if her curls would be gone forever, because we know many a mother who has regretted cutting off those baby curls.


Surprise! The curls are still there and her new cut is very cute. We were undecided about bangs, so we left it as is in front and we'll reassess in a few months. She has been both fun and terrible lately. Chatty and lively, but also a live wire and lots of angry screaming for no apparent reason. And potty training? Check. (Pretty much.) She's growing up too fast.

Girl power!

(Rob).  The other way to be credible is to be a woman . . . or to win the Nobel prize.  Today I learned that one of my favorite professors, Elinor Ostrom, won the Nobel prize in economics.  She is the first woman to do so.  Congratulations Lin!

As the only male member of my family I am constantly amazed at the women in my life.  Girls rock.  

How to be Credible

We had a loud ride home from church activities last night with Maddie, Eloise, and 3 of their friends. Rob and I sat in front laughing at the random chatter of 5 preteen girls as they set forth all sorts of nonsense--bragging about who spent the most hours at school, rumors about school teachers, strange facts about the universe, comparisons of mean parents, and one girl who is not allowed to eat Pop Rocks because they have drugs in them. (Not true, but I can see where the information was misconstrued.)

I turned to Rob and asked, "Were we this full of it when we were their age?"

R: Yes. And I'm still full of it. I just say it with more authority now.
F: I think the beard helps.
R: Yes, the beard helps. It's awesome that you can grow credibility on your face.

I laughed the rest of the way home.

Do you trust this man? (and do you enjoy this "Uncle Rico" style photo taken by Maddie a couple of years ago?!)

Wonderful Wilmington

We had a 3-day weekend last week so we went to visit some friends in Wilmington, NC. John and Laurie Paarlberg (friends from Indiana) graciously opened their cozy empty nest to us and never complained about all the noise/mess/havoc we created and all the food we ate and ate and ate. We got rained out at the beach on Saturday after a couple of windy, chilly hours. But Laurie volunteered to babysit that night, so the girls had pizza & a movie and Rob and I got a romantic dinner on the riverfront. We went back and got the girls for a late-night carriage ride around downtown Wilmington. Our friend John drives the trolley carriage, so it was really fun to take his tour and learn about the history and old houses there. The girls loved the idea of being out late and enjoyed petting the horses and riding the trolley.

Our weekend also included fresh shrimp and grits for breakfast, long midnight talks with John and Laurie, amazing cookies and milk, a stop at Fort Fisher (a Confederate Civil War fort), and the North Carolina Aquarium. We even tasted honey from the Paarlberg's first hive of bees! Monday was FINALLY a warm sunny day and we spent several happy hours at the beach before heading home to "real life" and lots of sandy laundry. Oh, that's just the best, huh?

Miss Sally Jane

Are we in trouble or what? That girl sparkles, I can tell you for sure.

I can do hard things.

I've never worked so hard for a pair of shoes in my life. And shoes have never worked so hard for me. My good old Adidas gave the last of their life for me on Saturday when I ran a half marathon. It was a brutal race with tons of hills, and I did end up doing a little bit of walking, but I ran for almost 2.5 hours and I FINISHED.

I'd like to thank all my fans (my girls) and my personal photographer (Rob) who came out to support me. (Photoshop couldn't erase the sweat stains and the pained look, but thanks for trying.) Thanks to Rob also for encouraging me and supporting me in this goal. It made me cry to come around the corner of the last hill and see them there to cheer me on. Bea ran out in the road to hug me and Sarah Jane jogged along with me to the finish line.

Love, gratitude, and sweaty, stinky hugs to my good friend, Kim, who has trained with me in the early hours and long Saturday mornings of the past few months. She is an awesome friend and amazing athlete.
Lastly, I'm grateful to Dillard's, for not selling the fabulous orange shoes. They waited for me. I went back a few days later and they were still there--fate, after all. But then I waited a little longer for them so they could be my race reward. I wore them on Sunday to celebrate and I have to say that I do indeed love them and it wasn't their fault I could barely walk.

I feel like I never want to run again as long as I live. Whatever. I'm so over running. Who even does that?!

What the heck!?!

When I pulled Bea's dress out of the wash a few days ago, I was shocked to see the entire front of it bleached out. She had spilled something and I remember spraying it with 'Shout'. The only thing I can figure is that I accidentally sprayed it with bleach cleaner--but they weren't even in the same place. It's a mystery, Daphne.

What has happened to me?

Oh, I'm in a shoe swoon. I just came home from the mall, where I fell madly in love with some orange shoes like this. Not those exactly, but that's the closest I could find online. I saw them on a mannequin upstairs at Dillards and was smitten. When I went down to the shoe department and asked about them, the salesman told me they were the last pair in the store. My size and on clearance. It's fate, right? I asked him to hold them for an hour while I thought about it. And all during that hour, I really thought about it. These shoes are impractical. They don't match a lot of things. They can't be worn year round. I don't even like wearing heels. And yet, I just love them. I want them.

But I kept coming back to the thought that I have well and truly worn out my 2nd pair of running shoes. I have signed up for a half marathon and I need new shoes. On Monday I was the first woman to cross the finish line at our dual-ward annual Labor Day 5k. (And Rob was the overall winner--aren't we the racy couple?). I ran 11 miles last Saturday. I've been running 20 miles a week.

As I rode up the escalator (without the shoes), I felt like a stranger to myself. Have I honestly become a woman who chooses running shoes over cute, stylish sandals? Who am I and what have I done?

Back to School: No Substitute for a Good Education

(Rob) The girls hit the buses, books, and brownbags again this last week. We realized, very quickly, how nice our low key summer schedule has been . But the girls are excited. They've met their new teachers and I think we're poised for another great year of learnin'.

I started this week too: minus one student. One of the students enrolled in my in my masters class dropped this last week. Between the time he registered and the time he dropped he had won the NC Powerball lottery -- a cool $28 million (post taxes). Here's the story. Hopefully he'll come back to school after the shell shock wears off. There is no substitute for a good education.

A Few Thoughts from Flori

Hey friends, for the last year, I've been sending a weekly email to my family. I've decided to move to blog format, so if you're interested, check it out here or on my sidebar under "pretty bird".

Back to school news coming soon.

Happy Birthday, President Monson!

Did you know that President Monson's birthday is Friday, August 21st? Last year (2008) on the occasion of his 81st birthday, President Thomas S. Monson was asked to describe his ideal birthday gift. Without hesitating he said "Do something for someone else on that day to make his or her life better. Find someone who is having a hard time or is ill or lonely and do something for them. That's all I would ask."

This week we had a really fun FHE from this site. Even though Monday has passed, Friday is not here yet! There is plenty of time to share this short message and encourage your friends and family to think of someone else on Friday as a small gift to the prophet. This same idea is featured in the August issue of "The Friend".

Utah trip 2009

We spent the second half of our vacation with the LeBarons in Utah. We rented an enormous, sweet cabin in Park City and had more of the good cousin time, staying up late, etc. We got to meet 4 new cousins--Olivia, Gunner, Isabel and Finch--so there was lots of baby loving too.


Other highlights of our Utah visit: seeing "Hello Dolly" at Hale Center Theater, going to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house, fabric shopping with my mom and sister, and taking Maddie to the SL temple to do baptisms for the dead for the first time.



While in Park City, we had a photographer come take some family pictures (and we snapped some too).



We even found time to meet up with all of our Bloomington Friends (but we were having too much fun to get many pictures!) and also spent a wonderful evening at the Sundance cabin (one of my favorite happy places in this world).



Here's the requisite slideshow with the rest of the fun:

Idaho Vacation 2009

We've been home for exactly 1 month. School starts again in exactly 1 week, so I suppose it's high time to post our vacation photos. I don't know what happened to our summer, but it's about to come to a screeching halt. I think we're all ready to get back to a set schedule, even though I personally dread making sack lunches every morning.

Our trip "Out West" started with a week in Idaho, most of which we spent at Grandma Baker's cabin on Henry's Lake (in Island Park, near Yellowstone). There was a lot of hanging out on the dock, boating, playing with cousins,riding the 4-wheeler, long walks, and staying up late. We had WAY much fun and loved the cooler summer weather (than we're used to) and the freezing mountain lake. Highlights included playing 'Spoons' and 'Pounce' almost every night and participating in the creative and patriotic 4th of July skits! Thanks everyone for such great memories!







Once back in Idaho Falls, we enjoyed a visit with Grandma Baker, helped milk Grandma and Grandpa's goat, helped in the garden, and visited some more.



A slideshow of the full week, if you care to see more. Also, you may notice that something is different about Rob. He surprised his mom and shaved his beard. It's been 7 years since we've seen his face! Sorry Grandma, but it's grown back now for school. He must keep the professorial look about him!