Lago di Como - DAY 2

A cold rainy day in Michigan seems like the perfect time to look back through some Italy pictures and remember more beautiful days. But don't think my kids aren't punishing me as I write this. Oh what a mess I will  we will have to clean up afterwards as a price for such indulgence :)

The second day of our trip we traveled north to Lake Como. I decided that Lake Como was where I would want to live if we ever move to Italy (I didn't realize I was going to say the same thing about almost every city we went to). Andrew served 8 months of his mission in Lake Como and it is probably the place he is most attached to.

We went to church since it was Sunday and watched a little bit of General Conference. The church  house is literally a huge ancient villa with a great view of the lake. I wouldn't mind going to church there every Sunday. 

We also took a little stroll over the border to Switzerland. I really appreciated the signs (probably for lame Americans like me) that made it clear we were no longer in Como.

From the little I saw of Switzerland, I can definitely see why people describe it as being so clean. I didn't see any overgrown shrubs or a single piece of trash in the street. I liked it but I still preferred Italy. It is a little more romantically messy (if that makes sense).

Back in Italy...

We went and visited the Rosetti's, a family that Andrew taught on his mission. This was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. It was so fun to see how much they love Andrew. I didn't understand much of what they said but it was obvious how important he is to them even after all these years.

Below is rumored to be Santa's workshop

Here is the mailbox where you put Santa's letters:

The Rosetti's own a clothing shop in a little town called Cernobbio. I wanted EVERYTHING in the store. Italians have great taste. Since I didn't understand Italian I pretty much spent most of my time ogling over all their clothes. If you're ever the neighborhood, check it out and bring your euros.

Ricardo's rockin' skinnies made me want to get Andrew a pair of purple pants. But if there is anything that would probably never ever happen, it is Andrew in purple skinny jeans.

This was Andrew's mission apartment. He focused a lot on showing Marika and I a good time, but I'm sure his mind was flooded with memories the whole time we were there.

The Duomo in Como

Yeah, I could definitely live here. Nestled up in the hills with a view of this beautiful mountain lake. There has to be a way to make this happen.

We started to drive to Lezzeno where we were staying for the night, but we had to stop for some sunset pictures. We just pulled over randomly and caught this amazing view.

I have some more pictures from this night but they are on Marika's camera (she had a great low light lens). So I will have to add them later.

When we got to our bed & breakfast (more on that later) we walked down the street to a little Italian restaurant and had the most amazing pear-stuffed raviolli. It is one of my goals in life to replicate it. Perfect day.

Other Italy posts here and here

Up Next: Bellagio, Varenna, & Bergamo

Fall Leaves

I have been dreading this post a little because I know I have absolutely no ability to narrow down my selection of pictures. I CAN'T DO IT! I just love them ALL. Andrew just saw all the pictures and even he thinks I went overboard. Sorry. I'm in love with these boys. I think if you scroll through them quickly it might actually play like a movie :).

 These little men love fake glasses.

Cam: I'm a doctor
Mom: Don't let Daddy hear that. He doesn't want you to be a doctor
Luke: Why doesn't Daddy want us to be doctors?
Mom: If you really wanted to be a doctor he would be proud of you. He would be proud whatever you wanted to be.
Luke: I want to be a dog.

[silence.]

And now for a LOT of pictures I took while our family raked leaves last month. I was a little nervous when we moved to a street with a lot of trees. I thought that raking leaves was going to be annoying. But turns out it is my absolute favorite thing to do in the Fall. Little boys + crunchy leaves = LOVE.

Cam. is. so. cute. He is also as strong-willed as an ox. He is so vocal, I can hardly believe the things that come out of his mouth sometimes. I feel like I can communicate with him so effortlessly.

About 100 times a day, Cam says, "Look at me Mommy! Look at me!" and then he will do something cool like jump or dance a little jig. He makes us all laugh.

Luke adores his little brother along with the rest of us. In fact, Luke has been rallying for more siblings. A recent conversation:

Luke: I want another baby. We should go to the baby store and pick one out.

Me: You think it's that easy?

Luke: Yeah, we go to the store, the girl babies are in the back and the boy babies are in the front.

Me: [trying to ignore the part about girls being at the back of the store] Hmmmm...which one would we get?

Luke: A girl baby. We already have boys.

If only it were that easy.

"ta-da!" He says that a lot lately.

Luke was not so interested in being photographed.

food therapy

I don't know if there is such a thing as food therapy for picky kids, but I'm thinking of starting my own program for Luke. One of his former preschool teachers told me that it might be helpful to have him experience foods using all his senses. For example, smelling different foods or holding different foods up to his lips without having to eat it, etc. 

So today I told Luke that if he held a pear for 5 minutes, he could have a Halloween treat. He really didn't like the idea and had to think about it for a long time. I had to reassure him a few times that he was not required to eat it. 

Here he is looking at the timer as the count-down began.

He was all business...

...and a little annoyed as the clock ran down.

There was no magical bite of pear :( but he did get a piece of Halloween candy.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Milano

DAY 1: Milano

I flew to Milan from Salt Lake City. Andrew flew to Milan from Chicago. Andrew's sister, Marika (who also came on the trip) flew from Washington. All three of our flights arrived at different times (Marika's, a day early) so we decided that we would meet up in Milan. My flight got in on a Saturday morning so the plan was for me to rent a car and drive down to meet Marika at her hostel in downtown Milan. We would spend the day seeing everything we could and then pick up Andrew from the airport that night. 

That was the plan.

That plan sounded a lot easier than it ended up. But only because I forgot that I am not very good with maps/directions. And I don't speak Italian. Minor problems, right?

I first knew that I was in trouble when I drove my rental car outside the parking garage and realized I had no idea how to exit the airport. I didn't know the word for "EXIT". So I drove around and around and around until I saw a bus leaving and decided to follow it. That is when I learned my first Italian word, "USCITA" or "exit". 

La Galleria

 It only got worse from there. I should also mention that my plan for fighting jet lag was to stay up all night before my flight and sleep on the plane. But the sleeping pill didn't work and I didn't sleep much on the plane. So I had been awake for about 48 hours....driving in a foreign country....with only mapquest directions. I will skip the details and just say that I got utterly and completely lost. I thought I had written down the phone number to Marika's hostel so I could call and tell her what had happened, but the number didn't paste into my word doc.

There I was. No Italian. No Internet. No Map. No idea how to contact Marika. I pulled over on the side of the road and cried, but mostly because I was tired and had no brain power left. All reason had completely left me. (I should also mention that Italians are CRAZY drivers. In every other way they are amazing and wonderful people. But crazy drivers. My car even got side-swiped and the guy just kept driving like it was no big deal). Anyway, I finally decided that I needed to call someone. I knew the perfect person to call would be Andrew's Dad because he is a very kind, forgiving man who likes to get up early (it was about 4 am Eastern Time). He was asleep, but woke up and kindly navigated me to Marika's hostel. I would probably still be driving aimlessly around Milan if it wasn't for him.

Inside La Galleria (formally called, "Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II". The oldest mall in Italy built in the late 1800's. Can you believe this is a mall!?

What I look like after being awake for about 60 hours and balling my eyes out.

The Duomo

As soon as I found Marika, the FUN officially began. We still spent a lot of our time lost, but we were lost together, and it was a blast. Miraculously, we made it to all the places we wanted to see. It was amazing.

One of the funniest things that happened to us was when we were trying to find a metro station where we could park our car. We weren't having much luck understanding Italians when we asked for directions so we were so relived when we finally saw a huge sign that said 'METRO' in big blue letters. There were even plenty of empty parking spots and no meter which I thought was a bit strange. So we locked up our car and started walking toward this "Metro Station". We met a man in front who spoke a little English so we asked him in disbelief, "Can we really park here ALL DAY!? For FREE?!" He looked at us strangely and said that we could. So we happily started walking in the building through the first set of automatic doors. Then we noticed there were FREE bathrooms. SCORE! So we went inside and kept commenting out loud about how we couldn't believe this metro station had FREE bathrooms that were so clean. We left the bathroom and started walking towards the sliding doors and THAT WAS WHEN WE REALIZED IT WAS A GROCERY STORE. A grocery store called "Metro". Can you believe that? The same guy we had talked to earlier was inside the store now...still looking at us like we were the dumbest Americans ever.

We laughed so hard I honestly couldn't even stand up. I can't believe that I didn't notice it was a grocery store until I walked through the second set of automatic doors. I can't believe that I asked an Italian man, with so much enthusiasm, if I could really park in (what turned out to be) a grocery store parking lot all day, for free! Maybe you had to be there. Maybe I was just tired. But I think I will laugh about that story for the rest of my life.

We did find a real Metro Station eventually in case you're wondering. Lesson learned: look for a red "M". Who names a grocery store "Metro" anyway? Is that some sick joke to play on dumb Americans?

Inside of the Duomo

Each of these little stained-glass windows depict a story/event from the life of Christ

Top of the Duomo

Andrew told us that there is some sort of law in Italy that if a church is undergoing construction then they don't have to pay taxes. So it is very common for church to be "undergoing remodeling" but in reality they just have scaffolding set up even though no one ever seems to be working on anything. Maybe it is just a rumor but I wouldn't be surprised.

Couldn't resist impersonating some statues

From the top of the Duomo (center of Milan)

 We eventually got hungry and decided to see what the street vendors were selling. Wraps filled with good cheeses, prosciutto, and a little bit of arugula, grilled in a panini maker (at least it looked like a panini maker). Even their street food is delicious! Why don't we all eat like this?

This is just one of the many streets that are part of the Quadrilateral of Fashion. See Valentino on your left? 

My favorite part of Milan was visiting the Brera (Pinacoteca di Brera), a famous museum inside of a famous art school. We saw the original of this painting which took my breath away:

I wish you could all see it in person. Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio. The original is so beautiful that we just sat and stared at it for a long time. Marika is an artist so her appreciation is probably on a whole different level than mine. But even though I have very little knowledge of art, I can tell you that seeing this painting was a spiritual experience for me. It made all the craziness of traveling and getting lost, completely worth it.

Up Next: Lake Como

time.

This was the best part of our weekend.



I read this talk by Elder Uchtdorf which is AMAZING and helped me put some things into perspective. Time is a gift....residency has helped us all realize that a little more around here. Father and son silly time was definitely the most important thing to happen this weekend. There is nothing but pure love between these two.