All About Me

In Loving Memory...

2009-01-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

Don Max Gamble

1939-2009
Donald Max Gamble died on Monday, January 5th 2009 as the result of a fatal ski accident at the Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, California. At the time of his accident he was vacationing with his wife, five children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The annual family ski trip was an event looked forward to by the entire family. Don, affectionately known as Max by his family of origin, was born in Pocatello, Idaho on December 4th 1939. Born at only 2.1 lbs. he and his twin sister Maxine were the 10th and 11th children of 13 born to James Gamble and Emma Marsh Gamble. He moved with his family to Salt Lake City in 1944 where he grew up. He claimed that in Elementary School he received special permission to check out books at the middle school library because he had read all the books in his own school library. Reading remained a passion of his throughout his life. In the middle of 10th grade he quit school at Jordan High School to get a job and save money to marry his first love Clara Lucy Kidd. They married at the age of 16 in 1956. They were the parents of four children, Roshelle, Jodi, Shawn, and Timandra and were married until Clair's death in 1984. While serving in the US Army as a paratrooper for three years he decided to move his family to Europe which he did in 1965. He spent the remainder of his life building a successful Insurance and Investment Services Agency with agents throughout Europe and the United States. He was a dedicated salesman and leader who led his agency to the top of the industry every year for decades. After moving to Germany in his mid-20's Don started the Fros-T-Dog Ice Cream factory which was a favorite endeavor of his children. Don was beloved by all who knew him, family and friends alike. He had a joke for all occasions, was a natural entertainer and motivator and loved to help others fulfill their goals and dreams. He enjoyed skiing, gambling, eating good food, drinking good wine, reading good books and having a good nap. Spending time with family and friends was important to him and he made a powerful impression on all who knew him. He touched and uplifted the lives of countless people throughout his life. After Clair's death Don fell in love and married the beautiful Carrie Pettey in a romantic ceremony in Gibraltar in 1986. They have been married for 24 years and have a fabulous daughter named Sasha. 10 years of their married life were spent in Austin Texas where Don started his own Insurance Company. The past 14 years have been spent living in Dardago, Italy where they are greatly loved by their friends and neighbors. Carrie has been a great blessing to Don as her energy and enthusiasm for life has enriched his life and brought him immense happiness over the past two and a half decades.

Don was a very close friend to my father and mother... and because of that, he was a very close to all the kids in my family. We all came to know and love Don as we grew up. He was caring, nice and hilarious. He will always be loved in our hearts and we will miss him immensely.

I found this poem and I really liked it... I hope you all do too.

Love Lives On

"Those we love remain with us for love itself lives on, and cherished memories never fade because a loved one's gone. Those we love can never be more than a thought apart, far as long as there is memory, they'll live on in the heart. "

-Mary Alice Ramish-

Here are a couple pictures I had from my trip to Europe that had him in it. I'm so glad I was able to see him and be able to spend time with him so recently. That's how I will always remember him.

Sugarbowl 2009

2009-01-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

Utes vs Roll Tide!

The spread

The party goers

The marital controversy

GO UTES! Don't worry... I only put this on for the picture. I'm not cruel.

We bleed red!

The hood of SHAME!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!

So... since the Utes have had an amazing season this year... they got to go to the Sugarbowl. The hard part about this is that they got to play Alabama Roll Tide. Other than the Utes... Roll Tide is our favorite college football team. AND my brother Michael's wife Brooke is from Alabama and a Roll Tide fan too. But of course we weren't about to go against our Alma Mater... so GO UTES!! We ended up inviting our family over to have a Sugarbowl party. There was food, family, and fun! Brooke was the only one rooting for Alabama... but that made it pretty fun. :) My mom really started getting into it as well. She was jumping and screaming along with the rest of us. It was really funny to watch.

The Utes started out really strong in the first half... they were kicking butt. Then Alabama started getting a couple touchdowns, but in the end Utes won! 31 - 17! It was awesome! They pulled off a PERFECT SEASON! 13-0 Everyone celebrate with me! WOOT!!!

Christmas 2008

2009-01-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

The beginning...

There was a SNOW BALL FIGHT!!!

David and Lexus working in harmony on the igloo... crazy

Jamey kept using the snowman as a shield

That's a snowball hitting Jessica... ha!

Who are you?

Whoosh!

Go Jessica!

Is that Superman?

The more we work together... the happier we'll be

Well hello hello

While everyone was outside... this is where Melissa was.

Christmas time is my favorite time of the year! I get to see and hang out with my family and I love LoVe LOVE getting to see everyone. My sister Laurena and her family come down and stay at my parents house. I went down Christmas Eve so I could be there for Christmas morning. Of course since there was children we were woken up at 5:30 in the morning because they were just all too excited about Santa coming to town. Christmas morning is always really interesting with kids around again. All the kids are trying to rip open everyone else's gifts and can't wait till it's their turn again. I slightly remember being that way as a child, but definately not so much anymore. :) I still enjoy watching it though. So after the excitement of presents I was so tired I went back to sleep. I ended up sleeping till about 12:30 when my dad came down and woke me up. I hurried and got... halfway ready before lunch. Christina and her family came from Heber for lunch and so did my brother David and his wife Tara. We all ate... talked... some of the family went and played in the snow and made an igloo... and played DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) with my nieces (they got a PS2 and some games for Christmas). All in all... it was a really fun Christmas. :) Really late that night my brother Michael and his family flew in from Alabama... that was just the cherry topping on my Christmas. I can really say Christmas this year was fun.

Rock Band

2009-01-07T23:15:00.000-08:00

Sing it Vicki!!

Yeah boi!!

WE ROCK!!

So one my best friends, Melissa, has been trying to talk me into going on a date with her brother, Josh, for a really long time. I was always really busy and he lived in Provo and I didn't really want to go down there for a date and I really don't like dating because it's all confusing and a pain. But the weekend after Thanksgiving... she finally got me to commit to a group date. I was ok with a group date... they're not usually as awkward as doing one on one dates. It ended up being really fun. We all met at the California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. We ordered like 4 pizzas and all shared them. Afterwards we didn't really know what to do so we ended up going to one of the guys house and playing Rock Band. This has become one of my favorite games. I hate video games, but this isn't a normal video game and I find it really fun. :) Anyway... we ended up playing until like 11 and then Vicki needed to go pick up Maylee. Everyone else ended up leaving too, but Josh and I were having a good time so we went to go check out a midnight movie at Movies 8. We saw a movie called "Ghost Town" and it ended up being better than what I thought it would be. All in all... good first date.

U of U vs BYU

2009-01-07T22:55:00.000-08:00

Family rivalry

Yeah... that's right!

Saturday, November 22, 2008 was an interesting day in the Rail home. It was the rival game between the Utah Utes and the BYU Cougars. Jamey and I drove down to my parents house to sit and watch the game with my dad. It was pretty fun. I got all decked out in red and when my dad saw me he just had to throw on his BYU jersey. :) Oh the tension was rising. I had a good old time though... I got to ruffle my dad's feathers a little when the Utes would get touchdowns or when BYU would screw up a play. I had a blast! And it was all summed up by the Utes kicking BYU's butt with a score of 48-24. WOOHOO!!!

Messing with Brian

2008-11-17T17:44:00.000-08:00

Wakey Wakey!! Eggs and bakey!!!

Shaving cream on his hand will wake him up. :) HA!

So... this weekend was mostly spent at home. I didn't have a lot of stuff to do. Saturday was mostly spent sitting at home doing nothing, but I did end up finally showering and getting ready for the day... and me and Brian decided to go to a movie. When we got back from the movie... there still wasn't anything to do, so we put on another movie at home. About an hour or so into the movie Brian started snoring... so... I thought it'd be fun to mess with him. So for about 45 minutes I started tickling his nose with one of the cat's toys. HAHA! It was pretty funny. I had such a good time with it I had to record it. :) After about 45 minutes the movie ended and I thought he might wake up because he usually will wake up once a show is over, but he didn't. And he didn't wake up when I turned the lights on either. I thought I'd take a chance and see if I could do the whole shaving cream thing to him. Didn't work though.... I tried putting the shaving cream on his hand and I guess the coldness or whatever ended up waking him up. It took long enough to wake him up. It's still a funny video... or at least I thought so.... :) So I hope ya like it and have a good giggle... I certainly did. You should have a good laugh at least once a day!! :)

My look to the outside world....

2008-11-14T18:47:00.001-08:00

Sunset over the mountain tops

Clouds coming over the mountains after a snowy day

Sun was behind the clouds

Another sunset

Shining down on West Valley

So... I usually keep my camera in my purse in case any sort of kodak moment comes up. :) At work I face towards the window and when I get a chance to look over my monitors and the blinds are open... there's some pretty cool pictures that I get from the windows of our office. And sometimes if I don't see out the window, but Jamey does... he'll usually let me know there's something cool going on outside the window. We're a pretty good team together. :) ha Anyway... I liked them so much so I thought I would share some of these pictures with everyone. Hope you guys enjoy them!

The B.A.S.H.

2008-11-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

x96 B.A.S.H.

In the beginning...

... there was a mosh pit.

WOO!!! Trapt!!

Do you see the guys in the middle being taken away by the cops?

Jack's Mannequin

STG and their new singer... I miss Carah.

This is what happen when a red head forgets sunscreen!! Ouch

I know this is late, but I figure better late than never. :) Back in September X96 did their annual B.A.S.H. and I just had to go. They had all sorts of awesome bands playing and I had a blast. I got Jamey and Myke to go with me because I didn't want to go by myself... that's never fun. :)

It was a little different this year though. Usually it's at the State Fair Park and they have like three stages set up where the bands play and you have to walk to whichever one you're wanting to see. This year it was at USANA... so all the bands were on one stage. I think I kind of liked the other way better cuz that way if you didn't want to watch the band that was playing on the stage in front of you you could always go to a different stage. Oh well... it was still fun! :)

We went a bit late cuz none of us were really interested in the first couple bands that were playing. We got there in time for Mindless Self Indulgence. I hadn't heard them before, but I ended up liking them. I got to see a lot of bands I already knew and liked such as Hawthorne Heights, Trapt, Local H and Shiny Toy Guns and I got to hear some new bands that I ended up liking like Mindless Self Indulgence, Atreyu, Jack's Mannequin and Ten Years. This show is always a good one to hear a variety of bands that you may have never heard before.

We stayed until after a couple Shiny Toy Guns songs. They're not really the same as they used to be when I'd go see in Provo when there were only like 20 people that came to the shows. Those were good days. And I'm not a huge fan of their new singer. That's just me though. I liked Carah's voice. :) All in all... it was a really fun day... even though I got burnt because I forgot to get some sunscreen. Whoops! :)

Europe Trip - Day 21

2008-09-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Day 21 - Going home

Waiting in the plane to take off in Edinburgh

Flying over Greenland... can you see all the icebergs?

Greenland again

Waiting in the JFK airport... FINALLY able to text again. YES!

Cool sunset while we were waiting to take off.

New York by night :)

So... as some of you know... I have finally come home. It was quite the long trip back. I think it took like 15 hours for me to actually get home. We had to wake up real early Wednesday morning so we could get ready, pick up the car, and get to the airport. My dad's flight left almost 2 hours before mine and mom's... so that's the main reason we had to get up so early. We got there in time even though dad was stressing cuz he thought we were going to be late. When he finally got on the plane, me and mom had a bit to just sit around. I didn't know what to do cuz you had to pay to use the internet in the airport... so I just played some chess on my computer till it was time to head to our gate and wait to get seated. It didn't seem too long, so that was good. I was just worried cuz it was 7 1/2 hour flight from Edinburgh to New York... which is where our layover was. It seemed like that was going to be the longest flight EVER cuz I decided not to sleep at all the entire trip home so I would be able to go to bed once I got home. The 7 1/2 hours actually went by really fast because... luckily enough... the plane we were on had those screens that were in the back of the head rests and the movies were on demand. I was really excited. They had like 20 movies you could pick from. I ended up watching 3... almost 4 movies before we landed. It made the trip go by extremely fast. I didn't even know it had been 7 hours. It was nice to watch movies besides the one's on my computer too. We got to New York... went through the passport check... got our luggage... went through customs... dropped off our luggage... and still had like a 4 hour wait till our next plane left to Salt Lake. That was such a long wait. There was absolutely nothing to do. I wandered around the terminal for a bit... and then went back so mom could wander around for a bit. Cuz you know... someone had to stay with our stuff so we didn't have to lug it around everywhere. I ended up watching Wall-E again so I had something to pass the time. The wait was finally over and we got onto the plane. By this time I was getting pretty tired already cuz in England it would've been like midnight. I still had a 5 hour flight ahead of me to stay awake for. It was really hard. I watched the movie... which wasn't the most entertaining movie. It was called "Recount" and it was an entire movie about the recount in Florida when Gore and Bush ran for president last time. UGH!! I could've shot myself. Unless you're into politics... which I am not... I don't really recommend it. That ended and I didn't know what to do with myself cuz we still had like 2 hours. I pulled out my Ipod and was going to listen to music till I realized I had ONE movie on my Ipod I could watch... I started watching "The Three Musketeers". I hadn't watched it in a while, but it was hard to follow cuz the noise from the plane was loud and the volume wasn't very loud during the movie for some reason... even though it was up full blast. I did it though. I stayed awake the entire trip... while mom slept next to me. Blah. We pulled in... and I was so excited the trip home was over. I was also excited to see my brothers Jamey and David... and Brian... cuz they came to pick us up. We exchanged hugs and went to the luggage claim. Got our stuff and went home. I was happy to be home... to be in my own bed... to not have to share a room with anyone anymore... to see my babies! At first I think they didn't really know what to think of me, but Abbi ended up sleeping with me last night... and waking me up this morning wanting attention. Ah... I missed that. :) When I woke up both my babies were on my bed this morning. I think I slept for almost 12 hours last night... and felt pretty good when I got actually got up this morning. Anyway... I'm home safe and sound... and trying to recoperate from my trip. :) The trip was amazing, but I am also glad I'm home. I'll probably be wanting to go back in like a week or two though. :) HA! BYE!

Europe Trip - Day 20

2008-09-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Day 20 - Edinburgh, Scotland

This is the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Dad hiding from the rain

The Edinburgh Castle

The gates of most castles are always kinda creepy looking

This gun goes off daily precisly at 1:00 pm... except for like 3 days out of the year. I'm glad I knew about it before 1:00 or I would've crapped myself. :)

Cemetary specifically for the dogs of soldiers... can you see the headstones along the wall?

Ah Macbeth... I knew thee well... wait...

Memorial church where all the names of the soliders that were killed throughout the centuries are kept

This is where they keep the crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny

Heading down to the war prisons

Sleeping areas for the prisoners

Seems pretty cramped. Beds with hammocks over the top of them. How would you like to live like this?

Aww... how cute... all tuckered out

The Last Supper.... in Europe. HA

Me working on my blog in the lounge. Gotta love self-timers. :) HA!!

The weather finally caught up with us today in Scotland. It had been really nice the last couple days... and everyone had been saying it had been raining for two weeks before we showed up, but of course my last day here it rains. It's all good though. It wasn't a big deal. It rained worse while we were in Paris and London. :) We only had two specific spots we wanted to see today... Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Our hostel is almost exactly halfway between the two so we just decided to start at the bottom of the Royal Mile and work our way back up to the shopping areas and the Edinburgh Castle. So we headed down to Holyroodhouse... every so often stopping in souvenir shops trying to find something to take home. We got down there and found out how much it was to get in. Mom didn't think we really needed to go inside because she figured it was about the same as most of the other palaces we've seen. :) So we went to the gift shop and looked through a souvenir book with pictures of the inside of the palace. haha! Cheapest and fastest way of seeing something. :) The main reason we wanted to go to it was because it was the residence of Mary, Queen of Scots... who apparently somewhere down the line... the Rail family comes from. I've learned a couple things about my family while being in Europe... most recent is that I'm some sort of decendant of Mary, Queen of Scots (not sure how)... and from the Morrison Clan. So... I guess that's part of where the red hair comes from. HA! :) Dad was saying that we're also German... and he thinks some Irish as well. Anywho... after that... we started making it the little over half mile back up the hill to the castle. Of course looking in shops as we go. :) We finally made it back up and paid our fees to get into the castle. We also got me an audio guide. Mom and dad didn't want one I guess, but I find them very informative. We decided to split ways so I could follow the audio guide and mom and dad could look around as they wanted to without having to wait for me. We'd just meet up at the cafe once I was done to have lunch. It wasn't the biggest castle we've been too, but it was pretty cool. It seemed more like a fortress than a castle... there weren't as many rooms and stuff to see that people would have stayed in. I did learn a lot about the the armies and wars in Scotland though. Pretty interesting stuff. I got to see the Stone of Destiny (or the Stone of Scone.. pronounced skoon) and the Scottish crown jewels. I also got to go down into a war prison and see where they kept the prisoners during the wars and such. Besides seeing where they were buried... they had on display the wooden doors that the prisoners would carve initials... dates... designs... etc into while they were there. After I walked around the castle and was wet enough... I went to the cafe and grabbed some grub with the parentals. We then proceeded to head back down the mile. Mom wanted to stop and see how they weaved the kilts in the kilt factory place. I wanted to go across the street and see the history and how they make whiskey, but... that didn't happen. Mom and dad were going to go back to the room, but I still hadn't found a souvenir like I wanted to... so they left and off I was by myself. I just hit some shops and finally got myself something. And as I walked back to go warm up in the room... I stopped by a jewelry stand and ended up talking to an Italian guy... and the guy who ran the stand... who I believe was from Spain. It was pretty interesting and they were really nice. I bought a couple things there and left to go back to the room. I found mom reading and dad sleeping... so I got on the computer and talked to Jamey, Michael and Shawndra for a bit. :) Then we decided it was time to go get dinner... so we went to a nearby Italian restaurant for our last real meal in Europe. It's kind of sad. I can't believe it's my last night and then I have to go back to real life. I don't know if I can do it!!! I guess I don't have much of a choice. Well.. I have to go shower and get ready for bed. Gotta try and get to bed a bit early cuz I have to get up at 6:00 to get ready and get to the airport. Boo! I hate early mornings... which is all I've had on this trip. Blah! :) See you guys soon!!!

Europe Trip - Day 19

2008-09-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Day 19 - Edinburgh, Scotland

The view from one of the windows at our bed and breakfast

Starting off to Macbeth's castle

Come on dad!!

I thought these tress that we had to walk by look really creepy

On the top of that hill is where they believe Macbeth's Castle once stood

I have conquered the hill

Mom conquered the pile of rocks... haha... j/k

This is called a "kissing gate". I thought it was kind of cute.

Our hostel room... the far top one is mine!

Mom making her bed after she made dad's

Umm... yeah...

Walking up a small side street

This is where the dinner and show was held

There were like 20 peacocks just wandering around the grounds

The room where the show was held

Just waiting to get our dinner

YEEHAW!!

This... is... haggis. And proof I had at lease ONE bite of it.

Trying to get some good pictures of the show

Rockin' the bagpipes

Today was the drive to the last destination we will be going to in Europe... and that place would be Edinburgh, Scotland (pronounced Ed-in-burrow). But... before we headed straight there... we tried to go to find this place by Perth that was in one of the books that I had from the travel class I took Fall semester. It said it was called Macbeth's castle... so of course I wanted to go see what it was all about. It was a whole lot harder to find than we thought it would be. No one in Inverness really knew where it was... or even knew what it was. I ended up going to the Tourist Information Center in Inverness before we left to ask. The lady there didn't really know what I was talking about, but gave me a tourist booklet for Perth and it showed all the castles in that area. At first I thought it was one castle because that's what I thought the travel class book had said it was called, but as I was reading the descriptions of the castles... there was this one that was called Dunsinane Hill Fort... and right in the description it said that it was known by the locals as the Macbeth Castle. WOOHOO!!! So... we went there. It was still pretty hard to find because it was... just out in a small little countryside. When we got there (after asking around a bit for directions), we had to hike up this hill. It was a nice little excercise after driving around so much. We got there as a field trip class was getting there. They were gonna hike up to it too to do a reinactment of some attack that happened there that took the fortress down. Which brings me to what was there... nothing really... just a hill... with a pile of rocks to mark where the fortress/castle had been. No one is positive if it was the same castle that was in Shakespeare's Macbeth, but they believe it is because there is a line in the play refering specifically to that hill. It wasn't a bad hike and it had a great view... so I didn't complain. :) I thought it was kinda cool. Me and mom were the only ones who made it all the way up... dad only made it about halfway and needed to turn back because he was hurting still from his fall yesterday. After the hike... it was back down the hill and to the car to check how dad was doing and head off to Edinburgh. We decided to try something different here... so instead of a hotel or a bed and breakfast... we're staying in a hostel. It's actually a really nice hostel. Not what I thought it would be at all. When I think hostel... I think low budget, crappy hole in the wall, but I guess they fixed this one up all nice. It's still funny though cuz we have bunkbeds. I was all excited that the first thing I said was "I call top!!". Dad just kind of laughed. We had to make our own beds... the bedding was just sitting on top of it. We did that... and dad layed down for a bit while me and mom went outside with the map we got at the front desk so she could get her berrings as to where we were at. She's kind of funny about needing to know where she is and what direction she is facing at all times. :) Once she figured that out... we went back up to our room to get ready for the dinner and show we were going to. The show was called "A Taste of Scotland". I didn't know what to expect, but it was actually REALLY good. It had a 3 course meal before the show started. The show was full of jokes, scottish dancing, bagpipes, scottish songs, and even some scottish history. It was fun to watch. I couldn't get a lot of good pictures in, but I did record a lot of the show. I'm not sure if I was supposed to or not, but I did anyway. :) They even had some parts where they'd show you a simple scottish dance and then the dancers would go pick people to have dance with them on the floor. Thank goodness I didn't get picked. I would've been so embarrassed. But now I know two scottish dances... if I can remember them after a couple days. :) The food was great... the show was great... but all great things come to an end. The show ended around 10 and we got a taxi back to our hostel. Of course mom and dad are in the room asleep. I'm down in the lounge area of the hostel because that's where the best internet reception is. I probably should go get in bed though. I'm not sure when we're getting up in the morning, but I do know that I just have to go with my parents to two things in the morning and then I get to go out and about Edinburgh by myself. Gonna do some shopping and exploring on my own for the first time this whole trip. :) Oh well... it'll still be fun. Tschus!

Europe Trip - Day 18

2008-09-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

Day 18 - Inverness, Scotland

Driving through the highlands of Scotland...

More of the highlands...

And even more...

This is Loch Ness... Can you see Nessie??

THERE SHE IS!!

Exploring the streets of Inverness

Inverness Castle

ALL MUST WORSHIP CHARLIE THE UNICORN!!

My secret magical forest

This is the bed and breakfast we stayed at... well... at least as much of it as I could get in the pic.

It seems like the closer we get to going home… the less running around we’re doing. Just a lot of driving. ☺ Today was another driving day. We packed up and left Glasgow this morning. It was a really pretty drive though. Almost all the pictures I got today were just of scenery. I couldn’t help myself… it was just so pretty wherever we went. I guess that’s what happens when you drive through the highlands of Scotland. As we were driving to Inverness we got to drive by Loch Ness. Tried to see if we could see Nessie, but no luck. ☺ Dad pulled off at one spot just off the side of the road to see if we could go down some trail to the water so we could take pictures. It seemed like a good idea… but didn’t turn out to be so much. Dad went down the trail first and it was a bit steep. Me and I were a bit behind him and he started going down pretty fast. I thought he was just trying to get past the steep-ish part fast, but I guess he just couldn’t control himself going down and he fell down. He fell down pretty hard too. I was so scared, I ran down to him. I kept asking him if he was ok… it took him a minute to answer me. He had side swiped a rock that was sticking out of the ground, but his head wasn’t bleeding or anything… so that was good thing. He said he was pretty dizzy and sat for a second. Then I helped him get up and he said that he was seeing double. I was pretty worried about him. We all hiked back up to the car once dad wasn’t seeing two of me… and I kept asking him if he was ok to drive. I guess he was… cuz we were off again. Inverness was about 20 more minutes further down the road, so not too far to drive. We found our bed and breakfast in Inverness and got our stuff up to the room. Dad wanted to take a nap, but I told him that he shouldn’t in case he had a concussion or something. I’m pretty sure he didn’t… I checked his pupils, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. He did end up staying at the bed and breakfast while me and mom walked to the center of town to explore. There wasn’t much open because… one, it was after 5… and two, it’s Sunday. After wandering about for about 2 hours… we walked back to the B&B to grab dad and go have something to eat. Dad was just chillin’ in the room reading his book… so we decided to check out a hotel that we had seen down the road that had a restaurant. We were checking out the menu at the place and listening to the loud Scottish music that was playing in the bar connected to the restaurant… and while we were doing that… a couple locals started talking to us, trying to tell us to try this chicken that had haggis. Ew! Wasn’t about to happen. ☺ We talked to them for a bit and found out that the reason there was a big celebration happening in the bar section was cuz they were saying goodbye to a barmaid. It was her last day. She was moving. We finally said bye and headed into the restaurant. We weren’t very hungry so we just had a small dinner, but it was good. It was cool to listen to the Scottish music going on. At one point there were bagpipes. It was fun. After dinner we headed back to our room. Now… we’re just sitting about… the tv in here has a VHS player… and there were a couple movies… mostly Disney. So we’re watching “Mary Poppins”. But I do need to take a shower and plug my computer in… the battery is getting really low. So I’m going to have to say bubye for now. See ya later alligator!

Europe Trip - Day 17

2008-09-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Day 17 - Glasgow, Scotland

Grabbed this picture of the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre before we left.

Driving through the lake district

Hence why it's called the lake district

Where we bought the gingerbread... that's really how big the place is

It was a bit overcast and rainy during the drive in Scotland

The day got nicer the further North we went

We took my Aunt Joan's mom, sister and niece out to dinner. Back row (left to right): Jennifer (niece), Gwen (sister), mom (my mom). Front row (left to right): Me (moi), Granny (Joan's mom), dad (my pops).

This is our room at the bed and breakfast we're staying in. It's such a cute place. That little closet looking thing on the right is where my little nook/room is. :)

See? :) I thought it was way cute... and the little sign over the doorway says "Magical Kingdom" and it's Winnie the Pooh.

So... I'm getting really close to the end of my trip. It's almost time to come home. I'm sad, but excited too. It'll be good to be home with my babies... and not have to live out of a suitcase anymore... or drive someplace every other day... or walk around everywhere. I can be my lazy self again. :) Well... today was another driving day. We woke up kinda early and went downstairs to have our big breakfast. After breakfast mom and dad got their stuff all packed up while I walked down to the Shakespeare birth house again because yesterday I didn't have time to go to the souvenir shop... and I wanted to go. After going there... I walked back to the hotel. I was on a set time I had to be back.. and it was starting to rain anyway. When I got back... dad had the car all packed and was ready to go... so we were off, but not before we drove down the street to get me a picture of the Royal Shakespeare Company (or the RSC) Theatre. We headed out... and of course... I started falling asleep. :) I tried staying awake, but it's so hard. We were headed to Glasgow, Scotland today. We took the drive via the Lake District... so it was bit of a longer drive, but not bad. It's a gorgeous drive... which is one reason we went that way. The other reason is because I guess this one place makes the BEST gingerbread... and my mom really wanted some. And she got a good bunch of it while we were there. We had some for our lunch. It is actually really very good. After our healthy lunch... we started driving again. Next stop... Glasgow. The whole drive all together probably took like 6 1/2 hours. So when we got here... we found our bed and breakfast... checked in... then had to hurry to go pick up Joan's sister and mom for dinner. We went and picked up her sister Gwen first so that she could show us where Granny lived and make sure that we didn't scare her when we got there because Granny has slight dimensia... and weren't sure if she would remember us or if she remembered if we were coming. After picking them both up and visiting for a bit... we went to pick up Gwen's daughter Jennifer and see where Joan grew up. Cute little area she grew up in. We then touch a quite scenic drive to try and get something to eat. I was driving in Jennifer's car with her and we were following dad. We thought we were just going to get dinner, but apparently... they wanted to see some of Glasgow's sites... so we started driving about to see different places like... Glasgow University... some museum... the Glasgow cathedral... etc. Once it started getting dark and Granny was getting tired and hungry... we finally headed to get food. We ate at a pretty nice pub called "The Burnbrae". It was pretty busy there and it took a bit to get service, but the food was good... so I didn't complain. :) It's fun to talk to people who have different accents. It was hard at times to pick up on what they were saying, but I thought I did pretty well at understanding them. After dinner... we said our goodbyes and went back to the bed and breakfast... which ended up not even being a mile from where we ate... it was kinda funny cuz we had no idea we were that close. By the time we got home though it was about 11... so mom and dad went to bed. I talked to Jamey on my webcam for a little bit and got to see my babies. :) And now I'm trying to get my blog done and go to bed cuz dad told the lady we'd be ready for breakfast by 8:30 in the morning for some reason. Oh well... anyways... I should be off. Gotta get some rest. Going to Inverness tomorrow... should be fun. :) And I don't think it's a long drive. Cheers!!

Europe Trip - Day 16

2008-09-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Day 16 - London/Stratford-Upon-Avon

This is the place we stayed. Elizabeth House Bed and Breakfast

Abbey studios

Walking Abbey Road... best pic we could get with cars coming and going

This was Jamey's first home in England

The gate to George Harrison's old house. The little house to the left is the guards station I believe.

Does anything seem wrong with this picture?

This is our new rental car

Front of Shakespeare's birth house
Backyard gardens of Shakespeare's birth house

Going into Shakespeare's birth house

William Shakespeare's tomb

The church where Shakespeare was buried

This is the hotel we're stayin at. It's called the Legacy Falcon Hotel. The outside looks old, but the inside is modernized.

So... my parents got me up and going this morning so I could take a shower and get ready to leave our bed and breakfast. When I was close to being finished getting ready... dad went and got our new rental car. This will be our car for the remainder of my trip... which is less than a week. Weird. Anywho... we got everything packed and into the car and were off towards Bakers Street, which is where the Beatles Store was. I thought it was going to be bigger than it was, but it was just a small store, but they had some cool t-shirts and stuff. Mom and dad didn't come with me... they just circled the block till I was done. I ended up buying myself a few things and then we headed towards Abbey Road. I was really happy that we got to squish these things into the trip. We hadn't planned them beforehand, but my dad was nice enough to figure out how we could. :) It was starting to rain... so Abbey Road was pretty quick. Just tried to take a picture then go. After that we drove up to where my family used to live before I was born. It's a cute little house. Then we hurried on over to where George Harrison used to live. I remember last time when we came here and we stood too close to the gate and the guard told us to move away from the gate. That's about all I remember though. Apparently... it must have been a different, less aware guard on duty the day that George Harrison was killed... stupid guard. When I was done taking pictures at the gate we headed to our destination for the day... Stratford-Upon-Avon. :) I love Shakespeare... so this was a treat for me. I mean... being in the same village he grew up in. We found our hotel and then headed out for Shakespeare birth house. You cant take pictures inside... so I don't have many pics of it, but it was apparently a pretty big house for that day and time. Then we walked over to the church where Shakespeare was buried and saw his grave... next to him is buried his wife Anne Hathaway... his daughter... son-in-law... granddaughter... and I believe the guy that married his granddaughter. While we were there... there were people planning out their wedding ceremony there. I thought it'd be cool to get married there. When that was done... we headed out to find somewhere to eat. It's a small village, but I guess it's hard to find a place to eat that would appeal to all three of us. Afte walking around in the rain for a while... we went to the pub that was just like a block from our hotel. Good food. It was yummy! Once dinner we headed back to our hotel room. I guess everything here closes early. All the stores and what not were closed by 5 or half past... which I thought was weird, but whatever. Mom and dad went to bed around 9 and I'm just chillin' in the room. I watched a little british comedy... which was funny... and worked on posting the last two blogs I didn't get to do the last two days. It was a pain cuz the connection here is kinda crappy, but at least it's internet. :) But yeah... mom just woke up and said I should probably go to bed. Gotta be waking up around the normal time. Seriously... one of these days they're really gonna need to let me sleep in. I mean... come on... I'm on vacation! :) ARRIVEDERCI!!!

Europe Trip - Day 15

2008-09-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Day 15 - London, England

The Globe Theatre!!

The stage and some of the seating in the theatre

Victoria Monument... a huge fountain and statue to remember Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace
Go England!

It's hard to get a good picture of Buckingham Palace

The band as it marched away from Buckingham Palace

In memory of Princess Di

Dad randomly started talking to this guy in the park. Apparently he comes here daily to feed to squirrels and birds. It was pretty cool to watch.

In the park by Buckingham Palace... the palace in the background

Ah... the red double-decker bus

Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
I thought this was pretty cool... it's on the side of Westminster Abbey.

The Tower of London

This is a beefeater

A memorial for people who were killed in this area of the Tower of London... including Anne Boleyn.

How come every time you come around... my London London Bridge wanna go down?

I forgot my gun today... I'm not the best soldier

Off to Hogwarts... woohoo!! If only...

The play is the thing!!

Today was a busy day. Had to get up early and get ready because I decided I wanted to add something to the schedule that I didn’t know we could see here. I wanted to go to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. So we hurriedly got ready, had our breakfast and grabbed a taxi to take us to the theatre. The taxi driver was interesting. He told us all about what you have to do to get your taxi license. It takes a lot of work. He dropped us off and we went and bought our tickets for the tour. Our tour guide today at the Globe was named Kitty. She’s one of the actors that worked there. If we had known the Globe Theatre was there and that they did matinee performances… we definitely would have gone… oh well… maybe next time around. The tour was really cool though. I got to take pictures of the stage and seating areas from a TON of different angles… and Kitty told us all about the history of the theatre… and their theories about different things according to evidence they have found. It was cool. I enjoyed the gift shop too. It was really hard to not want to buy everything. I did only end up with a handful of pin buttons and a necklace with the theatre masks. ☺ After that we grabbed another cab and went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. Now… you can’t really see the changing of the guards unless you get there really early to stand right in front by the gate, but that wasn’t gonna happen… but it was still cool to see the band come and the guards march in. While the guards were doing their thing inside the gates… the band set up and played a bunch of Beatles songs. It was awesome! ☺ After the changing of the guards… we walked through the park towards Downing Street, which is where the head of parliament lives. It’s all gated off and guarded so you can’t really see much. So we walked over to Westminster Abbey. Dad and I went in and took the audio guide tour while mom sat outside (she didn’t wanna go). It’s a pretty interesting place… and I got to see where all the Kings and Queens had been buried… and the commencement throne. After we grabbed mom… we went and had lunch. We found a place called “The Red Lion” which was a pub downstairs, but they have a dining area upstairs for lunchtime. It wasn’t too bad of food. ☺ Next… we tried our luck with the underground. I was a little afraid since we seem to have so much bad luck with the train systems, but it’s definitely easier when you understand the language. ☺ The underground here reminds me almost exactly of the subways in Manhattan… so I could follow the tracks and lines really well. We headed to the Tower of London. We didn’t spend a ton of time there because we had to do a few other things… but we did check out the crown jewels… and I saw the bloody tower… and a bunch of old armor and weapons… and a torture chamber… and the area where Anne Boleyn was executed. We then jumped on the underground again and headed to check out a spot I didn’t even know they had till I was flipping through dad’s Rick Steve’s Great Britain book. It was the platform from Harry Potter… Platform 9 3/4… and I jut had to go. ☺ I couldn’t help myself. We did that real quick… which wasn’t too hard to find… and then hurried on the subway again to where we would go see our play. We went and saw “Les Miserables” at the Queen’s Theatre. We picked up our tickets and then grabbed a traditional, All-American dinner at McDonald’s (not my idea, but it worked), then headed to our seats. The play was SOOOOO good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The singing was really good. I do have to confess though that I didn’t even know what “Les Mis” was about at all… surprisingly since I’m a theatre major… I know. I wasn’t disappointed though. But that got out kinda late and we had to take the subway again to get back to our room. It’s almost 1:00 now… which by the time zone I’m actually used to… it’s 2:00 pm. We have to get up in the morning to get our rental car… and if I want to try and go to Abbey Road and possibly the Beatles store… I need to get up early. So I should probably get to bed. Peace!

Europe Trip - Day 14

2008-09-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Day 14 - England

The phone booths in England are awesome!

Hello? Heeelllloooo??

This is the pub that we had dinner

Inside of the pub... it was pretty nice inside.

This was hanging in the pub... They're so helpful. :)

What color do you want your door to be?

What a coincidence!

This is part of the room in London. The other half is the corner where my bed is... that you see in picture above. :) (also... can you see why dad is smiling? what's in his hand? ha)

Ah… the joys of sharing a room with your parents. I’m sitting in the dark with just the glow of the laptop to see. It’s like 9:00 and mom and dad are asleep in bed. It’s not really a big deal, but… I can’t get an Internet service here… so I don’t really have anything to do when I’m done writing my blog. Guess I can watch one of my two movies for the hundredth time. ☺ Well… there’s not much to say about today cuz it pretty much took us the entire day just to get here. We had to wake up all early and be gone by 8:00 this morning because we had to drive about 2 hours to Marseille to catch our plane. The plane didn’t leave till one, but with 2 hours to drive… dropping off the rental car… checking in… security… and checking passports and what not… we needed to be there early I guess. So sadly enough… we left the nice, sunny beaches of Nice and drove to the airport. We were there early enough that we had to wait about an hour or so before we could even board the plane. Flying with Ryanair is quite interesting. There’s no assigned seating or anything… so when they finally let you know what terminal you need to go to… it’s like a mad rush. Everyone picks up their things and does a big cattle call down where they check your passports because everyone is trying to get seats where they want them. I almost wanted to “moo” as everyone pushed their way forward, but I resisted the urge. We finally got through the passport check and went to board the plane. Luckily we found 3 seats that were by each other and I got a window seat… so that was nice. It’s kind of funny to think of all that fuss for just a two hour flight. Once we landed, we had to go through customs (which is always a good time) and try to catch a bus into London, which wasn’t hard to do. It took the bus an hour and 40 minutes from the airport to get to our stop. Once we got to our stop and got our luggage we still had to walk and find our bed and breakfast. It took us a little bit to find it because we kept getting confused on where we were going. But we found it and got checked in. Our room kind of reminded me of the hotel we had in Paris. It’s bigger… that’s for sure… but it’s got a lot of street noise… and it’s not as convenient as a hotel. ☺ But I don’t mind it. It’s interesting and it’s not like everything can always go perfect when you’re on a trip… and we’re only here two days. But a bed and breakfast is something you have to try at least once while you’re traveling in Europe. ☺ By the time we got here… we found out that some of the places we were going to try to go to tonight… closed at like 5. Apparently things in England close early. So the only thing we could really do was go find somewhere to eat dinner. We decided to walk straight down the road, so as not to get lost. A couple blocks down the road we found a pub that serves dinner and we went and ate in there. The pubs name was “The Queen’s Arms”. I thought it was a cute little place. The food was good too (which was a shock). I wasn’t completely full when we left, but a stop at the supermarket across the road fixed that. We got some candy and I found a Dr. Pepper!!!!!! Second one so far in Europe… even in all the gas stations and restaurants we’ve been to. Either way… I was once again excited. ☺ So now… here I am… not really wanting to sleep, but thinking I might just have to. We do kind of have a busy day tomorrow, but we’ll see. ☺ Maybe I’ll go for a walk or something… although I doubt my parents would like that. Anywho… I’m outtie. Cheerio!

Europe Trip - Day 13

2008-09-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Day 13 - Monaco & Nice, France

It was so sunny and pretty out today.

Watching the changing of the guards

What are you looking at huh??

A-TEN-HUT!!!

I should be a model

BOOM BABY!!!

Grace Kelly's grave

Today on the "Lifestyles of The Rich And Famous"...

I think it's small enough... I can fit it in my bag and bring it home.

Me and dad finding rocks to skip in the water

AHHH... I got in the water!!

And got my pants all wet. Look at those lilly white legs. Ow Ow!!

I thought this fountain was pretty cool

Aw... they're so cute together

Today we headed out to Monaco... to Monte Carlo. We wanted to see if we could find anybody rich and famous while we were there... like Brad and Angelina :) But sadly it didn't happen. ha! We did go to the Monaco Palace to watch the changing of the guards and see where Grace Kelly... sorry... Princess Grace Kelly was buried. After a long day of walking around in the hot sun... we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit... me and dad took a little nap while mom chilled on the balcony. She woke us up after a bit... and we headed to the beach. I just wanted to chill by the beach... I definately wasn't gonna go swimming. I did roll up my pants and get my feet wet though. :) The warm was SOOOOO nice and warm. It wasn't cold at all. Just perfect for a dip on a hot day... like a big pool. Mom then wanted to go check out some shopping and dad wanted to go swim in the pool again. So he dropped me and mom off in "Old Town" to check out the shopping areas because he's not in to shopping.. neither am I, but I figured I might as well. See if I could find anything worth buying while I was there. So it was all set... dad was going to meet us by the McDonalds later on at 7... and we were going to find something to eat for dinner. :) So he dropped us off and mom and I, with our trusty map, started walking. We had like 3 hours till we had to meet dad... so we walked a lot. About halfway through... my feet were hurting. We didn't find anything, but we walked around the whole three hours... just checking out all the different places to shop in the area. We met dad and walked to a restaurant that the consierge at the hotel suggested. It was an Italian pizzeria in France. I didn't care where we ate though... I just wanted to sit. So we sat down, ate and headed back to the car to drive to the hotel. We're trying to make it an early night because we have to leave the hotel by 8 in the morning to catch our flight in Marseille, France. It's like a 2... 2 1/2 hour drive from here. Fun times. I think I might actually be able to sleep well tonight from all the walking around... and sun. I think I might be a little burnt... stupid fair skin... but well worth it to play in the sun here. I think this place is gorgeous!! Anyways... I think I'm gonna go. Not sure if I'll have internet at the next place we stay at in England, but as soon as we're in a place where I do have it.... the blogs will be rolling in again. Auf Wiedersehen!!!

Europe Trip - Day 12

2008-09-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

Day 12 - Nice, France

This is our room in Nice, France. Where my backpack is, in the right corner, will end up being where my roll away bed will go.

Checking out the view from our balcony

Check this out!!! It's gorgeous... and the beach below there is a topless beach. HA!!

Dad reading after having a dip in the pool.

Just hanging out by the pool

Kenny and Frances Lynch

Gotta love the complimentary slippers

I don't have a ton of pictures today because we drove for like 7 hours to get to Nice, France (It's pronounced like niece, if you didn't know). Which is less time than we thought it was going to take us. I ended up sleeping through the first half of the drive... then watched a movie for most of the second part. I only have two movies on my laptop because I forgot to load more on before I left... so I've been watching either "Wall-E" or "Mamma Mia!" while I've been here. Don't get me wrong... I like both of them... but there's only so many times you can watch two movies. :) Anyway... the drive was through lots of tunnels and mountains again. It was really nice when we got to the shoreline though. The Mediterranean Sea is really pretty. The drive by the water was still through tunnels and mountains, but at least I could see the sea every so often too. We got to the hotel around 4 in the afternoon, but didn't really have anything planned for today. We settled in our room and checked out the view from the balcony. Dad wanted to go for a dip in the pool on the roof of the hotel... and mom didn't bring her swimsuit, so she did a power walk down the promenade by the beach. Dad went up to the pool to swim and read... I didn't feel like swimming today... and it was late in the afternoon and the sun wasn't really out anyway... so I stayed in the hotel room and played on the internet. This is the best internet connection I've had the entire trip... so it was nice to be able to play around on the computer like i did at home. :) After a bit I went up to the pool to sit and chill with dad. Mom showed up a little bit later and we went down to the room. We decided that we didn't really need to go out to eat because we had leftover stuff we had gotten to snack on in the car... so that was our dinner. We ate it out on the balcony. When we were done... I was back in the room starting to watch "Wall-E" again... and randomly I noticed dad had started talking to the the neighbors in the room next to us. It was kind of weird, but not too weird because dad is a little social butterfly. :) He talked to the guy for a bit and came in the change because they were going to go next door to talk to the neighbors... I didn't want to go. Mom and dad went over and I sat in the room watching the movie. Then dad called on the phone and said I had to come over and bring my laptop cuz they wanted to meet me and dad wanted to look something up on the internet. With no choice in the matter... I went over... which ended up not being bad at all. They were very nice people... and they were from Ireland, so it was fun talking to them. :) Their names were Kenny and Frances Lynch. We sat and chatted with them for over an hour... even Christina got to talk to them because she "called" me on the webcam while I was there. It was funny. They seemed to enjoy that. Dad was getting tired so we needed to go. We came back to our room and I chatted with Christina and Michael for a bit on the webcam, but once mom and dad started turning off the lights and telling me to keep it down... I figured it was time to say goodbye. :) So here I am in the dark... writting this blog... and starting to get a wee bit tired. So I guess I'll go now. Catch ya on the flipside!!

Europe Trip - Day 11

2008-08-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

Day 11 - Dardago, Italy

Isn't it pretty??

The little village by the lake

This was like a life size kind of chess set. I thought it was awesome!

If you can see dad's banana split there... the bowl is in the shape of a swan.

Doesn't that just look delicious?? And it was

Gelato time!

Funny little statue that was in Barcis

Today was very chill... We woke up... just as early as usual (UGH) and went to church. It was an English speaking ward which was nice cuz I was afraid it was going to be an Italian ward and I wouldn't know what was being said. :) We only went to sacrament and then headed out. We rewarded for going to church by going out and getting gelato afterwards. ha! I wanted to go home to change before we went on a drive, so we went back to the house. We were there for a bit while everyone changed to go, but we decided to grab some lunch first. We went to this little restaurant called "De Genio". Good stuff. What I've learned while in Italy is that they order differently. It's interesting. Usually everyone starts with an appetizer... then they have the first dish, which is a pasta of some sort... then they have a second dish, which is a meat... and then they have their side dishes... then desserts. It's a lot of food. I've only been ordering one of the dishes because I can't eat an appetizer, two different dishes and a side dish. That's a lot of food. :) Once we were stuffed, we went back to the house again. Now it was nap time. I haven't had nap time in... months!! Dad and Don went and took a nap. I tried posting those other blogs real quick and helped Carrie with her cat Tiger. He hasn't been feeling well... and she's worried about him. We were trying to give him some medicine and such. After all that... I finally took a nap. It was like an hour, but of course it didn't seem long enough. They came and woke me up because they were ready to go on the drive. I pulled myself out of bed and we were off. It was a really pretty drive. The village we drove to was called Barcis. It's right next to a lake... and was so pretty. We walked around for a second... and lo and behold... there was another gelato place. Once again... we had gelato. Twice in one day... I must have been a good girl. :) HA! The gelato here wasn't just scoops... they had some fancy stuff you could order with fruits and everything. So we sat down and enjoyed our gelato. Afterwards we walked back to the car and drove home. That's pretty much my day today. Pretty laid back... and not running around like crazy for once. I played on the internet for a bit. Tried getting on video chat with my siblings, but the connection wasn't very good or something... and it was just a big pain... so I got off anyway because it was getting late and I still had to repack all my, newly washed, clothes and go to bed. We have to get an early start in the morning to head to Nice, France. It's going to be about an 8 hour drive. No way I'm going to be able to stay awake during this drive. :) Well I'm off like a prom dress (that one was for Brian). HA! Peace out... A town!

P.S. So I was working on my blog... heard a noise... and saw this crawling along the floor. Look at this thing! It's creepy. I've never seen a scorpion in person. I had my mom come and help me get rid of it. HA!

Europe Trip - Day 10

2008-08-31T03:02:00.000-07:00

Day 10 - Venice, Italy

The canals here are really cool.

Who wants a gondola ride???

Racing down the streets of Venice

Ah... Venezia (Venice)

They have the coolest masks here... but they all remind me of "Eyes Wide Shut"... if you've seen that weird movie.

This is our "taxi" to Murano.

Italy.... WOOHOO!!

Going through the canals on the way to Murano to watch the glass blowing

Heating up the glass in the furnace.

Shaping the glass with these oversized tweezer looking things.

He made a flower vase first... and when they're done shaping it... they put a piece of paper up to it and it starts a fire. They're showing how hot the glass still is... and not to touch it!

Check out this glass horse... it was cool to watch him make it.

This is one of the "buses" that we had to ride in.

Cute little pizzeria that we ate at to get out of the heat.

Ah... this was so much fun!

They kept landing on mom too cuz she was holding the extra pack of crackers. :)

Looking out from the Rialto bridge.

Must be laundry day :)

Ah... I love it.

This place was so beautiful. I loved it. That cave looking thing is where the water first comes out of the ground from the mountains.

At dinner with my surprise cake. :)

I’m going to type this up tonight, but I’m so tired of dealing with slow Internet connections to actually put the other blogs up… I’m gonna post this tomorrow while I have lots of free time. ☺ Today was Venice day. Don took us to the train station… because Venice is about an hour train ride from here. He dropped us off and were stood on one platform and started second guessing ourselves about if we were on the right train… as usual. ☺ We thought we should be on the one next to us so we switched and jumped on that one. It wasn’t the one we were supposed to be on, but it wasn’t a big deal because that train went to Venice too. It just made more stops so it ended up taking us an extra 30 minutes to get out there. Once we got there…. We tried to hurry over to Saint Marcos square because that’s where Don told us we could get a ride over to Murano. We wanted to watch how the glass stuff was blown. The city does a promo thing to get tourist to go to the island to check out the glass blowing (and to hopefully buy something), so they with transport you there on a “taxi” for free, BUT you have to catch one of the “buses” to get back. That’s where they get you. They’ll take you out there for free, but then they make you pay for your way back. ☺ So we found the spot and they took us to the island. When we got there they showed us back to the area that they do the work. Apparently they don’t “work” on Saturdays, but they will do demonstrations for you. So the workers weren’t doing their normal work, but they did have a guy come show us what they do. It’s actually pretty cool to watch. They are very good at it… and they say that they start learning how to do it at a young age. After the demo… they take you to… what I guess would be a show room. Just different rooms with the stuff that they’ve made and hope you will buy. It was pretty cool stuff. Mom found a vase she liked, but they were asking for a lot of money for it, so she wasn’t going to get it, but the guy kept trying to haggle with dad for it. Finally mom wandered off and had me go back in to tell dad that she said no. ☺ That’s we avoid confrontation in our home. HA! We finally got out there and headed for the “buses”. They leave about every 10 minutes, so we had to wait. When it finally came, we boarded and headed back to Venice. We were told by the guy on land that you pay for the bus when you get on it, but there wasn’t anyone to take money… and we didn’t know who to ask… so we accidentally were stowaways I guess. ☺ Oh well. Once we got back to Venice… we had been so tired and thirsty so we went to find somewhere to eat. It was a HOT, humid day… so I was kinda awnery too. I felt bad once I had gotten out of the heat and got a bit of water in me. We ate at this little pizzeria we found just off Saint Marco’s Square. Then we grabbed some gelato (yummy) and headed to the middle of the square so I could feed the pigeons. ☺ I was pretty excited to do that. They used to have people who sold bird food in the square, but weirdly enough I guess they don’t anymore… or they didn’t today at least. So we had stolen some crackers from the pizzeria just so I could feed the birds. I enjoyed it. It was really fun for me. By that time we had to hurry back to the train station to catch our train back. So we rushed back as fast as we could… but still managing to probably take the long way… and left. Don was there to pick us up and he drove us back. Along the way he gave us a bit of a tour of a couple cool places… including a gorgeous spot where the water comes out from under the ground from the mountains for the first time. I loved this place. It was so pretty. We went back to the house to grab Carrie and go to dinner. Don and Carrie took us out for a graduation dinner for me. They’re so sweet. I love them to death. They took us to this really good Italian restaurant called Le Masiere… and even managed to surprise me with a Black Forrest Chocolate cake. We just kinda sat around and talked… then finally headed back to the house. Everyone was a bit tired, so we chatted on the webcam with some family for a bit… then slowly everyone meandered off to bed… which is what I really need to be doing right now… so au revoir!

Europe Trip - Day 9

2008-08-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Day 9 - Italy

All packed and ready to go! I had to get a picture on this cool tree before we left. There are just tons of random castles in Europe... they're everywhere. So many tunnels on this drive If there weren't tunnels... We saw a lot of mountains... beautiful ones too. What I could get of Don and Carrie Gambles home. The streets are small... and I was up against the neighbors fence getting this pic.

Don's Chique Cento. This is the coolest little car. :) ha

Carrie's car
Don's pickup... HA
When I first got here... this is how the puppies were. It was cute.

This is Digger

Meet Murphy

The view from the balcony in the room I'm sleeping in.

They came with us to dinner... and were so tuckered out by the end. :)

The Internet here is being picky… so I had gotten one blog posted and decided it wasn’t worth trying to mess with tonight… so this will be posted later on. Today was another day of mostly driving. We woke up and got ready… then me and mom went out to find a grocery store. We weren’t about to leave this area without trying to grab some Milch Reis. It’s a Bolivarian thing. It’s kind of like a rice pudding, but oh so much better!!! You can get a pretend kind in the states, but it’s just not the same. ☺ By the time we got that and headed back to the hotel… we needed to hurry and check out. So we packed all of our stuff real quick and headed out. Today we head to Italy. We’re staying with my dad’s friend Don Gamble and his wife Carrie. They live in Durango, Italy. Cool little place. It took us till about 4 to get here. We drove though a bunch of mountains on the way here. Most of the mountain roads between Austria and Italy go through tunnels. There are lots of tunnels. We kept loosing the signal on the GPS system, which was fine since there weren’t any turn offs or anything we needed to worry about. When we finally got here Don was very happy to see us and showed us around their house. They’re pretty much remodeling the entire thing so he was trying to show us all the new parts they’ve been working on. After the tour… we were talking… and I found their puppies. OH SO CUTE!!! They have two puppies that are about 3 months old, Digger and Murphy. They are adorable and I’ve been playing with them a lot. They also have a cat named Tiger. He’s a very loving cat. He has two colors of eyes too… it’s kinda weird. Anyway… we just kind of chilled around the house till it was time for dinner. Mom read some book on China and Russia she found… and Don taught Don how to play backgammon. I played with the puppies and wandered around. We finally walked to the city center… which is like 2 minutes away… to eat at a pizzeria. Of course you have to have pizza when you come to Italy. It’s a must! It was delicious. After dinner was over… it was kind of late… so we walked back and have just been doing… whatever we needed to do. Sorry this one is so short. I finally got the internet to work, but it’s being a pain… so I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I need to shower and get to bed because we have to get up tomorrow to head out to Venice for the day. So I’ll let you know how that goes. Bye Bye!!

Europe Trip - Day 8

2008-08-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

Day 8 - Sound of Music/Kahlstein Haus

Morning market in Salzburg

The bus we had our tour in... just a little flashy...

The lake... and back of house... that they used in the movie

I am sixteen going on seventeen!!!!

Best shot I could get of the Noonburg Abbey

Fortress on the hill... cool huh

This was one of the cool lakes we saw on our way to Mondsee. Gorgeous!

The inside of the church where Maria walked down the aisle and got married

The stairs in the Do-Re-Mi song

Doe... a deer... a female deer

Ray... a drop of golden sun

Me... a name... I call myself

Far... a long long way to run

Sew... a needle pulling thread

La... a note to follow so.... Tea... a drink with jam and bread.... That will bring us back to DOE!!!

This is my new steed. Giddy up horsey (In Dawson's voice... for those who know. HA)!

This is my new Edelweiss necklace

To get to the Kehlstein Haus... you go in that tunnel... walk to the end... and go up an elevator to the top... you can kind of see the house at the top.

The Kehlstein Haus

The hills are alive… with the sound of music. Or at least they were today. ☺ Had to wake up at get ready for our Sound of Music tour this morning by 9. Someone came to the hotel to pick us up and take us to where the tour bus started… which was only like 2 or 3 blocks down the road. Man we’re lazy. ☺ As soon as we got there, we were all put on the bus and off we were. Our tour guide today was Peter and the bus driver’s name was Manfred. Peter was really funny. He sounded a lot like that actor Jon Lovitz. He was pretty entertaining to listen to… AND he hardly had any accent. It was nice. He was easy to understand. He was usually doing funny remarks during his dialogue. I enjoyed it. We were all over Salzburg looking at the different places they used to film the movie. Things that were weren’t allowed to go up to… we just kinda drove by. It was pretty cool though. If you’re a fan of the movie like me… it was interesting to learn some things about what happened during the filming of the movie. For example, the part where Maria and the kids fall off the boat into the lake… they had to do it two times. The first time… Maria (Julia Andrews) grabbed Gretl when they fell off the boat, but the second time they did it… she didn’t grab her and Gretl went under. They pulled her out just in time and she was ok after she coughed up water. After we saw everything in Salzburg… it was off to Mondsee, which is where the church scene was done, but it’s not in Salzburg. You have to drive through the mountains to get to it, but we saw such beautiful scenery it was well worth it. It was so green and there were some gorgeous lakes along the way. When we got there we had about 45 minutes to do what we wanted. So we went inside the church to have a look at where the scene took place. Then we walked across the street to have some apple strudel for lunch…mmmmm good. Wasn’t the most nutritious lunch, but it tasted yummy. Mom and I went and looked in a souvenir shop while dad just chilled where we had eaten. While in there mom found a new breadbasket type thing… and I found a necklace I really liked that was in the shape of the Edelweiss flower. That would now be my second souvenir for myself on this trip. ☺ I’m getting better at finding things for me. We then headed back to the bus and left Mondsee. That was the end of the tour. When we got back dad went back to the hotel room while me and mom walked around and took pictures of the Mirabell Gardens, which is where most of the “Do-Re-Mi” song was filmed. Now that you've seen the pictures.... you'll have to go watch the movie again to see where they are in the movie. :) We went back and chilled in the room for about a half hour and then headed out to Berchtesgaden, Germany. It’s only about a 20 minutes drive away. We went to go see the Kehlstein Haus or the Eagle’s Nest. It was Hitler’s vacation house that was on top of a mountain. Beautiful scenery, evil man. Can’t believe he had something so nice. Blah. We only had a short while there because we had left so late to go and we had to catch the last bus up… and the last one coming back down. After that, we hurried back to Salzburg because we though it’d be fun to try and catch a marionette show but we were too late. The last one had started at 5. So we grabbed some dinner by Mozart’s birth house, hit a souvenir shop, and headed back to the hotel for the night. Wish I had Internet right now… I have withdrawals when it’s not available to me. Guess I’ll hit the hay early. Adios!

Europe Trip - Day 7

2008-08-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Day 7 – Salzburg, Austria

I had to take a picture of this sign as we crossed into Germany again. :)

This is the first Dr. Pepper I have seen in Europe. If you know me... you know how happy I was. Everything non-alcoholic here is Coke, Fanta (orange), Sprite and water.

Those are the Alps in the background... from a distance.

Ah... the beautiful countryside.

They require that every car driving in Austria has one of these in it.

Mozart's house.

My Wienerschnitzel meal

Mom trying to map out our next move... dad just chillin like a villain.

Cute little pedestrian street with stores and such.

Fancy way of saying McDonalds

If you can't read the German on front of the house... it says Mozart's birth house.

Statue of Mozart

And once again the hotel we’re staying in makes you pay to use their Internet connection. Soooo stupid! Anywho… today wasn’t as active as usual. We checked out of our hotel and headed out of Prague. Our biggest problem today was the GPS system that we’ve been using. After you turn it off and try turning it back on again…. It has a hard time getting a signal when you’re around tall buildings or trees. Problem is… that’s about all there is in Prague. We had to try and get away from the city before we could get a signal and actually know where we were going. The second pain of the day with the GPS is that it wanted to take us on all the back roads to get to Austria and it started getting to my dad because he couldn’t go as fast as he could if he was on the Autobahn and there were a bunch of trucks that would go UBER slow. ☺ So dad just kind of turned it off till we got closer to Salzburg since he really only needed help finding the hotel. What was supposed to be a 5 hour drive ended up being 6 hours. Once we got to Salzburg and to our hotel we got settled into our new room and went downstairs to the lobby to try and decide what we were going to do. We decided to go get something to eat first. We walked the streets of Salzburg to a restaurant that the hotel suggested named “Stern Brau”. It’s a Biergarten. Which is just pretty much an outdoor restaurant. It was pretty fun. We got some Wienerschnitzel (veal pounded really thin, breaded and fried), but I couldn’t eat a whole lot of it. I tried, but once I got to kind of a hard to chew bit… I couldn’t get myself to eat anymore. After dinner dad went back to the hotel and mom and me went to walk around Salzburg. We went down some just small pedestian roads to check out some of the stores and find the house that Mozart was born in and the statue of him. By that time it was starting to be dusk so we walked back to the hotel. We went to go check out the pool too once we got back to the hotel because I was thinking of going swimming, but it was so small it wouldn’t have been worth it. So I just went back up to the room… and here I am… writing this blog for all of your enjoyment. ☺ Even though it won’t be posted for like another 2 days. That was my day today… and now I think I’m gonna go soak in a bubble bath and try to soak these soar muscles away. ☺ Till next time… Chao!!!

Europe Trip - Day 6

2008-08-26T12:32:00.001-07:00

Day 6 - Prague, Czech Republic

Military men walking around in front of Prague Castle. I felt bad for the dogs... they had muzzles... sad.

Guard at the entrance of Prague castle. It's like the guards at Buckingham Palace. They stand there and can't move.

The architecture in Prague is awesome! I loved all the Gothic stuff

Guards heading to go do the changing of the guards

View of Prague from the Prague castle.

Statue of King Charles IV. He was their best King here in the Czech Republic.

... And also with you...

An astrological clock in the Old Town center. People come and wait for it to go off every hour.

I thought this was a pretty cool statue

The Charles Bridge

This lady was playing classical type guitar on the Charles bridge. She was really good.

This is a partial picture of the John Lennon Wall in Prague

Imagine....

We all signed our names on the John Lennon Wall

That is a statue of Good King Wenceslas in front of the National Theatre Museum

My dad had set up a tour thing of Prague for today. We woke up... got ready... and went and had breakfast in the hotel because it was part of the price of the room. I wasn't really hungry, but my parents said I needed to eat... so... yeah. We sat around for a while and waited for our ride to come pick us up to take us to the tour bus. It finally came... really late... and we headed out. Once at the meeting point we jumped on the bus and were off. Our tour guide today was named Hannah. Her English wasn't too bad, but still hard to understand sometimes. They drove through Prague as she talked about historical things. I just kind of watched out the window. We drove up to the Prague Castle and got out of the bus. From here on... we would be doing a lot of walking... And Hannah wasn't slow about it. Most of the pictures I have we couldn't really pose in because we had to hurry and take pictures if we were wanting to get any. We went ALL over the Castle grounds. Their architecture is awesome... just within the castle there was a mixture of Baroque, Gothic, and Romanesque buildings. They were really cool looking. I enjoyed the Gothic stuff the best... it's very dark. After the Castle, we met up with the bus again and drove down to downtown Prague. There's an "Old Prague" and a "New Prague"... we saw a lot of both. We just walked around seeing anything that Hannah could point out and tell us about its history. It was very interesting, but after a while... my dogs were barking. The tour finally ended about mid-afternoon. They stop at the Old Downtown Square... and then you're on your own. So we started going around and exploring all the streets and stores. We also set out to find the John Lennon Wall... I had no idea where it was, but I had seen that there was one in Prague while I was looking online... so of course I HAD to see it. We got directions... and asked a few people exactly where it was... I was happy. :) After that we went back towards downtown so we could find the tram to take us back to our hotel, but somehow we started looking in stores for a chandelier for mom. She always buys one new, really nice gift at the new places that my parents go to... so she decided to get a crystal chandelier for her dining room this time. I couldn't believe how long it took. She found one she kind of liked, but then we had to go to like 8 other stores so she could keep looking... and of course they weren't near each other. It was quite the bit more of walking, but we did it. I did have fun talking to one of the girls that worked in one of the stores outside while she was having a smoke. She was very nice and interesting to talk to. My mom finally found a chandelier she liked... which ended up being in the first store we went into in the first place... we went back to it after a while. I guess that's what you have to do before you can pick out something nice like that. I'm not a shopper... so I don't know. :) We then walked to the National Theatre Museum to look at that and the statue of King Wenceslas. Finally we grabbed a taxi and had them take us back to the hotel. We were all exhausted. This trip is really getting to us with all the walking :) But it's definately well worth it. I'll be in real good shape by the time I come home to the states again. Anyway... I'm heading to bed. Gonna be driving to Salzburg tomorrow and dad says this time I have to stay awake for the drive so he'll stay awake too. HA :) Signing off!

Europe Trip - Day 5

2008-08-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

Day 5 - Germany and some of Prague

A playground that Christina would play at down the road from the Ticu's.

My place of birth has a castle... does yours? :)

Das ist das Krankenhaus wo ich war geboren (I hope that was right... I don't remember a lot of my German... but it should say "That is the hospital where I was born")

Friedburg, Germany... Gorgeous

Friedburg temple... my parents thought we'd check it out.

I get my own little mini room here... very nice.

The streets of Prague

He came to the window to say hello as we walked by.

Where we had dinner the first night in Prague.

There's an Absinth bar in our hotel in Prague... interesting

Some of the menu

I got woken up today by my dad telling me I had to hurry and get ready because we had to find a place to change a couple of tires on our rental car. I guess a two of them looked like someone before us had rubbed up against a curb or something and ruined them. We're lucky they didn't blow before this while we were driving on the Autobahn. Frau Ticu spent some time on the phone and found someplace for us to go in Friedburg. She also came with us to translate. It's nice to have friends in places that you don't know the language well. :) We got the tires fixed... probably took like 30 minutes... and then we were off to check out some things in Friedburg before we left for Prague. We first stopped at the hospital in Friedburg that I was born in. It had purple windows, which I thought was kind of funny. Next we stopped at the temple in Friedburg. My parents thought I'd like to stop and see it. Then it was off to Prague. Another long drive. I tried staying awake as much as I could, but it just wasn't happening. Driving is so boring... and you can only see so many trees. HA :) So I slept most of the way to Prague. Woke up a couple times when we stopped at gas stations because it has become my job to pump the diesel when we stop. Don't ask me why. :) When we finally got here... it was probably like 6 or 6:30... so we just checked into our hotel... walked down the street a little bit to find a pizzeria to eat at and came back. My parents have been asleep for probably like 2 hours while I've been trying to get this SLOW internet connection at the hotel to post my blogs. Its been quite the pain, but at least I finally got them up. :) YEAH BABY!! So I'm gonna go take a shower now and go to bed. Gotta get up to tour Prague tomorrow. Night ya'll!!

Europe Trip - Day 4

2008-08-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – Holland and Germany

More windmills than you ever wanted to see

This picture was taken specifically for my sister Laurena... she loves cows.

Guy who did the wooden shoe demo showing off his coolio shoes

Did you know Nike and Adidas did wooden shoes? Me either.

The cheese wench

Mom petting goat... obviously...

Guess what... CHICKEN'S BUTT!!!!

I had to.... this windmill was named "The Cat". HA

This was some of the little village in Zaanse Schans

I tried to take some scenic pitcures of Germany... this was one of the better ones

Europe has the BEST candy... Their gummy bears are way better than the ones in the states

This was my first home in Blofeld, Germany

This is where I took my first steps

Herr und Frau Ticu's Haus... that's little Yul in the doorway.

This will be my second night without Internet. We tried getting it to work, but for some reason it would not. Oh well. Today we woke up I guess about as early as we normally have here… around 8. We got ready and checked out of our hotel. Today we went to Zaanse Schans. It is a little place in Holland just Noord (North) of Amsterdam. It is supposed to be like an old Holland village that you can go visit. It was numerous windmills for you to go see and little houses that people still actually live in. They show you how they make cheese… and you can sample it… and they show you how wooden shoes are made. It was a neat little place. We didn’t stay too long because we had to drive to Germany today to stay at our friends house, Herr und Frau Ticu (Mr. and Mrs. Ticu). They are friends of my parents from when they lived in Germany. It took us about 4 hours to get to Blofeld, Germany. It was quite the drive… Germany is beautiful. It ‘s really green with lots of hills and trees… too many trees. ☺ In fact… that’s mostly what I saw most of the drive, which is why I don’t have many scenic pictures. As soon as I saw something I wanted to take a picture of, I’d pull out my camera, but then there’d be trees in the way again. It was gorgeous nonetheless. When we first got here my parents showed me where they lived, my first home. I hadn’t ever really seen it. I saw (from a distance) where I took my first steps… and was pointed out whose windows were whose in the house. It was pretty cool. We then drove the short distance to the Ticu’s where we were greeted with smiles and open arms. I don’t remember them really at all, though I swear we came and visited them last time I came with my parents like 11 years ago, but they said they hadn’t seen me since I was a baby… so I could definitely be wrong. I’ll have to ask mom and dad tomorrow. We had afternoon coffee (ours was a fake coffee called Caro) with strawberry cake (SOOOO GOOD) and cheesecake with a hard chocolate topping. We spent the majority of the afternoon and night talking to Herr and Frau Ticu, their daughter Katherin (not sure if that’s where my parents got the name or not) and her husband Edgar… while their two children Emily and Yul did their thing. It was fun…. Just talking about whatever… memories with my family…. Asking each other questions about our cultures in the states and in Germany… I had a blast. I wish we weren’t only staying one night. They made us dinner, which was a lot to eat. Frau Ticu made a lot of common German foods so that I would get a chance to try them. I tried pretty much everything, but the lamb… I couldn’t get myself to do it… I did try the pork though (just a little). Everything was delicious. I ate way too much. After dinner Katherin had to take her kids home. She was going to try taking me into Frankfurt to some show that was going on, but by the time we ate… it was getting late and her kids needed to go to bed. But the rest of us took a little after dinner walk. It was nice. It is a very small, but cute village that they live in. We spent the rest of the night… still talking and are finally now going to bed. I have been exhausted with the traveling so I’m going to go to sleep. Goodnight!

Europe Trip - Day 3

2008-08-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Day 3 – Amsterdam

Here's what we will be touring most of Europe in :) WOO NISSAN!!

What am I supposed to do with all this Monopoly money????

And of course there's windmills in Holland

Our hotel in Amsterdam... it's a Holiday Inn.

Such a bigger room than the one in Paris. :)

SOOO COMFORTABLE!!

I wanted to go hang out on these boats. It looked fun :)

Anne Frank House

This is for my bros!!! :)

GRRRR!!!

What I could get of the Red Light District

This is about 80% of Amsterdam's mode of transportation

We got two free drinks at the bar so me and my dad went. I got a "Driver's Drink"... so non-alcoholic.

This is my pimp chair

My AWESOME new jacket

Well… I’m writing today’s blog now and saving it in Word because apparently you have to pay to use the Internet at the Holiday Inn here in Amsterdam. Oh well… I’ll just have to post it later and everyone will have to deal with it. ☺ Today was a little harder to wake up. I think I’m getting used to the time so my body wants to sleep in again. ☺ HA! I woke up and did my hair... which was interesting since I’m used to straightening it. I’m trying to get used to how it looks right now. I guess it’s not too bad. We packed up all of our stuff and headed to the lobby in our hotel. We grabbed some breakfast at the hotel so we didn’t have to try and find somewhere and while we were eating they called us a taxi. Once the taxi came we had it drop us off at Europcar… which is where we picked up our rental car for our drive around Europe. It took forever to try and get the car. There was a nice little lineup. I didn’t know it took so long to rent a car, but we finally got it. My mom wasn’t too happy at first because there’s not much of a trunk to it, but I showed her we could fit all of our stuff in there just fine and we left. We got the GPS system to work and started the 5 ½ hour drive (mostly because of traffic) drive to Amsterdam!!!! I spent the duration of the drive checking out the scenery and watching a movie on my laptop. ☺ Gotta kill time somehow. As soon as we got here and checked into our hotel, we set straight out for downtown Amsterdam. There is a tram that works its way through Amsterdam pretty much exactly like the trax in Salt Lake. We got off on our stop and headed for the Anne Frank house. That’s the biggest reason we came here. I’ve always been interested in the Holocaust stuff and Anne Frank is such a good story. On the way to the house we noticed there was something like a concert going on on one of the canals. It was pretty cool. People had all their boats tied together to sit and watch it. We got to the house and it was awesome. I couldn’t believe I was actually in the same place that her and her family were in hiding for so long. You weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside at all so I’m sad to say I can’t post any of the inside. Once that was done we went to go grab something to eat. It was way past dinner at that point. We saw these guys… one I think was American and he kept pointing at his friend saying her was a German, along with some other colorful words. They weren’t bums or anything… they were actually dressed in suits. But I do believe they were nice and drunk carrying around their beers. Funny enough… the German guy turned around and started peeing in the canal… my mom kinda laughed and blushed. It was funny. We didn’t see anything though… I think my mom would’ve had a heart attack. We found a nice little place to eat and when we were done the plan was to go to the “Red Light District” (the porter at the hotel called it the male shopping center HA!)… my mom wasn’t happy with that. But I still wanted to see. So my mom waited at some monument thing and my dad took me over there. We only walked a good like half a block and back because I guess it was starting to make my dad uncomfortable…. And started back to the tram station. While we were waiting for our ride… I ran into a souvenir shop and got my awesome new jacket. I love it! ☺ Anyway… we’re back at the hotel… just switched rooms cuz the other ones shower was broken… and now I’m going to head to bed. Do another tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have Internet so I can actually post it. Laters!!

Europe Trip - Day 2

2008-08-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Versaille and more Paris

Woke up to a rainy Paris, but did that stop us? NO!!!

Took a train to the Chateau of Versaille.

This would be my lunch. The bread in Europe is AMAZING!!!

Me sporting the audio tour of Versaille. It's hot huh?

This is the famous "Hall of Mirrors". It's pretty awesome.

Someday... all this will me MINE!!! As far as thee eye can see!!

The gardens here were spectacular

On to Notre Dame. Can you see Quasimodo???

I lit a candle for each one of you!!!

The Phaaaaaanntom of the Opera!!! This is the Paris Opera House. Way cool!

Le Grande Staircase!

Le Auditorium

Le Chandelier

This.... is my new boyfriend. Just like I like them... almost nude... with a horse. HA

Can't come to Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower. Can't see it, but there was a rainbow next to it.

You do what the advertisement says!!! Or else!!!

Arc de Triomphe

Champ de Elyse

Ah.... Amor!!

My awesome hair after a full day in the rain. Love the frizzy waves.

Today I woke up... by myself... at like 8. I have NEVER gotten up that early on my own and felt awake... well since I was a kid and got up for Saturday morning cartoons. I got up... got ready... and was surprised by a rainy day in Paris. Crap! Oh well... so we headed out for Versaille. We walked to the train station and got our tickets. The train ride was alright until we didn't get off the right stop. We went past two stops past the correct one, got off, and couldn't figure out how to get on a train to go back where we needed to go. We couldn't read the train schedule, but we finally found a worker to ask... although he didn't really speak English. It was interesting. We found the right platform and made it to Versaille and walked to the Chateau. Walking in the rain is pretty fun, but not when you're going to have to be wet all day. :) The Chateau was huge!! I took so many pictures and I wish I could've blogged them all, but there was no way. I already had too many pics to choose from. When we got to the Chateau they had a little place you could eat. So we grabbed some food. I enjoy the breads in Europe, they are incredible... so that will probably be the majority of my diet while here. We toured around the Chateau with our trusty audio tours that tell you what each room is... and then we went out to see the gardens. I love old gardens like that. They are gorgeous!! After that we set sail back to Paris. We hit Notre Dame first. It's really dark in there, but the stain glass windows are pretty cool. I wanted to go up to the top to see the gargoyles, but not enough to pay for it. So we headed to the Paris Opera house. I was so excited. I'm a huge Phantom of the Opera fan... and that's supposed to be where it happened. By that time it was almost dinner so we walked across the street to a little restaurant called "L'Entracte Opera". I enjoyed the food... and for a split second thought of ordering the snails, but then laughed at myself for even thinking it. HA! After dinner we grabbed a taxi to the Eiffel Tower. We walked around because I decided not to stand in line to pay to go to the top. Maybe I should have... I dunno. We'll see if I regret it later on. We walked away to get a better picture of the tower. While mom was taking some pictures of her own... I was watching some little birds hopping around on the cement wall. I think some boys thought I was looking at them... cuz then they started trying to get my attention by clapping. I looked... smiled... waved... and walked off. They were like 17. And I was with my parents... come on. We then took another taxi to the Arch of Triumph... wandered around there for a while... then walked down the Champ de Elyse. It's a very popular street in Paris where all the richy riches shop. :) Kind of like a Rodeo Drive. It's really long too. By then it was starting to get dark and we came back to our hotel. Mom and Dad are already sleeping... and I need to go shower and get ready for bed. Gotta get up and leave for Amsterdam tomorrow. WOOHOO!!! Night!!

Europe Trip - Day 1

2008-08-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Plane ride and Paris, France

This is where it all starts! :) Me and my mom just waiting for the plane to take off.

I love watching the clouds from outside the plane window... they're so cool!

Finally made it to France. Walking around Paris trying to find our hotel :) ha

Oh look... we found it.

It's a little snug, but it's all part of the fun, right??

Our transportation in Paris. Gotta love the subway

Welcome to the Lourve!

Ah.... Mona Lisa's smile.

16th Century porn! HAHAHA j/k

The Venice de Milo is breathtaking!

Taking a walk down the river Seine... I love the bridges

Some people just can't keep their hands off each other in a public park. GEEZ!! :)

SOOO.... today is the first day of my trip. This morning was just fine getting to the airport thanks to my brother Jamey (YOU ROCK!!). The first part of the flight from SLC to Atlanta wasn't bad at all... the in flight movie was "Made in Manhattan". It wasn't that great of a movie, but parts of it took place in Scotland so I got to see a glimps of what I'm in for towards the end of my trip. WOOHOO!! Then the flight from Atlanta to France... ouch. Talk about long. I didn't want to sleep till after they served us dinner, so I started watching the movie which was that second Narnia movie... Prince Caspian... or whatever. I ate and finished watching the movie and realized I only had like 4 hours to try and sleep, but i wasn't tired anymore. Thank goodness for Advil PM. Helped me fall asleep... too bad planes aren't comfortable to sleep on. It hurt after a while. We finally land... I'm half awake... and we wait for my dad to catch up with us (he flew United and we flew Delta). We grabbed a bus to Paris... wandered around trying to find our hotel and finally found it, but the room wasn't ready. So we found a place to eat like 5 doors down, but it was all in French and the lady tried to help us, but everything was like liver or beef steak. so we just went for a salad, which wasn't bad. :) After we got things settled in the room we headed off for the Louvre via subway. Lots of walking today... and we were already exhausted... so the Lourve was all we really did today. I loved it though! Now we're back in our room trying to wait to go to sleep. It was a great first day and I hope you all enjoy the pictures!! By the by... I apologize for the ones that are sideways... I'm still trying to figure out this blogging thing. Hopefully I'll be able to fix them soon. :) LATERS!!!

U of U Graduation

2008-08-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

GO UTES!!!

Heading out to the future... Ugh!

Can you tell I'm nervous? :)

Was so happy to see family and friends afterwards

So I know this is late, BUT I just got the pics from my brother and I didn't officially graduate till I finished my summer school class. Which I just found out I passed with an "A". WOOHOO!!! So here are my graduation pictures. I am very grateful for all my family and friends who were able to come and support me. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! :)