I Can't Believe I Missed It!

Yesterday, April 29th, was Jeffrey's one year anniversary on his mission, and I didn't blog about it! Granted, I am in Paris at the moment, and we are busy, but I still feel bad I didn't post something on such a momentous day!

So, pretend today is April 29th. One year ago I was sitting in IHOP with Jeffrey. He was getting ready to have his free breakfast. We were counting down the hours until we would drop him off at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). He was excited and a little nervous. I was excited, nervous, sad, and lots of other emotions.

He spent two months at the MTC where he began to learn Spanish. Then he spent 10 weeks working hard in the Salt Lake City South Mission and waiting for his Mexican visa to come. In mid-September he finally made it to the Mexico Veracruz Mission, where he has been working ever since.

Here's one of my most recent pictures of Jeffrey with a sweet little boy he baptized. I have the little boy's name somewhere, but I don't have time to search for it.
Jeffrey is loving his mission. He is loving serving the Lord and he is loving the people of Mexico. I'm so proud of Jeffrey for choosing to sacrifice two years of his life to go and spread the gospel. I miss him a lot, but I wouldn't want him to be anywhere else right now. He is growing so much. He is learning and experiencing things that will help him throughout his whole life.

Jeffrey, I love you! Happy one year mission anniversary! May your second year be even better than your first!

Oh, and since next Sunday is Mother's Day, I get to talk to him on the phone! I can't wait for that call!

Stresa, Isola dei Pescatori, and Isola Bella, Italy

Kimberly is here visiting (hurray!), so on April 23rd we drove to the town of Stresa, which is located on Lake Maggiore. Stresa was a very pretty town, but I didn't take any pictures of it. All of my pictures are of two of the islands we visited.

We took a city motor boat service out to the islands. I was amazed at how many people would come pouring out of those boats! It was like a clown car without the overcrowded feeling.

Our first stop was the Isola dei Pescatori, which is a working fishing village. With lots of stalls selling stuff to tourists! I love those stalls!

Here are Kimberly and Scott standing at the water's edge. I'm not quite sure why they are posed that way...
Next we took the motor boat to Isola Bella. This is a picture of the palace gardens.
This is a picture of the palace - Palazzo Borromeo - built in the 1600s.
We enjoyed touring the palace, which was filled with gigantic marble rooms and interesting stone grottos. But the gardens were even more spectacular. So many flowers! Such vibrant colors! I took pictures of some of them. Sadly, I don't know what any of them are!


Can you spot Kimberly behind the bush? Her coat blends right in!
I love the way they shaped this tree.
I love even more this picture of Kimberly and Scott under the same tree.
We were thrilled to see these beautiful white peahens sitting on the lawn.
And then we saw this beautiful peacock perched way up high on a statue. Actually, we heard him first. Peacocks are very loud.
But none of those compared to this beautiful guy - showing off his tail feathers. He must have stood that way for 10 minutes. And what was interesting was that he just kept turning around in circles. He stayed in the same spot the whole time, he just kept rotating. Sadly, none of the peahens were even paying any attention to him! But we sure appreciated the show! We actually saw two different peacocks with their tail feathers out. Talk about our lucky day!

After that, we took the motor boat back to Stresa, where we ate lunch, did some shopping, and had gelato. It was a great day trip, made even better by having Kimberly here.

Bellagio, Italy

On April 19th, I went with a group of four other American ladies to the town of Bellagio, Italy. Our plan was to drive to the city of Como, park the car, and take the ferry to Bellagio. When we got to Como, however, we were having problems finding parking. So DeeAnn, our fearless driver, decided to just drive to Bellagio. The distance between the two towns is 36 kilometers (a little over 22 miles). The roads, however, are narrow and windy, which meant the relatively short distance took us 45 minutes to drive! 45 rather nerve-racking minutes, I might add. But we finally made it! And it was well worth the tension!

Since it was already 11:30, we decided to go shopping first. You never know if shops are going to close for a few hours in the afternoon - even in tourist areas. About half the shops in Bellagio closed, so it was good we shopped when we did. Shopping was a workout. This is the view looking back down the steps we climbed to go shopping. And I wasn't even at the top! The shops lined the hill on either side. We found some really fun stuff. I fell in love with a small 3 piece nativity, but it was very expensive, so I was good and left it behind.

After shopping and eating lunch, we wandered around admiring the scenery. We saw so many beautiful flowers, including these, which I have been told are called Banks roses.
We had fun looking at the interesting buildings.
We admired the views looking out across the lake. Too bad my pictures never do it justice.
Bellagio was a beautiful town. It was a lot of fun to explore, and well worth the white knuckle drive!

Venice, Italy

We went to Venice the weekend of April 9th and 10th. We took the train there, and then rode a vaporetto (water bus) to the Piazza San Marco, where our hotel was located. The vaporetti aren't as romantic as a gondola, but they are much cheaper.

We did see a lot of gondolas as we cruised along the Grand Canal to the Piazza. The gondoliers are required to wear striped shirts, black pants, and black close-toed shoes. The traditional flat hats are optional - we didn't see too many of them. We decided not to ride in a gondola for a number of reasons. As I said before, they are expensive - about 100 euros for a ride (which is about $145). Plus (and probably the main reason), Robert and I weren't sure we could get into a gondola without capsizing the thing! And if we did get into the gondola, we weren't sure we would ever make it out again! We didn't ride, but we sure did enjoy watching them.
We made it to the Piazza San Marco and began the hunt for our hotel. We had been instructed to walk through the arch under the Torre dell'Orologio (clock tower). After doing that, we made our way through a number of teeny tiny streets until we found our hotel - the Best Western Hotel Montecarlo (which seemed like a strange name for a hotel in Venice). By the way, the clock tower was completed in 1499. I'm constantly amazed that I've been seeing buildings that are 500 to 1000 years old!
After settling in, we went and got lunch - at the Hard Rock Cafe. So nice to get barbecued ribs! And a milk shake for Scott! And ice in my Coke Light! We bought Scott the obligatory Hard Rock Cafe Venice t-shirt, then headed back to the Piazza. We took an elevator to the top of the Campanile (free standing bell tower) of the Basilica of St. Mark's. Here's a view of the city. You can't even tell there are all sorts of small canals down there.
Here's a view of the five domes of the Basilica of St. Mark's.
Here's a view of one of the bells in the bell tower. We were all glad they no longer ring those bells! I don't think our hearing could have withstood the noise!
Here's a picture of the arch above one of the doors of the Basilica of St. Mark's.
Next we took a vaporetti to the Rialto Bridge. As you can see from the number of people on the bridge, it offers an excellent view of the Grand Canal.
So we took pictures. I love the gondolas. I love how the old buildings are all so different.
The motor boats and vaporetti kind of detract from the beauty of the Grand Canal, but they are sure a lot quicker means of transportation!
I even managed to convince Scott to let me take a picture of him.
One of the coolest things about the Rialto bridge was that while you could view the Grand Canal from either side of the bridge, the interior of the bridge was lined with shops. Lots and lots of amazing shops! Suffice it to say, I had a lot of fun in the shops!

We decided to walk back to the Piazza San Marco, which was interesting. We had a map, but the street names never seemed to match up. Thank goodness someone had taken the time to write "San Marco" with an arrow pointing in the right direction at the end of most of the streets. Who knew I would ever be grateful for graffiti!

The next day we took a vaporetto to the island of Murano. Murano has been the home to Venetian glassmakers since 1291. When I found out we were moving to Italy, one of the things I wanted to do was go to Murano and see a glass blowing demonstration. We had to spend 15 minutes listening to a high pressure salesman ("You only need to spend 450 euros, and we will ship to America for free"), but then we got to see the demonstration. We watched this blob of glass....

... be transformed into this beautiful vase in about 5 minutes.
We had to buy a couple of things. I have a small collection of eggs, so this was calling to me! It's hard to get a picture that shows how pretty it is.
We also bought this vase. Robert actually picked it out. He loved the color (which is a deep, dark, rich reddish/maroon) and the shape. Those were our two treasures.
Venice was amazing! Such a beautiful and unique city. I am so glad we got to visit - even Scott admitted that was one of the places he wanted to see while in Italy.

Scott's Adventure on the Train

We took the train to and from Venice last weekend. I enjoy the train. Scott hated the train before this trip, and after what happened to him, he now detests the train!

The seats on the train are set up so there are four seats on each side of the aisle. Two seats will face the other two seats, with a little table in between. When you buy tickets, Trenitalia assigns your seats, so you hope you're sitting near the people you're riding with.

On the way up, we had the nice seating. Robert and I were on one side of the table and Scott was on the other. The other seat was taken by some random Italian man who was with two women across the aisle. That trip was fine.

On the trip back, Robert and I were on one side of the aisle and Scott was across the aisle from us. The other three seats in his foursome were taken by 3 middle aged Italian women traveling together. Scott said he moved over in his seat as far as he could, to give the lady next to him her space. Then he fell asleep (as only a teenager can do).

When he awoke, he discovered that the woman across from him had put her foot on the seat between him and the lady next to him! And not her shoed foot - her bare foot! Scott was disgusted, to say the least! He said if he had been awake when she did it, he would have said something, but it was too late by the time he woke up.

I can not believe that someone would be so rude. Or maybe I can...

We still have to ride the train to Rome and back sometime. We may have to drag Scott onto the train!

Brian's Free!

Brian got out of the hospital today! Hooray! He's still recovering from the nasty staph infection in his elbow, but the doctors feel that he doesn't need the really strong IV antibiotics anymore. He just needs to finish the antibiotics that were originally prescribed.

I'm so glad he's out of the hospital. I hated being over here while he was in there.

I'm also glad we have insurance so we only have to pay a small portion of the $18,376.00 hospital bill!

I Hate This!!

I hate the fact that Brian is in the hospital in College Station and I'm thousands of miles away in Italy!

He's got a staph infection in his elbow. It started as a little pimple on Saturday and continued to grow and turn into an ugly abscess. He went to the Health Center on Wednesday and they gave him antibiotics. On Thursday his arm was more swollen and painful so he went to the ER. They tried to drain the abscess, but weren't very successful. Then they gave him a round of IV antibiotics and sent him home. When he woke up today his arm was more swollen and red, so he went back to the ER. That's when they decided to admit him.

I talked to the ER doctor and he told me that what Brian has - Community Acquired MRSA - is very common in college towns. He said they see two or three cases of it every shift. They have put him on a very strong antibiotic - one you can only get in hospitals. Hopefully, he'll start to get better. But they may have to do some minor surgery so they can get the abscess to drain. That may be what it takes to start the healing. I hope they decide what they are going to do soon.

I absolutely hate that I am in Italy right now. If I were home, I would have headed up to College Station today and parked myself there until he was better. You have no idea how badly I just want to hop on a plane and go home to see him.

Even though he's almost 23, I still want to be there for him at times like this.