Rome part:1

Monday: Upon arriving in Rome, we decided to purchase two day tickets for the bus tour around the city.  We rode around the whole loop looking to see what there was and to make notes as to what we wanted to come back to see later.  Our first stop was the Presidential Palace.  This was in the middle of the city, nothing like the White House or Buckingham Palace, where they are set apart and you are aware it is a place or importance.  There were a few police guards in front, but I could've walked up and touched the building (well, maybe).  We also walked up the Spanish Steps, no flowers yet, so not so spectacular.  We also spent the day walking around Quirinal Hill, where our hotel was.  The US Embassy was a block away and they wouldn't let me take a photo of the building, darn!

This is the Trevi Fountain.  It was beautiful!  I am standing on the stairs at a nearby church.  With the construction and people everywhere this was the best spot for a photo of the whole thing.  It was just a facade with a building behind it.  Sarah and I loved it, the guys didn't think it was all that...  We met a British couple who were here and had their I-phone stolen.  He was tapped on the shoulder and when he turned around someone lifted it from his back trouser pocket!  There are little spigots all around the city that are constantly running water.  After spending a lot of money on water bottles, we found out they are from a spring and brought into the city by six of the nine still functioning aquaducts the ancient Roman's built!  And the water was better than the bottled stuff.  I must admit, the Vatican water was the best tasting.

We used hotel points so our friends could stay in the same hotel as us.  We were upgraded to a suite.  We had a huge bedroom and gorgeous bathroom, a living room, and a connecting room for the Taylor's.  This was our elevator, it held eight people.  We didn't believe it though.  Todd is in the middle of it.

Tuesday:  The Pantheon.  Hadrian had this one built on top of the first one in the 100's AD.  Isn't that just crazy old?!  You walk up to this and think, Wow!, this is dirty, and it is compared to all the other building around and then you remember just how old it is.  Then as you get close,r you look up and see all the wonderful craftmanship of the corinthian colomns, then amazed they have survived at all!

Inside was beautiful too, a little muted in the color department.  Which I wondered was from the years or was just toned down in the beginning...  The hole at the center top is actually open and with all the dust, mine and Sarah's allergies came out in force!  It was pretty musty in there, but worth it for sure.  How often do you walk into an almost two thousand year old temple!

The whole idea of a trip to Rome came from our going to be in Europe and wanting to meet up with our friends from England, who happened to just have watched Angels and Demons!  Rome, it is then!  This is the fountain where the last cardinal was chained up and dumped in and Robert jumps in to save him.  The Piazza Navona, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi.  It is actually only about two feet deep, unlike the movie.  It was fun to see so many places in the film!  More to come...

Sydney's Adventures...

At our school's Open House the fifth graders put on a "wax museum" where they choose a character.  They then memorized a paragraph about that person, dressed as them and performed when their hand was touched.  The hallway was full of talking "statues" and parents eagerly trying to hear them.  Sydney was Queen Elizabeth and did a superb job!  This is one of her teachers listening to her perform above, and I suppose grading her as well!

The woman is Sydney's other teacher, they team teach.  She won Renton Teacher of the year award.  She invited Sydney to talk for two minutes about fifth grade.  Syd was really nervous, the room was filled with teachers, family and the Renton school district board!  She was amazing, flying off the cuff, and her speech was perfect!  They all loved her.  Her friend Amanda was able to come as well.  Poor Sydney needs to grow, all you could see was her head and she was wearing heels too!

Happy Birthday Bry!

Bryant turned six on April 5!  He was blinded by the light!  We went to Papa and Nana's for birthday #2 with them and Louise.  Nana goes nuts with holidays, which is so fun!  She had an egg hunt for the kids and luckily it wasn't raining.  Ready, Set, Go!  And their off!

Germany

Todd and I took a much needed holiday!  We were originally headed to Germany to see his brother who had recently been married and it was cheaper to see them in Germany than Missouri for the wedding.  Well... he is in the Air Force and was assigned a TDY, a tour of duty, to France during the time we'd be in Germany to see him, then his wife of four months left him and moved back to the states.  Now no one would be there when we arrived, and it would have cost too much to change our flight.  Then all TDY's were cancelled, so now he would be there.  Todd's dad had a tumor removed from his head and John was summoned home by his sister, so he came.  Now he was in Portland and we were in Germany!  Ugh!  So we rented a car and headed to Rothenburg ob er Tuber.  It was a quaint little village.  I loved it!  Germany is known for it's Christmas shops, and boy were they wonderful!

The streets were so narrow that when you looked up everything seemed to be right on top of you!  This is the church tower.  We met this goth American student, who studies in Holland, outside of this church.  We were debating if we wanted to pay to go in and she got out her booklet and there was supposed to be some carving behind the organ pipes or somewhere that were cool... we opted not to go in.  Remember I am married to a finance guy!  She was very nice and was traveling on the weekend all by herself.  She has been all over Europe, awww to be young and single again!

This was one of the main streets through town, beautiful...  Did you notice the sign in the first photo as well?  All of the shop signs were ornate as this one and yet all different, they were my favorite.  You have to try the hazelnut snowballs, a pastry, delish!

Above all the little shops and down the other streets were housing for the locals.  I just loved the lace window curtains.

Our second day in Germany we took the train in to Frankfurt, which is not really a tourist destination, it is a financial hub or business city.  But we had to do something to kill time, so we looked at all the churches in town.  What was really cool was that for about an hour and a half all the churches took fifteen minute turns ringing their bells to call their congregations to mass!  It really was quite beautiful!  Once mass started, we weren't allowed in to see the church, so we headed to the museums across the river, which turned out to be in remodel and ruined our kill time idea!

Look really closely at the corner stones.  Can you tell where they had rebuilt after WWII?  Amazing!  There was a lot of this here.

As we were crossing the pedestrian bridge we noticed all of these engraved locks all along the bridge, curious!  So I just had to ask someone if they knew anything about them...  legend has it that a couple gets their names and date engraved on a lock and they lock it onto the bridge sealing their love and relationship forever.  She knew of someone who had broken a relationship and it was too bad they were still locked together, no key!  ha ha!

Last night we took a cab to go eat some spetzle, German food.  It wasn't that good, and it was probably our most expensive dinner in our married life together!  Ouch!  So see this wooden box  with a fabric curtain?  Well it says toilette.  There was another box in the other corner of the room.  I was dumbfounded, how can a toilet be in there with everyone sitting right next to it, gross!  I can't believe how naive I can be sometimes!  You enter there and there is a door to a hallway behind it!  I though maybe it was an antique and that is why it was there instead of just a door on the wall, who knows... weird, I say!

I'm Back...

 I finally figured it out!  When Todd replaced my new screen on the laptop, he must have bumped the antenae for the wireless router.  If I sit right next to the router, I can download photos to blogger and facebook!  Now he just needs to fix it so I can sit comfortably!  This is Bryant and his friend, Paulina, who are doing Wii Just Dance.  They were having so much fun!  Below are photos that Bryant took by himself apparently...  too cute!



trial

What the Heck!???

So I have been trying to download photos to blog about and blogger says security alert when I go to select photos from my own computer picture file... has anyone else had this problem?