Christmas Around the World

So Friday I went with all the 6th grade classes to Christmas Around the World. It's at the BYU Marriot Center and the BYU Folk Dancers put it together. Of course I make all my students dress up in their Sunday best. It is seriously my favorite day. My kids usually act a little better because they are in nice clothes and my class is already a little crazy so... it makes for a great day!! It was an eventful day to say the least. Several things happened this day that was not my favorite but tomorrow is another day. Here is a little pic of them looking so adorable and then of course we always have to have a funny pic.

Oh geez I forgot to mention that one of my little darlings was goofing around on the bus and kind of dislocated the tip of his finger and couldn't put it right again. Luckily, he said it didn't hurt and it didn't look broken. But me, being the mean teacher that I am made him sit up front by me the rest of the way. Also, can I say, Thank goodness for parent volunteers. They make field trips so much easier, and likable.

Italy 2008 Yeah!!

So apparently I really suck at keeping up with this here blog so here is the low-down. I recently got back from Italy and it was amazing I loved every single second of it. I went on a tour group with a bunch of young high school students so here was me age 26, my roommate age 26, and her little sister age 24, all out and about with these little 16 year olds. But it really was fun and we got to see a lot really cool things.



We started out in Nice, France and stayed a day there and then went on to Morocco, France. Morocco was absolutely beautiful and the homes there are ridiculously huge. Also, if you have ever seen the movie "Money Pit" the old lady that sold them the house in the first place moves to Morocco and I promise you that I saw the house that she lives in. Anyways, it was amazing. There was this beautiful cemetery at the top of this hill where all the graves were above ground. After that we stayed in this amazing little lodge like place and I have to admit that I fell in love with it. We took our tour bus up these amazingly small roads clear up the mountain very close to the Swiss borders.



We went on to Pisa and the architecture of these buildings are amazing and unbelievable that they actually did this without any of the technology of today. I don't think that they could do these things now that they did then. It's amazing that the Leaning tower is standing still because it looks like it is just a picture that doesn't look real. We only got to spend a couple of hours here and I wish that I would have went up into the museum, but it was a lot of Euros so I didn't.



Florence was next and the bus wasn't aloud in the city so we had to walk our luggage to the hotel luckily it wasn't very far. Here I got to see some of the coolest art I have ever seen personally in my life. I couldn't take any pictures of course because it was not aloud but, I got to see "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli and it was amazing I'll be honest, I cried.




We got to go on a tour of the Cinque Terre and took a beautiful hike from one city to the next and I got to see some real grape vinyards and little cottages along the cliffs. It was so amazing! This was probably one of my favorite places it just was so unrealistic, surreal really. The only way in was by train and on the way I met some ladies that were on a girls tour of Italy, I thought that that was so awesome anyways, on with the tour.





Back on the bus we headed to Venice, the land of many waters, haha!! We stayed on the mainland at a hotel that was close to the beach. We got to spend some time on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. It's true I got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea! On the beach, the tide had left a tide pool with all these little sea creatures in it and so we had a lot of fun looking for them. I couldn't resist taking a few fun pics of them and this guy in a speedo who was looking for muscles. So enjoy that pic!! The next day we got on a boat and headed to Venice. We took a tour of the city and learned a lot of fun things, and then we took a tour of the Venetian Glass Company, which of course I bought something including some earings that I love.




The next day we headed out early, and I mean early to get to Rome, but on the way we made a quick stop to Verona, the place where the story of Romeo and Juliet was born and I saw the actual balcony. It was such an awesome city. I wish I would have gotten to spend a little more time there but alas we had to get back on the bus and head toward Rome. The bus dropped us off in Monaco where we caught the train into Rome. We had to bring all of our luggage with us and the train ride was four hours long. We got into Rome and checked into our hotel. We then got ready for dinner and went out to see Rome at night. They light up all the ruins at night and it is so beautiful!!! The next day we spent all day in Rome seeing beautiful ruins and hearing many stories of the ancient romans. And that was about it for the tour but it was the best ever.

Yeah Wyoming!

My family decided to go to the Rendevou in Fort Bridger Wyoming. We of course took a few cute pics in the front by the monument. My brother in-law is from around that part of Wyoming so my sister thought it would be really fun to go. The boys decided to grow out their beards for it and actually made a pact that they wouldn't shave it until after the Rendevous. Also, if you dressed up you got in for free. So of course we did. My sister got all these pioneer clothes from their ward treck and I had an old Indian Halloween costume that I wore. We camped out and played in the lake but it ended up being too windy to actually go skiing but we had a lot of fun cliff jumping instead. Mark, Debbies husband jumped off an 80 foot cliff, we all thought he was crazy and was going to die. I just jumped off about 18 feet, which is a big deal for me.

Fort Bridger

It was so much fun. I love the elephants. They were so cute holding each others tails like in Jungle Book. After the circus we all went up into the canyon, p.s. by the way I of course am in hills, and we climb onto this huge rock (bolder) that overlooked a waterfall. It was so cool and I did just fine in my hills thank you very much.

Yeah the Circus!!

K so I went on this blind-date with my friends little brother. It was a double date and we actually went to the Circus! I loved it every minute. We got to sit on the ground floor so the ring master and the elephants were literally within feet of me. I tried to take a few pics but they are a little dark. Hopefully you can see them cause it was so much fun. A night I will soon not forget!!