It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I don't think there's any time of year that I love more than the spring. I love the bike rides. I love all the baby animals out with their mothers. I love the option of wearing a sweater OR a t shirt and being comfortable in either. I love putting back on my flip flops. I love the kids being out on the trampoline all afternoon long. I love the clocks being set forward and an extra hour of sunlight in the evenings. I love eating outside again. I love the tulips blooming. I love walks after dinner to the local ice cream shop for dessert.  I love it all.

Even though we won't be here for the "harvest" Matt wanted to plant a little garden with the kids so they can watch it grow.  We're excited to garden on a much LARGER scale when we get to Oklahoma.  We have gotten to enjoy the tulips blooming though.  

My kids love planting.

Saturday we broke out the bikes for our first big bike ride of spring.  Hallie is finally able to hold her own on our rides.  We were out for 2 hours and she did so good.  Didn't even complain once.  

I'm really going to miss these kinds of bike rides.  It's just so beautiful here.

And here is Flat Stanley.  My nephew Owen sent him to Hallie and Stanley has some pretty exciting adventures coming up.

It's a good thing Hallie can hold her own on our bike rides now, because we needed to free up a seat in the trailer for this little girlie.  She was an angel for our ride and even took a nice nap.

Flat Stanley loves bike rides.

Flat Stanley also loves chocolate brochens from the local bakery.  Hallie loves them too.

Happy kids.

Chocolate face.

Caught being handsome.

I call this Chase's "The Grinch who stole Christmas" smile.  

I am addicted to this baby girl.  

As winter draws to an end there are a lot of other things drawing to an end.  One of the most exciting is the end of Matt's masters degree.  Last class is next month and this is the stack of books he started selling on Amazon.  There was another stack equally tall that he already returned to the education office (that he borrowed) and the library.  Seeing these books leave my house brings me MUCH joy.  Maybe we can have a little break from education for a while.....

Pompeii /slash/ Amalfi Coast

We really loved Pompeii.  Once again, I have to thank Rick Steve's for that.  If you ever get a chance to go and see it, DO!  I'm sure you don't need a history lesson (although I did) but Pompeii was buried in Ash when Mt Vesuvius erupted in about 60 A.D.  The ash preserved this ancient city.  I was TOTALLY blown away by how advanced everything was.  I could go into the nitty gritty of all the engineering genius, but you'd get bored.  I was fascinated.  Anyways, here's the pics!

Here we are in what would have been the "town square" with Mt Vesuvius in the background.

If I remember correctly this was the temple. 

Eating a little snack in some old, dead, rich dudes house.

No one I would rather adventure with.

The real low point of our day was when Matt dropped my ipad on some nice, stone ruins.  I almost had a heart attack because I love my ipad almost as much as my children.  Just kidding. Kind of. 

Anyways, thank goodness for ipad covers.  It survived without a scratch.

This is Matt also loving Rick Steves.

This picture was taken in the Brothel.  Seriously, nice little town with friendly corner brothel.  And this was one of the "beds" where services were received.  There were even pictures painted above the rooms that were basically pornography which are believed to be a sort of "menu" for services offered.  From a conservative Christian perspective the thought crossed my mind, "now we know why your town got buried in ash." just kidding.  Seriously though, the paintings were pretty graphic.... and well preserved.

Highlight of the trip to Pompeii:  Hallie lost her first tooth while we were there!  It was very very exciting.  Much more exciting than your average "lose your tooth over the bathroom sink" experience.

Another shot of Pompeii.

Ahhhh, heaven.  I want to live on the Amalfi coast. 

Toothless grin.

"A model, idiot." -name that movie.

speaking of models, I don't know why they chose to strike this pose.

Goodbye Amalfi, Pompeii, and Rome.  We loved you muy mucho!

ROMA!!

So we went to Rome and it was pretty neat.  It was definently a biggie that we had not yet seen, and with May (moving month) quickly approaching we figured we HAD to check this one off of our list.  We rented an apartment just a 10 minute walk from the Collosseum with some friends of ours.  The location was ideal.  We also took two days while we were there to see Pompeii, Naples, and the Amalfi coast.  I'll post those later.

You'll have to excuse the five million bazillion pictures with the Collosseum in the background, I just couldn't stop myself.  It's such a cool back drop for pictures.  I also couldn't resist putting up this picture because of the look on Chase's face.  It just screams "sisters are annoying".  Love it.  Sibling love.

Here's a much happier little boy.

I know, I know, you think my husband is hot. 

extreme closeup.

My kids have NO comprehension of how cool their lives are.  They think it's totally normal to see the things they see and eat the food they eat (pizza in naples?  may as well have pizza hut as far as they were concerned).

While Hallie and Chase were both REALLY good on this trip, the most well behaved child award goes to.....PAIGE! She is just an angel baby.  And look at those delicious cheeks! 

Seriously, I think her neck gets tired from holding up those cheeks.

How many of us girls have dreamed about going to Rome with our best friend?  Hallie and Rhiannon like to check their dreams off of their list at a young age. 

So this spartan looking man MAY have snatched my baby out of my arms and went and stood with her for a picture.  I MAY have felt the need to bathe her in hand sanitizer when we got her back.

The kidlets just cruising around Rome.

The kids admiring the Forum.

He's taken.

Funny story about this arch ( I don't remember what it's called).  Europeans LOVE their arches.  You're not a cool city if you don't have a few arches around.  Well we read out of our Rick Steve's travel book the history of this arch, only we were looking at a different arch in a different area.  Then we realized we had the wrong arch, so we found another one and thought THAT was the right arch.  Well, it wasn't.  Third arch is a charm!  This was the one we had learned a little something something about.

Hallie in front of the Trevi fountain.

The photo album this girl already has, it's unreal. 

I am having a love affair with Rick Steve's.  I just wish I had discovered his traveling helpfulness 3 1/2 years ago!  Seriously, if you're going to travel....get his books.  And you know the audio guides you can rent at different sites (westminster abbey, tower of london, collosseum, pantheon, pompeii, the list goes on and on) well the guides will cost you 10 buck.  BUT, you can download Rick Steve's pod casts for free and listen to your ipod while you tour (and get a better tour in my opinion). BINGO.  Loved this.

Tired little girl.

The Vatican.  The husband. 

The children. 

The baby.  Yes, I had a Mom fail and let her fingernails get WAY too long, hence the scratched up face.  Isn't she the most delicious?

Above Vatican City.  (did you know it's its own country?  Smallest in the world.)

For you fellow Mormons out there...this is the site of the Rome, Italy Temple being built.  We may have had to climb a wall to take this picture....but we feel like the church will forgive us.  :) 

Up next: Pompeii.