The Big Move Update

So everything out of the house is gone. Matt has been working his tail off for many days now cleaning and getting ready for us to check into the hotel. In some ways it feels like we just arrived in Italy and in other ways it feels like we've been here for a very long time. Our movers were very nice, three were from Romania, one from Italy. They were friendly and good workers. They had us all packed up and loaded in 1 1/2 days, which is simply amazing to me! I'm not sure how many crates we ended up having, coming over we had 7. I know we went over that, yesterday alone they loaded up 6. But I'm sure we are still way under our 16,000 + lb. allotment. Matt was joking with the guys that about 2,000 lbs of that was dishes. I was laughing, ha, ha, ha, and the one guy who packed most of it said, "Yeah, that's about right, 2,000 lbs." Oops! Well, it's nice to have the house packed up, now we need to clean the beast, UGH!

Overload

I posted a bunch all a once, I'm using internet at home on borrowed time. It was supposed to be turned off yesterday, but for some reason, we still have it today. Our landline has been turned off, but our internet remains, so I took advantage of having it this morning to post some recent fun. Our computer will go to Utah tomorrow with our first shipment of things, so I will have to be using Matt's computer at work or the computers at the library. We are counting down the days and getting very excited to make our way to Utah!

Branch Farewell

The Pettys were so nice to host a goodbye party for us and the Frosts who are making their way back to the states as well. We had a wonderful evening, they have a beautiful house and yard!


We played...


We chatted...


We ate...


It was such a nice evening. Here is us with the Frosts, we are really going to miss everyone! The Frosts live in Denver, we hope to see them before too long!



The topper of the evening was the scooter rides that Frank gave to each of the kids, they LOVED it! Ellie is smiling from ear to ear!!

One last trip to Switzerland

Twelve of us in the branch were able to make the trip to the temple in Bern. The Davis family in our branch were sealed in the temple, it was an awesome trip!! I have to hand it to the temple staff, they were ready for people speaking many different languages. It was a wonderful experience.


This is the Davis family with the beautiful Swiss temple behind them.


We went home by way of Interlaken. It was nice to see that gorgeous area one last time. Here are the Openshaws, missionaries in our branch.

This picture is so washed out, doesn't even do the real thing justice!!

Beautiful Tuscany

We began our journey in Vinci, as in Leonardo "di Vinci." We visited two museums there, it was fun to see a lot of Leonardo's inventions. They were things that he had drawn and someone had created from the drawings.


The first museum was cool, kind of cave-like.

One of the flying machines.


One last visit to the leaning tower.


Florence was our next stop. This is the huge cathedral there.


We also visited Michelangelo's David, an awesome sight. We were not allowed to take pictures, but here is a picture of a copy that is in a piazza outside the Uffizi Gallery.



We went to Siena, which we loved!



We also loved San Gimingano. Sydney was able to ger her favorite strawberry gelato.



Matt was able to get a couple of scoops from the Gelato World Champion 06/07 gelateria.


I thought I'd finish with a picture of the beautiful Tuscan countryside.