Thank you, Lois!

I want everyone to know that Lois is phenomenal! We counted our European vacation as our 14-year dating anniversary. Granted it was her turn, per tradition, to plan what we’d do to celebrate she planned and searched and researched the whole trip by her self! Yes, she asked me for my opinion on things from time to time, but ultimately she got all the tickets and everything taken care of, making this anniversary one to remember forever. I don’t know how I’m ever going to top this. I would totally hire her as a travel agent too! We paid the lowest prices we could for traveling with children and in the most comfortable way too. Even better, she followed promptings from the Holy Ghost to purchase tickets, hotel rooms, restaurants and so on! Obviously, that’s not all that makes her the greatestest, (extra e-s-t was intentional) woman ever, but I wanted to give Lois the credit she deserves! 

This is what forever families are all about!! We went to Europe with the main focus of our trip being to serve in the temple. Heavenly Father blessed us so much that we were able to go to the temple 3 times and one time we got to go together because there was someone willing and someone we could trust to watch our kids! The girls may be a little young to remember any of this in the future, but I tried to take lots of pics and vids to capture as much as I could so that they realized that because we first sought the kingdom of God that we were blessed with  an amazing trip and we did it all as a family.

I love you for time and all eternity, Lois! Thanks for some of the best memories I’ll ever have and for making this a very special anniversary.

Venice, Italy

At the last minute we decided to go to Venice for the day before our flight.  Really it didn't work out to well, but was well worth it.  We wanted to leave in the morning first thing but our girls were way too tired and Marzia had a Dr apt mid morning and would not be able to get us to the train station.  So then we were headed for a 12:50 trastain but did not make it in time.  So we ended up on a 1:50 train and got here about 3:30.  We then looked around for the B&B that we had looked into that morning and walked about at least 45 minutes.  Then were were blessed and saw a travel agency and went in to book a hotel.  We got all the info we needed to get around from the travel agent. We changed location and found a hotel close to the airport because our flight leaves tomorrow morning.  So we finally got to our hotel dropped stuff off and then headed by bus to Venice at about 5pm.  So much for a day in Venice.  But it was well worth it.  We simply went and walked around.  We marveled again at the building and art.  We ate an expensive ok tasting Italian dinner and walked some more.  Venice was by far our favorite PLACE in Italy even if were were only there for 3 hours.  However of course being with our friends was the most fun.

One of our first views of Venice.

Of course there were many shops selling Venetian masks.

Yeah, here, no cars.  Water is the way of transportation. 

 

Kenya neat the water.  Both of the girls loved that the city was in the water!

We actually only saw one private gondola on the water and there were 3 Asian men inside it. 

Kenya really wanted to take pictures here.

 

On our first water bus.  Yes, they have boats that work as buses in Venice.  NICE!

Jasmin and I enjoying the boat ride and looking with awe at this city!

These masks were more fancy and of course more expensive.  They were pretty awesome!

At dinner in Venice, Italy.  I cannot believe we were actually there. 

We walked around and took the water buses around.  Most of our pictures of are before the sun went down.  We did make it to San Marco square.

We got back to our wonderful hotel about 9:30 and our girls are fast asleep.  We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.  We fly home to Wuhan, China via Paris.  I hope all goes well.  I am sure it will.  These girls have been such troopers.  All we ask is one more day. 

Bologna, Italy

On Monday we went int Bologna with Cristiano, our friend whom we were staying with.  He was headed there for work and so we got free ride there.  We spend all day there and returned to his home in the evening with him.  Again we were just amazed at being in the presents of so many beautiful things and old things!!  We walked day Independence Ave which is a lot of shopping and then to the big square and tourist building and such.  We went into 3 churches and saw a lot of wonderful building and art.  We were there on Monday and all of the museums are closed on Mondays, bummer, but would the girls really enjoy those.

This was a bridge that we crossed over to start our journey in Bologna.

This is what was below the bridge.  Unfortunately there was not information about.  We assumed it was the really old bridge.

More art.  Jasmin is really into horses right now for of course we got a picture by it.

This was attached to the bridge we crossed.  I sure wish I knew what it was. I would have loved to know the history.

This was an entrance to some offices with a beautiful courtyard in the middle.

This picture is of where the first university was in Bologna.  I learned information about what this place was by listening into an English tour group going through. 

Many of the churches we saw through out of trip were Catholic churches of course because of the Roman Empire and influence.  The art work was wonderful!

St. Dominic Church

Apparently somewhere in the church there as a Michelangelo statue.  Nothing was labeled or at least not in English.

One of the many offering alters.

Yummy!  This is where we bought a snack. 

Doesn't this scream Italian!!

 The last tourist site we saw was the "Former Jewish Ghetto."   This was my one piece of WWII history that I got glimpse of.  It is still very much a ghetto.  I think this was the only museum in all of Bologna that was open.  We got to go in.  The museum was more of an overall Jewish history museum, but it did include a small amount of the WWII history.  Interesting.  As we were walking the streets I was able to ponder that this very spot is where the Nazi's (and others I learned) confined the Jews.  If I had more time and was not trying to appease 2 small children I could have gotten overwhelmed by the feels I felt as I thought about it.  What horror there must of have been on those very streets.  What horrible crimes against humanity must have been committed.  I know that the Italian did not follow all of the orders from the Nazi Party about Jews during the war so I am sure much worse happened else where, but I cannot imagine what went on in those streets and the feeling the Jews at that time must have felt. 

This is a picture of the tribute to the Jew from this area that died in the Holocaust.

Afterward we did a little shopping and had the BEST Italian meal.  It was the Italian food that people rave about.  (Really until this point we were wondering what all the rave was about!)

That night we went back to our friends house and I then cooked hamburgers and fried chicken for their oldest son's birthday party.  There was also so very yummy homemade Italian food.  We partied hard late into the night (like 11:00pm, but that is late for children who are use to going to bed at about 8:00pm).

Reno Centese, Italy

We were blessed to have friends in Italy to stay with.  We actually met these friends randomly in Wuhan, China.  They lived in the same giant apartment complex as we do.  We met them actually after we had only been in Wuhan for a couple of weeks.  We then began close friends.  It is wonderful and  our children play together.  They have 3 children and are expecting their 4th with a month.  Really we love them!! We really just wanted to hang out with them and see a little of Italy.  And that is just what we did.  For the first few days we ate at some restaurants and ran errands with them.  It was nice for the girls to have children to play with and just relax.   The first week we just went site seeing and really the girls didn't have a lot of time to just play.  They fed us good Italian food and we enjoyed excellent company.
Italy is not the most friendly place we have been.  Really.  There is not explanations of their building or site seeing places and I don't mean in English.  The Italian are clueless as to the history and details of things because they are just not posted anywhere.  That was frustrating for me.  I wanted to know how old things were what they were used for and so on.  Germany was wonderful for that!!  
On Saturday we went into Ferrara and say an Italian castle.  It had a mote and everything!  We were able to walk around and experience the culture.  We only spent a few hours there at sunset so the picture are scares and not very good.

This is one of the churches in Ferrara.

We had to get a picture of a pizza place.  This is very common to see.

Beautiful Italian streets of Ferrara

A Church in Ferrar

All the kids and me. 

Wonderful art on every building!

Approaching the castle as dusk.

The Estes Castle.

This castle even still has a moat around it.  COOL!

A cool looking torch as we entered in the square of the castle grounds.

This castle is famous for the Estes Cannon and we think these must be some of the cannon balls.  They were all over the grounds.

Here we are again posing on the cannon balls.

Jasmin conquered the stack.

We think this is a replica of one of the cannons.

So then on Sunday Marzia's very traditional Italian momma made tortellini.  From scratch.   She made the pasta, rolled it out, cut it and then stuffed it with an amazing filling of cheese and meat which she made from scratch.  She TRIED to teach us.  It is hard! 

Next to me is Marzia's mom and in the background our friends Marzia and Cristiano.

This is some beef that we treated ourselves too.  Yummy tender beef.  We do not see much of it in China.

We had a wonderful time with our friends!  We ate at a few local restaurants with them and the children PLAYED a lot!  Every night we were there we were up past 10:00pm having fun.  One thing that we learned about Italian is that they eat late.  It took our girls a couple days to adjust.  I mean they don't eat dinner until sometime after 8:00pm.  We usually eat around 5:30 and are going to bed at 8.  We had to do a lot of snacking.