Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! I am thankful for so much, my family, my friends, my health, my car, my job, my dog, my religion.... I have a good life, and I am thankful for all the good things in my life!

Here We Go Again!

Okay, so as I reported before, I had finally gotten a handle on my desire to eat incessantly, and I was doing well... then the birthday hit, and it all went downhill from there. You know how it goes, you celebrate for a week, and you allow yourself to splurge, and it's bad but you don't care, because it's your birthday... ish. WELL, that is what I did, and I have not been under control since, so now I must begin again, now that all my previous hard work have been destroyed.

I actually started this week... kinda. I did it better, and I worked out 3 days in a row, but that's not gonna cut it with me, so I must continue to strive to do better. If you haven't noticed, my ticker changed at the top, I am once again counting down to another cruise, one that is a mere 4-ish months away. I MUST do better this time. I was SO uncomfortable in my own skin the last time I went, that I didn't enjoy the pool/hot tubs as I should have. I vow to be in control for the remaineder of the year, and into next year, despite the holidays. I must work out, I must eat well, and I must be prepared to enjoy my next cruise, better than I did the last.

So here goes nothing, I'm officially back on the wagon, cheer me on, I could use the support. :)

Okay, Okay, I'll Do It!

I'm a retched blogger, I have a hard time finding the time/desire to blog. BUT, here it is, many months later, and I STILL have not even finished telling me tales of the high seas! So, I will do so and try not to get to crazy with detail. :)

First Stop- Croatia

Standing by a cool alley & Pretending to eat a giant gelato cone.

We got off the ship and promptly got onto a boat that took us around the island to the "Old City". Once we got to the old city, we were given a quick tour and then head off on our own to see what there was. I saw a lovely orange tree, and some cool stuff to photograph... but all in all, Croatia was not that exciting. Don't get me wrong, it's very pretty, and I would visit again, but not during the cooler season, I'd go when it was warmer and hit their lovely beaches. :)

In front of one of many cool buildings in Croatia.

Second Stop- Turkey

In Turkey we went firt to the supposed final home of Mary, the mother of Christ. It was a very pretty area, surrounded by olive trees and it had a tiny little church in the middle of this area where Mary's home once stood. They used the remaining foundation of the former home to buy this church... kinda cool.

Cool Little church. The darker stone at the bottom is the original foundation.

All but one of us for a group photo.


Then we went over to Ephesus (the agent city you read about in the Bible). SO COOL! It was just so amazing to see all that was there and hear about the history. There was quite a large area that was saw and walked through, but our tour guid told us that it wasn't even half of the entire city, there was still a lot of excavating to do.

The group at Ephesus.

The picture at the top of the Turkey story was one I took of what was left of the outside of the library. There was also an are where the politicians met, it was a big stadium looking area, and of course, the theater, another, larger, stadium. The entire city is made of marble, and in the heat of the day, in order to keep cool, they would flood the street to cool things off. There were lots of large fountains all over that supplied the water. Our tour guid told us the story of one of Cleopatra's visits to Ephesus. That year there was a drought, and not enough water to keep the streets cool, but they had an over abundance of wine, so they filled the fountains with wine, and let it flood the streets. Cleopatra was in her room and could smell a sweet aroma coming through her window, so she went to look outside. When she looked out her window, Cleopatra saw the wine flowing down the street, turning the roads red and letting off the sweet smell. Cleopatra thought the wine was in honor of her, so she insisted that the same thing happen wherever she went... and that is where we get rolling out the red carpet. :)

After Ephesus we went to have lunch in an old train... thing... and then to a silk place, and a leather place... and then back to the ship.




Third Stop- Greece (Santorini)

First, we took a boat to shore... then go on another boat. :) We road the boat out to a volcano and hiked it, then went to some hot springs so people could take a swim... I chose not to get in, and I'm glad. We were only there a little while, and the wat er wasn't hot... it was luke warm, and smelled of rotten egs because of the volcano. :)

Then we went back to shore and headed up the mountain. There were two ways up, cable car, or donkey. We chose donkey. It was an interesting ride up. :) Then we grabbed some lunch as a Euro place, yummy, and took a bus to the other side of the island, where The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 was partially filmed.

I LOVED SANTORINI! I still dream I'm back there. It was goreous and the poeple were nice, and I could have stayed forever.

The blue roofs are churches, and they are EVERYWHERE! It's all blue and white there. If someone wants to use a different color, they have to pay a tax for it, because they are trying to keep with the original look.

Fourth Stop- Greece (Corfu)

Another GORGEOUS place. We went off on our own here, no tour groups. Well, us and Jenny's parents. They rented a car and we drove around. We took a boat tour round to some caves, and then we tried to find an olice press, and that was an experience. We asked the guy with the boat where to go, and he directed us, so we thought we were going the right way. We headed up a road that got more and more narrow as we went. Soon we were barely fitting between the buildings. Finally we got to a cross road and tried to turn around. This guy came up on his motorcycle and saw us doing a 1,000 point turn. This man parks his bike, takes off his helmet, lights a cigarette, and got comfortable for the silly American show he was about to watch. CLASSIC!

Finally we get turned around and ask our audiance where to go. He starts to tell us, then he stops and says "Follow me." in his Greek accent and he leads us out to the main road again and the tells us where to go from there. We go where he said to... we still weren't sure where to go, so we asked an old English lady walking her dog who told us to go back where we had just been... AGH! We gave up. So we went to the Archelian Palace, a huge mansion that a lady got as a gift... it was cool, I'd take that as a gift... why doesn' anyone gift me a massive house!?




And... I think I've now told you everything. :)

Funny Update

Last night I went to dinner with some friends, and the conversation led us to talk about the crazy Facebook guy... come to find out, 3 of the oer girls have had THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN! Same guy, same phrases verbatim. So funny. He's a crazy desperate fool. We however had a good laugh over it, so I wanted to share. :)

AGH!

I'm so bugged! Why is it a guy is okay with ANY reason you can give him for not being interested in him, unless it's religious differences. Really!! I could tell a guy I don't want to date him because he smells like rotten fish, and he'd bow out gracefully, but if I don't want to date him because we are on different religious pages, I'm a jerk and the scum of the earth! My goodness, even if he doesn't feel as strong as I do about marrying within my religion, he should want someone he thinks like, etc. You know!? GOSH! I really am bugged! I don't like guys liking me! It just ends up crappy. Guys, if you are smart, please stay away from me! I'm not interested in anyone, I never am, I never will be, make it easier on us both! I'm eternally single! Stupid, stupid boys!

An Exciting Update... Exciting To Me

First of all, this is my second blog today, so there is a new one below this as well.

Well, I haven't said much recently about my efforts to lose weight, so I'm doing so now.

Backing up a little, I gained a little on my cruise (reading the previous blog, you can see why), then I got sick the week after I got home, and threw up for about 24 hours, losing 5 lbs. After being sick, my apitite wasn't very big, but I soon messed that up, and went back to eating as I usually do. THAT, my friends, is my problem. I LOVE FOOD! I LOVE TO EAT! I do, I won't deny it, I won't. Despite working out, I don't change the way I eat THAT MUCH. I eat better when I'm on track, but I still eat a lot. Heathly or not, too much food is too much food.

I have really tried everything to get a handle on eating. I'm weak though. I've pondered not eating... but i love food... and bulemia is out, I hate throwing up, besides, I want to be healthy and have the weight stay off, and I want it to be someinthg that I can continue for life without having to greatly alter my life, cause then I'll fail, so eating disorderes and weird miracle pills and things were out.

SO, last Monday (June 29th), I decided I really need to get a handle on my food consumption or I was never going to lose weight and get back to 8 (or less). I had recently listened to a CD that was part of my ChaLean Extream workout package, and Chalene said something that stuck. She said that eating just 50 calories too many each day, will cause you to gain 10 lbs in a year. So I started to do some math, that means, 100 calories to many each day, and you'd gain 20 lbs in a year, and 150 calories too many each day, would cause you to gain 30 lbs in a year... 30 lbs, that's 2.5 lbs a month... if my body can't burn as many calories as I consume, I was going to put on weight.

Then I started to think about 150 calories... that's nothing! There are so many dinky little 100 cal snacks out there, and I personally could easily eat 2+ in a sitting. Even on the healthy end, one medium sized banana is 105 calories... and I can easily eat a banana. I started to realize what I'd been doing. I was eating relativly well, but I was not thinking about the quantity, just the quality. "I've had a healthy breakfast, a healthy luch, and 2 healthy snacks, I'm doing goo so far today." Than I'd go crazy with food at night when all my cravings would kick in, because I didn't think I was eating bad things.

So how much was I supposed to eat? I decided I would see what Chalene suggested I eat. She recommended to for a woman between 151-181 lbs (which I am), to eat no more than 1,400 calories a day to lose weight. Okay, I was going to do that. I had always poo-pooed calorie counting, thinking it was silly and a waste of time, but I was starting to FINALLY see the light, and it made sense.

Tuesday June 30th, today I would begin my efforts to eat less. First thing in the morning, use the bathroom, strip down, and weigh myself. 165 lbs :(

I was SO diligent! I made myself proud. I didn't eat more than I should, and I ate healthy. THAT was the ticket. I still had to eat healthy. If I wasted precious calories on nutritionless foods and crap that was high cal and not filling, I was going to suffer all day because I would have run out of calories, and I would still be hungry.

Wednesday July 1st. Wake, potty, strip, weight... 164. Cool! :) I kept this up pretty well all week, slipping up Thursday, I went over a little, but doing pretty good. The scale looked like this:

Tuesday June 30- 165
Wednesday July 1- 164
Thursday July 2- 163
Friday July 3- 162
Saturday July 4- 162
Sunday July 5- 160
Monday July 6- 160
Tuesday July 7- 158

Doing the math for you, that's 7 lbs, in 7 days. :) WAHOO!

And the great thing is, I'm not hungry. I'm not eating till I'm full, I'm eating till I'm satisfied, and if I'm really good and keep a good control on the number of calories I eat, I can reward myself with a little treat now and then (still keeping track of the calories) with out messing it all up. And it's easy! I just keep a running tally in my head, or if you are bad with that, write it down. Read labels, and both the internet and a lovely calorie counter book I got, help me know the calories in things without lables (produce, etc.).

I still get cravings, but I aware of how much I've eaten, so I know when it's okay to give in, and when it's not. Monday night I was sitting in my room. I had had most the calories that I could for the day, but I was having mad cravings. I wasn't hungry, I just had the munchies and wanted to eat things. So I thought about what little calories I had left for the day, and went and found a 60 calorie string cheese to eat, and then drank water to keep my mouth busy to bed time. As I was sitting there though, I thought about how before I made this goal to eat this way, I would have thought to myself, "I've eaten healthy today, I'll just go find something healthy to eat and I'll be fine." But not anymore. It's so great. One other thing too, I'm totally all about working out still, but I only worked out twice last week, and twice so far this week, due to time, but I'm still having success.

Oh, and I try to plan my meals a little bit beofre I eat, so that I don't eat all my calories before dinner and leave myself hungry, or with few options in the low, low range.

The scale read 158 still this morning, but as you see, I'm not worried, that's happened before. I'm going out to dinner tonight with friends from work, and I already know where we are going, so I kept my calories tight today, and I went online to look at the menu for the restaurant to see what was a good, healthy, low cal item I could order, and I was happy to find one I'm excited to order tonight, and only 320 calories (add that to what I've already had today, and I'm still 370 calories under my limit..

I tried an experiement while I was looking at the menu. I moved to the side of the menu with the names of the items, and didn't look at the calories. I went through the menu and looked to see what sounded good and what I would normally have picked. I found the item that I know I would have gone with in the past, and moved acorss the page to the calorie column... 1,340. YIKES!!! That's almost an entire days worth of calories for me, in one meal!

I never realized how much I used to eat, but now that I know, things are going well. I just wanted to update you, and give my recommendation to anyone looking for something that might work for them. Toodles!

The Journey Finally Continues

As I said, we all made it back to Venice in one piece. We made our way back to the hotel, and with shock and horror, watched as one after another other members of our "singles" cruise made their way into our hotel. Why the shock and horror? Well, we hadn't seen a person our age enter the hotel yet. People 20+ years older than us kept coming in. There was nothing to be done, we were there, they were old, but we could easily separate ourselves from them and still have a blast.

We once again decided to ventured out to find some dinner, and as we prepared to leave, we ran into one of the two people in charge of getting our cruise taken care of, and some other guy who was going on the cruise, one who was actually close to our age, so they accompanied us. We went to a little joint called Crazy Pizza, just around the corner from our hotel. Having tried the pizza in Rome, and not loving it, I went for a calzone. Sadly, the calzone was yet again, blah (as I was warned). I just have to say, while the Italians were for sure headed in the right direction on the food ideas, they fell short and missed the target a bit, so thank heaven the Americans had their way with it and made it what I've come to love today, yummy American Italian food. :)

Unfortunatly, there is a big problem in Italy whenever we ask to have the check split, so it all had to go on one card, and we each had to pay Kirsten back our part of the bill. In theory, this is fine, but things never work out that way. Somehow Kirsten was shorted a good deal of money, so we sat in the foyer of the hotel trying to figue out what happened. This lady in our group, who was considerably older than us, decides to come over and chat with us, which is fine, but we were all a little to preoccupied with what we were doing to really chat with her, and she got a bit offeneded, then when we got it worked out, we were ready for bed, so we started to leave, and one girl said she needed to go take a shower, so the lady was offended again, unintentionally... sorry lady, it was late, the kids needed to go to bed, go find some adults to play with.

The next monring, we went to eat breakfast in the restaurant, and the bus boy, Vincent, decided he would flirt with me. He was just silly, and when I was done I left, and he told my friend he thought I was pretty... silly boy. Then I returned later to the dining room to chat with some of my friends who ate after me, and our cruise pal from the night before came to chat, again, but by that point we were getting ready to leave and get ready to check out, and the same girl from the night before said she needed to go take a shower. "I thought you took one last night!?" Said this lady, a little put out. "I was going to, but I was too tired." Said my friend. A sour look crosses ladies face, as we bid her goodbye and leave the dining area. (Just a funny story I wanted to share, cause she was busy with the youngest kids on the cruise so far, and not people her own age.)




ANYWAY, so we get on the ship, and get settled, and then of course we have to go out and do our lovely muster drill before we can take off.





I decided, I'm going to tell you about life on the ship, and then I'll tell you about our ports. okay? okay! :)

First of all, we did end up having a large number of people our age in the group with us, so that was not so bad.

Well, We only had 2 days at sea, so we didn't sleep in much, because we usually had to be off the ship early for our excursions, and it was SO hard to wake up when your room is pitch black, prime for sleeping late.

Our first night on the ship, we all went and danced to night away... but we sure were tired in Croatia the next day. After that... pretty much, I went to bed soon after dinner (not that weird, dinner usually ended around 10:30 or later).

We ate a TON! We would wake up between 7 and 8 and eat breakfast, usually at the main buffet, then we would have lunch sometime, dinner at the buffet around 5, because we were STARVING, and then dinner again at 9 in the main dining room. :) Oh, and of course the main dinner was a three course meal, AND, there was a soft serve ice cream machine on the ship, and we had at least one cone a day... :) oink oink!


There was a mini golf course on the ship, and a rock wall, but we never did either, because they were on the top deck, at the back, and it was too windy to enjoy. I'm sad to report, I was in my swimming suit once the entire trip, for a short period of time, due to lack of swim time, and lack of desire to squeeze myself into a swimming suit that fit me 10 lbs earlier. But I still had fun. :)

9 pm dinner was probably the most fun on the ship. It may sound weird, but we were always laughing SO hard and just enjoying sitting at the table talking to each other and our waiters.





Viviana and her assistant george are in the picture with us above. LOVE THEM! Story time.

Viviana, so cute, so nice, loved her. The first night we went to dinner, we had all the wine glasses and such on out table, after that night, just water glasses. We found out the last night the Viviana was LDS too, and she was so excited to have us on the ship with her. Such a nice lady.

George, was super quiet! He spoke English pretty well, but he was self-conscious about it, and was embarrassed to talk too much in English. The, second night I believe it was, on the ship Heather asked for some hot cocoa at the end of our meal. We expected something like a cocoa mix poured into hot water, but no, it was warm milk and chocolate, made by hand by our dear George. The next night, Viviana asked Heather if she wanted cocoa again, and she said "yes please" and then she started to ask the rest of us, and we all kind of wanted to try it, so George just made a bunch and brought us all some. Well, after that, they never asked again... no, George would just disapear around the end of the meal, and return later with cocoa for us all. Super Awesome! We loved it. but then some people sarted to feel guilty that he was doing it, so one night Heather said we didn't need it, and his face just dropped. "Okay." he said, trying to hide his disappointment, but then we felt bad, and explained that we felt bad having him do it everynight. I turned to see the pitcher of cocoa sitting on the service cart, and passed the word that he had already made it. We told George we did want it, but we didn't want to put him out. George happily told us he didn't mind and poured us our cocoa with a smile. After that, we just got our cocoa like clock work every night, and never had to ask or be asked. Makes me smile. :)

When we left for our cruise the first day, I didn't have my camera up on the top deck with me, so I missed out on pictures, but swore I'd get them coming back into Venice when we returned. I almost forgot, but as I climbed out of bed that morning, I suddenly remembered, so I grabbed my camera and ran up to the pool deck. Much to my excitment, the sun was still rising, so I got some great shots. Here are a few, and I'll tell ya'll more later.

Good People

There are some pretty dishonest people in the world today, and they just keep getting worse. It seems too, with the economic woes on everyones minds, that the number of dishonest people in the world keeps growing as formally honest people give in to their dark side and start commiting small acts of dishonesty to save a buck. Sometimes it seems you don't know who you can trust as you hear the stories, and live some yourself, as sadly our own family members, and those we count as friends, can often be the ones we have to worry about. Then something happen to restore, once again, your faith in people. While small things happen everyday, I was more surprised than usual today, and my thoughts rested on all of this.

I was driving home from work as usual, and I came around the bend in the road that takes me to the last leg of my journey home, when something caught my eye. I looked over to see a sign posted at the bend in the road so as to been seen from either direction, by all who drove past. The letters and numbers were large and there were two flags on top of the sign suggesting that the person posting it had a real desire to address the situation. In large black letters, the sign read; "LAPTOP FOUND- 555-5555". Obviously it contained a real phone number that I can't recall, but you get the point. "Wow!" I thought, "As people are trying to take valuable property from other peoples homes, or businesses, or are try to dishonestly get a better price than they should, someone out there had found a laptop (that the owner was no doubt sick about and chalking it up as gonner) and they were actively taking the steps to restore it to its rightful owner.

That computer in the hands of so many other people would have been kept or sold, but the right person found it.

Thank heaven for those people who are still honest in our world today.

I Realize I'm a Mean Person, But I Always Have Been, It's Nothing New.

Okay, so while I should maybe be finally telling you all about my cruise, I'm not, I'm venting, because I need a place to vent and this is it. This is another long one, it requires detail.

OKAY, first of all, I really, really do hate to date. I do! I first hate the awkwardness of it, and then I hate that without fail, either, he's a manorless fool, or he likes me and I'm not interested.(I know, heaven forbid I like someone, but such is my lot in life). SO, I really do try to avoid dating if I can. Every now and then I get asked out by someone I mistakenly think I can go out with and have fun, and when/if the inevitable happens, they won't hate my guts.... like I said, mistake.

For those of you who do not know, I do indeed have a Facebook account. Now I beg of you not go try to find this poor fool, I really have nothing against him personally, but you will see my dimela.

Lots of people I have gone to school with have sent my invitations to be their freinds on FB. I typically accept the invitation, and it was no differt for (let's call him Milton to protect the innocent) Milton. A few weeks, maybe months later I happen to jump on FB real quick before work, and the contemptible messenger informs this dear soul that I am online, so he begins to talk to me. Eventually he tries to ask me out. Now, I realize that it takes some courage to ask someone out (but ask me out on Facebook and I don't care who you are, there is absolutly no class involved), but I am not one to feign any similitude of interest when none exists, so I thought long and hard about how to respond.

Now, I thought the easiest thing would be to tell him I was dating someone, but that would make me a liar. Then I thought, well, I could either say I'm a lesbian or I'm schedueling my terminal illness to take me later this evening... but again, both lies. I thought about how guys claim, "Just be honest with us, we want the truth, don't lie about why you are saying 'no'!" So I thought, well, at least no one can fault me for not being honest, or not handeling this the way guys think we should. So, I tried honesty.

"You know, I'll be honest, I'm just not interested, and I don't want to lead you on and pretend I am when I'm not. I'm sorry, but I don't think we should go out." There, I said it, I was nice, I told him I didn't want to lead him on, who can hate me for that, and I'm not going to Hell. :) Dead wrong! He gets mad. "How can you say you aren't intested, you haven't even seen me for 8 years. Why don't you give me a chance?" On and on.... "Look!" I said, "I could have lied and told you I was dating someone just to end the conversation, but I tried to be honest and you are getting mad. I'm sorry, I'm not interested, and I really have to go to work now." Oh, but it doesn't end there, no he's not done. "Oh really, where do you work?" NOPE! I'm so not telling him, I DO NOT need him coming into my work. "In Layton, gg, bye!" Log out!

Needless to say, I made sure my messenger would never do that to me again, it's perminently in the off position.

But again, our story does not end there. A couple weeks later, he leaves me a message on my wall and asks where I work again, I chose not to answer. Then, a couple of weeeks ago the poor sap leaves me a message on my wall again. It was harmless enough, "Hi how are you doing?" So I suck up my doubts and all my witchy tendencies, and I comment back, "I'm good thanks." BUT I'm wise enough to know better than to return the inquiry, "How are you?", because that will only lead to bad things. WELL, it turns out, it doesn't take much provoking. "We should hang out sometimes." Hang out: code for , I'm too scared to say date, and I want to make it look like It's casual, so I say 'hang out' to lure you in. But I was not lured... I debated deleting his comment or ignoring it, and I decided ignoring was less mean, so I ignored and never responded to it.

Oh but that little rascal, Milton, does not give up, no, he sure doesn't, and that is why I'm here ranting to you today.

I really need to start listening to my instincts more. I ignore the thoughts and what I thought COULD happen, DOES happen. Last night I went to see the movie "The Proposal" with a bunch of my friends. It was a cute and funny movie, and I really liked it. It had that little "Aw!" factor that made you swoon at the leading man. So when I got home last night, I checked email and FB, and I wrote (against my better judgement based on Milton's possible actions);

"Audrey Spencer thinks that The Proposal is so funny and so cute! Almost makes her wish she was in love... then she remembers that in the real world, that would require dating, and then she remembers she HATES dating, and could be okay with being single forever if it meant not having to date. :)"

I thought, well, that's obvious enough to make one think, "She shot me down, once, maybe twice now, perhaps that, if for no other reason, would be a good reason not to ask her out again."

Wouldn't you think? I think so. But maybe I'm the slow one here.

So, once again, I was... that's right, WRONG!

I get an email message on FB this morning from him; "Want to date me?"

NO! NO, NO, NO!! Why is this so hard!? I'm trying to be nice, I'm trying to be honest, I can't make myself clear to him! I really don't want to resort to meanness, and I think that deleting him as a friend qualifies for meanness, but I'm not seeing any other options.

I don't know what to do next, BUT lesson to be learned here, just lie. We all will lie someday, it might as well be for a worthy cause like sparing someones feelings.... and your own sanity.

And if one person tells me to just go out with him, you will be counted as an enemy, forthwith and forever. It's even more clear now than when I first said no, that no was the right answer. He won't give up without a date, he'd be a scourge with a date. YIKES!

Clarification

For anyone confused, I did make three posts yesterday. I'm just sorry they are always so long, I've just got a lot to say, and I want you to get the full experience of what happened. :)

My Poor Little Puppy!

So when I took a break from writing the last blog, I went to let my dog out. We have been letting them out in the front... for a long story, but I let her out front, and I could see the across the street neighbors were outside, but there was a truck parked in front of our house, so I could only see some of what was going on over there. Lilly walked to the edge of the driveway, and then she turned to face across the street, and I saw her kind of jump and and then she started barking and I heard the neighbors yell, and before I knew it, there was a dog running up our driveway toward Lilly. I called her to me so she could run in the front door, but instead she ran to tward the back with the other dog right on top of her, litterally, this dog could have taken a bite out of her at any time.

I leaped off the front porch and ran after them around the side of the house, the neighbor was right behind me. I got to the back and the other dog saw me and went around the other side of the car to get away from me. I found Lilly at the end of a trail of urine at the top of the back stairs barking her head off, and Junior was running up to defend her. The neighbor appologized, took his dog home, and locked it in the house.

I took Lilly in, and the poor thing couldn't stop jumping at everything she saw and heard. The poor things tail was wet from her own filth. I washed the poor girl up, and she was back to normal, but I felt so bad for my baby. I don't think the dog planned to hurt her, but he sure scared her.

Heading Back to Venice!

Sorry, I have no pictures, but I think the story will entertain you pleanty.

So we gabbed a couple of taxi cabs, and at Jenny's direction, we headed to the airport. Jenny had been the one telling us all about the flight info, so we never bothered to question her. She had told us that the airport was only 15 minuted away. Jenny, Melissa, Heather, and I all had hopped in the same cab.

We were holding onto dear life as our cab driver flew through Rome, squeezing into tight spaces and cutting people off, and reading a novel at red lights.... when suddenly I had a bad feeling, and it wasn't that our cab driver was going to kill us, no, it was that we were not going the right way.

I seemed the drive was taking more than 15 minutes, and our cabby was driving like a mad man. I questioned Jenny about her certainty about where we were going, and she didn't seem so sure herself anymore. I luckly had not put my bag in the trunk, so I dug inside and found our flight information. There are 2 airports in Rome, the one we were heading to, and the one we were supposed to be heading to... CRAP! AGAIN!

Panicing I tried to get the cab drivers attention. We had to be at the airport 20 minutes before our flight, and we had less than an hour to be to make it. The cab driving was on his phone and kept waving me off as I tried to show him our flight information, so I handed the paper up to Melissa in the front seat and asked her to make him stop. Finally he looked at the paper, and about had a cow! He started to yell, "You told me Fermagio!" "I know!" I said through gritted teeth, "It's our mistake, but we need to be at that airport, ASAP!"

As the cab driver got us turned around (justbefore we got to the wrong airport) and called everyone he knew to comlain to the in Italian about the 4 dumb American girls who told him the wrong airport (we understood bits and pieces) we hurried to find a working phone to text the girls in the other cab to make sure they knew we had been going to the wrong airport. Luckly, Jenny had a text from Carlee from 10 minutes earlier that said "Wrong airport!" Now we knew they were on course, all we could do was listen to our ranting cab driver and pray hard that we would make it on time.

TO BE CONTINUED...

J/K don't panic.

So to our dismay, we hit a mad patch of traffic as we head back the other way. The four of us were quiet as the dead, as merely exchanged glances of anxiety and raised eyebrows over our overly upset cab driver, and his GPS he had pulled from the glove box.

The final count down was on as our cab took a sudden right off the freeway onto fairly deserted exit. Heather began to feel frustrated and wanted to question the driver, but I told her we should stay quiet and try to trust him. As I said a silent prayer and clentched my teeth, I keep my eye glued to the clock on my phone for the finaly 2 minutes till they won't let us check in.

With Only seconds to spare, the cab squeals to a halt in front of the tiny airport and we shove sufficiant funds into the drivers hands, grab our bags and run inside. Once inside we follow signs to Ryanair, but there is no one around to help. Finally we grab someone walking by and he happily rushes us to the counter at the other end of the otherwise vacant half of the building. Jenny and I had check in online before we left home, so they let us right in, Heather had checked in, but had not printed her boarding pass, and Melissa hadn't checked in at all... so the 2 of them were told they could not go through, and th next flight would be tomorrow.

Not wanting to miss the flight and have to buy more tickets ourselves, Jenny and I were forced to abondon our friends and run to the gate to meet the rest of our group. After explaining what happened to the rest of the girls, a man next to us began trying to help by telling us to tell them to go to the train station, and they could be back to Venice tonight, since we needed to be on our cruise ship early the next day. As all the chatter was going on, I just kept watching the doorway and hoping to see them walk through. Five minutes later, my hopes were meet with excitment as I turned and saw the 2 missing friends walk through the door. Rome Belssing #4! Seconds later the line began to move as the plane was filled and we left for Venice.

It turned out that Jenny was confused, because her parents were also going to be on our cruise (by coinsidence) and she had book their flight for them just before we left home, and they had flown to the other Rome airport in a layover. Melissa and Heather had made it through with the help of a less stingy employee of the airport. The first had refused to help due to their lateness, but they found another lady that happily assisted in checking them in, and then security let them cut line to get to the gate in time.

Shortly after the plane took off we hit a great deal of turbulance, and I tunred to Carlee and asked, "Wouldn't it be ironic if the plane crashed? 2 of us ould have almost been saved." She laughed nervously, but I think she knew I had a point. We landed in Venice and hour later, and all was well.

My First Niece

Off the topic real quick...

I'm an Aunt again! My sister and her husband just adopted their first child, Gracie. She is super cute and meows when she cries. :) Congrats Blake and Amanda.

When In Rome...

So there we were in Rome.



We got off the train, and it was sheer madness around us. We had intended to buy passes to the hop-on-hop-off tour buses that take people around Rome, but we didn't know where to go. We tried to find an information booth, but couldn't seem to find one. We asked a guy where we mind find information and he told us to go to the other side of the train station. We walked over to the other side, and saw no information booth. We decided we would have to get a taxi or two, but the was gonna be lots of Euro.

As we stood there wondering what to do, up walks a Italian man who asks, "Information?" Rome blessing #2! I turn to him and with a huge grin and exclaim, "Yes, that's exactly what we had been looking for!" To our great joy, he turns out to be the owner of most of the hop-on-hop-off buses. Our new pal takes us to the office a block from the train station and has the girl ring us up for tickets that will take care of us for the next 24 hours (how long we would happen be in Rome). Then he walks us to stop #1 and gets us on a tour bus. At first we just rode the bus past sights and listened to the recorded tour till we were near our hotel and got off.

Reading maps was such a trial!! Each road seemed to have 2 names, and it was SO CONFUSING! So finally a light bulb went on in my head, I told them to follow me, and the next thing we knew, we were in front of our hotel. Thank goodness! Lets call that Rome blessing #3! Our hotel was the 5th floor of a building, one floor, that's all. But it was cool and we had skeleton keys.Finally, after a VERY long journey to Rome, with VERY little sleep, we were there, in a hotel room!
The man at the desk directed us to the street around the corner for some food. We passed 2 doors to the restaurant and each said we couldn't go in, so we went into the very next door, which was open, only it didn't lead into the restaurant at all, and the door closed behind us... no door knob. :( So as we prepared to break the door down to get out, here came this Italian girl down the stairs, "No, no, no!" she says, and pushes a button on the wall 5 feet from the door, and the door swung open. Ha ha, I'm still laughing, it was so funny! So we realized there was a door on the other side of the 1st 2, and went in. No one was there but us and it was 7 pm. Around 8 people began to filter in, and soom the place was swamped. They eat late there.

I had pizza... it was okay. They only make pizza with a thin crust, and I love thick soft crust, and there wasn't a ton of flavor, which my friend, Mr. Jeremy Tietjens, had warned me about, so I was prepared. Finally we hit the hay, and slept like rocks... okay, I still didn't sleep that well. One bed squeaked a lot, so everytime my friend moved, I'd hear her bed squeak and I'd wake up. Oh well.

So the next morning we ate at the bed and breakfast and headed to the Vatican City on foot, since we were near by. And that was cool!

You wouldn't believe the beautiful murals and sculptures inside St. Paul's basilica (the buliding we are standing in front of in the picture above).
There were bodies of dead popes inside the basilica, some bronzed, some crystalized. Kinda crazy to see, and I must say, they were sort men.


So then we went to the Sistine Chapel, and that, my friends, was an experience. The journey to the chapel was a long one. There was hallway after hallway, room after room, of murals, tapistries, sculptures, etc. It just went on and on, and there was so much beautiful and amazing stuff to see. FINALLY, we made it to the chapel, and alas, we could not take pictures. "Shh, no photo!" That's what this guy kept says, over and over. So once we had stiff necks from looking up so much, we headed to the next destination, Trevy Fountain.

So the tradition is to throw a coin over your left shoulder with your left hand into the fountain, and you will return to Rome again... so we tried it.



Somehow Melissa (the one in the balck hat) missed, so I guess she won't be going back. Then we had some gelato (Italian ice cream) and the cute guy working at the shop was flirting with me, so that was fun. On to the Colosseum.


So I really liked this place! As a side note, I LOVE Rome! You drive, or walk, around the city, and there is a random column from an old ancient building here, a historical building there, another clump of ruines there.... it's just so wonderful.

So back on track, the colosseum. We went with a tour group through this, so we were able to learn so much about the history and the structure of this building, and it was SO fasinating. The stage where everything took place is pretty much gone, reaviling the tunnels beneith where they kept the gladiators and animals they brought in for fights. It was pretty interersting to see.


I must also say, I'm so impressed when I see this stuff, the art in the the Vatican City, the architecture, all of it, it's so amazing and and detailed and... amazing, that's all I can really say. They didn't have the tools and machines we have now days, so the skills of the craftsmen is that much more impressive to me.


We were now running out of time till our flight back to Venice, I wanted to go see the truth stone (the face you see in Roman Holiday where you put your hand in it's mouth and if you tell a lie, it's supposedly bites you), but I was overruled and we went to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon was a building with a huge opening in the middle of the ceiling, so when it's sunny, rainy, snowy... the light and/or percipitation coming through the opening makes quite a sight, or so I hear, we didn't get to see it. By the time we found the Pantheon (we got a few bum directions from people) we were in a hurry to photograph and grab some taxies to take us to the airport.

Oh look at the time... later. Hope ya'll ain't bored yet.

At Last I Begin

I have to start tellig about my trip, or I'll keep putting it off. I'm going to do it through multiple posts, because there is a lot to tell, and I'll not enjoy doing it all in one post.

So our trip began. We drove over to the SLC airport Wednesday (April 22). We ended up flying through security, so we had pleanty of waiting time before our flight left. I was the only one who had breakfast, but in true Audrey fashion, I was hungry again, so we all went and got some expensive airport food to hold us over. Finally we left, and we began our 4 hour flight to NY.

When we go to NY we decided to eat at Chili's Too and a couple interesting things happened... first, a pigeon got in the airport somehow, and it flew right past us, and second... New Yorkers (at least the ones we saw) are all that they are roumored to be. Our waitress was in too much of a hurry to pay us much attention, not personable at all (it seemed none of the waitresses were), she talked FAST and was annoyed when we didn't catch all she listed off to us, and stuff like that.

Then off we went to our next flight, 9 hours to Venice.

I didn't sleep more than...20 minutes in all, and I even took a sleep aid. I wanted to sleep, because when we got to Venice, it would be morning, and we had lots to do still. Alas, no sleep, so I watched movies.

So then we were in Venice... tired, and excited. We took a shuttle to the Marriot we would be staying at the next night, then we took a bus to the train station in the heart of Venice. We bought our tickets to Rome, found our train, and hopped on for a 4 hour ride.

By this point, you must understand, we were delirious with exhaustion! We had the "tired sillies" and there were many bouts of uncontrolable laughter and even laughing till tears came, like Kirsten in this photo.

We attempted a game of Phase 10, but we were unable to finish, because pleople fell asleep... sadly, I wasn't one of them.

So the train stops and people get off, and pleople get on, just as we'd seen many times over the last 2 hours, only this time... the train began to head back in the same direction we had come!

CRAP! We all freaked out! We were heading back to Venice! How did we miss the sign that we were in Rome? Wasn't this supposed to be a 4 hour ride? What do we do? We don't want to have to buy more tickets to Rome!!

Enter 2 Mormon missionaries from Utah! Rome blessing #1! We asked them if we were going the right way, and to our excitment, and their dismay, the answer was yes, we were on the right train, but they (the missionaries) were not. Perhaps they were there just to help us? hmmm.... ANYWAY, so soon the train headed off another direction and we could see we were not heading back.

The ride was cool though, we got to see the farm lands and fields, the old buildings and the lovely green countryside. I really loved that we got too see that, it was nothing like Rome and Venice.

Then, there we were, in Rome. TA DA! :-D I never really thought I'd see Rome, but I was there, and I was excited.... so I'll tell you about Rome next time.

Sorry

Sorry, I will post vacation stuff, I will.

Psychic, or Psycho?

So on numerous occasions, I have dreamed of a tornado and then the next day I hear of one, either in Utah or another state, and that includes this last tornado in Utah on Monday. Well, Last night I dreamed of multiple tornadoes in one area at two different time. I sure hope that doesn't happen. The second group of tornadoes hit a cruise ship, but tornadoes occur over land, and hurricanes over sea, so I hope I'm not going to hear about hurricanes and cruise ships. Anyway, just sharing. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and grandmas, and all the mom's out there!

I'm Baaaack!

I'm home and alive, with many stories to tell, but not right now, I don't have time, so I'll tell you all about it when I get a minute. :)

I Need Some Summer CPR

Ever since about... September, when school started this last fall semester, I have not been social. When school was in I was FAR TOO busy to be social. I had to work, study, go to school and sleep, so that was all I did... at first is was hard, but soon I was used to not being social. Really every semester was that way, but usually school either started again, or it was summer and summer would breath life into me. WELL, now it's done, I'm done with school, and I'M DEAD! I'm so socially LAZY!! I hate the cold... so I stay in... I hate going out when it's dark, I feel lazy... so I stay in... I'm so used to staying in and not being social that it's easy to have excuses.

I MUST BREAK THE CYCLE! This weekend I went out with some of my cruise ladies and some other wardies, and it was fun, then Saturday I went to a party with some wardies and other people for a girls birthday... but it was AWKWARD! I only knew like 2 people when I got there, the birthday girl, and the girl throwing the party... then 2 other girls came I knew and they made me stay... so... I've made a little effort... then my cruise should help, and so should the warm weather, it's easier to go out when the weather draws me out...

So that's my situation, I'm gonna try to make a stronger effort, BUT it's not gonna be easy. I have to work, sleep, workout, be social... that's a lot of work... :)

WELL... I'm leaving for Europe in like 36 hours. YAY!!