Venice is pure magic!

Derek presented a paper in Venice for the Renaissance Society of America on Kepler's musical background and how it affected his views on Astronomy.

Highlights of our trip include:

Being in a place with no cars/traffic (how amazing to go everywhere on foot or by boat!)

The history, the churches, the beauty....

The art...and the music(we were able to attend a performance of
Vivaldi's [who was from Venice] 4 seasons in the most beautiful church)...

the food....and the sunshine....

....and our layovers in Spain (see post below) and Chicago.

But the very highlight for me (besides being with Derek in the most beautiful and romantic city in the world) was the people. Alessandra (our Italian exchange student 07-08) and her parents flew to Venice from Calgiari, (in Sardinia) to spend the week with us. I fell in love with her parents. They are such dear people; they treated us to amazing Italian food and accompanied us on excursions always insisting on covering the bill. Alessandra's Dad doesn't speak any English and we don't speak Italian...it was so fun trying to communicate with him!!

It was so great to see Alessandra all grown up!

Even though we had had such an amazing week, I was so excited to get back to our boys and (oddly) to get back to Rexburg and our routine. How thankful I am to all of the family members who helped with the kids while we were gone!

p.s. of the hundreds of photos I took 98% of them were of the beauty of the city (architectural elements etc.) to see more check out my design blog.

http://interiordesignbysara.blogspot.com/

Moms lunch never tasted so great; our crazy day in Spain

I have always felt like there is no better way to say "I love you" than with a homemade lunch. When I was little, my mom would sometimes even write a little love note and put it in with my lunch at school. Yesterday Derek and I started off for a long journey to Venice where he will be speaking this week at a conference. Since we flew out of Salt Lake, we took advantage of the opportunity to stay with our parents for conference before leaving. Being the wonderful hostess that she is, my Mom packed some food for our journey; 2 sandwiches with Dads famous bread, a yogurt, , 2 apples and 2 oranges. Since Derek had eaten, I had both sandwiches, the yogurt and an apple on the way to the airport. We had planned a long layover in Spain so that we could visit the Prado and see some of Derek's favorite pieces there. Due to bad weather we didn´t have as much time there as we had hoped. Another problem was that the ATMs there did not accept our visa debit card which was our only way to buy anything. Fortunately Derek had some cash but only about 30 dollars which gave us a full 23 Euros for a day in Spain. Knowing that our priority was to see the Prado we went straight there as we had already lost time trying to pull out money. Resurrecting my Spanish skills I explained that Derek is a professor which gave him free admission, my ticket inside was 8 Euros. The Prado was awesome. their crowning piece is "Las Meninas" by Velazquez. After the Prado we rushed back to the airport where we used 2 more Euros to send an e-mail to our bank telling them of our predicament. We had a few Euros left but didn't dare buy any food in case we would need our last Euros in Venice (should the card not work there). I pulled my Mom's sack from my bag and ate one of the oranges, half of a granola bar and some crackers from the plane, offering the other orange and 1/2 of granola bar to Derek. I'm not sure what I would have done without that food. I was looking forward to the plane where I could at least get something to drink. As it turned out that airline charged for everything even the drinks, we would not be getting any this time. When we landed in Italy we were thrilled to find that our Visa worked in their ATMs, but we were in such a rush to get to our boat to Venice that we didn't take time to eat. After missing our boat by only 5 minutes we had to stay at the dock and wait for the next one to come which took a very long time. Once again I thankfully turned to the final apple in the sack lovingly gifted to me 3 countries and many hours before. Derek and I split the apple which sustained us until we reached Venice (where incidentally everything was closed....but that is another story). At the beginning of the day, I nearly declined the food offered by my Mom imagining a smashed banana at the bottom of my bag after a long journey. How often do we take for granted the simple gifts that are offered us or forget to give due gratitude for the service rendered to us by those we love? Thanks for feeding me Mom physically, spiritually and emotionally!

p.s. Venice is the most amazing place. we are loving every moment here....stay tuned for our travel update!

Happiest Conference Easter

What a wonderful Conference!!!! What a wonderful Easter day! We spent the weekend with our families in Utah. It couldn't have been more dreamy!