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!

David's Many Adventures

Having four active, little boys is an adventure.
One of our most adventurous spirits is David. He is five years old,
loves people, learning, music, art and sports and never
stops moving. Recently he has developed a love for
designing things. He loves to get involved in my latest crafty idea.
Recently when I was doing a project he asked what he could do.
I tossed him some scrapbooking supplies and
this is what he came up with all by himself:

I love this!
The "S" is for Sara and the "D" is for David. On the project
below I helped him only with the stitching on these letters.

David loves people, so I was surprised when he put up a huge fight
to go to the rest home to sing songs to old people for playgroup.
Fortunately, when we got there he fell in love with some precious
old ladies who were thrilled to have a sweet little kindergartner
telling them all about his class, sharing his artwork with them and
even giving them a hug and a kiss before he left. He has been
begging us to go back to the rest home ever since, especially
since I explained to him that those people there won't be
alive for too much longer. ( I wish so bad I had taken
my camera with me there).
David is so active, I get tired just watching him sometimes.
He is the guy to send on an errand in the neighborhood or to fetch
things for you around the house. A few weeks ago he wanted me to
take some "action shots" of him in his homemade BYU football jersey.

Last Friday David Broke a bone between his foot and leg.
It happened as he was trying to retrieve a basketball from
a two-tiered chair holder at the church. No one that was there
that night could believe he had broken a bone; he was completely
calm about the whole thing. The only real sign that he was in pain
is that he didn't want to walk on that leg.
He chose a Blue cast to show his cougar pride.

All day Saturday after he got his cast put on he couldn't put
pressure on that leg without collapsing. By the next day he was
walking on it and now he runs on it. Despite the awkward angle of the
cast, he has even figured out how to ride a bike! Today he asked me if he
could skateboard to a friend's house-not wanting another broken leg,
that is where I drew the line.

Now that David has a bad leg and a missing tooth
(that was taken out after an accident when he was a baby),
he is looking more and more like "Tiny Tim".
Stay tuned, I am sure that we will have many
more adventures to come with this one.