A Glimpse into my Life.

It's been a bit crazy in our lives lately. Now that we are finally home and (mostly) over jet lag, I am attempting to catch up on life and blogging. Most of the laundry is washed and put away, the house is *somewhat* cleaned, and dinner is cooking so I have a few moments. Back in January, my parents called to tell Hubby and I "Happy Anniversary." Now, there wasn't anything unusual about that, but then they told us that for our ten year anniversary they wanted to send us somewhere and watch the kidlets for a week while we left. Then they told us they wanted to send us to Italy! We were totally in shock and very happy. We had to figure out when would work with Hubby's and my Dad's work schedules, and then where in Italy we wanted to go. Hubby and I both had lists of places we wanted to go, and once those lists were down on paper and we started comparing, we realized we should just move there for a few years to put a dent in the lists! We then decided to each pick one or two places we really wanted to go and work around those. Luckily, our short lists were pretty similar. Rome and the Naples region. We then decided to stay in Sorrento and use that as a base for setting off to what was in the Napoli region.


This is a view of Mount Vesuvius from the road down into Sorrento. Our hotel was up the hill from Sorrento so we had about a mile walk into town every day. It was a great way to start the day. Walking past Olive Groves, and down orange tree lined streets was fabulous!


This is the harbor in Sorrento. It was gorgeous!


Walking under the orange trees! It was incredible to wander through the streets in the evening. Hubby and I tended towards wandering off the beaten path and found a very lovely little restaurant in the more non touristy part of town.


This is the entrance to Pompeii. The rings you see were where they would moor their ships. Pompeii was formerly a coastal city. When Vesuvius irrupted, it changed the coastline and ended up raining so much debris on the town that it was completely buried in volcanic rock, ash and mud. People literally choked to death on the air. Hubby estimates Vesuvius added almost a mile to the coast from where Pompeii was to where the present coastline is.


Pompeii was a large thriving city in it's time. It was set up so that the different neighborhoods had their shops, 'fast food' restaurants, and bakeries.


This is the body of a pregnant woman that they found in the ruins. As they excavated Pompeii, they found numerous bodies, and when they tried to move them, the excavators found out how fragile they were. The solution was to pour plaster around the bodies and basically cast them.


The stones in the middle of the road were so people could cross the streets without having to step into the muck. The stones were spaced evenly so that chariots could drive down the streets. At night, they would flood the streets and wash them out to control some of the mess and smell.


These are some of the grinding stones at the mills. They would put large beams in and use that to turn the stones. I can't remember exactly, but Pompeii had either 20 or 30 bakeries in it. They also had a surfeit of hotels. I find it hard to imagine the quantities of bread that was produced in the city.

More to follow, but it's time to get back to everyday life! 

Well, we've had whatever bug has been going around for the last little while. Two weeks later, we are finally over it, thank goodness. I'm almost caught up on the housework and laundry, but for some reason it's the never ending chore to get the laundry done. I also spoke at the local Gluten Intolerance Group last week about making your own soaps, lip balms, body butter, etc. It was a really good experience.

I am opening my own website!!! Charmingly Quaint is where I am taking up residence. Feel free to stop by and take a look! Here is a sampling of the products I am selling!

Soap! Everything is handmade by me in small batches. I use Essential Oils, Fragrance Oils, and Fragrance Free is also an option.


Lip Balm! Pineapple Coconut flavor with Sweet Almond Oil, Cocoa Butter, and Mowrah Butter! It feels fabulous, and your lips don't have that waxy feel to them.

Sugared Body Scrubs! This is one of my favorite scrubs. And it smells good enough to eat!

Fizzing Bath Salts! A great way to relax! I've been *thoroughly* testing these, because quality control is always important. ;) It could also be that I like how wonderfully relaxing it is to read a good book while soaking in a fizzy, lovely smelling bath!



Thanks for taking a look!

I just found a few more pictures from our Summer Adventures. I couldn't resist.

I can't remember if I put it up, but here is what the back porch of our cabin looked like. Very nice, very quaint.

There was a hammock there! I think it was one of the highlights for the kidlet crew! I know I had fun rocking in it. Bumpa is taking Dutch for a swing.

Now it's time for a solo act.

Baby B had to join in on the fun!

You know she is a girl who knows what she wants. Water shoes so she won't get her 'neekers' wet, her twirly skirt so she can have fun, and her lifevest so she can go canoeing.

Baby B isn't shy about letting you know if something pleases her!

Although it's called 'Old Faithful' sometimes it's hard to wait for it to erupt.

Us? Mischief? Never! (I think they were stealing Floolie's phone and dialing China with it.)

Not sure what they are pleased about right here, but they sure were! They must have got through to someone!

Just a few of the happenings around here:

A Cowboy came to take up residence in our house...

And learned a little about using his six shooter...

We built some castles...

Built some Fortresses....

And promptly destroyed them.....

Someone learned how to sneak food off the table..... And yes, he is wearing his Winter coat, we can't get him to take it off very often right now....

Luckily the food belonged to his sister so he didn't get sick....

The cat had a standoff with the neighbor's cat. The score is 1:1:4 They've each won one and had 4 draws....

Trying to find where the snow that *should* be in the backyard went to....

Not over here either.....

It's been a wee bit busy at our house!

We like to read at our house. In fact, we spend a large chunk of each day reading. Some of us read words, some read pictures.



And sometimes we read someone else's book!

We ran like crazy for most of Summer, so now that it's cold and we've slowed down a bit, I have a few moments to put up some of the pictures. We went up to Island Park, Idaho for a week with my family. We rented a cabin and it was right on the river. We had an incredible time together. Dutch celebrated his first birthday, we caught fish and learned how to clean them, caught frogs, saw a snake eating a fish, float in the river and canoe, and we didn't even leave the cabin for most of that!

Bumpa teaching Rynie how to fish.



Once he caught his fish, Rynie learned how to clean it so I could cook it for his dinner. We also had a lesson on how we don't catch more than we need and can eat so we don't waste and so we are responsible steward over animals.



Little Miss even got in on the catching of fish. She ran away, literally screaming when we asked her to clean her fish and then eat it.



I even got in on the fishing action. You'll have to wait for the next post to see what I caught!



We needed to teach my mom how to canoe. Thankfully, she learned fairly quickly! She says she knew what she was doing, Jake and I disagreed.



Bumpa Black Cow and Baby B. Hanging out on the back porch, watching all our prowess at the canoes.



Hubby, Jake, Rynie, and Little Miss taking the canoe out for a spin. Literally. ;)



Dutch going for a morning crawl. He wanted to see all that water. We really were that close to the water.



Our early morning buddy. Mama Moose was out every morning in the same area (about 100 yards from our cabin) and some mornings we were lucky enough to see her calf in the tall grasses as we paddled by.



More critters and scenery soon. We did go up to Yellowstone, but that'll be another post!

So I made Gluten Free pie crust Monday night. We wanted quiche for dinner, and I figured it was as good a time as any to try out a pie crust.

I didn't think to get pictures since I was watching my friend's children while she was busy bringing their newest little child into the world. We had a crazy, busy day, with lots of playing, running, dancing, singing, roughhousing, and fun. Thankfully the new little one is here, although she was born with pneumonia so she is in the NICU while they figure out which type she has. The hospital in Provo said with all the babies they have each year, the cases of babies born with Pneumonia is 10 babies per year! The little lady is doing okay though. Her vitals are good, it will just take time.

Now on to pie crust. I used King Arthur Flour's Gluten Free Pie Crust and made a few modifications to it. I'd never used this recipe before, but I try not to use xanthan gum or guar gum when I make things at home. I was reasoning since those are two modern inventions and I am not totally sold on the need for them nor the healthy use of them yet, I would look for a realistic substitute.** On Gluten Free Girl they talk about using ground flax seed or ground chia seed as substitutes for the gums and I've been trying the flax seed in my from scratch recipes.

So my modifications were:

• I used the directions for the brown rice flour mix that is on the King Arthur site. I haven't felt the need to buy their pre-packaged baking flour mix yet.
• I forgot to pre-mix my wet ingredients and whisk them all together until they were frothy. (That happens when you are chasing extra kidlets!)
• I used flax seed instead of the gum, but this time on a whim, I decided to double the flax seed and see what would happen.
• I only chilled the dough for an hour, I think a few hours would be preferable.
  

Hubby tasted tested the crust first. He said it was great for a first attempt and not bad in comparison to the normal crusts I make. I think it cooked a little long, but it needed to so the quiche would be cooked. The crust under the quiche was lovely though. I guess that means I'll have to adapt the quiche filling to be a bit less wet. It was a little dry on the parts that were above the quiche, but had a nice flavor overall.

I'm glad this wasn't as difficult as it mentally seemed. There is some work to be done on it,but hey, I think it'll end up being almost as easy as normal pie crust!

** I just need to research the gums more, plus the cost of them is fairly expensive for a bag even though you don't use much of them and since the startup cost of switching our foods is semi expensive while we figure this out, I didn't want to buy one more thing that I didn't absolutely need to. I may decide I need them in the future, but right now things are in a workable, okay state without them.

No matter what Rynie does, Dutch likes to be involved. Here they are painting a craft. Note the similar state of dress.


Meals must be taken sitting next to Big Brother. And he must feed himself.



An Army campaign always need a 2nd in command.


They love to wrestle and roll around in a puppy pile!





I think they're lots of fun!

We went up to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square over the Holidays. It's the first time we've taken the children up to see the lights and I think they enjoyed it.

City Creek Plaza right across the street. I really liked the lights and how they reflected on the water. It was a nice way to start out the evening.

It never ceases to inspire and amaze me every time we go to Temple Square. I always intend to go back more often and usually end up not being able to as often as I'd like. The peaceful Spirit is always calming and wonderful.

This is the best shot I could get of our family. We're all mostly looking the same direction, our eyes are open, and no one is making too awful of a face. Not sure about how my coat is making my skirt look like goofy pants though. Huh.

I love visiting the Temple, even if it's just to walk the grounds with my children.