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! 

Just a few of the critters we came across on our trip to Island Park.

No idea what type of birds these were, but we sure saw a lot of birds.

There were little frogs galore!

Oh wait, that's not a critter. I just love how happy he is fishing with his Bumpa and his sister!

I can't remember what the snake was eating, but it sure must have been good. It might have been a frog or a fish. I can't remember now.



And last but not least...Here is my fish. It was an 18 inch Cutthroat Trout. I must mention, I caught it in the rain! We were sopping wet by the time this big boy was reeled in!



Bump said it was probably part something else because of the way it looked. I think I need to call him so he can remind me. Anyway. Rynie caught the fish two days before, on his little Spiderman rod. You know the kind, 6 lb line, about 3 feet long, usually come with a plastic casting fish to practice with. Bump helped Rynie get it in, and they got right up to the little docking spot (for reference it's where they were cleaning the fish in the other post) and it snapped the line and got away. We had one disappointed little guy. Two days after his almost catch, I caught the fish, and this time we got it in. It still had the line rigging in the corner of it's mouth from two days before so we knew for certain it was Rynie's fish since I tied the line and it looked the exact same as the one that was in his mouth. We took a few pictures, took the hooks out, then released him since he was so big.



Rynie was one happy guy to see 'his' fish again!

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!

On the way up to Yellowstone, we stopped at Bear World in Rexburg, Idaho. It was pretty interesting, because by stopping by there before we actually got to Yellowstone, the kidlets got to see some of the predators that live in Yellowstone, but are sometimes hard to see.

All I could think about when I saw this bear is: "Look for the bear necessities, the simple bear necessities, forget about your worries and your cares..."

This is why my daughter now rawrs like a predator. As long as it's a bear, cougar, lion, dinosaur, etc al. she gets it right. If you ask her what a cow, dog, cat, horse, bird, or frog says she still rawrs.

They had a couple of wolves in with the bears, and they didn't seem to mind eachother too much, except when it came time for food. Then the wolves didn't want to share.

This little guy decided to get a little up close and personal. I think we're BFF now, or at least my car is his BFF. We sustained only a few scratches to the paint, and a few on the driver's side hubcab. Not too bad, considering he tried to open the driver's door to the van and since he couldn't, he decided to try the passenger door. I hate pictures where you see the reflection from inside, but it was the only one where you could see what was going on, and they don't allow you to drive with your windows down for obvious safety reasons.

Uh oh! Caught by the wildlife keepers! Time to book it! I seriously thought he was going to take the side mirror as a souvenir!

Rynie captioned this one: "I'm love it because the bear is sitting up saying I'm here, I'm here!"

It was really interesting to watch the bears come up to the feeding truck and be fed. Some of them would even wave at the people on the truck that were feeding them.



Some albino elk!

Please do not kill over in shock, I am posting more pictures from Scotland since life sidetracked us pretty good and I never finished. The William Wallace Monument stands at the summit of Abbey Craig, a hilltop near Stirling. Since it is at the top of Abbey Craig, and it's Scotland in general, it was really windy. Then when you climb to the top of the Monument, and are in the open area at the top, you are almost blown over! They built the Monument near where the battle for Stirling Bridge was fought.

Here is what they believe is William Wallace's sword. They figure based on how huge this sword is, he had to have been at least 6'6" or taller. They are pretty sure it's Wallace's sword because when they write about Wallace, they talk about him towering head and shoulders over others.

Sorry Jake, at 6'3" you are just a little too short to properly wield this sword!


The William Wallace Monument was incredible for stairs. Seriously, if you want GREAT legs, just go to Scotland and visit the different monuments. You will really feel the burn after a while. First you had to go up this flight of stairs, then you got to the infamous spiral staircase. It just keeps going and going and going. Then you get to the second floor. Then you realize there are two more floors to go. There are only 246 steps in this place!



(Those red thingies are how you listen to your audio tour. Personally, I think they should have given everyone torches to light the way. Much cooler and better ambiance!)

Check out the pitch on the spiral staircase! And notice the darkened line that twists like the staircase? That's the handrail! It's on the skinny side of the step. Don't lean too far forward!

This is a statue of William Wallace on the outside of the monument. It's just on the side, nothing else by it.
If you look closely, you can see the keystone piece. The Scots were so afraid that whomever was going to put that piece in place would die, they exempted all the married men (so they wouldn't make anyone a widow) and had the single men draw lots to see who would put it in place. The keystone is the little ball you can see underneath the stone arch and just above the rail at the bottom of the picture.

The view from the very top! This is the River Forth. Somewhere down there is where they fought the Battle for Stirling Bridge, but Floolie and I can't remember where it was at. Bumpa is napping or we'd ask him.

Notice the moss on the walls of this picture. Even up this high, the air is moist enough to grow stuff!
Those little white things in this picture are sheep! They look like grains of rice, or as Jake says, maggoty little things!
And this is a tree growing there that I thought was just perfect for climbing. No I didn't, but I was sorely tempted! The whole 246 stairs up then 246 stairs down just about does you in. Then you have to walk from the top of Abbey Craig to the car park if you *just* missed the bus going down. ;)

Greyfriar's Kirke in Edinburgh.


St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.





St. Margaret's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle.





William Wallace Monument



These are in the Great Hall at Stirling Castle.


There were so many beautiful stained glass windows that I just had to do a post about them all by themselves. If I have some time later, I may post a few more. They were truly gorgeous!