Random April

Poor youngest child that gets dragged around even when she needs a nap.  Luckily she's pretty great at sleeping whenever and wherever.

Isaac got to do his 2nd grade animal report.  So excited to have a display board.  He picked out his animal even before he got home and no amount of trying to persuade him to choose something else would sway him.  I had actually never heard of an Aye Aye before and it's a pretty creepy looking animal but Isaac was so excited.  And he did a great job even if he had to wait several weeks for mom to finally find time to help put it all together.

Sometimes this is how I entertain Isla during sacrament.  Truthfully it's partly that I'm at early meetings so Taylor brushes but doesn't really do her hair and partly to keep her quiet.  Of course she needs to see it afterwards so that necessitates a picture.

Poor Miles is pretty great at following after his bigger brothers and often isn't quite big enough to not suffer the getting hurt consequences.  Big owie.  And sadly, he picked at it so several weeks later this large owie was a giant sore filled with pus.  And it was my great privilege as his mother to have to hold him down and clean it out (literally needed a straight jacket and some valium for this one- he FREAKS out- and me coming at him with a freshly sterilized sewing needle was apparently death to him).

Taylor bought all the kids soccer shirts on one of his trips and Isla LOVES it!  Mostly because Taylor is so excited when she wears it and this little girl is completely smitten with her father and would do anything for him- even wear a non-pink or purple shirt.

Ahh, we love this bear.

Ethan is sadly at that stage where he's kind of too cool for birthdays and attention.  He didn't want a party this year and he didn't even want a cake (finding a present he wanted was also very tricky).  He settled on crepes with fruit and whipped cream and I was happy to oblige.  Unfortunately he had gotten another of his migraines and wasn't quite feeling it.  Half smile at least though.

Isaac and Ethan performed for their spring recital.  They are both very different piano players but both very good.  Isaac plays the same way he reads, by memorizing chunks.  His absolute least favorite thing to do is sight read.  So the day after lessons he will sit down and spend as long as it takes for him to play it well and memorize it for the most part.  The rest of the practicing days are then easy and he often stops by the piano as he's walking around the house to play whatever his piece of the week is.

Ethan is the opposite.  He hates memorizing but can sight read with the best of them.  He's getting good enough to play really fun pieces and we love listening to him play.

Because the week before and day of Mother's Day was going to be an insane marathon for me (Teacher appreciation week, primary singing in sacrament, sharing time to teach, primary brunch to prepare and do, mother's gift to track down kids to finish up and package, etc.) Taylor officially declared the previous Sunday mother's day and surprised me with this yummy, healthy breakfast.

Isaac is so lucky to have THE best wolf leaders in cub scouts.  The Bruners only had daughters and Craig never got to be a part of the scout program even though he'd loved it as a child.  Well now he's getting the chance to teach and mold these 4 sweet boys and they are loving it.

Dilworth Art Night?  Must buy cupcakes to support the arts program at school?  Done!

We threw a baby shower for Barbara who was having her first baby and since Clint is from Baltimore they chose a nautical theme for their nursery.  These chicken and nutella crab croissants were just too cute to not make.

And Ethan learned that it is a BAD idea to chase after Isaac while playing Bull and Matador because sometimes he will run into his room and slam the door on you just as you're coming in and your skull will connect with the doorknob hard enough to require 5 staples!  And lots of pain!

Yep, that one didn't even take a trip to the Wallis' to decide if he needed stitches.  Too obvious.

Kind of gruesome but they worked.  And a baby wipe bath later and this one was ready to go to church the next day, with a lovely shade of red in his hair.

I've spent a lot of time this month getting our outside garden ready to plant, lots of weed pulling, putting down weed mesh, mulch, and finally adding the flowers and vegetables.  On one of my trip to Home Depot, it was slightly sprinkling when we went in, got extremely windy as we were checking out, and then as I was loading mulch and plants into the back of my mini-van it started to pour and then to literally DUMP hail.  I continued to load, grateful that the van trunk lifts up and provided me a little cover.  But that didn't last long as the rain and hail was coming down so hard that it flooded the parking lot with almost a foot of water in less than 2 minutes.  And then the hail started coming at an angle and so I had to jump inside the trunk to wait it all out.  Luckily Isla and Miles had already gotten in and were able to push the button to close the hatch and we all stayed in the car (me in the trunk sitting on mulch) for another 10 minutes while we waited for it to stop and got a good laugh.

Daddy is truly the best.

Ethan is 11!

This kid is growing too fast and we've entered the "sassy and sometimes I am sure I know better than you" phase, but we still love this sweet boy who is always the first to make friends and so willing to help others.  

Amalfi

Taylor was happy to stop and see Pompei, but his real destination was the Amalfi Coast.  He and I are not lay on the beach or go to the spa kind of travelers.  We prefer to go and see the world and then rest at home.  But you almost can't go to Italy and not take a day to rest on the coast when it's this gorgeous.  So after Pompei Taylor drove us down to our hotel in the tiny town of Amalfi.  I was enthralled with the view.  I mean look at that.  5 minutes earlier we had been up on the top of that hill on the road you can see and now we're down on the coast.

And then there were terraces all along the hill sides covered in amazing amounts of fruits.

I was under strict orders to not scream.  I may have startled Taylor a few too many times when we visited London a few years ago and was terrified of his driving on the left side.  So this time Taylor agreed to drive IF I would just keep my noises to myself.  Harder said than done.

I'll let most of the photos speak for themselves.  It was a magnificent view everywhere I looked and I couldn't stop taking photos.

And I kept my mouth shut even with giant trucks coming right at us on a tiny road.  Thankfully, without planning it, we dropped down from Pompei to the bottom of the Amalfi coast and drove half way up Friday evening and then the rest Saturday.  This meant we were headed north the whole time and always on the side closest to the mountain and not the cliff.  I did appreciate this a lot.

Coming in to Amalfi.

When we arrived in Amalfi we pulled over and waited for our hotel owner to come drive our car into the parking garage cause we were a little freaked out to drive through these tiny streets.  And they also carried our bags through town and up to our room.  Apparently this is standard procedure in a town built on a hillside with lots of stairs, small streets, and not much parking.

Here's our view over the main drag through town.

This is the fruit I'm talking about.  Giant, and I mean GIANT lemons covered many of the terraces of fruit.

See? It's good we didn't try to drive here.

Taylor had been to Amalfi before and was excited to revisit the church in town.  It has a unique black and white checkered marble look.

And most of the frescoes and paintings have a nautical theme to them.  I'm sure the Bible stories of Christ walking on water and calming the storm hit home with the long ago inhabitants of Amalfi who earned their living out on the ocean.

Neat church.

Saturday we got up, had breakfast, and then headed out to take more pictures.  We could have walked up and down the mountain side and done hiking through the streets of this amazing city, but truthfully we were pretty beat.

We headed back to Rome around noon and the driving on Saturday was much more intense than it had been the previous night.  Apparently large tour buses drive this road on Saturdays and Sundays taking people to the beaches that don't have their own car and/or aren't brave enough to drive this road.  Let's just say it was intense.  And then add to it random cars parked on the side of the road like this white car and it got even dicier.

Amazingly even 2 giant tour buses figured out how to pass each other.

And of course if you need a little exercise why not ride your bike through this traffic insanity.  Good views.

I mean right?!?  The bus is literally inches from scraping the cliff wall and yet this seems to work.

Taylor was calm.  I was not.  But I was silent.  A fantastic last day of the trip.