. halloween, it's my fave .

so if you didn't know halloween is my all time favorite holiday. i love it, even more than christmas. i love decorating the house with tombstones, skeletons and ghosts. i love the candy corn and cool weather. i love seeing little kids coming around and trick or treating. i love halloween. and so naturally i had to make a little freebie in honor of my favorite holiday. 

enjoy!

. fall freebie .

since i haven't done these in a while and i have a few minutes of down time i decided to make a fall freebie. lets be honest fall is my favorite season. cool weather, boots, hot chocolates, books, changing leaves, and the holiday is coming that i love the most.. halloween. 

so happy friday all! hope your weekend is wonderful!

.. baby b blessed ..

on september 2nd we got to bless my little nephew b. he is a cutie pants who i love dearly. we were lucky to have my grand parents and one set of my aunts and uncles make it down to the blessing. 

{ great grandpa (my grandpa), C*, baby b*, and grandpa (my dad)}

 { grandma (my mom), k*, baby b*, great gg (my grandma) }

{ my brothers j* and m*, great grandpa, c* and baby b*, grandpa, uncle s*}

we have a tradition in our family. we have a set of baby booties that every member of my mom's side of the family down have worn on their blessing day. they all started with my uncle garth, my mom's brother. ever since him, every one of his siblings and all the grandchildren and now the great grandchildren have been blessed in these booties. they really are a treasured heirloom.

{ uncle garth's booties}

{ tingey family}

thanks k* and c* for including us in your special day!

.. a golden day ..

on august 28th i turned 28. my golden birthday. i woke up that day to my cute husband decorating the hall and bathroom with 28 reasons he loves me. 

it was a wonderful wake up. i got 28 colored daisies and a pack of goldfish crackers. yum! i got dressed and went to work, lame i know, and then came lunch. i got to go have lunch with my hubs. we had subway at the untouchables shop. 

after lunch i went back to work where they bought me a huge chocolate costco cake. so good. the sang and everything. i finished out my day at work and travelled home. cody, i, my parents and brother went to dinner at the Slab. 

such good pizza and not too expensive, highly recommend it. 

{ it rained when we had dinner and a beautiful pink rainbow emerged}

after dinner we met the rest of the family at home for dessert, cupcakes baked by my mom, and presents. and i finished my night off by holding my cute little nephew. 

all in all a wonderful birthday. i get to celebrate with cody again a different day, he has breakfast, a hang out lunch in the park, a massage and dinner. oo i am excited!

.. roma ..

speechless. 

.. a post vacation shake down ..

so we both made it home by sunday. we were both jet lagged and so tired. we had gone over to visit cody's parent and say hi and show them pictures, i will post those later.. and jet just went to play. he got a hold of a bottle and started chewing away. the week before we left for rome jet chipped his tooth. we aren't sure on what but he fractured the surface of it. the vet said it was nothing to worry about and that he would be just fine, we just needed to stay away from hard things and keep him healthy. no big right? 

well later that night we were having family dinner and jet was at his usual spot, begging for food. all of a sudden i noticed that his head started to shake. and he couldn't control it. i told cody and we waited and watched, nothing. after dinner we cleaned up and got comfy to watch a movie with the fam and all of a sudden he was shaking uncontrollably and he was so uncomfortable. we hurried and called the vet. we ended up driving down there and meeting the vet at his office at 9:40 at night. blah. 

the vet checked him out, gave him a shot of doggie Valium and told us to watch him for it to happen again in the next 24-48 hours. if it didn't happen again he thought it was that tooth. that he had irritated the nerve enough to cause muscle twitches. so we went home and to bed and watched him the whole next day, he was fine. just a dang tooth. so we have to try and keep him from doing the no no biting and make it to his three year checkup where they clean teeth and just have it pulled at the same time. oh boy we have a long 2 years ahead. 

.. musei vaticani any one? ..

on day one our hotel concierge told us that the catholics were on holiday which meant that the vatican and all the churches were closed for holiday. but they opened on friday, our last full day in rome. so we scheduled ourselves in for the vatican on friday.  

we woke up early on friday got ready for the day and went and had breakfast in the hotel. not bad, but they cook odd and they charge way too much. then we were off. we walked the 3 miles to the vatican and found a huge surprise. a line, that followed the wall of the vatican all the way around, estimated at 2 1/2 hour wait. we found another tour guide and hopped on the band wagon. we left on a tour shortly after and ended up with a semi decent experience.


{ticket }
we did good at first, the girl was great knew a bunch of stuff. we saw some raphael and michelangelo and amazing art.


{raphael : transfiguration of christ}

then it got crazy. we walked out to these posters about the sistine chapel, since you aren't allowed to talk in there, and it was about 100 degrees with the humidity and I was in a maxi skirt. so hot! the vatican has strict rules about dress code, they don't allow bare knees or shoulders. all i have are bermuda shorts so my knees were all out, so we went the skirt route. we sat out there in the sun for about 40 minutes while we talked about the sistine chapel. then we started towards it, we had to go through a few halls. but then plans changed, we found out that the hall we thought would be open was closed so we got bottlenecked with them and everyone else.


{Lacoon}

we made it into a courtyard where i got to witness my second dream, Lacoon. it was beautiful. i was so excited. then came the worst thing ever, i have never felt more claustrophobic in my life. we were stuck in the hall of muses with about 3,000 other people. no air conditioning, a bunch of people and no water i was almost passing out. i freaked and grabbed cody, we got a fan and i started fanning myself. as soon as we caught a space we paused. it was awful. next we went through the hall of illusion and the hall of tapestries.



{hall of illusion}

it was beautiful. and then the chapel. you go down a narrowing stairwell, about 4 flights down the width of two people standing side by side. and then you turn left up two stairs and boom you are inside the sistine chapel.


{sistine chapel, we weren't supposed to take this picture.. whoops!}

it was kind of anti-climatic but it was beautiful even still. we walked inside and found a little space we could stop and admire the beauty around us. we saw the wonderful fresco paintings all over the ceiling and the walls. it is a glorious work. truely. after we stayed for a few we walked out to St. Peter's Basilica.



{it opened to this.. huge!}

we walked around and checked out some of the alcoves, we did see the pieta - the first statue michelangelo did, masterpiece. we ended up at st. peter's altar. st peter is buried underneath it behind a tile mosaic wall. they don't allow you down there but you can see if from the top. pretty big.


{st. peter's altar}


{us in st. peter's}

after this we were whooped and ready to sit for a bit, so we headed back to the start to get our backpack that they made us check. ugh, so we walked back around 1 mile to the entrance and gathered our stuff. and we were off, we found a place to sit and eat and cool off for a bit. then we started the trek back near our hotel. we passed the castel de st angelo, where they filmed Angels and Demons. Pretty. we then walked to the pantheon, since it was closed also due to the holiday.


{the pantheon}


{ the ceiling of the pantheon}

this church was built by back in the day, it can fit a perfect sphere inside of it and the ceiling is open to outside.  so if it rains outside it rains inside too. pretty crazy right? oh and raphael is buried in here. kinda neat.




we ended up doing a little more shopping and then found a place for dinner. after dinner you will never guess what we got next, yep gelato at gelateria valentinos. then we found a place to sit at the trevi fountain and watch the people.

{trevi fountain}

we finished the night on our own private balcony, cody told the hotel we were celebrating our belated honeymoon. the loon. 

and we called it a close to our roman holiday. the next day we returned home. which was also an adventure. Cody and I got separated and i made it home a day before him. who would have thought. all in all it is an amazing place, i asked cody if we could move there the last night there, he said no but i would in a heartbeat. loved it.

.. a dream come true, from art history that is ..

the next morning we woke up so late, like 10:30. we slept 14 hours. it was great. i felt so new. we got up and dressed and on our way. we missed the breakfast in the hotel so we found a McDonald's near by and had some pastries. they were great. after that we walked to the Colosseum. my all time favorite site, that i couldn't wait to see. i have been studying about this monumental place for years and couldn't wait to get there. we walked down a street and at the end sat the beauty.



it was breath taking. i couldn't believe that i was there standing in front of this monumental structure. we stood outside for a moment to grasp the glory. we were approached by a tour guide who said he could get us in for 20 euro and walk us around the Colosseum with a English speaking tour guide and we could skip the line. we decided to do it. so glad we did.

we got inside and started to see the beauty that was all around. this place is amazing. it was built so long ago and for it to still be standing is an amazing feat alone. we walked around with a cute roman woman who spoke pretty good English, a little broken, but still good. we heard of all the stories of how it was built and used through the years, a review for me, interesting to hear all the details. then we were turned loose to check it out ourselves. we walked around and saw all of it and all the pieces of marble that they have preserved.


{a 180 from inside, in the mid left you can see the marble seats}


{360 composite, pretty neat to see}


{look ma, i'm a giant!}

we stood inside the bookstore for a bit, mostly for the air conditioning, but read all the books. we then found a water fountain and filled our water bottles. all the fountains in rome are purified filtered water and you can fill up at any of them. tastes just like filtered water. it is amazing. after this we spent some time at the arch of Constantine and then walked past the palatine hill and the roman forum, they were both under construction. eww. we saw Trajan's column and Trajan's forum.




it was amazing. we then decided to do some shopping. we found a clothing store that cody fell in love with so we spent a good hour in there while he found clothes. then the shops all started to close, so we figured it was time to go. so we left and found a great restaurant on the shopping street called cucina italia. we went in and had pizza. italy's pizza is by far the best i have ever had. amazing. after dinner we walked to the trevi fountain, i wanted to see the fountain at night. we ended up finding a little gelato shop called gelateria valentino's. it is owned by a cute little couple, they are delightful. we tried some of their gelato and walked home. 

my dream came true, i saw the Colosseum. something i thought i would never see in my life time. truly wonderful and beautiful. 

.. a little new york, long flight and two dazed tourists ..

so day two. we had been able to sleep for about 4 1/2 hours and slip in a shower, which i was so grateful for. we made it back to the airport at about 6:45 and walked to the gate. this time things looked better, which was good cause the flight to rome left new york at 7:30 we needed to make it there. we were able to make it on the flight, phew. we got seated in bulkhead, which if we don't get first class that is my second choice. we got seated to this really nice guy. he talked to me the whole way to new york. he is a neurologist (I think more the pathology way) but he sits in surgeries while patients are being operated on and his job is to make sure that the surgeon doesn't damage any nerves or brain / brain stem function. it was rad to hear all about his job and surgeries and the crazy things he had seen. I asked him about his craziest surgery and he said it was a guy who got a tumor on his brain stem where it attached to the brain, it had finger like tentacles that had wrapped around the stem and attached in. he said it took 2 days to do, day one was just cutting and removing the bone and exposing it all. and then wrapping him up and day two was removal. They got 60% and upped his life expectancy by a decade or two. crazy. talk about a nice flight.

we got to new york around 3:30p and we had 4 hours to chill until the next flight left. so we found our next gate, and then decided food was in order. so we found a chili's too in our concourse and sat down for a bite. cody of course had to face the window to watch the planes. it got so bad that he actually got up and left me at the table so he could go look at them. boys. after lunch we went for a walk and explored the whole airport, cody drooled over planes.


{on our walk}
we ended up in the food court next to the runway so he could watch what else, planes. after 3 and a half hours of this we walked to our gate. and as usual waited.

{a pigeon in the food court.. strange little birdy}

we got called up pretty early on in the boarding to find out that we had a seat! YAY!


{ticket}

i hurried to put on sweatpants, i mean come on 8 hours on a plane, i want comfort! we boarded the plane and discovered that we had got business class. i have never sat there before, i was excited and overwhelmed all at once.


{please don't mind i look gross, it was a very long day}

i got comfy and wanted to go to sleep, but i stayed awake to eat and watch wanderlust, hilarious movie by the way, and then i crashed in my lay flat seat.


{eating dinner, i had short ribs}




{dessert, mine on top ice cream sundae, and cody's cream puffs}


{and i'm out, my fav is the creeper dude in the background, classic!}


we arrived in rome around 10 am there and de planed. we sat in a line for about 30 minutes to get through immigration and soon we were in. we found our way to the train station and got tickets. and then worst train ride ever. it was a half hour ride in a train that didn't have air conditioning. oh and did i mention that it was 95 degrees with 90% humidity. heat + no air conditioning + sweatpants = hot sweaty sicky girl. from the train station we transferred to a subway. only after 20 minutes and attempting to talk to a sweet italian woman to find out that the subway was under construction and we had to get on a bus. adventures. we got to our hotel, showered and were back on the streets in attempt to stay awake as long as possible. we walked to the piazza navona, pantheon, city center, and trevi fountain.


{me at trevi fountain, it was packed!}


{ this is a freeze frame from a video, I had to hurry cause there was only a 2 second space before someone walked in front of me again.. ugh}

beautiful. i was in awe! we ate at the hard rock, a tradition we have when we travel, and called it a night. we were both showered and in bed by 8:30. jet lag.. ugh. it was a crazy way to get there but it was a blast.