Black Forest

Rod & I traveled by train 3 hours north out of Milan to Switzerland to a little town off the side of Lake Lucerne where Theo picked us up and smuggled us over the German border. It was a beautiful drive and we even saw the Bern Temple off of the freeway. We traveled up to the German/ France/ Swiss border towards the Black Forest area. I had really hoped that we would be able to visit a little town calle Staufen (pronounced Stow-fen) that Rick Steves loves, but Theo had invited us to stay with him at a good friend Lydia Pluhar who lived in Mullheim. As we traversed the little back roads weaving in and out of villages set in the vineyards, we passed Mullheim and drove into Staufen!! I was surprised because I hadn't said anything to Theo. Lydia lives right in the heart of Staufen00 and it is a wonderful charming little town! I highly recommend it. There is this magical castle on the hill and the town is full of multi colored houses with a little brook running through the streets.


I am grateful that there are plaques placed throughout Europe that reminds us of the resilience of the people.




ISnt this amazing? Taken right out of my bedroom window at Lydia's House!

Lydia is amazing! She is nearly 80 years old and this woman is wonderful! About 38 years ago as a single divorced mother of 5 (?) she invited the missionaries over to teach one of her son's friends. The missionary was Rod and her son's friend was Theo. Now years later their friendship endures for eternity. We truly love Theo. Thank you Lydia for so very much.....
I love Lydia's simple kitchen. She has a dishwasher! I didnt see a clothes washer and I am sure there is no clothes drier, TV and she travels by train & bus to do geneology a couple of times a week at her LDS church.... but a dishwasher is very modern!

We spent two nights and a day with Theo & Lydia. We traveled to the French border at the Rhine. Spring was in full bloom and it was beautiful! Then we travelled to Friberg and visited the Cathedral. The church has beautiful stained glass and exterior carvings. This door alone has hundreds of little figures carved in red sand stone. Because it is sandstone it is constantly being renovated.
When the stained glass windows were made each of the windows were sponsored by various entities of the town. This window was sponsored by the local barber (see the scissors). It was fun to find the window sponsored by the baker and tailor.... I love traveling with Rick Steves guidebooks. He sure makes a quick visit to a local landmark fun!!

We are home safe and sound now and catching up on our sleep. But I also plan on catching up on posting highlights from our trip because this is how I journal.
Isaac was blessed on March 27th. Later that day we did a fun little photo shoot. His mommy made his blessing outfit. She did a great job!

Charlotte dressed up ready for church. I went into nursery with her. It was great!! Her new teacher spoke as much English as she did Italian so it was easy for me to understand what was going on. It was so cute to see all of her friends in Nursery. Besides Charlotte there was an Italian, a blue eyed blonde hair American, a child from South America and one from Africa. It was truely a wonderful group of little ones!! I wish I would have taken a picture.
Isaac doing is "homework"

Charlotte wanted to sneak into Mimi's luggage like Woody does in Toy Story

Lottie singing with Mimi

A weekend retreat

For his business Rod purchases through a company called Louise & Company. They had invited some of their US Distributors & sales people to a town called Rimini that is on the Adriatic coast about half way down. Rimini is a summer seaside resort town with 1000 hotels along the sandy beach. (more on this later). Rod had made arrangements to hook up with his salesman that planned to be here to tour the SCM factories and tag along for the day. So the whole family decided to make a weekend break for it since Gio had Thur & Fri off of work for the Italy's celebration of 150 years of unification. Besides, it had been raining in Milan for tthe past week and some of us hadnt even left the house for a few days. Rod & I rented a car since there is 6 of us and we followed the Criscione's toward Ravenna-- out first stop on the trip. Rachael & Gio's car
Little Isaac excited to see more of Italia.

We follow Rick Steve's travel advice and seek out suggested hotels. This is Hotel Diana close to the center. The rooms are very small but very comfortable and they come with Italian continetal breakfast of juices, coffee (hot chocolate for us) and pastries along with meat & cheese plate.

The Italian contryside along the road
Driving along the narrow roads of Ravenna. If you are a pedestrian you have to watch closely. This town is big for locas to bicycle around. We loved how crooked this tower is.
We walked around the crowded streets, found an amazing restraunt-- One of the best meals we had experienced.
As we walked around the old town after dinner we found this lit up building down a side street that was open. And let me tell you -- it was amazing. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics-- Art made from small pieces of glass as big as your fingernail that are attached with a cement mixture like tiles. The colors and the way the light hits it is amazing! And many of the pieces in Ravenna were created in the 1st Century-- Only a few years after Christ's death. There are depictions of what these peope believed in and many of the expressions follow my beliefs.
This is in the ceiling of the small building. Inside was a baptisrty. And this art was on the ceiling. The 12 apostles surrounding a depiciton of Christ's baptisim by John the Baptist with Gid the Father to his right and the Holy Ghost symbolised by the dove. We saw many other buildings with amazing mosaic depicitons in the day that we spent in Ravenna and then we drove on to Rimini.

GELATO!!

Italian Gelato!
There is nothing like it. What is offered in the states is like Mesquite trying to be Las Vegas. It just isnt the same. This place that is close to the center offers a squirt of chocolate inside of the cone before they load it up with gelato. I picked blood orange/vanilla custard. We were trying to take it easy because we planned to go from here to appretivo for dinner.


Give me bricks of chocolate any day!!

They also made belgium waffles that you could choose to top with chocolate & gelato -in the window behind Rod.

A Trip to the Market

A Trip to Italy is not complete unless you take a trip to the market. We have been here a week and a half and have visited 3 different street markets AND have gone to I think maybe 5 different Esselauga's (a local grocery store chain). On Saturday we left Gio napping with the kids and took a quick trip to the market up the street. It is like a T. The clothing and shoe vendors are all lined up down the street under big pop up tents and their cars stationed behind them. The food vendors are lined up down the center of the T.

I find street markets fascinating. There are so many different foods there: cheese Vendors selling 100s of cheese varieties, meat vendors selling chicken and veal and rabbit and pig, tons of fruit & vegetable vendors with fresh produce ( you wouldn't believe the strawberries Rod and I bought last week). But what is also fun to see are the variety of people pushing their way through the crowded stalls.

When you come to a big city like Milan you have to dress warm and carry your shopping bags. I thought this woman was sweet in her fur hat and collar


This is one big stick of bolognia that Oscar Meyer would be proud of.
The meat trucks serve raw meat on one side and a small cooked section on the end with roasted chicken and fried vegetables to snack on.
Olives, capers, and other brined items and salted dried fish
Cheese stand (notice the wheels-- these trucks can fold up and drive away)
Check out the cool cauliflower. It looks like an alien life form.
This guy selling fis was also eating a sandwhich with his other hand. (kind of grossed me out a little after I just completed my food handlers safety permit at work a few weeks ago)
Rachael and Rod buying strawberries, artichokes (in season now 10 for 3 e),
This is the stack of boxes beginning to form from the food vendors as they get ready to pack up for the day.

Rod commented on how all of the young women are hot but what happens when they get older? The we saw this lady all decked out in her fur, sunglasses, leggings and high heeled boots for her trip to the market. Very elegant!


In the end we rushed through the market, picked up a couple of things and I found a pair of sparkely ink Lilly & Kelli shoes for Lottie for 15e. I would have payed $25 at Nordstrom Rack for the same pair. So it was a good trip. Sometimes you dont find anything.