Italy

So, a couple weeks ago I went to Italy for a conference. I never reported on my trip. Now, I know that 99% of the people who read this blog read it because of my wife and are primarily interested in her posts, but, I will write about this trip anyways. Mostly, I will show a few pictures of some things I saw, and provide brief descriptions. I started out the trip going to Lugano, Switzerland. It is just across the Swiss border, and is very beautiful. I went to church there on Sunday, and, the Church is still true when done in Italian in Switzerland.

This is Milan's largest attraction, the Duomo. It is the fourth largest cathedral in the world, and is amazing. I have seen many amazing things in my life created my nature, that make you sit back in awe. I had never experienced that with something man made. This made me sit back in awe. Started over 600 years ago, this building is old, huge, and so amazing. Here is me on the roof of this building. The statues all over the place are large - 4-6 feet tall, and there are over 1000 of them on the building. I just kept on taking picture after picture, hoping somehow I would be able to capture the magnificence of the building - I failed.

After the conference ended, I spent a few days in Italy on my own dime. I went to Venice. It was alright. This is a picture. While the thought of a city with streets of water sounds quaint, my vote is that it was somewhat overrated.

I also went to Verona, Italy. This is the third largest Roman arena in Italy, and the best preserved. It was amazing to see the Cathedral in Milan and think it was over 600 years old. It was even more amazing to think that this building is 2000 years old (completed in 30 AD). It seats 25,000 people. Had the people of the New Testament walked up to Verona, it would have been there. Amazing.

This is a castle in Milan. It was pretty amazing. At the conference, we had a dinner. It was the longest dinner I had ever been to, with official time (as kept by me) at 2 hours and 58 minutes. They like lots of courses, and like to eat slowly. I also ended up with 5 separate glasses at my setting. A lot of glasses. It was also the first time I had been given a fish knife. It was definitely the place for a refined and cultured Idahoan such as myself.

This statue of the dead Christ and the Virgin Mary is by Michelangelo. He didn't finish it. I saw a lot of art there, even though Milan is not known for its art. It was amazing to see works of art that were from 400-1600 years old, and see how beautiful it was. Amazing.

So, this was a little balcony in Verona, Italy. It is supposed to be where Juliet talked to Romeo. What they forget to tell all the tourists is that it is a fictional story. Anyways. It was still kind of cool.

So, that is that. Like I mentioned, I saw a lot of amazing things, and the more I saw, the more I realized I could not capture my amazement by taking a lot of pictures. But, I tried. Here are all the pictures I took on a little show. It will go through them. However, if you want to look at them, it would be best to click on them and look at them all at the same time.

Brown socks and a dark suit

So, this morning I was putting on my shoes, and I was thinking about a time on my mission. I was with one of my companions, and in the presence of the Assistant he was talking about the proper color of socks to wear with the proper color of shoes and suit. He had many different colors of socks, and chose them very, very carefully. I thought to myself, “that is so stupid.” The assistant said in a chipper, assistant kind of way, “That is so cool. You are so lucky to know all of that.” My companion then went on to talk about how he worked at some trendy clothes store (The Gap or something) and so knew all about clothes.

Well, I felt pretty bad for feeling the way I felt. In my emulation of the assistant, I wished I could feel proud of my companion for knowing what he did about “fashion”. I wondered if I was jealous, and with my missionary zeal, decided to be prouder of people and the things they knew.

Well, I thought about that this morning as I put on brown socks, brown shoes, and a dark, dark suit, and how I was not doing things as I should.

Then, during church, as I crossed my legs, my blessed wife leaned over and whispered, “why are you wearing brown socks and a dark suit?”

And, my thoughts of the morning came back to me. And, at the same time, I knew exactly why I was wearing brown socks and a dark suit, and why I had thought the information my companion knew was stupid. In order, because those are the first socks that came out of the drawer, and because it is.

I get dressed to keep myself warm and to keep myself modest. That is it. I utterly HATE fashion, matching, looking trendy, or anything like it. I realized this in a deep and satisfying way. I felt like I came to know myself a little bit better today. I feel liberated, like I could go put on my rainbow suspenders, and just be happy knowing my pants won't fall off.

Sharp scissors + (-12) inches = ???

In between working on my thesis and running other errands in search of an elusive shirt to wear to Kevin & Tess's wedding, I paid a quick visit to Supercuts this afternoon. Let's just say it'd been quite a while since I'd had a haircut.

Here's how it went down, literally: in a ponytail for the most part! I'm putting it in the mail tomorrow morning and I hope it can be used to help make a little girl somewhere out there feel happy. What do you think of the new 'do?

Three Years

So, we have now been married officially for three years. For those of you who may not know this, Stacey and I celebrate our anniversery on the date calculated in the Easter, Thanksgiving, fathers and mothers day style, as opposed to the traditional style. Our anniversery is on the second Friday of July. So, we just had it. One thing we do every year is to create a video with the highlights of the year. Traditionally, I give this video to Stacey for a present. This year was no different from all the others (well, the two others). Here is the video. I hope you all enjoy it. It could use some help, and could use a more sophisticated video editing program, but in the end, Stacey and I like it. So, that is that. Let us know what you think of the video.

Madonna con Bambino

So, I went to Italy recently, and was walking through a museum. It was amazing to see all this art that was over 500 years old. There was a little too much of it to appreciate it well, but, it was, nonetheless, amazing. But, I noticed that many, many, many of the pictures were simply titled "Madonna con Bambini". So, I started taking pictures of them. Here is a collection of several things that were thus entitled. They vary very much in how attractive they are, how anatomically correct they are, how many other people are in the work and from what time period (many contain additional Saints from other time periods) and many other such things. However, it was impressive to me that hundreds of years ago it was a popular thing to carve and paint the Christ-child and his mother. Note: All but one of these are original works that were in a museum. The photographs are bad, but the paintings were good. However, one of these pictures was hanging over my bed in my second hotel. Can you guess which one?

Skeeter or Scooter?

You be the judge!

Three Years: July 8, 2005, to July 8, 2008

A quick review:

President's Day weekend 2005. . .Jeff took me to his hometown in Idaho for the grand tour

We got engaged April 8, 2005.

Our friend JB took this and other pictures of us a few weeks later.

July 8, 2005

Washington, D.C. Temple

(or, as Jeff has called it, the Kensington, MD temple. . .)

I won't tell the whole story here but I'm just so glad that "light prevailed" and we could be married on the day we'd planned on for those three months!!

Thanks for three wonderful years, Jeff!

HUSBAND HAIKU

I.

Three great years thus far

Because of who you are, Love,

You've made it easy

II.

"Pretty legs," big heart,

Smile and laugh to gladden

I love you the most

III.

You're my helping hands

For Jacob, for thesis, all!

Thanks for being you

Fishing on the Shenandoah River, Honeymoon, Luray, VA

Happy Fourth of July! and A Benefit of Living Downtown

So, I don't have any pictures to document my and Jacob's excursion this morning, but suffice it to say that I am a fan, especially on July 4th, of living in downtown Provo. Sure, it might be strange to tell people directions to our house "between the pawn shop and the motel" instead of something like "We live next to the big white house" or something like that. But all in all, we've loved our little home these past 10 months, and I was reminded of this when Jacob and I walked 4 blocks to enjoy the Grand Parade this morning and made it home while everyone else seemed to be preparing for an arduous journey back to their cars. Happy Independence Day, especially to Jeff, who is just having an everyday, average fourth of the month over in Italy. :) Other things we have planned:

• - read the Declaration of Independence, as we do every year
• - finish making fireworks cupcakes that look like the one above
• -possibly go see a performance at the Provo Tabernacle of "We the People" put on by the Crandall Historic Printing Museum
• - go to my sister's house & her neighborhood party this afternoon and have dinner there and play with cute nieces and nephew
• - watching Stadium of Fire fireworks late tonight from the insulated car so Jacob doesn't scream and wail
• - begin the countdown to my birthday, as I secretly do every year (it's one month from today)

I'm excited for the rest of our day; it should be fun!