Sunday May 26-Venice

We said goodbye to our friends and their wonderful hospitality Sunday morning.  We drove toward Venice and attended church in Mestre.  With its location being so close to a high tourist area they were set up with translators available which helped those of us that don't speak Italian.  

We drove to a parking garage and took a boat into Venice.  

Then did a walking tour of the island.

 We went to many commonly known spots like St. Marks' Square.  

It was crowded enough there we made up a game of "where's waldo" describing people in the crowd for the others to spot. 

But it was also fun to explore off the beaten path.  It is such unique city.  

 We got to learn some interesting history about the original settlers along the way such as the spiral (snail) stairs made big enough for the horses to go up, the family known for the man who broke the Doge's nose, and not to sit in any of the corners (where there is evidence in paintings that men have used the corner stones as urinals for hundreds of years).

We ended with a spectacular view looking over Venice.

The kids weren't as fascinated with the walking tour as the adults, but they did enjoy counting gondolas and flying golden lions along the way. 

And of course the pizza and gelato after we were done.  Preston was obsessed (because of a book he'd read) with finding the bridge of sighs.  We made sure to point it out, but I don't think we got a picture of him there once we finally made it there.

Everyone was exhausted after the long day, so kids decided to go to bed while James and I went out to see the sights lit up at night. 

Saturday May 25-Baone

We were still working on time change issues. Preston was awake, happy, and ready to play at 4:30am. 

 We spent time reading and hanging out at the house to give everyone a chance to rest.  

We then got a great tour of the area from Illenia.  We went for a short hike to a local church that was built in the 1200s.  The views were stunning, and the kids loved just being able to run around and explore.  

Illenia's son doesn't speak English, and our kids don't speak Italian, but being silly is a universal boy language. 

We explored the vineyards, 

And the olive orchard, where we got stuck and had to push our car out.  

We were amazed by our  lunch.  While we were out hiking Illenia was picking fresh herbs, which we then ate in our risotto along with Bolognese on fettuccine noodles her mom had made fresh.

  That afternoon we went to explore a nearby castle city Montagnana

They were having a farmers market which gave us a chance to try out more yummy food.  Prosciutto with Melon and Focaccia. 

Thursday May 23 (Travel) to Friday May 24-Arezzo, Bologna, Baone

Off to Italy!  The kids were a little bit sad to miss their last week of school with all the play days and parties, but everyone was looking forward to our big adventure.  We left Wednesday evening, flew to Madrid, Spain and then arrived in Rome on Thursday evening.  From there we started driving north, staying in Arezzo for the night.  

The travel all went really smoothly, but the last couple hours of driving were rough.  We were trying to keep kids awake until we got to the hotel so we could adjust to the local timezone.  Everyone was much happier after stopping for pizza.  

After a yummy breakfast at hotel of pastries, ham, cheese, bread, fruit we decided to explore a little bit of the city we were in.  Arezzo had typical old European buildings with cool alleyways. We also witnesses a rally demanding for cleaner earth, which added to our cultural experience.  We continued north, appreciating being able to drive in the daylight. (our drive the night before was all dark.) It was a beautiful drive toward Bologna.    

We drove to Bologna where we met up with Ian and Annie's family who had flown into Venice that morning.  We explored Eataly, learning about how ham, pasta, chocolate and jam were made.  

We didn't get a picture of the full apple wall.  But there was an impressive display of over 1000 varieties of apples that grow in the region.  

After Eataly we got our very first (of many) Gelato of the trip. It was delicious.

We drove toward Baone, where we stayed with our friend, for a couple nights.  She served us an amazing dinner.  Tortellini in broth, rice salad, sausages and bread.  What a wonderful welcome to a beautiful country.

Brielle's 12th Birthday

Brielle had her first friend party this year.   She planned out a Paris theme and sent me a google doc with the items we would need for food and decorations. 

 She and her friends had lots of fun painting like money, doing a photo booth, building Eiffel towers with wafer cookies, having a baguette throwing contest (which had to be explained to the neighbors when a baguette landed in their yard). 

And of course there was eating: croissant sandwiches, boursin cheese, fruits, veggies, salad, macarons and a nutella crepe cake. 

Margaret took Brielle to get a professional haircut for her birthday. She’s been asking for a pixie hair cut for the last couple months and decided to go for it. It makes her look very different, but she is happy with it.  She and I also got to go our for a pedicure date.

We got to go to Hasan and Deborah’s house for an amazing mediterranean food and swim party.  Brielle's had the chance to celebrate quite a few birthdays with them in the past few years.

The celebrations continued Sunday with a family dinner to celebrate Abigail and Brielle’s birthdays.  They love being birthday buddies.

Brielle's 12-year-old Interview and Stats

Brielle turned into a young woman this year!  She has been able to go to youth group and do baptisms in the temple (earlier than we'd expected), she got her ears pierced, and went off to sleep away camp (outdoor science camp for school).  She has a sweet disposition and a fun sense of humor.  She is kind and usually willing to help out.

Height: 5ft 5in (97%)

Weight: 102lbs (66%)

Sleeping: about 9.5 hours (9:00pm-6:30am), Bedtime is 8:30, but it takes her a while to get to sleep, and to wake up.  

Hobbies: Reading, Baking, Volleyball, Babysitting. Enjoys and does well in school. Worked hard to apply for an arts charter school program for middle school and was accepted to both the creative writing and integrated arts programs.  Decided to do integrated arts since she is interested in everything.

Brielle's responses to 12-year-old Interview Questions 

What is your name? Brielle Christine Finlay
When is your birthday? May 4th, 2007 
 How old are you? I turned 12
What is your favorite color? Pink and Green
What is your favorite song? All the songs from Wicked
What does Mom do? Stays home and cooks food and takes care of the house and takes care of us.
 What does Dad do? Goes to work at City of Hope and takes care of all the animals and does necropsies and all that stuff.
 What do you want to do when you are a grown up? Be a Veterinarian or a Librarian or a Teacher or a Sees Candy worker or an Ice Cream Shop Owner.
Where do you want to live when you grow up? Paris or Michigan or California.
If you had 1 million dollars, what would you do with it? Pay my tithing, then buy some bunnies and a dog and a cat that can sleep with me.  And then a house (actually I'd get the house and then all the animals) and then I'd get furniture and paint the walls pink and green and remodel the whole kitchen and my bedroom.
What is your favorite food? Lasagna and Caesar Salad and and Breadsticks and Garlic Bread
What is your least favorite food? Corned Beef and Cabbage
What is your dream car? a Limousine, but I probably won't get that in my whole life, so I guess just a regular 5 person car, or a SUV.  
What is your favorite animal? Can it be a mythical animal?  A Pegicorn (Pegasus and Unicorn)
Where do we go to church? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Royal Oaks Drive and we go every Sunday. 
Why do we go to church? To learn about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and learn stories about the church so we can share it with other people.
What is something you’re good at? Reading and cuddling with my didi.
What is your favorite movie? lots of favorite movies: Love Kennedy, Just Add Magic (even though we haven't seen that for a long time), Not Cinderella's Type and Once I was a Beehive (so basically movies with Paris Warner)
What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Plain old vanilla or La Michoacana's Oreo.
Where would you like to travel? Paris, Canada, Greece and Ireland and England.
Where do you like to eat? Souplantation, In 'n Out, Cafe Rio and yummy places.
Who is your favorite person? I have lots of favorite persons.
Who is your best friend? Priscilla
What is your favorite book? I don't like that question.  I have too many answers.  I could list it off all day.  But I like the Harry Potter Series.
What is your favorite thing to do? Read and Bake and eat the stuff I'm baking.
What are you most excited to do this year as a 12-year-old? Go to Italy and start at CSArts in the fall and go to Royal Oaks again.  And I'm excited for the back yard to be remodeled.

I liked my birthday party this year. It was fun.  It was Paris themed and ....

Ethan's 10th Birthday

Ethan was able to have another fun birthday weekend.  The kids didn’t have school on Friday and we had cousins spending the weekend with us. Ethan is always excited to have more kids to play with and the kids all loved the multi-day cousin sleep over and had so much fun.  We went hiking and adventured around the town.  Friday we rode the bus to the dollar store for a budgeting activity as part of a Faith in God project Ethan was working on.  Then walked to the library to pick up books that were on hold for Ethan’s California Mission project.  That afternoon we hiked up to deer flats and went out to Cafe Rio for dinner.

Ethan ran a 5k the morning of his birthday with Gramma and Papa Finlay. Margaret signed him up on Wednesday so he hadn’t trained at all and hadn’t felt great the day before so wasn’t sure he could run that morning.  He enjoyed walking and talking with Gramma and Papa for the first little bit, but then his competitive side came out and he decided to run.  He took 5th in his age group and is sure he could win next year. 

The other kids and I joined at the finish line for “Ethan’s birthday party” in which there were all kinds of bounce houses that the kids were thrilled about and we told Ethan we had invited the whole city to his party.  He chose all the food for meals on Saturday, but we had his official family birthday dinner party on Sunday for which he requested ribs that he and James started cooking Saturday morning by sous-viding them for 36 hours.  

Ethan has become very involved in James’ new cooking hobby with the sous vide and also wanted to make his own birthday cake-a peach cobbler.

Ethan's 10-year-old Interview and Stats

Ethan has grown up quite a bit this year.  He is good with his younger cousins and likes to help out (although still struggles with being overly helpful with Preston who doesn't appreciate it).  He likes whatever James likes such as if James mentions he likes a new song, Ethan will suddenly start listening to it again and again.  He is very concerned about everything being fair and making sure he gets his special time (being the middle child is tough!) but when we try to do fun things and dates with him he often wants to invite Preston to come too.  
He especially loves his teacher this school year which has helped him become much more responsible with his school work and better about controlling his impulsive behavior.
He is a natural leader.  One example is with volleyball he takes it upon himself to be the self proclaimed 'assistant coach' constantly communicating with his teammates about where to go and how to improve.  Last year he tried to play the whole court by himself as he had more experience but now is doing better and bringing everyone else's skill levels up and their team has been undefeated so far.
He is great to help around the house as long as the jobs can be done swiftly without any attention to details.  :)

Height: 60 inches
Weight: 84 lbs
Sleeping: 10 hours (8:30 pm-6:30 am) Asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow, but even when we get to bed to late he never sleeps in.
Hobbies: Has backed off from sports a bit this year to focus more on music, enjoying a couple of after school music classes and piano.  Still also does track and volleyball.  Loves animals, especially catching lizards and frogs, and doing anything outdoors.

Ethan 10-year-old interview

What is your name? Ethan
When is your birthday? March 9th
How old are you? 10 years old
What is your favorite color?  Blue and Green
What is your favorite song? Phoenix by The Fall Out Boy
What does Mom do? Mom works around the house and works with the kids
What does Dad do? Dad's a veterinarian at City of Hope
What do you want to do when you are a grown up? I want to be a veterinarian too
Where do you want to live when you grow up? In California
If you had 1 million dollars, what would you do with it? I would pay my tithing, then save it for other things, and trips.
What is your favorite food? Pizza
What is your least favorite food? Mushrooms
What is your dream car? A race car?
What is your favorite animal? Tiger
Where do we go to church? Duarte Ward
Why do we go to church? Because Heavenly Father wants us to
What is something you’re good at? Sports
What is your favorite movie? Planet Earth
What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Oreo
Where would you like to travel? Florida Keys
Where do you like to eat? Cafe Rio
Who is your favorite person? Preston?
Who is your best friend? Justin
What is your favorite book? The Boys in the Boat
What is your favorite thing to do? Play outside
What are you most excited to do this year as a 10-year-old? Go to Italy