Tidbit #1 Frampton Farewell

Our friends the Framptons are moving back to the states in a matter of days. A lot of the Americans got together Friday night to send them off. I haven’t seen a lot of people for months. We always have a lot of fun getting together and will miss having the Framptons (and soon the Jenkins) around. Shout out to the Framptons for selling us their air conditioner. Just in time!

• Frampton Farewell Pictures

Tidbit #2 Stomach Shelf

I recently got a message from my brother Daniel.

Hey Elisa. How is my big sister doing? Can you set things on your stomach yet? for example.. bag of chips, glass of milk? Hows everything going? Tell Chad i said hi. I’m seriously considering robbing old lady’s purses so that i can fund another trip to Europe. love ya hope everything is going well

After encouraging him to do what it takes to get back over to Europe and see us I had to address his stomach-shelf inquiry.

As far as the belly is concerned–it is fun to watch it move like there is a little alien inside trying to get out (which I guess there kind of is). Morgan copped a feel 🙂 of the bumpy tummy. She is officially the only other person who has felt the bumps. I can’t use my stomach as a shelf yet BUT I have noticed that my shirts seem to get dirtier down the front now and I do not notice until later because I can’t see it! What a slob. 🙂

What can I say, I am a growing girl. Elisa doesn’t have any cravings yet. I’m glad for that because the grocery stores all close by 8 pm.

Tidbit #3 Why it’s good to not learn German

Our super Swiss friends Dani and Alvin had their lives turned upside down recently. Alvin and Dani are both under 30. They each work an hour away in different directions. Dani is a concert violinist working on her law degree. Alvin is working on his doctorate. They barely have enough time together as it is. Today Alvin was called to be the new bishop of our ward.

I guess there are some real perks to not speaking the native language well. Chad and I are kind of limited in our ability to do callings. We are very happy to give them congratulations and our condolences.

Tidbit #4 Are you too good for your home?!

Chad and I have been VERY anxious to find out the BIG news that Jeff and Sarah have. They are currently living in Bothell, Washington which is very close to my family and even closer to our house. Plus they have two little girls who will be very close in age to our little girl. When we went back for a visit it was our time with them that started my feeling it was time to think about going home. I love the idea of having our families grow up so close and being able to have our kids play together and help each other out.

Jeff and Sarah’s big news is that Jeff got a great job at a firm doing patent law. They will pay for his tuition to finish his second Bachelors. They start almost immediately! We are so happy for them! Too bad it is in Boise, Idaho. We are so sad for us. 🙁

John and Renee must be way more righteous than us because many of their kids are being magnetically pulled back to Idaho instead of finding Seattle to be their final resting place. With rumors of my siblings wanting to bail out of the Northwest we may be staying in Switzerland longer than expected now. There is definitely less of a pull to move home when Chad has such good things going on here. The timing of our move back keeps getting more difficult.

Sadly our last day was pretty hectic. It was a lot more driving, heat and frustration.

On the happy side we had a really beautiful drive down the lake in the morning. Too bad the drive got longer, and longer. We arrived in Milano frustrated, hungry and hot. Then we got lost looking for the city center for a place to eat and the famous shopping district. You can’t say we got lost though, because we never figured out where we were in the first place. European cities are just NO fun to navigate.

We finally gave up and parked. We hiked a ways to try and find a restaurant. Once again our option was a primarily gelato cafe with a couple fast food type things to choose from to eat. I thought our last day and last meal together before we went our separate ways could be a little more relaxing and enjoyable. I was so irritated. We quickly ate and decided to get out of Milan. We walked out of the stupid cafe and right next to the entrance tucked down a green and shady alley was a nice sit down restaurant. Argh! We had walked right past it! Totally lame.

We did eventually find some of the fancy shopping streets as we walked back to the car. But by then we were all ready to get out of there. All these Italian, high-end name brands were on a street that smelled so rank.

Chad and I had a train leaving from the Milano central train station at 5:38. Todd, Linda and the girls had a plane leaving to Sicily from the Milano Airport at 6:10. We left Milano a little before 3:00 thinking we could accompany them to the airport and then catch a train back to get our connection. It took us forever to get out of the city. Then we realized the Milano airport is not close AT ALL to downtown. We were all stressed trying to find the airport. None of us expected it to be so far. After an unfortunate fueling incident we cautiously got back on the road and made it to the airport. Todd’s girls were having a heyday teasing about his driving skills at that point. We gave hugs, said farewell and went our separate ways.

That is where the day got REALLY good. Chad and I tried to decide whether a 50 minute bus ride back to Milan or an hour train ride up to Como, Italy to meet up with our train would be better. I got overwhelmed and Chad took over. We got on a bus and after Chad received the assurance of the supervisor and ticket man numerous times that we would make it for our train we continued to sit and wait. Finally we took off and thought we were free to relax. Then the driver stopped at the next terminal and turned off his engines. I freaked out. I went and asked our driver about our making our train and he said, “No way.” So then we did not have time to catch our train home by train or bus. Our only other option was a 100+ EURO cab fare up to Chiasso on the Swiss border. Since our tickets were a special deal and also non-refundable we just had to suck it up and go. We got to Chiasso and discovered our train went through Como only, without a stop on the border town of Chiasso. So Chad worked it all out with the ticket counter. He got their assurance that if we got on the next train to Lugano we would be able to catch up with our train home there. What a nightmare! Other than missing our train in both Milano and Chiasso, it was a pretty relaxing trip. 🙂

• Photos of our Italian road trip

We opted to discover more of northern Italy rather than stay in the paradise the Dolomites offered. Bad decision. You can’t win them all. Our drive down to Lake Garda felt hot and long.

We stopped in a really quaint wine town to find some lunch but everything was closed for a siesta–even restaurants! So then we were hot, sick of being in the car and hungry. We finally found a place only to discover their whole menu consisted of gelato. They had some other things but not on the menu. I was irritated and starving–bad combination for me. I ended up picking off of what everyone else got. They did have great gelato though.

Lake Garda (Lago di Garda) was really pretty and huge. There must be some great wind on it because there were a ton of people wind sailing and kite surfing. I saw one guy get some pretty serious air doing the kite surfing. We played “find a hotel” again on our way down the road. Places were pretty pricey and it was getting kind of late.

We ended up finding a pretty mediocre place but it was in a popular town called Malcesine. It had a pool and AC which we all demanded and a great view of the lake. We were so hot that after check in we all met down by the pool. We desperately needed to cool off. We played Durak until sunset and then went into town to find a place to eat. Over the course of our very short stay we were herded around by the hotel staff. Apparently they are running a tight ship. They packed up and put away the lawn chairs our things were on at the pool, while we were there. Then they wouldn’t allow us to sit on the adjoining outdoor patio for breakfast. Silly.

We found a fun place for dinner right on a dock. The water was splashing right under our feet. It was so nice to have a good relaxing dinner after our long hot day. As we walked back to our car there was a band on the street playing salsa music. People were dancing and it was so fun and lively. I love experiencing those types of things while traveling.