SICILY ancient castle outside the town of Siracusa

The next day we were headed for Syracuse, ancient Greek city and home of Persephane—the reason behind the seasons. We stopped first at an old Greek Castle (built 403-397 BC). Again with all the goggle-eyes looks at the size of our family. We impressed them all, and they only had to tell my kids once to get off the top of the castle walls one time (this is because we then turned a corner after which they could no longer see us). Crazy Americans—I guess when you have a large family it isn’t such a big deal to lose one when he falls of the side of the castle wall (they weren’t that high up, and it possibly had something to do with the age of the “climbing wall”, rather than their safety). Eli’s comment shortly after arrival was, “This is the coolest place to climb, ever!”
At first I thought this was going to be a slight let-down since the castle itself was almost completely demolished and seemed to be just a bunch of large stones. But soon we discovered the underside of it all. This was once one of the best-protected castles around. It had 3 seperate moats with tunnels leading in and out of each; there were long and short underground tunnels leading from front to back or inside out; there were blocked off staircases up into the castle that would have been cool to follow. We spent a couple of hours exploring and playing hide-and-scare (it was October 31st afterall).
I think this was one of the boys favorite places on the trip—it was definitely one of mine. Don’t you just hate how pictures just don’t seem to be able to capture the full experience?!

SICILY Cefalu' and Agrigento--the Valley of the Temples

After staying in Marsala a few days while David worked, we went sight-seeing. First stop was in Cefalu’ to take a little hike up a hill to an ancient temple dedicated to Diana (Greek goddess). The hike up the mountain in Cefalu’ was rather enjoyable after being in the hotel for a couple days and in the car awhile. The trial was pretty steep up and had cactus everywhere (all of Sicily does, with lots of prickly pear fruit to offer). There were awesome ruins atop dangerous precipises all the way up. When we got to the temple, I was blown away to see how old it was (5th century BC) WOW! Most of what we saw afterward dated close to this time-period.

For our boys the most memorable part of this trip was on the way down. They all had to go to the bathroom and there wasn’t one handy. There was a patch of cactus near the edge of the path, so they all (David included) did the Italian thing and just went—they did try to be discreet by stepping as far as they could into the cactus covering. This spot became the later mapping point as we looked back at the hill from a distance, “See that spot on the edge over there? That is where we went to the bathroom. Can you believe how high we were?” The statement, “you mean the place we peed?” was made more than once that day as we talked about the temple on the hill—lovely. Sorry, Diana.

Velle dei Tempii. I was really excited to see these ancient temples, especially since there were so many of them right near each other and one was particulalry well-preserved.

The boys were thrilled with all the outside time on this trip. Of course, they ran past the first ancient temple to get to prime “mountain lion” leaping and prowling territory on the old Olive tree and then the partially crumbled walls nearby.
It was such an incredible experience. The temples and walls were truly awesome. The age of these buildings was a hard thing for me to grasp, let alone the boys, but I think they understood that it was all really cool old stuff. We all loved it, and even Gabriel waited until just before the last stop to crumple to the ground declaring that he was unable to move and needed to be carried (thus david ended up with one on his back in the pack and one on his front in his arms for at least some of the walk down).

Halloween Pumpkin Faces

We had a farewell party for some of our friends from church. They are moving back to Equador, and we wanted to do something fun for them. We did a Halloween themed activity--decorating pumpkins. We decided to make it funner, and less slimy, by cutting out features from pictures of the branch members and having teams use them to create faces for the pumpkins. It was so much fun!
Everyone really got into it! Gabe helped a group of ladies finish theirs and felt very special. Eli was on a team with Fratello Garcia, and Adam did his own after everyone else was finished (he had been too busy earlier, dressing up as a cowboy to show everyone--he even had me announce him when his outfit was complete and ready for presentation).

Good times.

But the best part was after all our "customers" left (leading up to party time, the boys kept asking when our customers would be here. It totally cracks David and I up. I did tell them that they are our guests, but it just doesn't stick). While we were cleaning up we would find a random mouth, or other feature, with tape on back and put it on our own face. It was hysterical!

These are a few of our favorites!

Rebekah turns 31

Okay, so I am now officially "in my thirties". Isn't that surreal to be saying?!

I didn't really think it counted when I was just 30, but now there is no denying it!



David and I watched The Man From Snowy River a couple of days before my birthday. We hadn't seen it in years, but were blown away when we realized that it was made in 1982 (or 83, can't remember right now).

I seriously spent the first 30 minutes of the movie pondering 25 years ago! I realized that my mom was basically my same age and with 4 or 5 little kids. Wow!! I couldn't even ponder the movie becuase I kept thinking about her at my age, knowing that someday her kids would be grown and she would be an empty-nester, but not being able to truly fathom it.

All of a sudden, I felt like my own life was on fast-forward and I really wanted to pause it. There are days that are so difficult, but I really love little boys! I want to just eat up the now because before I know it we will be at Eli's mission farewell and I will be wondering where time went!

To top it off, Eli is preparing for his next birthday (he is, after all, just days away from officially being 9 and 1/2). He says to me, "Mom, 10 sounds so much older than 9, to me. Does it sound old to you?" I answered yes and when he asked why, I responded, "Because I was just 10, so you can't be that old yet!" Life really does just fly by.

Since I can't stop the forward dash, I had better put myself in fast-motion-camera-mode and capture the moments!

I am happy with where my life is right now and am therefore perfectly content with my age. I've decided I will probably always be cheesy, always be in love with my husband, always wish I had more time, always want to be in better shape, always love the combination of red and white, always do what I feel, rather than what I think I want, always love it when David makes dinner, etc. It is good to be me--never perfect and not always enjoyable, but ME.

*some of my birthday gifts--from David, my friend Angie, and from myself.

Grandpa Von--one great guy!

Yesterday was my dad's birthday and I just wanted to put in a little my-dad-is-the-best-because message.

Grandpa Von truly is hard to compete with. He is just amazing, and fun, and energetic, and thoughtful, and patient, and... the list just goes on. I have never met a soul who didn't like my dad.

I hear about Grandpa Von all the time from my kids. They remind me often of just how lucky I am to have him for a father. He was a great dad to me, and is an over-the-top grandpa. What I love is that they don't think "cool new toys and treats" when they think of grandpa, but they think, "I wonder what adventure we will have" and "will I beat him at horseshoes this time?" and "grandpa would love to see this cool rock I found."

He is that amazing kind of person who truly enjoys the simple things in life, like nature and curious little boys. He is a natural hero for all of his grandkids--he always has been for his own children.

I love you, Dad!!

Simple Little Boy Pleasures

Our boys love Madlibs. It is a good way to familiarize them with nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.
The last couple of nights we have been doing Madlibs as a family, but I have had to limit the readings of each finialized story. The reason being that they are memorizing the phrases and I am sick of hearing things like "temporary poop" and "open your bum" all day long.
Yes, for my boys, the most common:
noun is poo
adjective is poopy
verb is poo (isn't it lovely how the same word can be noun and verb)
adverb is poopily
and body part is bum (only because poo isn't a body part)

The amount of laughter that word produces each time it is used, no matter what the scenerio, is mind-boggling. I keep thinking we should ban it, but...

I remember a van-ride to Vernal a couple years ago during which all we heard was the simple word, "poo" from Adam followed by squealing laughter from Caleb (they kept this up for hours). I guess it isn't just my boys, but I wonder if it is something that they ever grown out of. The answer may come in the form of my very mature David who rolls his eyes, but laughs as heartily as the boys every time that word is mentioned (okay, slight exaggeration).

Simple, albeit uncouth, pleasures!