Lavender Days

So, I am sure that most of you haven't heard of Lavender Days before--at least I hadn't. It is a small, two-day festival in Mona, Utah, and I just have to say that I LOVED it and am going back next year. It is hosted by Young Living, a company that makes essential oils and has a very large lavender farm in Mona. (The lavender did smell heavenly!) It has all the traditional things that most festivals have, such as a variety of vendors (jewelry, artisan items, home decor, baked goods, etc.), and it had all the traditional food vendors (even though you could see the lavender influence in such items as lavender lemonade and lavender ice cream), and it had a lot of the traditional festival entertainment--an assortment of bands and other entertainers. But, it had a whole lot of stuff that you don't find in a normal festival: classes on cooking, gardening, eating healthy, and lots of other things, a tour through the lavender distilleries, picking lavender in the lavender fields, a 5K run through the lavender, a midieval village including a jousting arena built on the farm, and some really great old fashioned rides, and tons of other things. It was a lot of fun hanging out with my nieces and just enjoying the day. My 3 year old niece was most excited about the Fairy Tea Party for little girls ages 3 to 12. She had so much fun learning the dances and games and eating her lavender cookie with lavender lemonade. But most of all, she was just fascinated by the lavender fairy girls. One of the fairy girls gave her some glitter and told her to make a wish. She told them that for her wish she wanted to be one of them. It was really cute!

Here are a few pics of some of the many things at the festival:

Western Village with an Old West Shoot Out Show

Jousting Tournament with Professional Jousters

Herb Garden

Old Fashioned Rides


Carriage Rides Through the Lavender Fields

Archery

Paddle Boat Rides (Here is my brother and his little 3 year old girl showing off his prowess of being able to paddle both sides of the boat.)

Rock Climbing Walls

A Scottish Pipe Band


A Midieval Village

Favorite Teams on So You Think You Can Dance!!!

Ok, I admit it--I LOVE the summer show So You Think You Can Dance! They have such talented performers and some of the dances are just plain cool!!! Here are a few of my favorites from this season:

Hip Hop



Broadway


Contemporary


Viennese Watz

Camping, Broken Car, Swimming, and Birthday Party

I had a packed weekend this past weekend, but not too many pics to show for it. Oh well.... Friday night we went up to Willow Flats to go camping with the I and S group (people from the Adam's Park ward--previous to present)--hosted by Irene and Sally. It was a lot of fun. I did have a little mishap though... I had just picked up my car from the shop on Friday because my muffler pipe was bad. I so enjoyed the ride up without feeling like a hot-rodder with that loud sound... but when I got the campground, we had to drive through a little river and when i went through, i heard a loud POP!!! Later, i discovered that my exhaust pipe broke off again and the undercarriage in the front of the car got ripped down. It was kind of sad. So, back to the mechanic for me. But the rest of the evening was great--dutch oven chicken, potatoes, veggies, and cobbler for dessert. Saturday morning a few of us hiked a small hike up the canyon there. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday night my sister and I went up to Downata hot springs and went swimming with Marianne, Brian, Rex, and Karen. The actual swimming part was with Brian and Marianne and Eric and Amy. It was sooooo fun. The water was bathtub warm and we had plenty of swimming noodles to play with. It was very relaxing and fun! We also went four wheeling up into the hills and got covered in dirt! It was great. I wish I would have had a picture of Alayna with all that dirt on her... it pays to be prepared! Later we made S'mores around the campfire (with Chips Ahoy cookies as the base--pretty good) ate peanuts in the shell and threw the shells in the fire, and found constellations in the sky with Rex's fancy new GPS star finding toy. I just wish I had some pictures.
Sunday we went down to Eagle Mountain for my niece Eden's one year old birthday party. She is sooooooo cute! I love it when babies turn one. She is the happiest little girl in the world!

Hiking Saturday: Karen, Carol, and Diane

This might be Cub River... but I am not sure. It was very pretty though.

This is the beginning of the river, the springs. The water tasted soooo good!

The road around the campground at Willow Flats.

The "Waterfall" which really wasn't much of a waterfall.... but it was still pretty. I wish I could have captured one of the pretty blue butterflies flying around. They looked like flying blue flowers. :)

Summerfest in Logan and Van Sculling

This weekend was GREAT!!! The weather was nice and the sky was blue and I had a fantastic weekend. After work on Friday, Liz and I went jogging at the USU track and then to song practice. Afterwards we went to Summerfest with Alayna and Mike and had a great time checking out all the booths. We feasted on delicious crepes filled with basil cream cheese, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, green onions, and cheese. It was very tasty! One of the coolest things is we ran into Jonathan and Rebbekah Mitchell!

Saturday we went to a Stake Relief Society conference and performed our song and took some classes. Around 2:00 we left and decided to go sculling. Liz's car (that we usually put the boat on) was in for repairs, so we loaded the boat up in her parent's mini-van. It was soooo fun!!!! It reminded me of the days we used to ride around in the summer in the back of the pickup truck. Alayna and I really enjoyed sitting on the floor in the back. After a nice warm day of sculling (even though the water was really rather choppy), we met up with Mike and Alayna and went to Summerfest again. (We didn't get a chance to see all the booths the day before.) We also ran into Carolyn Sweeney and family. :) One of the best parts is that we ate Norma Jeane's Southern Bar-BQ with the delicious yellow mustard sauce. Yummy!!! It was a lot of fun.

Scullboat in a Minivan!




Summerfest (these pictures are from the summerfest website)

Spring at the Logan Temple

I went to the temple last week. They had just planted the flowers and it was so pretty. Here are a few pictures.

A Few Pics From Italy

I guess it is time to post a few pictures of my trip to Italy.
Our first stop was in Venice, where we just ran around the city for half of a day.
Some side canal "streets"



St. Mark's Square

The Grand Canal



Then, we went to Florence--it was a beautiful city and had great gelato! We spent a day and a half enjoying all the architecture, the gardens, and the cobblestone streets.
This is the main cathedral (Duomo) and the center of the town.

I decided that this should be my new house in Florence.

People sculling in Florence

The cathedral (Duomo) up close

Pointe Vecchio, the most famous bridge in Florence. They sell gold jewelry in the shops along the bridge.

The city in the evening from Michelangelo's Hill


On to Rome! Here we got to see the Roman Forum, The Vatican and St. Peter's cathedral, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Novonne, Campo di Fiori, and the Spanish Steps. We even found time to visit the Villa Borghese park.

These pictures are from the Roman Forum, Coliseum (or Colosseum),and Palatine Hill





Here is a picture of me at the Campo Di Fiore. I am in the back by the fountain.

St. Peter's Cathedral at the Vatican

The Pantheon, this building was amazing. It was built only 130 years after the death of Christ and is still standing. It was really great to be in a structure that old.

A bridge in Rome. Notice the sculler on the left of the picture. :)

Trevi Fountain in Rome


To get away from all the heat (Rome was HOT!!!), we next went to the Cinque Terre region--with a quick 1 hour stop to view the leaning tower of Pisa. The Cinque Terre was sooooo beautiful and we spent 4 relaxing days here (I guess they were relaxing even though we climbed a lot of stairs and went on an amazing hike!) I loved the Cinque Terre. Our home base the first 3 days was Vernazza. The fourth day we moved to Monterosso because of the train strikes. We were supposed to head up to Milan, but there was no way out of the region.
Me and the leaning tower of Pisa

Vernazza in the Cinque Terre


The village of Manarola

Garden Terraced Hillside

Another view of Vernazza


We finally were able to get a train at 6:55 a.m. to Milan and then on to Como! It was rainy, cloudy, and wet, but we did enjoy 3 beautiful hours on the lake and at the town of Bellagio. It was so gorgeous! I must return some day. And they had sculling teams out on the lake. It was soooo cool!
This picture was taken from the boat and is the villa used in the Star Wars movie.

The town of Bellagio on Lake Como


After Como, we returned to Milan and checked into the Hotel--then walked down to the Duomo and happened in to the Andrea Bocelli free concert. That was fun. The next day we went back and explored the cathedral. Then, back to Venice and Home!!!
Andrea Bocelli concert in the square at Piazza Duomo in Milan

The Milan Duomo at night

The rooftop of the Milan Duomo


Back in Venice!