Go Team Jolene!!!

Hi everyone! As many of you know, our dear friend Jolene passed away in 2006 from complications of Cystic Fibrosis. She continues to be a shining example to me of strength, love, and integrity, and I am thankful to be able to contribute to this cause that she loves so much.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a devastating genetic disease that affects tens of thousands of children and young adults in the United States. Research and care supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is making a huge difference in extending the quality of life for those with CF. However, we continue to lose precious lives to CF every day. That's why your help is needed now more than ever to ensure that a cure is found sooner - rather than later.

GREAT STRIDES is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's largest and most successful national fund-raising event. This year, I'm walking in the GREAT STRIDES walk at the Snoqualmie location on September 26th 2009. Please help me meet my fund-raising goal of $1,500.00 by sponsoring me. Your generous gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education.

If you would like to join our team, or donate to this cause that we are so passionate about, please visit our Team Jolene page at www.cff.org/great_strides/ErinChristensen

Thanks everyone! We love you all!!!

Love, Erin and Teage

I am feeling loved :)

I had a long (but good) day yesterday..... But after I got home from my photography appointment, this is what I found as a surprise!

What a great end to the day! I am so thankful for all three of my adorable boys! Thank you my loves! What a lucky girl I am!

Italy, The Final Installment

And the forth and final chapter of our Italian get-a-way. :)

The last day at the villa we relaxed, swam in the pool, and hung out enjoying our scenery. We tried our hardest to really soak in where we were and who we were with. This is Betu, the groundskeeper at the villa who we just adored. He tried really hard to make sure that we were comfortable the whole week and was just a really sweet person, we took to him instantly.

On our last night in Tuscany, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant in Sinalunga and ate up a storm. :) The portions in Italy are usually smaller then we are used to in the US, so we all ended up ordering more then we should have. Also in Italy, it isn't polite to leave any food on your plate, so we all ended up stuffing ourselves in order to not offend our nice waitress. :) The food was extremely good though!

Our last full day in Italy, we were back in Rome and were able to tour Vatican City. What an amazing experience that was! Sean, Teage, and I had tickets to the tour at the Vatican Museum, so we took a very overpriced taxi to the city. The tour was amazing! We saw so many gorgeous historical pieces of art history, including the Rafael room, the "map" room, and a whole room full of tapestries. I was so thankful for our tour guide, as she explained all of the significance of each piece, how it was done, and why it is so important for us to study. This was our tour guide at the beginning of the tour. She was explaining the Sistine Chapel to all of us because we are not allowed to talk while we were in the actual chapel. At the end of the tour we just stood in the Sistine Chapel for about 20 minutes, admiring Michelangelo's amazing piece of art. It is hard to describe the feelings as you stand under one of the most famous works of art in the world, we just loved the whole experience.

That last night in Rome we celebrated David's 16th birthday. What a better place to celebrate a birthday then in Rome Italy!! He was surprised with a yummy berry cake and a roaring Happy Birthday song so that he was sufficiently embarrassed. It was a lot of fun!

And of course we had to top the night off with our last family game of Knock. We had played Knock every single night while we were in Italy, a family tradition just about every time we are all together. So, we all gathered around a tiny little hotel table and played our last few games of Knock before we all had to endure our long plane trip home.

Teage and I had such a fantastic time on our trip to Italy. We are so thankful for this opportunity we had to travel to such an amazing part of the world with wonderful family. We are so appreciative of Dad and Lisa for all they did for us on this trip, and for my Mom and Dan for watching the boys the whole week. We will always remember this amazing experience!

Italy, Part 3

Wow, this is getting long. :) I just can't decide what to share, and what not to!

After visiting the Civita di Bagnoregio, we decided to venture up to another hilltop town in Tuscany, this one the beautiful town of Orvieto which is known for it's amazing ceramics. Orvieto is another gorgeous little town on top of a hill, with tiny cobblestone streets that are all one way, and we did end up getting terribly lost before we found a parking lot. :) Orvieto also has an amazing cathedral in the center of town, so big in fact that it looks like it doesn't fit into the town at all. It had amazing architecture and a beautiful story surrounding it.

Then on Tuesday, we decided to visit the local street market, which was a lot of fun. It was very interesting to listen to us try to barter with people in a mix of English and Spanish, knowing no Italian what-so-ever. :) Then later that day we did another hilltop town visit, this time to a little town named Trequanda, just a little away from where we were staying. This town was pretty tiny, and had absolutely NO tourists, so it was great to walk around all by ourselves and take in the beautiful scenery and architecture. We also found a great overlook where we took some fun pictures of the family.

That night we took some family pictures outside of our villa, that turned into a really fun photo shoot. :) Here is the whole family in my favorite shot....doesn't my Dad look just perfect with his little smirk on his face and all of us around him? :)

The next day was a long (and wonderful!) one! My amazing grandparents hired a tour guide for us in Florence, so we drove up there for the day. Our guide was simply fantastic, I am so thankful that she was there with us, as I do not know much about art history and would not have gotten nearly as much out of the trip if she had not been there to hold our hands! :) We saw the statue of The David, went to the Uffizi Museum and saw many Rafael paintings, Michelangelo's only painting on wood, etc etc. She explained so much about the Renaissance era and how certain styles of painting came about, etc. It was just amazing. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures from Florence, as you are not allowed to photograph any of these paintings or sculptures.

The cathedral and baptistery in Florence.

One of the things that my Dad wanted to do most of all was to see the Mediterranean Sea. So, we drove from Florence over to the coast and all put our feet into the Mediterranean! We didn't stay long, and it was quite a trip to get over there and back, but we were very thankful that we did it, it was very worth it!

We missed Dylan and Lucas just a little bit...can you tell?? :)

Italy, Part 2

So, I believe when I left off, we were still in Rome on our second day...yikes, I have a lot more to write! :) The second day of our trip, we went back to the airport to get our rental cars and drive out to Tuscany for the remainder of our stay. Lisa had found this AMAZING villa that she rented for our whole family! I can't even describe the scene of this fantastic place. Anyway, we finally got our cars after waiting for hours, and eventually made it out of the airport parking lot after figuring out how to drive "Italian" stick shift cars. :) We drove through amazing scenery on our way to Tuscany, passing hilltop villages, fields and fields sunflowers and olive trees, and gorgeous ruins along the side of the highway. And Teage's favorite, NO ONE drives in the left lane unless they are passing (and the A1 has no speed limit :) )!Linds and David watching our bags while we waited for our rental cars Our gorgeous villa!!!! Villa Scopitello Our very first night in the villa, the owner made us a wonderful pizza dinner, and we ate at the dining room table on the top floor of the villa overlooking the valley and the town of Sinalunga. The whole family sitting down to our first dinner in Tuscany! The next day, all of us were pretty exhausted and wanted to relax, so we spent the entire day by the pool. Teage, David, and I played tennis in the morning, and then all of us just swam, played games, and had fun in the sun the whole rest of the day. I can't even tell you how nice it was to just sit by the pool and read a book, or go into the house if we got hungry, or just admire the view without having to worry about ANYTHING ELSE! Even though we didn't go anywhere, this was one of our very favorite days in Tuscany. Just playing together as a family and having fun. Linds breaking the "how long can you hold your breath?" record :) David and Dad playing football Lindsey, David, and I in a race!

The next day we spent the whole day traveling to some of the little historical villages around Sinalunga, in Tuscany. The first hilltop village that we went to was my favorite by far. It is called Civita di Bagnoregio and it is was founded by Etruscans over twenty-five hundred years ago. The town is located atop a plateau of volcanic rock and looks like it may topple over any minute. The sides of the hill have eroded over the years, so the only way to get there now is a skinny bridge that doesn't allow cars. The city was just beautiful. It was amazing to walk around this city that is threatening to crumble at any moment, see the foundations that were built thousands of years ago and still stand, and think about how much history this city has seen over the years. And of course there was a Gelateria right outside the city....they are everywhere! :) And I just had to get a picture of myself by these enormous cans of Nutella, which is also everywhere.

OK....I think I am going to stop there for now....more to come! :)

Italy, Part 1

So, I am wondering if I am going to need Part 2 and even Part 3, but we will get all of these pictures shown in some form or another! There are just way too many to go through! :)

To start, I need to say thank you to my Dad and Lisa for taking the whole family on this amazing vacation. We had such a FABULOUS time and are so thankful for the opportunity! We felt very blessed to be able to go! Also, thank you to my Mom and Dan for taking the boys the entire week so that Teage and I could have a get-a-way! It was so amazing to be able to not worry about the boys the whole week and just focus on vacation and relaxing!

For Dad and Lisa's 20th wedding anniversary, they generously decided to take all of us kids on a vacation to Italy! We (mainly Lisa) :) spent months planning and organizing so that we could do the most amount of sight-seeing in the least amount of time. :) And to do our best not to get lost. :) She did a fabulous job!

After a horrendously long flight, Teage, my brother Sean, and I arrived in Rome early on Friday morning. We hadn't slept well on the plane, but only had about a day in Rome, so we went straight from the airport to our hotel, dropped off our bags and took the hotel shuttle

into the city. We had a map and an idea of where we wanted to go, but that was about it. :) We ate our first official Italian meal at a little restaurant on the side of the road, got more directions from the waiter on which buses to take, and off we went. Our first stop was the Colosseum, which was the one thing I was just dying to see! However, we got off the bus a little too early (not understanding the language has its drawbacks :) ) so we walked a few blocks to the "Major's House" and toured around, and then a few more blocks to the Colosseum. What an amazing sight! It was hard for me to fathom the fact that we were standing and touring around a building that was built in 80AD. We were dead tired, extremely hot, and loving every minute!!Teage and me at our very first lunch in Rome!

Everyone there drives either a moped or a Smart car, they were everywhere!

The Major's House



The Roman Forum (ruins)







The Spanish Steps

The Borghese Museum

We met up with the rest of my family later in the day at the Borghese Museum. This used to be a mansion owed by the Borghese family and houses many amazing pieces of art.

After that, we were all pretty tired and hungry so we found a little Italian restaurant nearby and had dinner, which turned out to be really fun! Dad ordered a "coka" or Coke an the waiter asked if he wanted a "big coke?", so he said yes. This is what came out for him! It doesn't look huge in the picture, but believe me, it was enormous!

And here is David and Teage eating my dinner for me...

After dinner we took at taxi back to the hotel (fearing for our lives! :) The taxis in Rome are a little crazy...) and went swimming and just relaxed for the night. This was the view from our AMAZING room....we couldn't believe how fancy this hotel was. We just kept oooing and awwing about it all. Our view overlooked the Olympic sized pool and then all of downtown Rome!

Boys are waking up from their nap....more to come....