Jennifer

Dear Family,

Steve and I had a wonderful vacation in Italy and saw many historical sites.  We met our friends, Gabi and Werner, in Rome.  Werner organized the tour which was really great – so relaxing for us.  We started off in Rome, then south to Pompeii (and the volcano Vesuvius) and Pasteum (where I saw the oldest building ever – built in 350 B.C.) and the Mediterranean Sea.  We drove by many olives fields, vineyards and lemon orchards. Extra large lemons used for candy, liquer, and baking.  We headed north up the Amalfi Coast where the buildings are attached to the rock face of the coast, to Naples, then beautiful Tuscany – rolling hills just like all the pictures you see when you think of Italy.   We visited Siena, Pisa (awesome to see the leaning tower with my very own eyes!), Florence (where Michaelangelo’s statue of David is), and San Gimignano (the city of towers).  We enjoyed lots of pizza, gelato (ice-cream) and friendly people. These are just highlights -- so much to see and remember. 

Leaving Italy we drove through Austria and spent a day in Innsbruck.  What a beautiful city in the middle of the Alps!  Then we stopped in Stuttgart and visited Gabi’s daughter that recently had a baby.  We also visited her son and granddaughters. On our way to the Frankfurt airport, we spent a day in Erfurt and had a genuine German meal.  While on the autobahn we past a large Amazon.de warehouse, a salt mountain and castles on the hillsides.  Europe has the old and the new side by side.

We enjoyed a visit from Ammon and family in March, and then I headed off to Seattle in June for a few days -- got to see those grandkids that grow so fast!  In about a month we'll welcome our third grandchild to the family and we're all looking forward to that.

I love the heat of summer in Idaho – the vegetable garden is finally in full swing and growing like crazy.  The wildflowers took off and the creeping thyme on our walkway is creeping!  Sometimes in the evening we’ll get a blast of wind, and then clouds, maybe a thunderstorm and rain – but it’s still in the 90s!  Fun to see Quail -- and 15 or so chicks -- run all over our backyard and visit the feeder.

Thank you Dorothy, who has offered to become the new editor of the Lingo.

Love, Jennifer and Steve