utah summer goodness.

this past weekend was what i would call a "classic-utah-summer-weekend" and i loved every bit of it.

i've been gone to some other part of the world every summer for the past three years but i decided to stay home this summer for several reasons. one of them being that i missed having just a good ol' utah summer. cause lets be honest, utah summers can be pretty darn great.

and now i find myself in august just weeks away from school starting and i'm like whaaaat? my utah summer can't almost be over! the problem with staying home is i also stay with my normal routine. work & obligations can make time fly. but i'm so glad i was able to have this weekend up at the cabin so i could re-focus on what summer is all about.

spending time in beautiful places with good company having good times.

these two photos only caught a bit of the weekend. it also included middle of the night fishing in the full-moon light (and falling in the cold river, up to my waist and getting one heck of a bruise on my arm. oh dear.) and the park city art festival. lots of laughter and good conversation.

p.s. special thanks to my lovely cousin jessica and this blog post. i needed a reminder of why i first started blogging in the first place. having laptop issues hasn't been helping any but i have no excuse for my lack of blogging since i got back from europe almost a year ago! i am determined to start blogging the big & even just the little things that mean so much to me. thanks, jess!

venezia

dinner at our studio apartment

fish market

baguettes for lunch

as i blogged before... venice was enchanting.

you don't need photoshop with scenery this pretty.

for our stay in venice we found a cheap studio apartment.

that meant we could cook our own meals & do laundry. yay!

the guy who rented it out to us, fabio, told us we just had to get lost in venice in order to really see it.

so we did just that.

we went down any little street or alley way our heart desired and found ourselves in the most beautiful, secluded places.

(that sounds dangerous... we didn't do that at night)

and we truly fell in love with venice.

we took a 2 euro gondola ride across the main channel.

& had our afternoon siesta on some benches in a park.

we accidentally ordered an anchovy pizza (yeah, we obviously don't know italian very well)

so we gave it to a blind, homeless man we saw earlier that day.

we sat it in his lap & tried to explain it was food.

he just grabbed the box eagerly, held it close and smiled a smile that broke our hearts.

venice will never be forgotten.

firenze

FLORENCE

after just an hour&twenty minute train ride from rome we arrived in the small, beautiful city of florence.

we were blessed to be able to stay with the Evertsen family in their cute yellow& green shutter florentine style home & have them as our personal tour guides.

we had a short stay there but were still able to see a lot thanks to them.

florence really was a city of art because the buildings were so detailed and there were so many statues and beautiful things everywhere.

we first had lunch on the grass from puigis & then stopped for gelato.

saw the famous duomo, clock tower, & the uffizi (most expensive bridge in the world because its full of jewelers).

heather cooked us homemade lasagna & it was so nice to have a home cooked meal. then of course we had more gelato.

we made our way to michelangelo's plaza that night for a beautiful view of the city lights.

saw art being drawn on the streets & musicians playing for coins on our way home.

we had a good nights sleep & then made one last stop in the morning to firensole in the mountain side for a view of florence in the daytime

ate a pesto pasta lunch & then were off to venice by train.

la vita bella

ROME

in rome we stayed at the oversea's hostel ran by an Asian family.
it was near termini train station in the trashy part of rome but we survived.
the first thing we did was find food. and lots of it.
at a pasteria just around the corner. it was so good to eat heaps of pasta & we were ready to take on another country.
our first stop was vatican city. but after popping up from the subway and savannah & i thinking we remembered the right way since we'd been in rome before... we became lost tourists. so we resorted to the map & found our way soon after. 
the pretty little streets were wet with rain that night. out of all the places we were traveling to; we never expected rain in rome. but rome ended up being the first & last place we had to use our umbrellas. 
the rest of our stay in rome consisted of//
plazza navona which was full of art & fountains
wishes at the TREVI fountain
lots of pizza&pasta and a late night search for gelato
collosseum&roman ruins.
picture with a "roman"
lots of drinks from the fresh water taps all around the city
the spanish steps & a view of rome.
then an early train ride onto florence, italy where we realized how not so nice italian men can be. 
but rome was lovely & i was lucky to surrounded by its history for a second time.