Birthday Boy

I was informed that 17 new posts in one day was a bit much and that I should update more often instead :) I'll see what I can do about that.

Today is Ben's 1st birthday. Happy birthday, Ben! We are thrilled to have him in our family. He is a funny boy. We had a fun little party for him complete with a dance choreographed by his sisters, cake, and presents. At dinner we talked with the kids about when they were born and also their first birthdays. When Allison was little I was pretty careful about the things she ate, etc. You know, first kid. I found a recipe for a healthy cake...it was a carrot cake from scratch and probably had whole wheat flour, who knows what else, and no sugar in it. Also a special frosting that didn't have all the sugar in it. Well, it didn't really matter what was in the cake because she wasn't interested in eating it. I learned my lesson. So here is Mr. Ben enjoying his sugary chocolate cake with black frosting. And he did enjoy it for sure!

We had to keep wrangling him in to open presents, since he hasn't quite grasped that concept yet. However, once they were out he did have fun playing with the toys. I would have to say his favorite is from Aunt Lori & Uncle James. Here is a video of him playing with his new cars. He was cracking up!

Happy birthday little guy!

Random

One last post for the day with some random photos from the last few months...

               

Cuneo

Cuneo was the last city we visited in Italy (before going back to Milan to catch our flight home). It is another small town where Matt served for many months. Cuneo means "wedge" (hopefully I am getting this right) which is the shape of the town, as two rivers come to a point at the edge of the town. Again, not a ton of pictures, but we had fun roaming the streets. We bumped into the missionaries here as well. Matt planned it so we would be there for market day (Tuesday) so we could see all the vendors with their tents set up and get whatever souvenirs we wanted to bring home. We packed super light--one big backpack for our clothes, and a small backpack to carry around with us during the day. Then we rolled up a light bag in our backpack to bring home our goodies in.

Torino

We spent a day in Torino and visited the Cinema museum at the Mole. It was pretty rainy while we were there but luckily there are many covered walkways there and we had our lovely rain jackets :) Here are a few pictures from our time in Torino.

Piacenza

We took a train from Milan to Piacenza. Piacenza was Matt's favorite city he served in. It was fun to visit because there weren't tourists like in Rome and Milan. We didn't take a ton of pictures but it was a lot of fun to walk around and see things and just get the feel of a small italian town. We went to church and visited with members of the branch as well as the missionaries serving there now. This is where we were when the earthquake in Modena happened, only 60 miles away. We weren't affected by it, although we both woke up in the wee hours of the morning at about the same time it happened, so maybe we felt it? Luckily on our way out of town we were able to catch a train that was 135 minutes late (due to the earthquake) and a direct train to Torino, our next destination. It pulled up just as we got there and we hopped on! Perfect!

Milan

We spent the next day in Milan. Much of our time was spent in and around the Duomo. I'm surprised we don't have any photos of the galleria but I guess we didn't take any. We spent the night in a little apartment we rented out. Here are some pictures of what we saw in Milan...

Genova

After we visited Rome we took a train to Genova, it was a fairly long ride, I'm thinking something like 4-5 hours. But it was a pretty scenic ride along the coast. We only spent an afternoon through the next morning in Genova but it was just long enough. Each city we visited had such a unique feeling to it. Genova is a port town. They have some streets in the downtown area which they call "Carrugi" that are very narrow alleyways--pretty cool to walk through, but a little scary too. We didn't get any pictures of those, I think we were more concerned with finding our way and not going down the wrong one! Genova is known for their focaccia (bread) and of course, salami. We picked some up to eat for breakfast before we hopped on the next train...to Milan.

Rome

We flew into Rome and took a train into the city. I will spare you the details of everything we ate while we were in Italy but we sure did enjoy eating on our trip! I think we had gelato at least once a day...so good. We enjoyed Rome, Matt had never been there since it was outside of his mission. There are many things to see and do. Just too many tourists there. We definitely did a lot of walking...along city streets and up and down lots and lots of stairs. View the slide show below for pictures of Rome.

Trip to Italy

Alright, I have spent most of the morning updating and just have our Italy trip left. I think I will do a post for each city we visited. Maybe that is more than some of you care to read about but we saw so many things and had such a great time, I hate to leave anything out! :) So if you care to continue on.... here is our adventure in Italy ....

As a prelude, Matt served his mission in Northern Italy and has talked about going back ever since he left! We had talked about going for our 10th anniversary, which will be this July. Once he got the new job we didn't think it would happen, but since there was some down-time just before the end of the school year and lots of work to be done in the summer, he was able to swap his vacation time and take this 10 day trip. It was wonderful!!

Swimming

Here are some pictures from swimming at the hotel in Provo. The kids love to go swimming (why else would you stay at a hotel?). This was actually Ben's first time, although I know he really really loves baths. He is such a water baby! There is a video of him "jumping" in at the bottom. 

Grandma & Papa are missionaries!

We went down to help Grandma and Papa get ready to leave on their mission to New Zealand...unfortunately we didn't take many pictures. But, nonetheless, we are proud of them and excited for their new adventure! You can follow them here. See you in two years!!

Holey Ears

Both Lauren and Allison wanted earrings for their birthdays this year. Here are the pics and videos of the occasion. It's kinda hard to tell since it is so small, but it was funny to watch. They were so brave and didn't cry but it took some real willpower. 

Ben's 1st Haircut

Poor Ben needed a haircut pretty bad but it took us a while to get around to it. He did just fine with getting it clipped and look how handsome he is in the end. It's amazing how fast kids grow up with a haircut!

 Before

During

After

Allison's Baptism

We are so proud of Allison for making the choice to be baptized when she turned 8. Grandma and Papa Bertasso came up for the occasion. Thanks to all our friends and family for joining us (in person or in spirit!) for this special day. 

Birthdays

One big post here to cover the kids birthdays.... Lauren's birthday was when we were still in Indiana. She had her "BFF" sleep over which was a lot of fun. She turned 6 this year!

Not sleeping....but having fun

We celebrated Allison's birthday in Idaho with her cousins and Grandma Bertasso.  Allison turned 8 this year.

Lined up for pin-the-tail-on-the-horse

Megan just celebrated her birthday at Grandma and Papa Bertasso's. She had a Rapunzel cake and got to celebrate with cousins as well. She turned 4 this year.

What big girls we have! Pretty soon we will be posting about Ben's birthday!

Big Changes

Ok, this where it really started getting fun at the Bertasso house. You probably already know we are no longer the Indiana Bertassos, but rather the Idaho Bertassos (do we need to change our blog??:)

Matt applied for a job in Idaho Falls to be the Director (principal) at their new high school they are opening Fall 2012. Long story short, he got the job and we moved to Idaho Falls...rather quickly.  It was a whirlwind move, but here we are!

We truly loved our time in Indiana. It was a wonderful place with wonderful people, and do miss you! But we are having a great time getting settled in here and waiting to see what is in store for us in Idaho. We will admit, we NEVER expected to come back this way!

We are so grateful for the many, many blessings we received in this process. Our house sold quickly, We found a great house to move into, and would you believe, we even had help on the flight out to Utah. Matt drove with Allison and Lauren in the van and I flew out with Megan and Ben. A sister from church happened to be on our same flight to Utah, we didn't even know it until we got to the airport and saw her there! Thanks mom & dad for helping us get packed up...there was no way I could have done it without your help!

House for Sale

Just getting started with the packing!

In the airport with Sis Helm

Moving in

And here we are!

Holidays

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas last year...seems so long ago.  Grandma and Grandpa Tew came to visit over Thanksgiving, although we did not take many pictures!

Matt prepares the Turkey

Mr. Ben

Grandpa and Ben

Allison takes care of important business

My project last year...Stockings!

Cute kiddos

We're back...

It's been quite a while since I've updated the blog and SO MUCH has happened since October!! I am home from church with Lauren and Ben today (we have been a bit under the weather) so I thought it would be a good time to work on getting caught up. I know I'm not going to catch up on every tidbit but hopefully the most important stuff. So...stay tuned!