I don't even know why I'm writing here. Maybe because I was woken up by a stupid rooster and couldn't go back to sleep. Anyway. Since the last update was made at the beginning of the year and now we are marching towards the end of it, I thought it'd be nice to let you folks know how we are doing.
We recently (5 months ago give or take) found out that we're gonna have a baby girl. Yes! As you can imagine we are pretty excited about that. We already got the stroller and part of the nursery... Of course I am the least excited about that because I am the one that has to build everything.. But I am really excited about the baby girl. We already decided the name but I wanna be mean and not let you know the name at this point. BWahahahahah.

We are doing pretty good I'd say considering that Claudia's mom sent us a package for the baby. She is such a great mother-in-law.

My mom, is the other woman I'd like to thank for all her help she give us. A lot. Especially now that the baby is coming

I was considering this morning, the baby is not already born and is already being spoiled. I wonder what will happen when she turns in her teens.... oh boy... :)

Anyway, things in life are good.. challenging, but good. I think that, to be so cheesy I could become a cheese factory, life now that we are expecting a child is just gonna be better. Can you imagine what miracles a little thing can do in your life?

it's really easy if you think about it

i have been posting pictures of my apartment as i move further along in decorating it to my liking. i am seriously flattered with everyone's comments. mostly because i like my place, but when i see home magazines i think it lacks so much in actual style. i'm not an interior decorator and i don't have all the money in the world to decorate. i just have fun being creative. most of the time gabriele is willing to buy things for the house but i back out because things can be really expensive here in italy. well, at least to my bargain standards. and there are a lot of things i want to do, colors i want to be just right, and frames and quotes that i want to use. i think i'm gonna start working on those things myself. the best thing about backing out of buying things is that you get your mind working on new ideas. and let's face it, my apartment already looks like an ikea showroom, i can at least add my own style to the walls!

i love the idea of style and function combined. why not place things you use as decoration? i had a glass candy jar from my wedding and rather than fill it with potpourri or something i decided to fill it with candles for my candlestick holders. i got stylish guestware, so why not place it on a wall shelf? i like doing puzzles, so i use them as a mat for my coffee table. see this is my idea of fun. and i'm sure gabriele appreciates it since we had to spend a great deal of money furnishing the apartment because it came to us bare bones. :)

i'll end on this: why on earth does a 20x20 cm square frame cost 8 euros (approx. 11 USD)? i have fabulous pictures i want to place above my bed frame and they need square frames. see, it's things like this that make me back out of things...at least for a while. though i don't know if i can give in to paying 50 bucks for 5 frames. yes. i'm cheap for some things.

p.s. i will own a bertoia diamond chair. someday. hopefully soon.

"when i think of home...

...i think of a place where there's love overflowing." i love that song from the musical the wiz. as i have been able to spend time in chicago visiting family and doing some legal things to live in italy, well, i've learned even more about home. what is home? when i was younger and until i got married, home was the place you belong. no matter what happens, home is the best place to be. it's comfortable and compares with no other place.

when gabriele decided to send me back to chicago for thanksgiving and to get legal work done in person rather than via snail-mail or e-mail, i was torn. it was kind of exciting to think of seeing chicago again and seeing my family and hanging out with chico. i cried. quite a bit. i didn't want to leave gabriele. our whole relationship was long-distance and so when we finally got married i hoped i wouldn't have to do that again. and i've just started feeling like a real wife with my own kitchen and home responsibilities. i kept asking gabriele if he wanted me to make him some ragu and put it in the freezer before i left so he could eat it with pasta while i was gone. he had to constantly remind me that he can still take care of himself. :)

since the beginning of our marriage gabriele has taught me that home is our home now. us together, is our home. chicago isn't home, cormons isn't home. i think often it's just weird to leave home behind and realize that when you are married you and your spouse are a family. being away from gabriele for almost a month solidified all of the things he has taught me before. i miss home. i miss dinner and chats with my husband and i miss my life in italy.

america is where a lot of family and friends are. but italy is where my family is. italy is home.

lucky

this year gabriele and i experienced the best day of our lives...so far. we were sealed in the lds chicago temple on saturday, august 7, 2010. it seemed like a long wait after having a 14-month engagement, but as the days dwindled time felt like they went too fast. when it finally came life felt a little unreal. but so wonderful. i was stressed and it sounds terrible but most of the day i was just waiting for a nice nap.

the temple is really the only thing i'd like to talk about. it was without a doubt the most important part and the most amazing part of the day. being in the temple with the love of my life on your wedding day was for me the greatest thing i have ever experienced. there were no doubts and there was no fear. there was a love that was beyond earthly that overcame me. being in the sealing room was almost surreal as it was hard to believe that God's plan for his children and for families is so perfect, so eternal, and so complete.

Heavenly Father has a plan for each one of us. He has a plan for families. happiness and joy are eternal. i don't think you can ever quite know exactly what that means, or how important it is, and how serious it is until you are kneeling at the altar.

then you really know why it was so important to prepare to come to the temple. even if it was important before, you really see it then.

of course there were parties in chicago and italy to follow. and those were wonderful and the food was incredible. but fun and food and laughter are still fleeting moments. what happened in the temple is what lasts forever. i am so grateful for it. gabriele helps me to remember often that we are a family now. that family is forever.

to learn more about temples and eternal families, please don't hesitate to visit: www.mormon.org be curious! but look to the source! true happiness found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is worth it!

thousands of people around the world every day are surrounded by precious things. diamonds, gold in its various colors, silver, ruby, emeralds just to name some of them. i have a simple sing, yellow gold with a somewhat of a crent on it in yellow, white and red gold with a small cubic zirconia in the middle. it was the last gift that my grand mother gave me before her passing away. well actually she gave me money and i decided to buy something that would last forever as my sweet memories i have of her.

mankind since the beginning had the attitude and the need of, i'd like to call it, showing off. covering themselves with gold. covering their houses with gold.

i used a picture of a diamond because diamonds are most often source of great pain for many people. technically diamonds are not rare. as in the world there is plenty of it. it's that all the speculation that man does that gives a piece of carbon turn to something precious and epensive. and a must have thing.

people are killed because of diamonds and gold. well they are killed for many other reasons but this time i'd like to focus on this subject. when a society becomes too welthy, when they live for money, and gold, then most likely that society is going to fall.

now we know that a diamond is forever, as well as gold and silver. did we ever wondered why wedding bands are usually made of gold?

isn't gold one of the most precious and lasting metals? shouldn't marriage in a theorical and practical way last forever? i was always into symbols, because symbols are the easiest way to explain a concept. wedding bands are round because a circle is a symbl of eternity. so shouldn't marriage be eternal? if we combine both symbols we have that marriage has to be eternal and long lasting. i separate the those things even though might sound the same for a reason. eternal is because marriage is eternal as time. long lasting because gold never gets rust. it doesnt' fade away or change with time. a piece of gold keeps being a piece of gold even if we leave it under a storm or a hurricane. iron might get attacked by rust. it will dissolve.

why am i saying these things?

a wise man once said that precious materials as agold and silver should be used to help us remember the importance of a place or a person in our lives.

precious metals or rocks should never be used to enrich ourselves, rather should be used to enrich the memory of the moment or the sacredness of a place.

when a guy gives his girl an engagement ring, that ring is more than gold and diamond, it is a promise of eternal love. no matter how big the stone is, no matter how much gold is in it.

when we'll leave this life, gold will stay right here on earth. but we will bring with us every single emotion we had. especially love.

humanity when doesn't have glod or stuff proclaim themseves to be poor. but when i talked to the one of these poor people he said that no matter what he was still the most rich man on earth, when i asked him how was he the most rich he said: "because i have the most beautiful wife. and we are in love. and love is something that you can't buy with gold."

what i really want

i'm getting married in a little over a month and i'm really happy about it. most of all i am excited to start a family. i was on the phone with my older sister the other day talking about my fertility (or rather, my potential lack of fertility according to doctors). i told her how i took a marriage/health/sex ed. class at the health center at byu and how disappointed i was that so much seemed focused on birth control. and when i met with the nurses after the class they were shocked when i said i didn't want a prescription for it. when i said, "no," they said, "are you ready to have a baby???" as if i didn't know that that's a possibility when you don't take birth control. i replied, "yes, i want to have children as soon as possible." why is it that we always talk about family and then instantly prevent having one? i'm not saying i'm against birth control. not by any means. i just think that if we really trust in God, and we trust in the plan He has for our families, why would we try to take control of it with a pill right from the start?

i guess i think so passionately about it because i have been told by two rather esteemed doctors that i will likely have difficulty conceiving. this makes me rather emotional and actually leaves tears down my cheeks as i write. i don't think i've ever wanted children so much as when i did when i was told it might be hard to have them. i do understand that just because a doctor said there was a good possibility that this is my fate, doesn't make it certain. but it does make me value the blessing of children and treat discussion of them with more respect. and i am so grateful for gabriele and his desire to accept a child as a great blessing, whether one comes quickly or not so quickly. we have heard of a few couples who were "surprised" or "not expecting" or "not very happy" upon discovering they were pregnant and gabriele always said, "finding out you will have a child should always be a joyful occasion."

this is a topic that has been close to my heart for over a year now, and i can honestly say that i'm getting married because i want to start a family. this is my greatest desire and i trust that in the Lord's plan for me i will be able to do so, sooner than later.

history.

to the knowedge of all people around the world.

i was pondering lately about some serious thing. hehe fun, uh?

we hear that some people in america and around the world follow the ideals of nazism praising Hitler and stuff.

To me that is stupid. Well first of all because they don't really know who Hitler was, second because I believe they don't really grasp the atrocity of what happened. In Italy nazism is uncostitutional and in Germany I believe to be illegal, anyway, it's sad that people follow such ideal.

Understanding what happened it's not that simple. Many people here don't understand or know.

I think I have been blessed to have the opportunity to study about European history and I got to go to two of the camps where Hebrews where taken as prisoners, awaiting to be killed.

When we think about these camps, often we think about pain and suffer. I have been to Mauthausen in Austria on a field trip at school. Well how can I express exactly the feelings of that place. Most of the knowledge we have is that people there were killed. True, but yet not accurate.

Imagine if someone took away from you everything you had. personal belongings. your identity, your dignity, you'll have a small idea of what those people had to go through. people were tortured just for the pleasure to inflict pain to another person.

all around were signs where was explained what happened there. they gave them numbers because they where not counted as people. less than animals. on a wall there was a written where a man wrote 3 times his full name saying that they will never take that away from him. he was killed 2 days after.

many argued on how many hebrews were killed during the time between 1939 and 1945 history says 6 million other say 10 million, skeptics say less than a million. no matter how many where killed. it was the way they where killed. the act of it. the idea of annihilate a human being just because it's different because of religion or political views.

sad to say that i didn't really understand this until i went to one of these camps. i couln't sleep at night. to me, with the knowledge i have of this now, i think people that are ok with or carry on this ideal ar just idiots.

i'm sorry if i have been so depressive with my post but some things must be let known.

History should be taught in schools so that mistakes that were made in past are not to be made again. this is the point of history after all.