the things for which i am thankful

'tis the season of thanks. i like thanksgiving. it's one of the best times of year to be with family, eat a whole lot, get amazing deals at stores, and most importantly, count your blessings. the thing that i am the most thankful for is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. having a testimony of Jesus Christ and of Heavenly Father and His plan for all of us is the greatest blessing i have. i was thinking about a lot of things today and i thought about how ivana is going on her mission tomorrow!!! i am so excited for her. gosh, i remember those days struggling in croatian as i tried to explain the answers to her very intricate questions. i remembered going to zagreb to witness her baptism. i remembered all the times we spent together. all of our conversations and hugs. i am so grateful for her. she taught me what a truly loyal friend is. i have so many great friends. and as flaky as it sounds, i really wish i were a better friend to them. my greatest weakness isn't loving my friends, it's not keeping in touch as often as i should. i'll work to improve that! i'm grateful to clayton for supporting me so greatly as i decided to go on a mission and for supporting me all the way. words cannot express his sweetness and amazingness. he showed me what respect is and that not all guys are pompous jerks.
the person at the forefront of my mind was gabriele. my silly italian. i am grateful for each passing day when he decides to still love me. i'm grateful for our engagement and for all the little things that we constantly learn about each other. i'm grateful for having been led to him. we're just meant for each other. he's made everything worthwhile.
i'm happy. even when i think i'm not i'm happy. because i have a lot to be thankful for. i have a great family. one that's strong in the church and whose ties can never break. and i'm happy with that.

venezia

i went to the library today to donate some books and check out whatever caught my eye. so i found a dvd about venice and i checked it out. venice is quite the place and its history is really interesting. so many things that are common to us started in venice. well, glass is a duh but the fact that the mirror was invented there is pretty cool. marco polo, casanova, casinos, cafes, murano glass...the list goes on. anyway, i really enjoyed the little history lesson and loved the images. i can't wait to go back.
cormons, italy is about an hour north of venice and ummm yeah i am definitely choosing venice as a top weekend getaway, alongside zadar of course. i don't know what gabriele will say about this. he's not a huge fan of venice. to be honest, i wouldn't say it's my favorite place in the world, but it has a lot of charm. i'd very much enjoy to visit the murano island to see the glass factories. i turned down the invitation the last time. oops. watching the video made me want to go the next time around.
the thing i found crazy is that i'll be able to visit venice the way i visit downtown chicago. it's that close to where we'll be living in italy. so all of the glitz will someday be somewhat commonplace. but i guess that happens everywhere. i'm still super excited to move to italy. :)
just for everyone's information, i will be making a guest room in our house. so if you're interested in coming to venice and need a place to stay and a ehm...translator (namely gabriele), we are so available to provide these things.

it's official...again!

well, well, well, not only am i fickle, but so are circumstances. :) i have some great news. it's rather fun. my parents and i went to look at a hall for the reception and less than 30 minutes later we booked it. i am not at liberty to disclose this information because, well, i'm not the one who put the money down. plus i want it to be a surprise. either way, i love it and it is the nicest place i have seen for a wedding. i am really excited and so are my mom and dad.
okay, that's part of the newes but the more interesting part is that we have changed our wedding date. isn't that fun? i love getting engaged so far in advance that i can change my date without flipping out about it! no it's not gonna be earlier. we are getting married on august 7, 2010. a few weeks after originally planned. why? basically we did it to book the place and to make sure that our family and friends from out of town would be able to come. it's a little different thinking i'll be getting married in august when for so long i've been saying, "july next year." it's august next year. i'm really happy and i feel really good about it. gabriele was a bit shocked when i asked his permission. he kept saying, "sure...sure...sure..." as if he wasn't actually sure as to what he was agreeing to. talking to him later i discovered that he really was okay with everything and he and his mother are very excited as well. after all it gives us a few more weeks. and i get to help sister furstenau with girls' camp again (which will end the day before).
we're getting married and we are so happy!

yes, sometimes i'm weird

it seems that every time a girl gets engaged their engagement ring instantly becomes their profile picture on facebook. i don't know why i find that so disturbing, but i do. i always promised myself i wouldn't do that and that i wouldn't post pictures of it anywhere public. why am i so weird? i love my engagement ring. and to me it's a deep symbol of commitment and love. it was the first ring that i ever picked up and loved from the beginning. i liked it better than the rest. that's not to say it's better than anyone else's. actually i think that's what bugs me so much about engagement rings these days. so much of it seems to be about getting something better than someone else did (i'm not the only one who thinks this, eric and kathy on the mix talked about this not too long ago). my ring is the best for me, just like the person who gave it to me. gabriele originally put it in one of his facebook albums just because he was so happy about it. i ruined his fun by telling him to delete it. i dunno, i find my ring to be very personal. so if you haven't seen it, it's likely because i've kept it to myself.

for brooke

i remember the first day i found out that brooke wilberger had been kidnapped. it hit me like a brick. i stood next to my friend ladawn at her computer in complete unbelief. i couldn't help crying. it couldn't help wonder how this could happen to such a great and faithful girl. the years went by and i never forgot that day in may. i always remembered the few pictures i have with brooke in them. one in particular stands out because we were arm in arm with other friends. i must admit i didn't know brooke very well. we lived on the same floor freshman year and she taught sunday school in our ward. she was so sweet and smart and outgoing. so even though we weren't close, she had a good influence on me. this incidence felt so personal to me. i cried and cried and asked heavenly father, "why her? why not someone like me who isn't as good? why did it have to happen to her?" it made me really wonder what i'm doing with my life, and what my purpose is. i think about that everyday.
finally after five years, they found brooke. reading the news articles was more than i could bear. http://abcnews.go.com/US/remains-brooke-wilberger-found-years-disappearance/Story?id=8632233&page=1 i cried and cried and cried again. reading the details of what happened to her brought me great sadness. but in the end, we know that she fought for her life and her virtue. she fought for everything. she fought for the things we take for granted. and yet we're still here. i know that God is a just God. i know that there is justice for brooke. i know that she is in that heavenly realm. i know that she lives and that her purpose is great. brooke was never alone. everyday of her life and since the day she disappeared, the Savior has been with her. He had to be there to bring comfort only He could provide. i am so grateful for brooke and the testimony she constantly shared and for the testimony she has that still influences us today.
i don't really know what to say. i just feel like a mess of tears. but i am happy because i know that her family has found closure and they can look to the day when they are reunited with brooke. what a beautiful peace the gospel brings.
this world has some evil people. but we can be good and we can do something about it. president hinckley always said that it's not enough to be good. we must be good for something. we have that opportunity. we have the chance to fight against evil and to stand for the true and everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ. brooke stood for this truth, even until the end.
brooke, i love you and i miss you.

The "Dream" is leaving!

Well it has to be said.

Almost after a year the Dream is leaving.

I'm talking about a ship, for those who didn't understand!

The Carnival's newest ship will depart on September 19th, 2009 from Monfalcone, where it was built in something like a year.

It is the largest ship in Carnival's fleet. It's about 345 meters long and has about 17 decks. I'm not really sure about the numbers but anyway it's a HUGE ship.

Almost 1,000 people worked on it. From all over the world. People from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, China (go figure), Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania not to mention the U.S. and South America which citizens are part of the crew along with some Italians, Japanese and others. I worked on it, and to be honest even though it's name is Dream, it was somewhat of a nightmare for a lot of people.. well mostly because it can be considered as prototype because of its size. I have to admit, though, that was fun to work on the largest ship in the world (or at least i think it is). I can say that the cost of it is about 500 million Euros. Yeah not something you'd buy every day, uh?

Well if you'll ever have a chance to go on a cruise soon and it happens to be on the "Dream" just know that it was proudly made in Italy! With my help of course :)

trendy

while i'm showering i either receive revelation or think of really random things. today i thought of something random. when i was in grammar school my friends and i loved the show f.r.i.e.n.d.s. and we each took on the role of a character from the show. i was rachel. so whenever jennifer aniston did an interview or something, i would watch it. one evening she was on the tonight show and she was wearing the cutest pedal pushers i had ever seen...well, i had actually never seen pedal pushers at all before. i remember how i wanted some sooooo bad. i started searching everywhere for these pants. finally on the levi's website i found some. now, ten years ago, levi's barely had a running website, much less online shopping. so i called them by phone to ask how much their pedal pushers were. i never bought them from levi's anyway, but i may have found them at kohl's soon after.
i was so silly. i wanted to be the FIRST one at school to wear what we now more casually call capris. i was in such an urgency to find them because i wanted to be the first. the day i wore them to school, many people noticed them. i think i wore them when it was still a little cold out, so maybe that's why. i just got such a thrill from that. well, these days, i'm not a huge fan of following the trends. but i do like things before they become trends. i guess you could say, i don't like trends for the sake of being trendy. there's one style from j.crew though that i'll try very soon!