Guess the fruit...

So at night in the hotel rooms we would have contests. The first night we bought a bunch of soda and blindfolded each other and you had to guess what kind of soda it was. The funny thing is that it's harder than what it sounds. Guess who won...yep...me...the non soda drinker. So the next night we cut up a whole bunch of fruit and you had to guess. I think Mason or Kyle ended up winning this one. It really is harder than you think. We got the idea from Hell's Kitchen when he makes them identify foods being blindfolded. We always watched that and couldn't believe when they got them wrong. But now we know.

Here's Emils feeding me a piece of cantalope.
here's my mom feeding my dad a piece of a strawberry.
Kyle had more fun feeding the fruit to Kelsey and rubbing it all over his face! We were all laughing so hard!
Here's Mas feeding Kyle a piece of Mango. That was a hard one to identify.
We decided as a joke to feed my mom a piece of pickled garlic. It was super funny!
Here's me feeding Mas a piece of kiwi. That was another hard one to guess.
Emils was a little nervous but decided to play anyway. Here I am feeding her a piece of honeydew.
Here's the plates full of all the cut up fruits. We had such a good time. I think the food contests were some of our favorite times!

The beach in St. Augustine

Here's Grandma, Grandpa and the kids exploring in the sand. This was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen! The kids had so much fun collecting seashells.

And the picture you've all been waiting for. The Kissing picture. Well, here it is. Enjoy!
The kids absolutely love jumping the waves and playing in the ocean!
Mason and Grandpa decided to race on the beach. I love watching them have such a good time together!

Kyle and Mason raced too. I actually think they ended up doing a few races. One of my favorite things about family vacations is watching my kids play and bond together.

Alligator Farm

This was everyone's favorite place. We weren't sure when we went if it was going to be a couple little alligators or what. But there were hundreds!!! We couldn't believe how huge they were.
They had an area where you could buy food and feed them. I think this was the kids favorite part!


This was a one of the shows where the lady threw the alligator a rat. It was sooo gross!
They had these amazing birds there also. Here's Emily teasing a bird through the glass!
I just thought these birds were so amazing and gorgeous!

St. Augustine, Florida

So once again it's fall break and we couldn't decide what to do. The original plan was Hawaii but the flights started getting full so I went to work and asked around about a fun place to go that was off the beaten path. Someone suggested St. Augustine, which is the oldest city in the United States. I researched it and it looked amazing! So my parents flew in Saturday morning and watched the kids soccer games and then it was off to Philadelphia for a night and then onto Jacksonville, Fl. We picked up our rental car and drove a 45 minute gorgeous drive to St. Augustine. It's such a cool little town. After touring the fort we walked around the old downtown. A little path with shops on both sides. It was such a cool place to explore!

Our first stop was the Castillo de San Marcos fort. While we were there they did a demonstration of firing off the cannons. It was so crazy loud but really cool.

This is the drawbridge going into the fort.
Of course when we landed in Philadelphia everyone wanted a famous Philly Cheesesteak.
Emily snuggled up between grandma and grandpa on the plane!

Leaning tower of Pisa

We hopped off the train on our way to Rome and took a bus out to see the tower.  It was pretty cool but not as big as we thought it was going to be.

Gelato & Pastries...mmmmm

Here's Kyle getting his first pistachio gelato.  It was sooo good!!!  I think we ended up eating about 3 gelatos a day!  Hey you know what they say...when in Rome...do as the Romans!  Ok, so maybe they don't stuff themselves with gelato and pastries but you know that Kyle & I love, love, love treats!
Of course we found a pastry shop right by our hotel in Rome.  It had delicious pastries!  I love this picture of Kyle laughing hysterically with a pastry in his mouth.  That about sums up how the whole trip was.  My favorite thing about the whole trip was that I took Kyle with me!

What can I say other than YUM!  Yes, me and Kyle sat on the bed eating pastries.  It was one of our favorite things that day!
Ok, so I'm sure your not surprised that we didn't just pick out 1 or 2...we had to get a whole tray full.  And no we didn't snack on these over time.  We walked straight in and ate the whole tray!  We were a little sick afterwards, but hey they were good!
  Ok, here's the thing...they don't have prices ANYWHERE!  You just order and then they tell you how much to pay.  This was about our third day of Gelatofest 2009.  I walked into this shop and they had these chocolate and coconut covered cones.  I of course said, "I'll take one of those please."  They guy shakes his head and says, "special cone, special size"  I think...OK give me the "special size".  I had no idea it was 6 scoops!!!  As I was watching him make it I thought, when is he going to stop scooping.  Then he added all those yummy wafers and handed it to me.  I was in HEAVEN...until I got to the cash register and she said," 12 euros please"  my hands started sweating and my heart started pounding as I did the quick math in my head and realized I had just spent $18.00 on a fancy ice cream cone!  But boy was it good!!!  The good news is... after that I didn't take another bite of gelato!  So in all honesty it really saved me money because I couldn't eat any more after that!

Roman Coloseum

So I'm too overwhelmed with pictures to post them in any kind of order so I'm just going to pick highlights and post individual things.  I'll start with the coloseum because it was one of our very favorites!!!

This is inside the Coloseum.  The floor is obviously gone but this shows down below where they used to put the animals before the battles.  It was crazy standing in something with so much history.  We listened to an audio tour that said that over 2,000 men and over 9,000 animals were killed here.  
Here's Kyle & I standing out front.  It was cool to walk out of the subway tunnel and come upon something so amazing!
Here's Heidi & I standing inside.  It was raining pretty good at this point!
Kyle wanted to go back at night to see it all lit up and boy was it worth it.  It was soooo awesome!

Club Soccer x 3

The Krause house revolves around soccer these days with 3 kids on club teams.  We have at least 2-3 practices 4 nights a week, games every Saturday, and we have traveled to San Diego and Flagstaff for tournaments just this month.  The kids are playing well and having fun.

Mason says, "somebody's going down!"

The spectators

GREETINGS FROM ITALY...

SO KYLE AND I LEFT OUR HOUSE THIS MORNING IN A CAR...THEN WE TOOK A PLANE TO PHILADELPHIA THEN ANOTHER PLANE TO MILAN THEN A BUS INTO THE CITY THEN A TRAIN OUT TO LAKE COMO THEN A BOAT TO BELLAGIO THEN ANOTHER TRAIN BACK INTO THE CITY THEN THE SUBWAY TO A REALLY COOL CHURCH THEN A TRAM-TROLLEY TO OUR HOTEL. I DONT THINK IVE EVER USED SO MANY MODES OF TRANSPORTATION IN ONE DAY. IT WAS AWESOME AND WE ARE HAVING AN AMAZING TIME. ILL POST PICTURES WHEN I GET HOME.
PS...SORRY ABOUT THE ALL CAPS AND NO PUNCTUATION BUT THEIR KEYBOARDS ARE TOTALLY JACKED UP HERE!!!

Visit to the Cake Boss

Here's a crazy story for you...it starts a couple weekends ago when Kelsey
and I decided to get away for the night and we went and stayed in a hotel in Scottsdale. We made the mistake of clicking on the TV and TLC's Cake Boss was on. We loved it so much we watched like 8 episodes in a row! As we were watching we decided that I needed to go there and get some pastries! So I went to work that next week and talked to my coworkers about it. 3 of them decided to go with me. So on Monday night we flew out at 11:10pm to Charlotte. Then we connected to Newark. We got there about 9:30am, picked up our rental car and went straight to the bakery. I was so excited! We met one of Buddy's sisters and told her that we had come just for the day and that we really wanted to meet Buddy. She told us that he was out shooting a TV show (not cake boss) and that he would be back at 1:00 pm and that she would make sure that we got to meet him! So we left and went out to lunch and then walked around down by the Hudson river. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was there. The weather was unbelievable. I would have stayed forever if Kelsey and kids were with me! So then it was time to go back. We picked out our pastries and then waited.. while we were waiting Buddys mom and other sister came out and took pictures with us. Next thing I know here comes BUDDY!!! He was so nice and totally talked to us and told us thanks for coming. It was crazy that I was standing there getting my picture taking with the CAKE BOSS!!! After we took pictures and bought pastries it was time to go home. Our flight left at 4:35 and it was a long flight back home. But it was worth it! The pastries were sooooooo goood!!!! Here's the box I brought home for Kelsey and the kids.
This is a small sample of all the goodness that they make. The top right had corner is Lobster tails. They are a flakey crust with filling. There's some Napoleons in the upper left corner and some tarts, canoli's and eclairs.
No, this isn't a wax figure of Buddy..this is the real deal. Me and Buddy the cake boss!!!
Me with Buddies sister and mom. They were so friendly!
Buddies mom treated us like she had known us forever. She was so nice!
Me and one of the big guys off the show. It was soooo awesome to be standing there next to all these famous people!!!
The bakery was in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was so beautiful. We stood there on the Hudson looking across at the New York Skyline. I've decided I could live in Hoboken. The people were so friendly and the town was super clean!
We had lunch at list little place along the street. We had some yummy mushroom risotto!
Yay, the famous Carlos Bake Shop from Cake Boss!!!
Here are me and my coworkers with Buddy's sister.
Some of the cakes that were on display.
Me by one of the wedding cakes that was on display.
Here we are in front of the bakery.

Me, Heidi, and Brenda on the red-eye to Charlotte. We had so much fun! Kyle and Kelsey enjoying some of the pastries at home.