Top 11 Memories of 2011

2011 was such a good year, I could easily have written 2011 favorite moments, but… These moments are listed in no particular order.

1. Walking across the River Jordan, wading my feet in the Sea of Galilee, and visiting The Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem where I wrote a secret wish I will never, ever, ever, ever tell anyone if I want it to come true.
2. Looking out the restaurant window and saying, “Wait! Why is it light outside?” Then looking at my phone and realizing it was somehow nearly 7:00 AM. Talking through the night was just the beginning.
3. Being nearly run down by a horsedrawn carriage at the “Horse Taxi Depot” on Buyukada island in Istanbul, Turkey. The good part? We survived.
4. The ice cream diet. Initially, I decided to get into this whole dieting crazy of choosing one product to eat all of the time. People lose weight with the cucumber diet, the green vegetables only diet, etc. I decided if I was going to do something like this, I should choose a food I wouldn’t get tired of eating. Hence, the ice cream diet was born! This involved eating frozen custard at Luv It’s after school a few times a week because, somehow, it made the entire day seem better. (We may have become just a bit carried away…). I continued this diet throughout the summer by eating amazing ice cream in Turkey with my new friends, Yanka and Turk, AND eating gelato on the Spanish Steps in Rome with Anya, Elaina, Jenn, and Heather. Sure, we also ate gelato every other day we were in Italy, but the Spanish Steps created a surreal “Roman Holiday” moment we thoroughly enjoyed.
5. The 12 hour bus ride from Montenegro to Serbia with Heather. Oh wait! Wrong list!! However, Mattia saying ‎that Antonio’s "steak violates the Geneva Convention!" made us laugh so hard, it ALMOST made the miserable bus ride worth it.
6. Catching up with Jessica when she brought me and graduation announcement and hearing that Boo, who graduates next spring, received a MLK award for her work with SOAM. I’m very proud of these girls.
7. Dad: “What are you guys doing?” Luis: “Uh, um… just waiting to get in the car.” This will make me laugh for the rest of my life.
8. Virgin Pina Coladas for FHE somewhere in the middle of the ocean with Martin, Karen, Charlotte, and Sam.
9. "Setting. Outside the city walls of Old Town in Kotor, Montonegro. 9 PM, but very dark outside.
   Heather: It doesn't look too scary back here. There's just some sports field.
   Jeanne: And a man peeing next to that fence.
   Heather (laughing so much, her words are barely understandable): Never mind. Let's turn around.
   Jeanne: Good idea. My dad will be proud.
10. Staying in a military prison, turned hostel, in Slovenia complete with free WiFi, loud music, chocolates on our pillows, and real bars on our door to keep us safe. Add that to the cheese diet we embraced while in Ljubljana, and… other than the super shiny faces in EVERY SINGLE PIC, perfection!
11. Visiting Juliet’s balcony in Verona and leaving a letter in her mailbox. The letter she wrote in reply, which I just received this week, was exactly what I needed to hear.

2011 was a truly amazing year. The most amazing vacation in the history of mankind and meeting an “awesome” person toward the end of the year, really completely spoiled me. 2012 has a lot to live up to, but I can’t wait to see what’s in store. Bring it on!

Happy New Year!

Temple Square

Luis hadn't ever been to see the lights at Temple Square during Christmas. Since this is one of my favorite things, I insisted that we go, even though it was FREEZING cold outside.
Luckily, my friend Sasha was there with his girlfriend and his awesome camera. He took these pics for us. MUCH better than the pics some stranger would have taken for us using my phone! ;)

I love the nativities from the different countries and the luminaria with words in different languages. Every time I visit Temple Square, I walk through the same places and look for the same things. It's beautiful and peaceful, even if it is freezing cold.

Sasha's girlfriend had to leave, but he came with Luis and I to a laser show at Clark Planetarium. I love laser shows and have been dozens of times, but neither Luis or Sasha had every been. They were floored. Super impressed. We saw the Pink Floyd show and, though we didn't know all of the songs, we really enjoyed it. We even had some astronaut ice cream. :) We stayed at Sasha's in Draper that night. He made us a fantastic dinner and it was a lot of fun to catch up with him. Sasha and I met when I was a missionary in Zaparozhye and we've done pretty well keeping in touch since then, especially now that he lives in Utah.

The next morning, Luis and I went back to the conference center for Music and the Spoken Word. Again, he'd never been and it's one of my favorite things to see. Jane Seymour narrated the program, which included music, dance, and verse. Members from all around the valley volunteer their time and talents to put together an amazing concert. President Monson was in attendance and everyone stood in silent respect when he walked into the room. It's a very powerful feeling and we enjoyed feeling the spirit that music brought into the room.

It doesn't matter how many times I've been, Temple Square is still a magical place for me. I'm glad we found the time to visit on our whirlwind trip to Utah.

Need some extra Christmas cheer? Try this. ;)

Carol of the Chins
http://www.sundog.net/carolofthechins/flash/card.swf

Thanksgiving 2011

I went to Utah for Thanksgiving weekend. I talked some friends into riding with me and stayed in SLC with Kristin for a night.
The Harris family is so large, we don't celebrate the holidays together like we used to. Thanksgiving dinner was pretty quiet with just my immediate family. Luckily, the kids are getting older so it's becoming more and more fun each year. I always love playing with the kids. They are hilarious.
What are we thankful for at Thanksgiving? Jacquie, age 6, came up with a pretty decent answer to that question.



And Davey, age 6, and Charlie, 2 1/2. They are thankful for their very cool dinosaur shirts.

First Day of School Stats

IMPORTANT STATISTICS:
(Thanks to ol' FB, it's easy to compare these important facts with those from with Aug 30, 2010.)

Aug 29, 2011 Aug 30, 2010
Day 1-- done
Days remaining-- 179
# of skirts/dresses ALMOST purchased today-- 0 last year = 8
# of skirts/dresses ACTUALLY purchased today-- 0 last year = 3
# of skirts/dresses purchased in the past month—11 last year = 14
* Again, we’re comparing this with last year! See the growth here? This is incredible progress in just twelve short months.

But... new school clothes = priceless, so... :)

The most luxurious cruise ever! :)

The girls!
Heather, Elaina, Jeanne, and Jenn

THE CRUISE!- July 11
Cruising is amazing. What more is there to say? We got some sun, enjoyed AC, ate great food, saw good entertainment, met some fantastic friends, caught up on sleep, stayed out too late dancing, and had an incredible time overall.

In the theatre, waiting for the show to start.

Naturally, we were also stopped and interviewed for the Cruise TV Morning Show. Since we didn't have DVR, I recorded our segment for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, it's too big to post here!  :(


Cruise Ports

Haifa, Israel-

Wading my feet in the Sea of Galilee

Israel wasn't at all what I'd expected. One of my Ukrainian friends, Sasha from Zaparozhye, is Jewish and lived in Tel Aviv for a few years. He introduced me to a woman from Logan through email and we arranged for her husband, Mike, to show us around. Mike met us at the train station in Haifa and we drove to Nazareth. We walked across the River Jordan and visited the Sea of Galilee. In all of Israel, the Sea of Galilee was my favorite. It was quiet and peaceful and gave us a chance to reflect on the importance of the place.

The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem

Ashdod, Israel-
We booked an excursion through our cruise ship to visit both Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It sounded like it would be difficult to get into Bethlehem unless we went with an organized tour. It was a surreal experience, to say the least.
I was heartbroken to see the wall separating the two cities. According to our guide, there were too many suicide bombers and terrorists, so the wall has helped to make things more safe.


Athens, Greece-

Heather and I both teach Greek mythology to our 9th graders, so we took tons of photos in Greece. We figured we'd show the videos to our students and then write off the trip on our taxes!  Win!!  :)

Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey- 
The ruins at Ephesus were very interesting. Even more interesting, the first week I was home, the Sunday school lesson was about the letter to the Ephesians. The teacher asked if anyone knew where Ephesus was and... Haha. The mention of this incredible ruin just made me want to look at photos of my trip!







Crete-
Crete was a big disappointment. We figured we'd be tired, so we just booked a beach transfer, but the beach was a pile of rocks more than anything.

In Athens, we were on the same tour as the Nicholls, an LDS family from England. Somehow, they could tell we were LDS and I thought I overheard the girls talking about the MTC, so... They kind of introduced themselves as Mormons and we quickly found that commonality was enough to make us BFF. They were a lot of fun, so we ended up spending a lot of time with them.

Our new LDS friends from England.
Samantha, Karen, Martin, and Charlotte

Virgin Pina Coladas for FHE
with our new British friends.

The Nicholls son is currently serving a mission in Athens and, as luck would have it, our excursion meeting spot just happened to be right in front of the church building. We didn't even notice it until we saw missionaries heading our way. Their son just happened to be there. Sharing that experience with them, really made us bond. Like Martin said, we were probably the only people on the entire cruise ship who could fully understand just how amazing it was for them to run into their missionary son.

With Wener and Valentin, our favorite servers

Our dining experience really made the cruise incredible. The food was delicious and there was lots of it. Our servers, Werner from Australia and Valentin from Romania, were a lot of fun. We had a great time talking with them at dinner every night.

An unexpected little trip to Serbia

Heather and I couldn't find a way to get to Bulgaria from Montenegro, so... we went to Serbia instead! Not quite what we'd planned on, but we ended up having a great time with our new favorite friends, Mattia and Antonio.

The most luxurious cruise ever brought us fame!

Our cruise was incredible. We made friends with a famous guy (DJ Doug who tried to teach us us that "nerd is the new sexy” even though we didn’t believe him), became famous ourselves (see video below), visited TONS of incredible places in Israel, Greece, and Turkey, enjoyed air conditioning, ate unlimited desserts and were brought extra whipped cream because "it looks like you girls are losing weight", slept in, slept in REAL BEDS, danced, watched incredible entertainment both on and off the ice rink, had FHE with a British family who quickly became our BFFs, made friends with a Romanian who may eventually kill us, and learned all about KFC from our new South African friend. Words are not enough. Simply incredible.

Provo Peeps

P-town is not my favorite place by any means, but some of my favorite people live there. Stephanie and I have been friends since bonding cleaning bathrooms in the MTC. After our missions, we traveled through Europe together and stayed with friends we'd met while in the MTC. She's currently going to school in India. She's studying film, so it's cheaper to study in Bollywood than in Hollywood. She's home visiting her family in Provo for a month this summer, so I was happy to get the chance to catch up with her.

I was extremely excited to see Lena and Olya today. They are sisters from Dnepropetrovsk, my favorite area from my mission. Lena was 14 and Olya was only 10. They were already members when I served there and were really involved in activities. Their mom was baptized when they were, but hadn't been active for a long time by the time I got there. The other members of their family were heavily involved in drugs and alcohol and these young girls struggled. One of their older brothers sold a sweater I gave Olya to buy drugs and their mom sold the Christmas tree the ward donated to their family to buy alcohol. Olya shared a pair of boots with her best friend, Marina, who lived in an apartment in the same building. The rest of the time, she used worn out shoes that had cardboard in the soles and tried her best not to get her feet wet.

We were really close while I served in Topol and stayed in touch pretty well over the years. When Olya was 17 or 18, she married a former Elder shortly after he finished his mission and they moved to Provo. Within a year, Lena married a former Elder and they moved to Oregon, where he's from. About a year ago, Lena and her husband moved to Provo. Lena wanted to be closer to Olya and near more Russians.

Liliya, of course, is Liliya. She's smart, beautiful, talented, UKRAINIAN, and simply amazing. I love hanging out with her, though I don't get to do it nearly enough. I love Liliya enough that I was willing to post this pic even though my eyes are closed, simply because she looked cute in this pic.

Utah trip-- June 2011

As usual, I took a quick trip to Utah shortly after school got out to spend some time with my family. Matt came home from Iraq in May and this was the first time I got to see him.

Jacquie, as usual, loves to ask me about clothes and make-up. She wants to carry my purse everywhere she goes and still tells me that she's sure her mom will let her wear make-up, as long as I help her. Her mom, of course, disagrees. One morning when I was putting on make-up, she asked, "Aunt Jeanne, why are you putting that black stuff on your eyes? Are you trying to look tired or something?" I explained that it was eye-liner and it was supposed to make me look pretty. She replied, "Or do you think maybe it's supposed to make you didn't get as much sleep as you wanted?"
Joie's fun, if you can catch her in a good mood, but she's extremely moody. Sometimes she just refuses to leave her mom's side and, apparently, screaming is one of her favorite hobbies. It's a bit rough.
We went to Davey's t-ball game. They hit the ball off the tee and run the bases, then take turns fielding the balls instead of playing positions. It's more interactive than soccer, so he loves it. Watching five year olds play baseball for an entire hour, as one can imagine, is not entirely exciting. Matt and I (okay, fine... it was mostly my idea) kept ourselves occupied by taking photos of ourselves. Joie, although only three, isn't a bad photographer. Even when the camera wasn't on and she wasn't taking any pictures, she had fun pretending.

Charlie is hilarious. He has a BIG personality for such a little kid. He understands that he's funny and purposely does things to make people laugh. The other night when we were sitting on the deck, he took a toy that Joie had been playing with and Joie, very quickly, started to complain that she had the toy first. Charlie ran inside, shut the screen door, then looked through and said, "Ha, ha!"

I drove my dad to the airport on Tuesday and we stopped to visit Grandma and Grandpa Milligan in Ogden. I definitely don't see them as much as I should, so it was fun to catch up. My grandpa is still mean and grumpy all of the time, but my grandma just deals with it and somehow stays entirely sweet and generous. It's pretty incredible. I took this photo of my grandma and my dad in front of her house.

My cousin, Briana, got married last night. The reception was in the Bowen's backyard. It was beautiful and the weather, surprisingly, was great. I took this adorable pic of Grandma and Grandpa Harris. They ALWAYS look adorable.

I saw some family members I hadn't seen for a VERY long time, including Misty and Ashley, who I spent tons of time with when we were younger. Babysitting Ashley was one of the best paying jobs I've ever had!

It's pretty much tradition for Grandpa Harris to drive the newlyweds from the wedding ceremony to the dinner and reception. The kids and I took the chance to post in front of one of his many Model T's. Our photo, obviously, is not nearly as cute as Bri's professional photo with the very same Model T, but... We still thought it turned out pretty cute. :)

Overall, it's been a pretty entertaining week!

Summer vacation!!

It's finally summer vacation again! :) The school year always seems to go by so slowly, then suddenly, the next thing you know, it's time for final exams and cleaning out classrooms.
This summer, I may have got just a bit carried away with my summer vacation plans. Just maybe... We're going to all of the places marked on the map on the left. :)

I'd originally planned to spend some time visiting my friend Tanya in Italy this summer, then invited my friend Heather to come along. She has a friend who lives in Istanbul and... the next thing you know, we planned a trip all over the place. We invited another friend from work, Elaina, and her roommate, Jenn, to join us. They are meeting us in Rome, going on the cruise and through Italy with us, then going home through Switzerland when Heather and I head toward the Balkan countries. We've met quite a few times to figure out our travel plans and are getting more and more excited as things are getting closer. We've got our plans for Italy all figured out. Now Heather and I just need to figure out if we'd rather go the more adventurous route through the Balkans or stick with the scenic route and go mostly through the beaches in Croatia. Either way, this summer is going to be amazing! July 7th simply can't come soon enough. :)

I bought a house!

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but... I bought a house!

You know how sometimes you're shopping and you find a shirt or a skirt you kind of like. You look at it and you think, "Ah, that's kind of cute." Then you look at the price tag. If it's cheap, you think, "Oh, yeah. That's totally worth $15!" or "I'd pay $20 for that skirt, but it's not worth $30." Well, the same thing basically happened with this house. I found it. I kind of liked it. The price was right. (Oh, and it has a pool. With a diving board. And a BBQ grill and a two car garage and granite countertops and big back yard and actual grass in the front yard.)

Ninjas never cease to amaze!

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Happy Valentine's, world!

Kreshenya in Ukraine

Wow. Simply amazing video.