European Vacation

Annie and I enjoyed a week long trip to Europe. We visited France, England and Holland in a hurried eight days. I had a couple of days of business meeting in the London area and I talked Annie into joining me for the trip. We had a great time. I found out that luggage was over rated. Air France lost my luggage the first day and finally returned it to me in Amsterdam one week later - the night before we flew home. I was able to buy a few items and then spent many evenings doing laundry in either the sink or the tub of our hotel room. Such fun. Annie's suitcase was also lost for our stay in France but was waiting for us at Charles De Gaul before our flight to London. We were both very disappointed that I didn't have my suitcase. I was quite impressive at my meetings in London wearing jeans, a complimentary Air France t-shirt and my thin golf jacket (which I kept on for my meetings).
An early start in Paris. After staying for one night at the Paris Hilton, we are off to Hertz to pick up a car for the drive to Normandy - the highlight of the trip for me. It was so awesome, I'm going to put up another post on that part of the trip.

Out for an evening walk in London. Here we are on the pedestrian bridge over the River Thames between Embankment and Waterloo stations. If you look close you can see Big Ben over my left shoulder and the London Eye (aka Millennium Wheel) over Annie's right shoulder

Next Stop was Amsterdam. Here is Anne Frank's house viewed from our canal cruise. From her secret room in the attic, Anne listened to the radio with news of the Allied landing at Normandy on June 6, 1944. Her hopes of returning to school in the fall were soon crushed as she and her family were found and sent to concentration camps.

Venice of the North

I think I may have worked with these brick layers....

The Van Gogh museum was closed when we got there so the best we could do was have me poise in front of this nearby shop selling prints. You may recognize my outfit from the photo in London three days earlier.....

Tulips everywhere - Here is Annie inside the greenhouse at Keukenhof. Normally tulips can be found in bloom from mid-April through the end of May. This year due to global warming, winter lasted longer than normal so the tulips are a little late, but we found plenty in bloom during our visit on April 17.

Wind mills were not every where. We spent most of an afternoon looking for windmills and castles but with limited success. We were not very happy with the Avis GPS (tom tom). The Hertz 'Neverlost' GPS we used in France was far superior.

the rutledge's trip to the carolinas

We had a great trip back to North and South Carolina. We spent the first 3 days in Charleston, SC. We thought Charleston was really beautiful, the streets were narrow so driving was a little intense, but we loved walking around downtown and seeing the sights. On the way back up to NC, we thought we would drive up the coast and have lunch in Myrtle Beach. Randomly we got two flat tires (when I say flat, I mean really flat, not just low, but undriveable flat). It was lucky that were in a little town and that Pizza Hut was nearby, because we waited for three and a half hours for the rental company to bring us a new car. We spent the next few days in North Carolina, JD made sure we ate well, probably not healthy, but well. A few other random events from the trip --
**Apparently Eliza can gleek? She displayed this amazing talent while eating some pears.
**JD wants to be a Cameron Crazy. If he was a DUKE student he would be out there camping out to get tickets, and painting his body blue for the games.
**Seriously though, how on earth do people get around on the east coast when all you can see is trees? I had no idea which direction we were going.
It was a lot of fun. Hope to go back someday soon.

Savior of the World

I hope all of the Smiths's are enjoying a wonderful Easter Sunday.

Our Stake is in the middle of a wonderful production of 'Savior of the World'. From the overview presented on the production web site, The production Savior of the World: His Birth and Resurrection is a powerful testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ. Through music and drama, the production recounts the historical events leading up to the birth of the Messiah and the events following His glorious Resurrection. During this Easter season, Savior of the World provides a meaningful opportunity for all to remember His birth and resurrection and renew their devotion to Him.The production is presented as a theatre in the round and features a beautiful soundtrack orchestra and seating for approximately 500 guests around the stage will bring the audience closer to the performers. A 125 voice Angel Choir will surround the audience on a colonnade 8-12’ high. The audience will be a part of the sets and be enveloped in the experience. Come and See.

Prior to the production, we were fortunate to have David Warner, husband of Allison Hickman and Director of Music and Cultural Arts for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, join the Irvine Stake for a special fireside last Sunday. Following the brief fireside, he spent an additional hour with the cast and crew answering questions and sharing insight regarding the development of SOTW.

On Friday, David flew back to southern California along with Jared Haddock and Ross Boothe. Both work with David and are involved in directing the SLC production of SOTW. They all enjoyed the production and after the production, David twisted some arms until Jared agreed to sit at the piano and sing a song they are working on for a new production. Ross then shared another song from the production. Annie was more than a little disappointed that we didn't get this midnight concert recorded.

Today in Young Women's Annie taught the entire ward Young Women's group and told the touching story surrounding her dad's death on Easter Sunday when she was just 10. It was a difficult way to teach of the Atonement, but she did an awesome job as both Kristin and I can attest.

Melissa heard about the production from mom and dad so she and Adam took advantage of two extra tickets I had to the sold out Friday night performance. We all met at Jalepenos for some fine Mexican food prior to the show. Kristin, Adam and Melissa David, Jared, Ross and Bob (you'll have to take my word for it, but Annie was also with us)

Jack on Train

Fun with Jack at the Long Beach Aquarium

John and Beth are playing in Hawaii and they left Jack behind to play with Aunt Kristin and grandma and grandpa. Kristin hooked us up with some free tickets to the Aquarium so the four of us along with Hillary and Avery Stern and Rachel, Mia and Isabel Phelps enjoyed a couple of hours admiring the fish, sea lions and Jack's favorites - the pigeons.

Typical Jack, pretending to have a good time.

Kristin and Avery kept a watchful eye on Jack
"Come on grandma, let me in there with the sting rays"

Jack, Avery and Bob

Annie showing Jack the sea turtle

I took this video the other day with my cell pone (that is why the quality isn't great). We thought it was pretty cute.

Brian's Proposal

This was the original place I wanted to do it but it turns out there was already a guy asking a girl to marry him down there. The area was blocked off and we got their limo driver to take this picture. You can see the other couple hogging the space just next to my elbow. I was getting nervous because my plan wasn't working but I decided to go and try to find another place.
We asked a lady to take some pictures for us and she willing did. She kept asking me questions on how I wanted to the pictures and I was just so nervous that I wasn't really answering her questions. We then switched spots and I got her to take this video, even though she didn't know she was going to be filming.





She said she would marry me! It might be hard to hear on the video but she said it.



After the proposal we went to Mozambique, a restaurant in Laguna Beach. It was a lot nicer than the Mozambique Jackie and I came to know and love.

Christmas Party Photos 2007

Elder Mikey's first mission photos

Michael has finally sent home some missionary photos. I'll ask him to provide some background information and will edit this post later if he has more to say. He looks like he has mastered the art of the self photo. It has also helped me figure out why I haven't been able to find a few of my ties! Before he left, I thought he looked better with a size 16 neck, but he said he preferred size 16.5 so that's what we did. If I'm not mistaken, the 16.5 shirts fit pretty snuggly now and his face is a little rounder.

new picture of eliza

Hi everyone. Here are a couple new pictures of Eliza. She is growing so fast. The boy in the one picture is my friend Lindsey's son Crew.

if the audio doesn't work ... check out my myspace page

www.myspace.com/ahan8

-andy

Isabelle Lynn Hansen's last visit

Hey everyone!

Well, this is my first post on "The Extended Smith Family Blog" and I just wanted to let you know how things are going for myself and Isabelle Lynn Hansen.

Izzy was up in Cache Valley for about the past week, and we had a great time. We got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents ("Go to Grandma Smith's house? Go see the puppies?" ... and Gampa Nellie and Gama Joye) and also plenty of time with (according to Isabelle's priority) Duke, Gama Hansen and Papa - Mike - ).

Izzy is already smarter than her dad ... thank the good Lord my "smart genes" didn't rub off on her and that hopefully her mom's intellegence - at least in school work and general education because she was her class' valedictorian or something like that - rubbed off on Isabelle.

Anyway, just thought I'd show you the latest video of her and let you see what type of character Izzy is.

Love -

-andy

Rileys Apple Farm

I spent Saturday nestled in the apple growing foothills of historic Oak Glen, Riley's Farm is a working apple orchard and living history farm featuring pick-your-own fruit, living history education, dinner theater, group banquet facilities and extended, historically-themed overnight stays. . The season ended Oct 10 so there was not much going on. Usually they have everything apple to do for the day. We did enjoy a good lunch, a yummy caramel apple and brought home an apple pie. Most of these pictures were taken by a 4 year old. It was a wonderful day and so beautiful just to get out of Orange County.

Enjoy your 20's while you can.

Happy Birthday John!! What a great son, brother, father, husband and friend. Congratulations! We all hope you have a fun day at the BYU game and hanging with Jack and Beth.

baby Incredible

We dressed up as the Incredible's for a Halloween Party.