I just realized that all of my pictures were of celebrities...so here are my Italy pictures. Yes, be very jealous...

Oh hey, America. I'm in Italy, but I hate their food (bland bland bland) give me a cheeseburger. Oh, what's that? Is that the Pantheon in the background of my fine dining at McDonalds? Why yes it is!
This is where the temple in Rome is being built. We had this driver take us out there and he must have thought us nuts to be looking at an empty lot....Ikea is in the background on the left and beautiful fields to the right. Under Roman law, before you can build anything you have to do some excavation to see if there are ruins anywhere that you might build. So, the saints in Italy were fasting before they started the process and they didn't find anything where the temple will be built, but they found some a mere 100 feet away. So, a temple in Rome! Yay!

First marriage in the Roman temple. Me and this fine man. He is a police officer helping out this sweet old lady. I want to have his babies. I creepily took a picture of him as we were getting off the train. Italian men come in 2 forms- greasy or delicious. He is the latter.

This is Florence. Vaughn just chilling a million miles from everyone else. We wanted to do a facebook album called "What Vaughn did in Italy" because he just wanders around and does his own thing.

The David by Michaelangelo is in the Museum of Florence. You can't take pictures in there, but they have put a replica of it outside in the piazza where it originally was. Megan and I were a little bored so we decided to give David a good game. He liked it.

This is the Pontevecchio in Florence. It is known for their jewelers along the bridge and leather. This is where I spent way too much on a purse that I love. Vaughn also spent 9 Euro on an gelato. That is something like 15 bucks.
This is a bronz statue of Persius after he killed Medusa. Its amazing and its just out in the open in the piazza in Florence.

The baptistry in Florence that is known for its doors by Ghiotto. Michaelangelo called them "The Gates of Paradise" because of their beauty. Each panel depicts a scene from the old testament.

This is the Duomo. The baptistry belongs to this. Its made of inlaid green and pink marble. It was done by Bruneschelli. It is one of the only Gothic cathedrals in Italy. The inside is very plain.

Our favorite Gelato shop. Here is how you can tell if its good gelato-look at the banana flavored one. If its yellow, then they use artificial flavoring- if its a gray color, then they use real fruit and whatnot. Soooooooo good.

So, we went to Borghese park to the museum and to rent a bike (which was totally awesome)- Anywho, we took a rest after walking around for a while and I look over at Vaughn and this is what he has built. Yep, a camp fire in case we are stranded in the park. Such a weirdo.
The bikes at this place are AWESOME! They are like Flintstone cars. Here's Meg and I Roman around. Tee-hee.

This is our bike. If Vaughn wasn't peddling, we weren't moving.

Pompeii. They estimate that they only have about a quarter of it excavated.

Vaughn loves to look at the colums and the tiles and see how they put them together and figure out how he would do it. Here he is just wandering in Pompeii.

This is from Pompeii. Super sad to see. They say that ancient Romans were only about 4 and a half to 5 feet tall. Interestingly enough, the Gladiators, who were slaves, were around 6 to 7 feet tall. What? Beat them Romans down!
This is a chariot groove in the cobblestone. So, not only has it been covered for thousands of years, it was a thriving metropolis before for a very long time.

Pompeii was on the coast before (now its about 3 miles inland) so it was a port town with lots and lots of visitors. Ask me about their whore houses and how that all worked out. Very very interesting and pornographic.

This is the cute little town of Sorrento. They are know for their lemons. I loved it here. Lots of little shops (me? shop? Never!) and cobblestone streets.

Coast line on the way to Sorrento and Pompeii

This is outside of a museum. I forgot what its called but it was once the house of the Pope's nephew and it is ridiculous. Lauren might actually be having fun with us here. And I quote "you guys are not funny at all."
This is the Ecstasy of St. Theresa by Bernini, as previously stated, he is my favorite sculptor. This shot does not do it justice, but I couldn't get high enough to get a good view. It was here that I saw a guy about my age in such anguish and he was going around praying to the icons at all of the altars putting money into the boxes and it made me so sad for him to not know that he could speak to God directly and he didn't have to go through a mable statue.

This is the forum. Its essentially the main part of the ancient Roman empire.

This is where Brutus was believe to have died.

Triumphal archway

I'm pretty sure that this is Russel Crowe. He now takes pictures for tourists.
These are the holes mostly from people taking out the Bronz

This is the area below where the gladiators and the animals were kept before the big show. They were brought up on a make shift elevator type thing...

They built the stage to show what it would have looked like. They also found skulls down below of all sorts of wild and exotic animals. Crazy town!

Full view Outside view of the Colliseum. Most people think that the destruction happened because of time and the weather and stuff like that, but it is mostly because people would steal the stone to build other things. They would also melt down the bronz that was on the inside of the structure used as support to make things. Boo people who ruin stuff for others.
Trevi fountain. This was absolutely ridiculous. Tradition holds that if you make a wish and throw a coin over your shoulder, then you will come back to Rome again.

Spanish Steps.Isn't it beautiful?

This is the Vatican.
My wonderful family just sitting on the steps talking at the Vatican. Love them!

Vaughn Beames everyone. He was always off in his own world doing his own thing and we documented it.

Part of Vaughn's uniqueness is that he finds simple and what some would term as "boring" things fascinating. Here he had been visually and physically following this Roman pigeon around and just as I was about to take a picture, he turned around to have us look at it. This might be my most favorite picture of the whole trip. I love my daddy!

These are the Swiss guards. They serve for 2 years and they have to be Swiss Roman Catholic virgins. Sound familiar? They get cooler outfits than the Mormons do...
This was made by Bernini (my favorite sculptor) out of bronz that they stole from the Pantheon. It is located in the Vatican at St. Peter's which is the largest cathedral in the world. This is actually 10 stories tall, but you can't tell because of the size of the basillica.

This is Michaelangelo's Pieta. One of my all time favorite sculptures. I love the look of serenity on Mary's face (which is a very Renaissance look) speaking of the peace that Christ would rise again. I personally feel the Michaelangelo was inspired. I wish I could have taken pictures of the Cistine Chapel, but its not allowed. So much wisdom that is not a part of Catholic theology. Also, in the 1960's some lunatic came in and broke Mary's fingers off and Christ's foot. That is why its now under glass and you can't get close.

This is also in the Vatican. It's an ancient Roman sculpture. Normally they did have eyes like this made out of marble, but now they are gone due to destruction of pagan antiquities or stolen to be used somewhere else. Kind of freaky, right?

Vaughny loves his gelato. Look at his compared to Megan's. He was a happy boy....

This is their Capitol type building. Its also probably one of the newest buildings in Rome dating 1910 or something like that.
Zac followed me there. He loves me. What can I say?

Oh, hey. I'm walking down the street- no big deal. Oh wait ancient ruins. What? Caesar

was killed right here? Oh, ok. That's totally normal. Ya, I saw something like that in Provo.

Hello Pantheon.

The sisters at the Vatican.