An unlikely vacation

So here's another "which one of these did NOT happen" quizzes?

1. we had a guest stay with us from Azerbaijan

2. we rescued a dying kitten

3. I frequented an Italian tattoo/piercing parlor

4. Chris changed jobs

5. We got to see friends from Montgomery

 And the answer is..(drumroll)..once again, I can't imagine this stuff, you get bonus points if you guessed that ALL these happened.

Now explanation time:

First up number 4,  it's the easiest. A few weeks ago Chris started his stint as the Aviano ADC. Originally this job was going to start off with a bang and he was going to leave the day he started to head to England for a trial. Luckily for me there was a postponement and he got to stick around here instead. There will probably be a pretty good chunk of travel with this job, obviously. The upside is that he's doing defense work, right where he originally wanted to be.

Now onto 1,2,3, and 5. Jackie was our visitor from Azerbaijan. She's currently "stationed" there in the Peace Corp. As a former AF child, travel and changes are nothing new to her. As one of my friends who met her said (and I wholly agree) Jackie's the type of woman that 1. gives us a good feeling about how our kids are growing up 2. is the type of person we hope they grow up to be and 3. is the type of person we wish we had been brave enough to be ourselves. Not only is she an incredibly cool person in her own right, but she also was able to educate us a bit on the Azeri (hope that's spelled correctly!) culture. Here's the wiki entry on Azerbaijan if you'd like to get a brief overview of where she is. I also included the Peace Corp web site, they do great things. ( And yes, to answer and reassure family reading this, Chris has already nixed the idea of us signing up after he retires.)

http://www.peacecorps.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan

As an illustration of just how cool Jackie is...numero due. Her first night here we walked down to the local bar to get coffee. As we are walking back through town we spot a little smudge in the middle of the road crying piteously. The little bundle was immediately rushed off to the emergency vet, and although things were pretty touch and go for a while, we now have Jack as a new member of our family.

He's still having some health challenges, and will always have one blind eye. But other than his fondness for climbing up my body (with his claws) to sit on my head (with his claws) and his need to play right during the smack middle of the night, he's a great little kitten. We're getting a lot of laughter from having him around. The cool part of Jackie was that not only was she hip to the idea of spending her first night in Italy nursing a sick cat, but I can guarantee that she wouldn't have had it any other way.

Here's Jackie, her great sister Jessica, and Mom-Janet.

While Jackie was here we were happy to show her around and to help her get a few things done that are difficult, or impossible, to do in Azerbaijan. One of the things on her to-do list was to get a few things re-pierced. So, no, to answer my families next question-I did not (nor did the kids) get anythings tattooed or pierced. Honestly, I'm just too darned indecisive to be a tattoo type of girl, and my ears are enough for me to keep up with in the piercing department. It WAS fun to go with her, it had been a long time since I'd been in a tattoo parlor. The shop was great, right in the Aviano square if anyone needs a recommendation.

Jackie's time here was too short and before we knew it our new familial add on headed off on a cruise with her family, whom we knew from Maxwell. And that leads us to numero cinque...friends visiting. The Dents were going on a cruise leaving out of Venice, so we were able to see them while they were in. Chris and I had a great time heading down to the city for a day and visiting with them. Check out Chris's plate-he was brave once again and got another local specialty. It's pasta with squid, colored black with the ink....A big plate of flat black pasta with squid doesn't sound that appealing to me, but he reports that it was pretty tasty.

While we were there I saw one of the most romantic and charming things that I've seen in Venice so far. This couple was dancing in the middle of San Marco square. They were obviously learning, not perfect dancers by any means, but they were having so much fun and were so sweet together. Sitting there enjoying a spritz with friends, this was people watching at its best.

I've never been in Venice this late, so I couldn't help but get a "panoramic" evening scene of what is now one of my favorite cities. This is from the steps of Santa Lucia train station looking out over the Grand Canal.

We've had a busy past few weeks, more coming soon.

Beach Trip

Chris starts his new position this week, and I go back to classes every night. With all that, and our usual business going on, we chose to stick close to home this three day weekend. Here's our day trip to the beach..it was cold, but that didn't stop us from having fun.

Some of my favorite pictures of the girls are like this. I can see how sweet they are with each other, and how much they're each growing.

  The kids found some great seashells, there are so many you can't walk without crushing them.

Liz had some of the most fun on this coin operated helicopter-it went higher than the roof of the building next door. I keep saying she's our future attorney-maybe flying would be a good pastime.

 

You can't go to the coast without getting some good seafood. Liz and I stuck with our veggie dishes, Chris and Emma had plates that were so pretty I just had to get a picture.

Lizzie visits the latteria and Emma goes kayaking

The girls have really been lucky this year with some pretty cool field trips.
A few weeks ago Liz went to a bakery where she made her own bread, lucky for us she brought some home. Last week Emma went to Barcis with her class for a day of kayaking. There weren't any pictures taken, but they went all over the lake (one of the prettiest lakes I've seen), then through a grotto area before going back to the dock. She also had a whole day of partying when the Americans came over from the base school to visit. She was able to meet some great kids she'll be in class with next year, and some others that were equally nice-but leaving this summer.
This week Liz went to a water bottling plant and a latteria (cheese and milk). While there the class got to make their own mozzarella to bring home. Bread and cheese so far, maybe by the time we leave she'll be able to cook an entire authentic Italian meal. See why I like the Italian schools?

Here's our little cheese maker..

 

 As you can see-she takes this very seriously.

And the final product...molto deliziosa!

On a separate side note-I'm sitting here writing this being reminded about the language bribe I gave them when we first got here..yes, I bribe occasionally...When they become fluent, they get some sort of surprise..the earlier they are fluent, the bigger the surprise. Sooooo, just now they are both reminding me about this and are begging me that the surprise be kittens (ha), but they are doing it in ITALIAN!!! Now, both of them admit that they aren't quite fluent, but they are SO very close. I can't say how excited and happy I am about that. Now I just have to figure out the surprise part of it. :-)

Tante Auguri a Tate

Elizabeth has this fascination with breakfast in bed. Part of that is because she's such a naturally sweet and thoughtful girl. Part is because, unlike on school days, on weekends she wakes up at o'dark thirty and is bored with nothing to do and no one to entertain her. Whatever the reasoning behind it every few weeks she puts together a breakfast feast for at least one of us and wakes us up with some sort of breakfast concoction and a sweet "good morning". To treat her we all decided that her birthday could not be complete without her own breakfast in bed. This year we had a European twist on it with a delicious recipe from a friend-Nutella french toast...ummm, we all started the day with a sugar rush.

Luckily we had rented the bouncy castle from base and had about 20 of Lizzie's class mates and friends over to help us burn it all off. I know that I had forgotten exactly how fun, and tiring, a  bouncy castle can be. Pair it with some wild and crazy 2nd graders and you have a sure fire recipe for some worn out parents (and big sister).

The kids were great. It was fantastic to see how far Liz and Emma have come in their Italian, Liz has even been repeatedly and unknowingly slipping into Italian this past week.

When it came time for cake and sundaes the children all sang "Tante Auguri" to Elizabeth, then the American version of "Happy Birthday". Liz is growing like a weed, still soaking up any bit of information that is in front of her, and oh so funny and sweet.

Happy 8th Birthday Liz, we love you!

When it rains...

As every mil spouse knows, the minute your spouse goes TDY, everything goes wrong. This past week while Chris was gone...the kids were sick, then I was sick, Liz's fish died, the dryer broke, it rained every day, I had mid-terms and projects due..I could go on and on about how everything that should have gone right that week just didn't.

Or I could talk about how the rain has made our newly planted garden go nuts.

The hours and bruises from the battle between the rocks and the rototiller may have been worth it, the scorpions still have some room to make up for. We now have everything from tomatoes and cherries, to carrots and radishes working their way quickly to our table. (I threw in the picture of the woodpecker as a bonus, the garden is just not that exciting.)

I could talk about what a wonderful time we had with my cousin Kara who took the time to visit during her tour of Europe.



(More pictures to come later)

I could tell you how sweet my husband was to get pictures and stories from friends at MAFB, it makes them seem a little less far away.

Most of all I could say that after weeks of people traveling the globe, tornadoes, volcanic ash, illness and who knows what else..at this moment in time all the people I care about are safe. It makes the past week seem pretty good after all.

April in Italy

Once again a fairly uneventful week in Bella Italia, but that doesn't mean that we aren't having one beautiful day after another . This past Sunday while Chris played golf and Emma babysat, Liz and I went to the Pordenone Antique market. We didn't do a whole lot of shopping, but still managed to have a great day.

This is the Pordenone carousel. I'm not sure exactly how old it is, but it's the oldest I've ever seen. The artwork is really pretty, and the carousel itself is beautifully unusual. Liz took the first round herself. Second round we were given free tickets and I got to ride in the rocking carriage.

Riding in carousels works up quite an appetite. We headed over to a chocolate shop for a little refreshment. Peratoner chocolates opened in 1873 and has some of the most beautiful chocolate I've ever seen or tasted. Liz's hot chocolate was basically melted dark chocolate, we had to order a glass of milk to water it down a little!

I should have gotten a picture of their front display. The current theme is "fish market" and they have an entire window filled with life sized chocolate fish laid out like what you would see in a market stall.

Liz and I had a picnic lunch while waiting for Emma to get out of school last week. Here she is as a flower princess. Yes, she's wearing the same dress, different day, it's her "go-to" outfit right now, the cowboy boots are a daily thing.

There are several things that I've tried to get picture of, only to fall short. One of the pictures is of the sheep herds that travel from place to place. As far as I can tell they are used to clear fields, eating for a day or two until an area is bare, then popping up across town at another farm. The working dogs really earn their kibble running back and forth to keep the sheep out of the roads (no fences!). The other picture is of a Nonna riding her bike in heals and a dress, probably coming back from market. There are more than a few who can do this with a child or two on each end of the bike, packages hanging off the handle bars and in the basket, and all of it with more grace in heals than I can muster on a flat surface. Here are the best attempts so far.

Sheep...

Nonna...

Part of Liz's mini-basket team. Coach Eric is the big guy on the back row, and for those of you that have heard the stories of Paolo, he's front row second from the right.

Emma has been absent a lot lately when it comes time to snap photos, so here are at least some of the pictures she's taken...

The view next to us with all the fruit trees in bloom:

Geburtstag Strudel

On April 5th our dear, sweet, super smart, gorgeous, always fantastic girl Emma turned the big 1-4. That's right, a whole year into teenager-hood and so far no ill effects have been noted. Her birthday was lucky enough to fall into spring break, so we took advantage of the time off from school to head north to Germany.

It's a little over 5 hours to get to Garmisch from where we are, and the drive took us through some really incredible sights in Italy, Austria, and Germany.

I don't think we had snow sticks this high even in Iowa (well above my head!).

How could I not have gotten a picture of this?

Em prepping for her first round of skiing.

Chris and Liz on the slopes.

Birthday lunch, more German food.

For Em's birthday dinner we headed to a traditional Bavarian restaurant complete with Bavarian dancing, and....strudel. So Em, being the lucky strudel loving girl she is, got a delicious apple strudel for her birthday "cake".

Here's the yodeling, accordion playing, singing musician at the restaurant.

I tried to get pictures of the dancers, but the restaurant was just too dark. The food was delicious and filling. Chris and Emma were in heaven trading dishes back and forth.

Birthday girl getting attacked by her sister.

Emma just seems to get better and better each year, I can't wait to see what 14 brings us.