Christmas Morning

Christmas was a quiet one for us this year. For the second year in a row, we skipped traveling and just had an enjoyably boring day at home. I made a big breakfast, including our family favorite, Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls. And made a Ham and all the fixings for dinner. We had some friends and their 4 kids over for dinner and sugar cookie decorating since they just arrived in Italy and aren't even in a house yet. The kids had a blast playing all evening and were wore out by the time they came off the sugar high and facetiming with Grandma and Grandpa Harris. Overall, a nice relaxing holiday! Santa brought Brian a razor scooter and Emily a pink doll carriage. Brian's favorite gift was hot wheels wall tracks and the kids both got tons of Legos and have had fun creating houses and castle and such the last few days.

Austrian Adventure {Day 4}

After 3 nights in Tirol, we checked out of our resort and drove one hour east to Salzburg, a charming old city on the Salzach river. The old historic part of the city sits between the river and a mountain and is almost completely car-free, so it makes for great walking around and shopping during the Christmas market season. Bits of The Sound of Music were filmed here and what was not filmed here, but filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood, was inspired by the scenery in Salzburg, where the Von Trapp family lived until they fled the Nazi's in World War 2. We plan on going back to do the full bus tour and see all the sights from the movie and real life of the Von Trapps sometime in the warmer seasons. Below is the Dom or Cathedral, the statue of Mozart, who was born in Salzburg and lived there most of his first 25 years. Bottom right is a pink church that is 1400 years old!

 Another smaller church set next to a beautiful, old cemetery, the one that inspired the scene in The Sound Of Music where the family hides from the Nazis behind head stones. The actual scene from the movie was filmed on a set.  

 Walking around Salzburg, down the main shopping drag where old iron signs still depict what is sold in the stores beneath.

 Europe is known for their Christmas marrkets and Salzburg has a really big one. The markets are all outside, where vendors sell everything from traditional junk food of the region and warm beverages to ornaments and decorations to hats and purses. Steve bought a nice, traditional Bavarian style hat to go with his Lederhosen. I didn't see anything I couldn't live without except a few cookie cutters. Brian couldn't live without this donut with sprinkles!

 When we were done with the market and walking on our way to dinner, we stopped into this toy store to warm up and Brian got his picture next to a 6-foot-tall Lego Elephant. We left without purchasing the elephant but each kid got a little matchbox-car-sized city tram that look just like the ones zooming around Salzburg.

 We finally made our way to the Augustiner brewery, an old monestary that you can get food and bier and just have some good, old Austrian fun in. See the kids up there waiting for a pint? Steve has never been happier there with his liter. I am not a bier drinker but I took a sip and it was really good.

 The Augustiner is really informal and has basically what looks like a mall food court and you just find a stall that carries what you fancy, get your food and bring it back to the table for some good eating.

 Some good, hearty Austrian food. Mostly meat and potatoes of course. And that pretzel was the size of a newborn baby. Below: in case they run out of bier mugs on the wall of mugs, you could drink out of this giant one?

 Some pictures along the walk from the city center to our hotel, about a mile each way in the freezing cold, with a wind chill of bitterly cold. But it was good for walking off all the meat and taters and bier! We spent one night in Salzburg and then headed back home to make final preparations for Christmas!

Austrian Adventure {Days 2 & 3}

 Our first full day, we stopped by the rental shop, got skis for Brian and Steve, dropped Brian at lessons, but we didn't stick around to watch because I needed to get Steve over to the slopes in a different area for him to ski. But Emily and I came back in the afternoon to watch the last half hour. He did great and loved it. I probably saw him go down the bunny slope 15 times and he only fell once and was able to pop right back up with no help. At first he was talking about going back for a second day but then changed his mind when he thought about the playplace at the resort, and decided to spend his second day there instead. We are hoping next year he'll be up for more lessons, maybe he can teach me a thing or two when Emily is old enough to stay at the daycare all day so I can ski too!

 Here is Emily while we were watching the end of Brian's ski lessons. Several things are going on here: I had to wake her up from her nap to get out to the lessons before they ended, she was cold because she refused to wear her gloves, and she could see a park in the distance. All these things combined into what I dubbed "angry snow kitty." Angry snow kitty put her claws away when I finally got enough pictures of Brian skiiing and we walked over to the little park.

 Steve spent two days skiiing and caught a nice sunset on Day 2.

Above is the view from our apartment. Our kids have a little Native American blood from both sides so we weren't surprised to see Brian rocking this look (left) so nicely at the end of one fun afternoon at the resort's playplace. The playplace was Brian's #1 on list of fun things to do at the resort. His #2 was hitting the indoor pool (kids in kid-sized robes heading to pool, right). His #3 was that our apartment had a room with a bunkbed! Up and down and up and down and up and down.....

Austrian Adventure {Day 1}

Our squadron does this awesome trip every year in December that serves as our squadron Christmas party and ski trip. We went to the Tirol region in Austria. Basically, it's in the Alps, between Innsbruck and Salzburg. It was awesome! So much fun for the whole family. There was skiing for Steve (and Brian took a lesson too). A spa for me. A huge playplace/babysitting for the kids. Heaven!

 We woke up to this the morning we were supposed to drive up to Tirol, about 4 hours away. I didn't even know it was supposed to snow, I hadn't been paying attention to weather forecasts. The Southern Californian in me was panicking and saying (out loud!) things like "Oh my gosh, we didn't salt the driveway, will we be able to get the van out?!" Seriously, it's just a dusting. I'm slowly getting used to this snow thing. But it did continue to snow all the way along our drive from our house until Villach, about 2 hours away. The roads (and our driveway) were fine though.

 We stopped in Villach for lunch at a little Biergarten we found on a previous trip. Everyone smiles for German food!

 Then the kids begged and begged and threatened until we let them ride these train and car rides in the middle of Villach's Christmas Market.

 The kids enjoyed watching the ice skaters while Daddy and I took turns looking in the Trachten shop (traditional Bavarian clothing). Brian watched the skaters for a few minutes and then turned to me and said "I get it, I could totally do this! They just put on those shoes with the blades and walk, easy!"

After getting a little carried away in Villach with the lunch/shopping/Christmas Marketing, we finally made it up to the resort, arriving just in time to feed the kids, get all done up nice in our Trachten wear, get the nanny set up to put the kids to bed and settle in to our first of two squadron dinners. 

La Casa {Second Floor}

 

We are lucky to have an entire floor dedicated to the kiddos, "kiddie land," if you will! It comes complete with Brian's room, Emily's room, a playroom loft in the middle, and the only bathroom in the house with a tub, which is perfect because Emily and Brian are the only people in the house with enough free time for bubble baths! Each child's room comes with a chandelier and a balcony on the front of the house and Emily's room has an entire wall of exposed stonework. I often tell her that her bedroom looks like the inside of a princess's castle. My bedroom when I was 2-years-old had lime green shag carpeting and definitely no 110-year-old exposed stonework!

2012 {Annual Holiday Letter}

I meant for this to be a Christmas letter to accompany our Christmas card we sent out (if you didn't get one, sorry, we don't have your address!) but I didn't get around to it until now, so I guess it's a New Year's letter. And I think you could read back in my blog posts and get a pretty good idea of what we were all up to this year. But here is a quick recap anyways!

 

Steve and I had our 10-year wedding anniversary in January and celebrated with a trip to Hawaii for the whole family plus my parents! We stayed in my Grandparent's condo in Kona on the Big Island and my parents served as our tour guides and babysitters. It was a great trip filled with delicious island food, snorkeling, swimming, shopping, volcano viewing, deep sea fishing, and beautiful beach sunsets. A few days after returning home from our wonderful vacation, we found out the Air Force was sending us to Aviano Air Base in Italy, so.....

 

Obviously our biggest change this year was that we moved from Goodyear, Arizona to Grizzo, Italy! Italy is great! We love the food and wine and gelato. I love hearing the language spoken and learning to make Italian food. The traveling is amazing and the area we live in (northeast corner) is stunning with a backdrop of Dolomites mountains (foothills of the alps). Since we arrived in July, we've been able to travel to Lake Como, Tuscany and to Austria for skiing, as well as a day trip and a date night to Venice (one hour away by train). Living in Europe is an opportunity we never thought we'd get again and we are doing our best to balance traveling and sightseeing with keeping the kids entertained. It's a challenged for sure but we are determined to maximize the fun in our 3 years here because we won't get this chance again!  

 Steve is assigned to the 555th FS, Triple Nickel. He spends long hours at work and is stilling flying the F16. This is an operational base (as opposed to a training base like Luke) so the guys stay busy with lots of TDYs and deployments. Steve spent a week in Israel in November and will hopefully go back at few times in 2013. When he's not working, he spends most of his free time playing with Brian and just generally wrapped around the finger of Emily. When she's not available for cuddles, he plots how best to keep the boys and other vicious things away from her.

As for me, just keeping the house and kids going takes most of my time, but I manage to squeeze in some blogging (obviously) and sewing/crafting and volunteer in Brian's kindergarten class. I've also taken an Italian cooking class and hope to do it again soon. I've cut way back on my flight suit purse business and only accept the occasional order from friends now so I'm dedicating this year to learning some more Italian and getting caught up on our family scrapbooks.

Brian turns 6 in January and we are busy planning an Angry Birds themed bowling party. He wants to invite everyone he's ever known so most likely you are invited! He graduated from preschool in May and started Kindergarten on base in September. We had a hard time deciding where to send him for school: Italian school or American school on base. After 4 months of school, I know we made the right decision as he loves his class and teachers and new friends and is learning to read and write and loves Art, PE and Spanish. He still loves all things transportation but has also added the Power Rangers TV show and the Angry Birds game to his list of favorites this year. 

Emily turned 2 in April and has come into her own personality this year. She is sassy and funny and demanding but also sweet and cuddly. She really doesn't have terrible twos tantrums, her worst habit is screaming if she's not getting her way. (That might be the 1% of genes she got from me). She loves baby dolls and princess things but mostly wants to play with brother's toys. She also wants to go to school like brother, so in the fall she will head off to "Asilo," Italian preschool (pending the results of potty training soon).

 

For 2013, we are looking forward to some more traveling. Nothing is set up yet but the kids and I will try to join Steve on one of his trips to Israel. We'd like to come back to the states once and hopefully drive up to our old stomping grounds in Germany, plus several other trips we haven't thought of yet. We hope this finds everyone doing well and that you are enjoying your holidays. Check back often as I'm vowing once again to keep up with the blog and not get behind on posting our adventures in 2013!

Big Yellow Tractor

Our landlord's son, Claudio, lives in the other half of our house and stays there a few nights a week, but lives and works full time in Venice. Our kids love when Claudio is around because he's always handing out candy and showing them cool things and letting them play with his toys. This particular afternoon he was outside on his riding mower getting up the last of the fall leaves from the yard. The kids took turns riding it with him and one thing lead to another and he broke out his old tractor, put it into first gear, and let Brian drive it around in circles for a solid hour. Brian was smiling ear to ear and Emily enjoyed riding shotgun.

Case di Gingerbread

We had our squadron friends Snakeye and Pam and their kids, B and E, over for dinner one night recently and Brian had been begging to decorate gingerbread houses so I thought this would make for a fun activity for the kids to do together. I couldn't find any of those awesome premade house kits here so I crafted my own out of graham crackers and royal icing, just like my Mom did when we were kids. Each child got a house and a plate of sugar. Fun was had by all! Note to self for next year: Dinner first, then Gingerbread houses.

 

The next day I walked into the kitchen to find my children had worked together to move chairs over to the counter where their houses were on display and were actively eating their houses. No one ate dinner that night either.

Meeting Santa

This was the first year ever that both our kids would sit on Santa's lap. Last year Emily wouldn't do it and the year before that, Brian wouldn't even enter the room where the Jolly Old Elf sat.

 I take Emily to storytime at the base library on tuesday mornings and Santa visited storytime one day. Emily was so excited and was practicing her "Merry Christmas" and various gift list requests. When her turn came, she climbed up and froze. Just absolute Santa-speechlessness. She was overcome. In all her little life, she has never been so choked up. This is our child who has never met a stranger and who can manipulate a smile out of the most grumpy person with one blue-eyed glance, a bounce of her curls, and a soft spoken "ciao, ciao!" Santa is Emily's vocal kryptonite, who knew?!

 A few days later we attended the Ops Group Kids Christmas Party, also know as "Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, Come and Get Your Sugar!" Santa arrived in his Humvee (to navigate the numerous sugar land mines for sure) and our kids were first in line for Santa hugs (or maybe they were just checking his pockets for more sugar). We waited our turn in line and finally got our 15 seconds with the big guy....

And of course the only picture with both kids looking and smiling is also the only blurry picture I took, oh well!

Decking the Halls

Seeing as how it's December 26th and all, thought now would be a good time to post pictures from our holiday preparations. Better late than never I guess.

I was freting about where, when, and how we'd get a tree this year as we gave up fake trees a few years back and didn't yet know the Italian Christmas tree supply and demand curve, but it was actually a very easy process. The nursery just down the street from us got a shipment of both cut and live potted trees the first weekend of December, so we walked down the street after borrowing our Landlord's son's wagon and picked a little winner. It's not big (which is good cause it had to fit under our stairs) but it's our little potted tree. The kids were eager this year to help hang ornaments until they learned from experience that this tree has the world's sharpest needles. Seriously, it's painful. I had to wear Steve's work gloves to get the lights and ribbon and ornaments on. Oh and my plan that a potted tree will shed less needles than a cut tree was wrong, very, very wrong!!! 

 Brian's little room tree

Emily's little room tree

Gelato the Elf

 

Shortly after Thanksgiving this year, an Elf on the Shelf came to visit for the first time. In case you don't know, the Elf comes to live with a family, gets it's magic once he or she is named, and uses that magic to fly back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa on the good behavior (or bad behavior) of the children of the family. Every morning the Elf is in a new spot, usually up to some shenanigans. We wanted to give our Elf an Italian name and I was vetoed multiple times on my suggestion of "Fabio" (I'm the only one in this house with a sense of humor!). We settled on "Gelato," which the kids loved. A few days later I said to Brian, "Oh man, we should have named our Elf Biscotti!" And he was all, "Why would we do that? That is so ridiculous!" But Gelato the Elf is totally cool.

 

The kids were very excited every morning to find him in the beginning, then as Mommy's good ideas tapered off and Gelato got boring, they were more interested in their toy advent calendars. And Emily would get very mad if Gelato was found playing with any toys. Poor baby Jesus got stolen out of Gelato's arms a good half-dozen times until she finally hid him. Still not sure where the little guy is! Anyways, here are some of Gelato's best antics.

 Defacing a photo of the kids, got caught by our toy soldier detachment, made himself a house, and a toilet paper greeting

 Making smores, a little message in the mirror, Elves love syrup, Gelato writes a note to Brian after Brian drew a picture and was then upset that it wasn't perfect and threw it into the fireplace burn pile

 Playing with sprinkles, reading with friends, piggyback ride on the Daddy nutcracker, chillin in a stocking

 Ziplining, Gelato took a day to visit our cousins Jake and Alani in AZ so their Elfie visited us one day, getting crazy with stickers, Gelato hid our stockings and put up our "unnerwears" instead--Emily loved this

Gelato and Cousin Grace's Elf in CO exchanged houses one day too, building a Lego Christmas tree, snuggling baby Jesus, chillin with the big guy

 

 

Below: My personal favorite, traffic--waiting for the light to change (but not to get a drink, Shelf Elves only drink syrup, no hard stuff)

Italian Cooking Lessons

If you read this blog regularly, I think we've established that I love Italian food. It really is my favorite food in the whole world. And one of my favorite things to do is cook..............NOT! I actually only do it because I have to. People in my house gotta eat. I'd much rather someone else make me Italian food, but one day we won't have this cushy assignment and there will be no one around to make my Italian food for me, so I figured I'd better learn. An opportunity popped up to take a cooking class with some of the other wives and I rearranged my life to be able to go. The class was super informal and held at this adorable little restaurant, Taverna al Frico in Polcenigo. Silvanna was our instructor and the owner of the restaurant. That's her there on the left, sweet lady. Or at least I think she was, she spoke in Italian and my Italian is still extrememly limited, so as far as I could tell she was nothing but sweet. Luckily, one of the wives speaks fluent Italian and was able to interpret for us (thanks Sia!).

 We learned to make Gnocchi (top right, potato balls) with a simple tomato sauce and Spaghetti alla Carbonara (bottom right), Brian's favorite.

 We made Crespelle or Crepes (top left) and Pasta e Fagioli Soup (top right) and Biscotti (bottom) which are Italian cookies and this particular recipe reminded me of sugar cookies with almond extract. They were yummy!

Here, Silvanna is rolling out the homemade pasta to make Pumpkin Ravioli. It looked like ALOT of work and took way too much elbow grease. Oh and was also made with ingredients impossible to find in the states, so I don't think I will be making the Pumpkin Ravioli but it was neat to see the process. I have tried most of the other recipes and converted the ingredient measurements into units I understand, like cups, and tablespoons, etc. As I get them converted and try them out, I will add them to the blog in case anyone is interested in trying them out too! Hopefully we will do another lesson soon, I could do this every week!

 

Below is a simple recipe for pasta sauce, which I am ashamed to say I've never ever made pasta sauce from scratch, but only because I never knew how easy is it, so I will be making my own from now on! I made this for dinner tonight and served it over store-bought ricotta-spinach torteloni.