Emily’s First Day of Asilo

On September 12th, Emily started her first year of Asilo, Italian preschool in San Leonardo, a small town just down the road from us. She ran into the building, hugged every adult she could find, immediately took over the indoor play gym, and seemed completely uninterested in even saying Arrivaderci to me. Emily overheard her teacher and I discussing if I should stay for a few minutes and she joined in the conversation by saying “You can go now Mommy!” Having been excused, I drove the 8 minutes back home and stood inside the house confused and lonely. Not really, I did the dishes and folded some laundry. A short hour and a half later, I was picking her up. She was clearly excited to see me and ran towards me for an embrace, and then she stopped in her tracks, a moment of clarity crossed her face as she realized I was there to take her away from the land of sweet Italian school teachers, outdoor toys, sand tables, finger painting, and friends. She held her hand up in a stop gesture and said “Mommy, go home!” But I know she really meant “Gee, I missed you so much Mom that I could barely function without you, let’s go home and cuddle!” And we did.  

 

Nearly two weeks has passed since her first day and not all of her school days have gone this well. Last week there may have been an incident where she threw a hissy fit and stuck her tongue out at her teacher. And this morning at drop off, she clung to my leg like a spider monkey, shrieking hysterically. She is always happy and excited about her school day when I pick her up so I think she is having fun and she just needs time to adjust to being in school 5 mornings a week. Actually Asilo is full-time, from 9am to 4pm, but right now I’m picking Emily up just after lunch, and we will work our way up to a full day. Although I will probably only send her a full day twice a week or so. We are lucky in that her two teachers speak a little English, so while they mostly speak Italian to her, they can translate for her until she understands more Italian. And it’s wonderful to be able to hear about her day and behavior from the teachers.

Bier Rafting

“You should know that this is the strangest thing I’ve ever done!” ~Flynn Rider (sword fighting with Maximus the Horse using a frying pan in Tangled)

 

This quote was in my head the entire time we bier rafted over Labor Day weekend. But let me back up. Our squadron gets together once a year in Munich for bier rafting. Bier rafting is exactly what you think it is. You dress up in your tratchen wear (Dirndls for the Damen, Lederhosen for the Herren), board a wooden raft with an Oompa band, and drink bier for about a 6-hour-long ride down the river. This is obviously not a kid-friendly activity (the thought of having Emily on this raft makes me shudder) so the kids stayed home in Italy with our sitter friend Bea and Steve and I spent 2 glorious nights away together in Munich. The first night was spent in full tratchen wear at the Munich Augustiner Bier Garden. The following day was beer rafting day, starting bright and early with a 745 am bus push and a 10 am launch on the river Isar. For the most part, we could stand up and wander around the raft. The exceptions were when there were some rapids or tight spots where the rafts guys needed us seated so they could signal to each other between the front and the back. Also, we went down several slides. Yes, slides. One of the pictures below shows us going down one. It was surprising fast and splashy. Kinda reminded me of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney, only much longer and wetter because the water came up over the floor boards and soaked anything you weren’t holding up. The Oompa band played their traditional German songs and we ate a snack of mystery meat and mustard sandwiches with a sweet and sour girchen (pickle) on the side. Then we ate a lunch of roasted chicken and kartoffelsalat (German potato salad, nothing like American potato salad and a favorite of mine). And of course there was plenty of all-you-can-drink bier (3 kegs to be exact) and some water or lemonade for us non-bier drinkers.

 

Besides the Oompa band, the entertainment came in the form of the guys (and some ladies too!) jumping into the river, swimming to shore, running to an upcoming bridge, and then jumping in just before the raft to get back on. Man code in this situation says that if one man goes in, they all go in. Steve prepared by changing into swim trunks so he didn’t get his leather Lederhosen wet. One minute he’s sitting behind me and the next he is climbing back onto the side of the raft. He got too close to the edge and someone decided to introduce him to the cold water of the Isar river.

 

We finally reached the end of our rafting tour and disembarked. We watched for a few minutes as the employees disassembled the rafts and a crane lifted the raft pieces onto the truck to take it back upriver and start all over again the next day. This was truly a strange and unique experience! I’d had never heard of such a thing before we joined the Nickel. Our squadron sure knows how to have fun, with a little help from the Germans of course!

The Triple Nickel Bier Rafting Crew, September 2013

Nickel Air Refueling

In August, Steve had a flight where they “hit the tanker” to refuel in the air. Without refueling from the tanker, they can only fly for 1-1.5 hours per flight and then they need to land to refuel. Refueling in the air of course extends length of the flight. They don’t do this often for just regular everyday training missions. But when they are flying in combat, then they do this often to be able to stay in the air for long sorties, 8-10 hours. Hitting the tanker is a skill that needs to be practiced occasionally because it’s hard to do and dangerous, so whenever they can get a tanker in the area, they practice. Not sure what day this was, but the squadron’s flight doctor was able to go up in the tanker and took these pictures. He didn’t keep track of who was who but Steve was in this flight and could be the pilot in one of these jets. Back when we were stationed in Germany, I got to go up in a tanker and actually watched Steve refuel! It was by far the coolest Air Force related thing I’ve ever gotten to do, better even than the two taxi rides I took in the F-16.

Brian’s First Day of First Grade

Well, it’s been almost a month, but Brian started first grade on August 23rd at Aviano Elementary. He was excited to head off to the “big building,” since Kindergarten was in its own building separate from the rest of the school. One advantage of the “big building,” he tells me, is that there are 4 huge playgrounds, a fact he is very excited about. His teacher is Mr. Wilson and his class is a Multi-age First/Second grade. I wasn’t sure what to think of this at first but it seems to be going well. Brian is a mature 6-year-old and never gets in trouble at school (home is a different story) so I think he is a good fit for a class with students both his age and older. He is already bringing home what looks to me like second grade math homework and he never needs my help with it. Reading is another story. I think he is about right on track for first grade reading but he loathes it. I’ve tried everything: bribery, yelling, Harry Potter. Nothing works yet. He has to do 20 minutes a day of reading at home and for now it’s just going to be a struggle to get him to do it. Fun. He loves loves loves drawing and will go through 10-15 sheets of paper a day drawing everything from rockets to jets to houses. He even recently started writing his own children’s book called “What Will I Be?” complete with illustrations. And he answered his own question by stating that he will be a book writer when he grows up. Not a book reader, just a writer.

Little sister was so excited for Brian’s first day of school. She was excited for him and was practically jumping for joy as we were getting ready that morning. Well, we assumed she was happy for him to go off and see his friends and learn but after we dropped Brian at school and were walking back to our car, she lets out a huge sigh and says “well, I guess Brian is not part of our family anymore!” So she was really just happy to get rid of him!

Our Neighbor Gina

Meet Gina.

 

Gina lives in the yard of the house that backs up to our landlady’s orchard. We have to walk to the back corner of the lot constantly to throw our food waste in the compost pit. Usually Gina is out there chillin in her yard, sometimes she comes over to see what I’m doing, sometimes she just flicks an ear at me and goes back to eating her grass. The kids and I took to calling her “Dominic the Donkey” after that super annoying Christmas song. Then we discovered “Dominic” was in fact a she. Oh and also, that she’s not a Donkey, but a Mule (half donkey, half horse). So then we took to calling her “Monica the Mule.” One day recently Claudio’s daughter, Sylvia, came to stay in his house for holiday and she brought the kids and I over to the neighbors to meet Gina. Not Dominic. Not Monica. Gina. We fed Gina some bread, took some pictures, and then Gina’s sweet adoptive human parents showed us around their little farm which includes a dozen chickens, 7 or 8 hunting dogs, and a huge room full of mounted antlers. Gina’s Daddy is a hunter and uses Gina to haul his kills out of the mountains. When we left to walk back home, my hands were full with fresh eggs, homemade pasta sauce, tomatoes, basil, and garlic from their garden!

Cliff Diving

One sweltering August day, we joined our friends, the R Family at a little watering hole they had discovered on a nearby river. This particular hole has the perfect set up for cliff diving: an easily climbable rock with sheer cliffs and decently deep (but cold) water below. When we first arrived, we all commented on how we wouldn’t be doing any cliff jumping into water that cold. We had lunch, the kids splashed in the shallow water and took turns pushing each other around in a raft. We were enjoying watching reckless teenagers jumping to impress their friends. Then Steve broke out the liquid courage (Cranberry and Vodka) for him and Casey. A few swigs later, Steve was jumping and cannonballing off the cliff. And even though he was training for a triathlon and didn’t want to risk an injury, Casey was the next one to hurtle himself off a perfectly good cliff into frigid, rock infested waters below (man code dictates that if a man friend jumps off a cliff and lives, you must now jump off the same cliff or forever be remembered as a “wuss”). Next thing I know, Darla is climbing the cliff (sober too!) and jumps. I’m the only one left, so after Steve tackles me into the cold water, I really have no more excuses. So Darla climbed back up with me and we jumped together. Glad to have that checked off my “didn’t really want to do this in the first place but peer pressure is a b#%*@” bucket list.

Top left: Steve. Top right: Steve and Casey. Bottom left, Darla and I. Bottom Right, proof that we lived to swim back to our children. 

Montereale Festival

The Italian culture (and Europe in general) is very social. They spend lots of their free time socializing: families get together to eat and drink, friends and neighbors meet up at church, the open air markets, the town bar. A really fun part of the culture are the town festivals. Each town usually has at least one a year, the larger towns have many festivals a year. Our tiny town of Grizzo has grown into a larger town next to it, Montereale. Steve and I aren’t quite sure where one town ends and one begins, so we think of the whole Grizzo-Montereale area as “our town.” Anyhow, the Montereale part of our town had its annual Court to Court party in August for one whole week. It was sort of like an around-the-world party, having 15 or so different stations set up in the various courts and gardens of the town. Each station carried a different item to eat or drink, from wine to antipasti to main courses to desserts, the idea being you hit up about 5-6 stations to eat a complete meal. Steve went with our Landlady’s son, Claudio, early in the week, so by the time we went as a family, he knew the system and where the beer and wine stops were. We didn’t eat dinner there because the idea of dragging the kids to several stops to make a complete dinner was not one that appealed to us. But we did each get a little something to keep us all happy as we took in the Italian culture in our town. Steve got some beer and wine, Brian and Emily shared a Fanta and some candy, and I found my first real cupcake in Italy! Italians don’t have cupcakes, or even a word that translates to cupcake. I made some cupcakes this last week and we brought one over to Claudia’s daughter, who is staying in his house on holiday for a few weeks. I asked her what a cupcake is called in Italian and she said the closest thing would be to call it a “muffina,” which is just the Italianized version of our English word, muffin. We all know a muffin is not a cupcake and a cupcake is not a muffin! Italians really need to embrace the cupcake. And Americans need to embrace these town festivals! It was so much fun, we went back the next night with some friends and no kids!

Verona and Vino

One weekend after our trip to Verona for the Opera, we were back in the area for a long day trip, without the kids, for some wine tasting in the Valpolicella area of the wine-producing Veneto region of Italy. We had a group of about 30 from our squadron, a bus, 3 winery stops, 1 lunch stop, and a whole lot of fun. The first stop was at Villa Moscani Bertani, a beautiful old villa set in a valley that has been producing wine since Roman times. The picture below is of a fountain on the grounds, fed by a spring, and constructed using stones from Roman ruins found in the area. In fact, part of the Villa built in the 1700s is situated over the site of a Roman settlement. And in the late 1800s, Roman Aqueduct ruins that ran from Villa Mosconi Bertani to the city of Verona were unearthed during the construction of railway lines. The wine, the tour and our guide, one of the Bertani sons, were wonderful. We left with a magnum of Amarone, a wine characteristic of Valpolicella. And also 95 less euro in our pockets. Further down in the pictures is a little cottage on a small lake on the villa grounds, used as a coffee house. Yep, the Bertani Family of the 1700s were rich enough to build a cottage on a lake for the sole purpose of drinking their coffee in. Makes sitting in my sweatpants in my kitchen drinking my cappuccino feel downright trashy. Where oh where is my lakeside coffee cabin?!

Our next stop was the Fratelli Vogadori Winery, also in the Valpolicella Classico area. Fratelli means “brothers” in Italian, because the winery is run by the three Vogadori brothers. They are dedicated to making their wine without chemical treatments and to operating the vineyard with energy conservation in mind. The wine and olive oil produced here was good and we ended up with a few bottles of something or other. All the wine names, grape types, and flavors started running together at this stop, and not just because I had too much to drink, but because my brain just does not remember information about wine. In my mind, there are two types of wine: type one is “oh, me likey!” and type two is “oh, yuck, here Steve, finish this for me!”

Our third and final stop, after lunch, was at the Serego Alighieri winery, also in the Valpolicella area. This winery was started in 1353 by the Dante Alighieri’s son, Pietro. 21 generations later, the estate and house still belong to the direct descendants of Dante. We tasted some more wine here and I was having more of the same problem, too many choices, all tasting slightly different, but very much the same after an entire day of tasting. Luckily, Steve had made some notes and sent me inside to purchase a few bottles of number 2 and number 4. Then the bus made it’s way back to Verona, where we stayed around for dinner with our friends, after which, most of the group headed off to the Opera, and we drove our newly acquired boxes of wine home and into the safety of our wine cellar/basement. Next month we are probably going on another tasting trip to the Prosecco Road area, which I am looking forward to since I’ve never met a bubbly Prosecco I didn’t love at first sip! Cheers!

Verona and the Opera

Back in the beginning of August, we traveled with the R family to Verona, Italy, a drive of about 2 hours. We stayed only one night, the sole purpose of which was to attend an Opera in the Verona Arena, a 2000-year-old Roman Coliseum. We made it to Verona by lunchtime and enjoyed a nice Italian pizza/pasta lunch at a restaurant near the arena. Then we wandered around the town, which isn’t too remarkable, looks just like a standard old Roman town. Verona’s touristy claim to fame is that Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is set here. Tourists flock in droves to a fake courtyard and balcony and we joined them. Verona was just meh, that is until we were sitting in the arena for the Opera. The R family’s oldest daughter, C, had the kids and so it was adults only for a nice dinner out and then of course, the event of the weekend, Aida. Our seats were crap because we planned the trip really last minute and had to go with what was left, so we were sitting stage right and almost at the top of the arena. The arena itself was old and amazing and I just kept thinking about how cool it was to be sitting in 2013 in a nearly 2100-year-old Roman Coliseum, watching a super flashy, modern version of an Opera set in ancient Egypt. Before the Opera began, the peasants in the stair seating (cheap seats), following tradition, all lit small candles. Except for us, we had no idea about this tradition. The sky was darkening and the candles lit in this old arena made for a beautiful scene. Then the Opera began and the voices of the singers carried their Italian wailing all the up to us in the nosebleeds. And after 4 hours, 3 intermissions, and lots of drama, Aida concluded at 1 am. It was a late night, but we check marked a square on our European tour bucket list!

Disneyland!

Our last weekend in California, we spent 3 exhaustion-filled days at the House of Mouse, Disneyland! The kids were so excited for this trip. This was Brian’s 3rd time and Emily’s 1st, and our first time staying down at the parks for 2 nights so we could fully use the 3-day park hopper passes we got for an awesome military rate of $125 per person. That’s cheaper than an adult 1-day park hopper, so it really is a good deal! Aunt Laura and Uncle Allan joined us for 2 days and Papa for one of the days. Only Grandma, Brian, Emily and I managed 3 days in a row! Actually it was more like a half day, a whole day, and another 3/4 day. Midday on day 3, we were all hot and tired and ready to be done.

 

Laura and Allan brought us to RideMakerz and helped Brian design and build his own RC car. Kinda like Build-a-Bear, but for boys that don’t play with stuffies. Brian loved it and still plays with that car daily.

Below, right: Papa with a Buena Vista Street sign in CA Adventure. He grew up on the Buena Vista Street in Burbank. Bottom, right: Laura and Allan dragged me onto Tower of Terror so we could make a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil picture. We rocked it. Well, they did. I am actually holding my mouth to keep from screaming. It really is a tower of terror! The kids loved the new Cars Land, it’s adorable and the rides are great, especially Radiator Springs Racers.

Some things they really enjoyed: Cars Land, Soaring Over California, fireworks over Disney at night, Star Tours, building two light sabers (gotta have 2 to fight!), Tarzan’s tree house, the Matterhorn, Pirates of the Caribbean, the submarine, and taking the monorail to the Lego store in Downtown Disney.

Let’s play a little game called “Spot the real Matterhorn!”

A nice statue of Walt and Mickey on Main Street. The inscription reads something like “Give me your tired, your soon-to-be poor, your huddled masses yearning to meet Mickey…”

Emily passed out on the shuttle ride back to the hotel on day 2. Disney wore us all out. It was fun though. So much fun that I’m hoping it will hold us over for a few years before we need to return!

Go Dodgers!

Baseball is always a good time, and a live game is even better. What really pushes it over the edge is having free seats in the fancy pants section, and for the Dodgers, it is called the Dugout Club. Laura and Allan’s boss has season tickets in the ninth row between home plate and the dugout. He generously gave them the tickets for a game against the Colorado Rockies and they took Brian and I along. We started the day with lunch in the Dugout Club. Dodger dogs and buffet after buffet of salad and food and desserts. One whole corner of the room was a dessert buffet. The place was open to us the whole game until they shut the food off during the 7th inning. It was awesome, we ate our weight in standard baseball game fare. The game itself was great, we got to see their current star player, Puig, up to bat a few times. We sat a few rows back from famous retired Dodger Team Manager, and current part-owner, Tommy Lasorda. We got our courage up and asked him to sign a few balls for us. He was very nice and asked Brian if he plays ball. We told him we live in Italy and since he is part-Italian, he asked us, in Italiano, if we speak Italian and Brian said “si!” Then at the end of the game, Brian and Allan waited at the top of the stairs that go down into the locker room, and asked the ump for a game ball, which he tossed to Allan! Brian’s favorite thing about the game, besides the junk food, was that after the game, he got to run the bases.

Fun with Friends and Family

The best parts of our trip was anytime we got to see our CA family and friends. Above, we met up with the Cummings family. Katie and I met in 6th grade and have been friends ever since. I was there when she met her husband, Mark, when we were 15. We were in each other’s weddings. Her oldest, M, and Brian are 2 days apart. And her twins, E and L, are 2 weeks younger than Emily. Our kids had a blast at the Burbank mall on those jumpy trampoline things and then playing in the little kiddy zone while we chatted for hours! We met up with them again at the end of our trip for a fancy food truck dinner and playtime at the park.

 

Below, is my Grandparents house on Buena Vista Street in Burbank. My Grandparents both passed away earlier this year and their kids were busy getting the house ready to be listed for sale. I knew it would probably be the last time I got to see it, the inside at least. And I was right, the house sold last week. My Grandparents purchased the home in the 1950s and were the original owners. When my Dad was very young (he was #4 out of 4 kids), they had outgrown the 3-bedroom home and so my Grandpa added a large family room and master suite to the back. I have wonderful memories of spending Christmas morning in this house with our whole family, eating Grandpa’s undercooked cheese eggs and throwing wrapping paper balls at the ceiling fan. Those were some of the unspoken family traditions. It was Christmas morning. You ate undercooked cheese eggs. You got a tiny stocking full of money from Grandma and Grandpa. You unwrapped gifts and threw the paper balls at the ceiling fan. Grandma would get all nervous and tell everyone to stop. Grandpa would record the whole thing. That was Christmas morning with our family and I still miss it. Every Christmas morning since then just seems like a fake!

We hung out at Great-Grandma’s house in Burbank as much as possible. Above, the kids took her for a walk in her back yard and let her watch them peel bark off of and climb her beautiful, giant Crepe Myrtle tree. And below, they took turns swinging in her beloved yellow, “banana” swing. And one day, we took her to the dentist where my mom took the picture of Grandma, Me, and the kids in the waiting room.

One day at Great-Grandma’s house, my Aunt Claudia stopped by and I got some pictures of Emily with her hair twin! Those curls!

Here we are below with our friends, the Browns, at the Grove and the beach in Santa Monica. They drove out from Arizona to visit. Jen is one of my oldest Air Force friends. She was one of the first people I met when we arrived in Germany in 2002. Her son, D, I held as a newborn, and he just turned 10 years old! We lived just one town over from them in Arizona, and my kids really had fun playing with D and A, then and now.

Apparently I missed the memo that an indoor trampoline park is the new bouncy house! Those places are awesome! We bounced until exhaustion twice with Aunt Laura and Uncle Allan. The kids favorite was swinging into the foam pit and Brian still talks about how Uncle Allan taught him to jump off the trampoline walls. 

The Endeavour

After our fun at the Grove, we drove about 5 miles (which took an hour in LA traffic) over to the California Science Center to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The kids LOVED it. I was worried they would be all kinds of bored, but Brian wanted me to read him every informational sign in the place and Emily was equally awed, though very disappointed by the end because she assumed I had booked us a ride on the Space Shuttle. They both talked about the Space Shuttle for weeks afterward, Brian was full of questions, and Emily told everyone she met that the next time we see the Space Shuttle it will be standing straight up, because Papa told her the Science Center has plans to build a new hanger and display the Endeavour in launch position. It was an awesome trip and worth the trouble and traffic. Next time, we’d probably take the train down and bring one of the several pilots in our family to help with Brian’s questions.