April Part 1

March

February

January

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The busiest day of the year….

On December 7th, we had a day jam packed with events, as weekends leading up to the holidays usually are. Steve left the house early to fly all the way to the North Pole in an F16 to pick up Santa Claus and bring him to our Ops Group Kids Christmas Party. Both the kids were so excited and proud that their Daddy was assigned this duty. When Daddy and Santa were arriving, an announcement was made in the hanger that Santa was being taxied to the hanger in a jet piloted by a “World Famous, Highly Respected Triple Nickel Pilot,” and our kids screamed “it’s our Daddy!!!!” And Daddy had lots of time to talk to Santa about the kids because before Santa even climbed down the ladder, he waved in our direction and said in his jolly way, “Hello Emily!” It made her month. She went running up and monopolized the conversation with the Jolly Old Elf. She not-so-subtly went through her list of gift demands and prattled on about a few recent and slightly embellished good deeds. One of us eventually dragged her back through the crowd so the other star struck kids could get a word in. Brian was slightly more shy (or maybe a little skeptical) and was content to play some party games while we waited for our turn on Santa’s lap. We got the standard Santa’s lap photos and he gave each kid a book, and Emily once again chatted his ear off. Overall, the kids had a blast and Emily basically fell head-over-heels for Santa. It’s so cute to see the magic of Christmas excite the kids so much!

 

Right after that party, the kids and I headed over to the base Ballet Recital, since our friends “S” and “A” from the “R Family” were performing and we wanted to support them. Emily was dancing along in the aisles, she wants to join Ballet sooooooooo bad. So bad, in fact, that we’ve been on the wait list since May with no luck. Then, just a few hours later, Steve and I attended our Squadron Christmas Dinner Party (minus kids). A super busy day but everyone had a blast!

Out with the old, in with the new!

Our landlady’s son, Claudio, brought us this broom recently and told us it is traditional to sweep the entrance to your home on New Year’s Eve to sweep away the last year and welcome the new. There are a few parts of 2013 I’d like to sweep away forever: the death of a fellow Nickel Pilot, “Gaza” Gruenther, and the passing of both of my paternal Grandparents, Bunny and Lefty.

 

We had plenty of fun times as a family in 2013 including tons of skiing, a visit from Steve’s parents, and lots of traveling to include Israel (Steve), California (once just me for my grandpa’s funeral, and the kids and I for most of July), Germany (Spangdahlem, twice to Garmisch, Steve and I to Munich for Bier Rafting, and Steve to Munich for Oktoberfest), Switzerland (skiing in Zermatt), Austria (Salzburg twice, Stubai Galcier for skiing, and Kirchberg in Tirol area for a weeklong ski trip), and of course lots of exploring in Italy: Venice, Pisa, Castelrotto/Dolomites area, Verona twice (once for the Opera and once for wine tasting), nearly a week on the Amalfi Coast, and a week on the island of Sardinia.

Brian will turn 7 in exactly one month. He is doing great in First Grade. He enjoys reading and math and of course recess and PE since he loves to run and play. He’s in his second year of Spanish at school and his first year of Italian and really enjoys learning new languages. At home, his dream day would include building Lego creations and drawing/coloring all day long. He is staying busy with Cub Scouts and played Baseball and Soccer this year. He enjoys skiing as long as the blues are easy (he’s like his mom that way!). He’s laid back and easy going most of the time and really only gets in trouble for pushing his sister’s buttons!

Emily turned 3 in April, with a very no-frills birthday in Zermatt, Switzerland. I didn’t even have room to bring her presents on the trip with us and she never asked for any, she was only concerned that she get cake! This coming year, she will spend her 4th birthday on a cruise to Greece! She’s our little International girl, always singing songs in Italian. She is doing well in Asilo and is learning some of the language. She’s high energy and is passionate about whatever she is feeling. She doesn’t throw fits very often but she is strong willed and clever. She still gets into everything. She’s our kid that we watch to make sure she’s not painting on the walls with glitter glue or cutting her own hair or eating something she found on the ground! She loves intensely though and everyone is her friend (until you get on her bad side, then you are black listed!)

Steve is staying busy with the squadron. He’s a Lt.Col. select and an Assistant Director of Operations. When he’s not working or with the family, and if it’s winter, he’s on the ski slopes. He’s got Brian and I skiing this year, and is working on Emily, who is not quite ready to learn technique but we are just hoping to get her used to the idea, so one day in the future, we will be tearing up the powder as a family. I have future visions of my family fighting over who has to stay behind with slow, old Mom! I’m staying busy with stuff at home, mostly cooking and cleaning and all that jazz. Now that I have most weekday mornings free with both kids in school, I’ve been hitting the gym on base hard and have fallen in love with Spin class.

 

In with the new! We are excited for many things in the upcoming year, which will probably be our last full year in Italy. We are planning out some trips already, including a week long ski trip to Cervinia (the Italian side of the Matterhorn), and a cruise to Greece for Spring Break. Steve will be going TDY to Portugal soon and will pin on Lt.Col. sometime in early summer. We are also hoping for some more visitors! Happy New Years to all of you!

Castagnata a Scuola

Chestnuts at school! Emily’s Asilo (Italian preschool) held a small performance and chestnut festival back in November. The older class of students performed a song and dance, followed by a dance to a fast-paced classical song from the little ones (Emily’s group), where they flapped their arms like little birds, after much encouraging and demonstration from the teachers. Then the whole group sang a cute song about chestnuts together, which Emily will still sing for us when asked. Then we all ate some roasted chestnuts and enjoyed some dessert treats. As far as the Chestnuts themselves, they are huge here in the fall, with many towns in the mountains holding Chestnut festivals to celebrate the nut. Emily will eat anything, so she enjoys a Chestnut here and there, although every time she asked for another, she called it a “Macadamia nut!” Brian does not enjoy any sort of nut, unless it is well-hidden in chocolate, so Chestnuts are a no-go item for him. I struggle somewhere between “I must eat this to set a good example for my children in trying new things” and “I would eat more of these if they were hidden in chocolate!”

 

Emily is doing great in Asilo. Most mornings she goes in willingly and she is always happy and talkative about her day when I pick her up. She has 3 American friends that she sticks to quite a bit, but the Italian kids always offer her a "Ciao, Emily!" She is learning a little Italian and has the accent down. We joke that her language skills consist of about 90% English, 2% Italian, and 8% gibberish with an Italian accent! I asked her a question in English tonight and she answered me with "Si." She knows most of her colors in Italian (English too of course) and can count to ten in Italian. We are loving that she gets to experience the culture through school while we are here! 

Emily and her amica helping to turn the chestnut roaster thingy.

Above: In any playground, Brian can always be found at the very top. Below: sometime that same week, the mountains behind us got their first snow.

Halloween-ish

So Halloween-ish came and went again. I call it Halloween-ish because we don’t actually do anything on October 31st. No trick-or-treating from house to house. The schools (both off and on base) don’t allow dressing up. But, the weekend after real Halloween, the base does put on a pretty cool Halloween-themed block party with all sorts of fun for the kids and lots of trunk-or-treating, so they did get to dress up and get way too much candy. Brian is clearly Obi Wan Kanobi (I had to google how to spell that). He’s clearly not Luke Skywalker (“Mom, Luke’s not cool!”) or that other guy, Hans Solo (“Mom! Hans Solo is not even a Jedi, gesh!”). And Emily was happy to just pull some Princess dress from her dress-up collection on the day of and call herself Princess Leia, although I think that’s Sleeping Beauty’s dress. Needless to say, Star Wars is super cool in our house right now!

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.

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!

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.