Snow, Snow, and More Snow!

On monday morning of this week, our landlord’s son, Claudio, was in from Venice and came by to chat and visit with Emily and informed us that any minute now the snow should be starting. I hadn’t checked my weather app in a few days so I had no idea that any snow was headed our way. 10 minutes later some light flurries started and those turned into huge snowflakes. The pictures above are when Brian arrived home at 3pm and it had been snowing a few hours and it was starting to stick. Well, it continued to snow all day and all night and below it what is looked like in the morning when Brian and I went out to the bus stop at 7am.

Then in the early afternoon, after about 28 hours of snowfall, the clouds parted, the sun started shining, and it was absolutely beautiful. The kids and I bundled up and played outside in it for a few hours, until the sun set and then I had to drag them inside kicking and screaming. Claudio said it is unusual to get this much snow in one storm, that it only happens every few years or so. A dusting is usual, 6 inches is not. So we made the most of it this time and the kids are already watching out the window for more snow to come!

Carnivale

On Sunday, we attended a Carnivale Parade one town over in Maniago. Carnivale is a festival that occurs before lent in Italy, sort of like our American Mardi Gras, only less crazy, no beads, more confetti, and more kid friendly. It consists of a parade with floats and dancers and lots of confetti and loud music. Everyone is in costume in the parade and in the crowd almost all the children were dressed up too. Very similar to our Halloween, only without trick or treating. The kids had a blast watching the floats go by and dancing along to the most popular song of the day: “Gangnam Style.” (2012 called, they want their song back.) About an hour into it, we started getting cold and restless so we walked to the town square, where all the floats and dancers ended up and grabbed some Vin Brulee (hot spiced wine) and little sugared pastry chip things that came with the wine. All were hungry and tired so home we went but we are looking forward to our small town’s Carnivale parade tomorrow!

Israel

 Steve went back to Israel at the beginning of February for his second trip back. It was a small group so they were able to get their work duties done fast and squeeze in one long day of sighting seeing before the trip was over. They pretty much drove around the entire south and central part of Israel. I didn’t write a whole lot cause I wasn’t there and don’t really know what most of this was, but Steve gave me some detail and brochures, and I really don’t want to read through brochures night, so I’m just providing the basics. He had a blast though and something about Israel makes him bring back gifts. The man who never ever buys presents brought home a very very very nice diamond ring for me from the first trip and this time brought me back some expensive face masks promised to take 10 years off my appearance. I hope there will be many more trips to Israel in Steve’s future!

These are the ruins of Tel Beer Sheva, an early Arab fortress dating from 4,000 B.C. It is believed to be the first settlement the Israelites reached after wandering in the desert for forty years. Steve toured the ruins and then descended into the underground water reservoir. 

Above right is a replica of a four horned altar.

Steve and the Dead Sea, which he’s been to 3 times now, twice on the west side in Israel and once on the east side in Jordan. This is the lowest point on earth.
Next, they went to Masada, which was King Herod of Judea’s ancient fortification on top of an isolated plateau in southern Israel. It was attacked by the Roman Empire at the end of the first Jewish-Roman War and when the 375-foot siege ramp built by 4,000 Romans finally reached the fortress after 2-3 months, 960 Jewish rebels and their families committed suicide rather than become Roman slaves.

Everything below the black crack is original to the fortress and everything above has been reconstructed. 

They visited the Church of the Sepulchre, which is a church built over the site where Jesus was crucified. The bottom left picture with all the gold is the spot they believe the cross was placed in. The picture above that is the spot where they moved the cross to after he died and he was given back to his family. The picture on the right is the anointing stone where he was laid and cleaned after his death and prepared for the tomb. The stone is important because it is the only thing known to have actually touched his skin and therefore it is blessed. Steve put those two little boxes on the stone to bless them for the kids to have.

The pictures above and below are of the Western Wall (also known at the Wailing Wall) which is a very important religious site for the Jews because it’s the original western wall of the Temple Mount where the Arc of the Covenant was kept. The Temple Mount was destroyed during the Crusades and when the ruins were found by the Muslims, a Mosque was built where the temple used to be but they left the Western Wall for the Jews to worship at. 

The pictures above and below are of Jaffa, an ancient port city, the oldest part of Tel Aviv, having been inhabited since 7,500 B.C.  

Views from Jaffa back to Tel Aviv.

Siblings

Last week these two caught a bug that’s been going around. Neither were too sick, just a fever and some runny noses. But Brian missed 2 days of school and we spent a few days laying around in our jammies! These two fight like cats and dogs quite a bit but they also still have cuddly moments and I was finally able to catch a spontaneous one with my camera. I call this one “fever cuddles.” They were so delirious with fever, they didn’t realize they were being nice to one another until I snapped the picture! They were back to fighting over Legos a few minutes later, so they weren’t that sick after all!

A Sad Goodbye

Most of you who read our blog are friends of ours on Facebook so you've already heard our squadron lost a pilot last month. On January 28th, Capt. Luc "Gaza" Gruenther was flying with jets from the other squadron when his jet disappeared in the weather over the Adriatic. A huge search began, headed by the Italian coast guard, and included boats, planes, helicopters, and even F-16s from our base. The hope was that he was able to safely eject and was awaiting rescue but 3 days later on January 31st, Luc's body was recovered. Luc was posthumously promoted to Major that night. 

It's a sad time for our squadron, losing someone always is, but Luc's wife was pregnant with their first child at the time of his passing. Baby Serene was born on the 7th and I can't wait to meet her! The memorial service for Luc was on the 6th, and it was a beautiful tribute to a great person. There was a picture slideshow and several of Luc's friends and squadron mates spoke about the kind of person he was and some touching memories they have of him. I think the hardest part for me was his mother and then his wife getting up in front of 1,000 people and talking about him. As a pilot's wife and a mother, I can only imagine how hard this loss is for both of them. Thank God for baby Serene, who will be a living reminder of her Dad for their family.

My mom asked me if we knew him well and I answered that although we didn't see Luc on a daily basis, he was one of those people that no one could say "Oh, I never really talked to him." He knew everyone. He never met a stranger and could strike up a conversation with anyone. He was a people person for lack of a better phrase. He was an adventurous outdoorsman and a photographer and had many other skills and talents and he shared those talents with everyone. In October, he sat outside all afternoon with his camera taking Jet pictures for family after family, even after it started pouring rain. He was so good with our kids that day and got them smiling and happy, especially Emily, who was in a no-smile-for-the-camera phase then. I even told Luc before he started taking pictures not to worry about her smiling, just as long as she was looking in his direction, or at the very least not picking her nose, I'd be happy. He basically said back to me that that won't do and that he'd get her to smile and he did! He took some great pictures for us that day and almost every other time I saw him, he had a camera in his hand. Check out this post to see the pictures Luc took for us that day. Luc took all the pictures on this page, I don't have any of him to share but if you want to learn more about him, see the links at the end of this post.

{Luc took this picture of us at our Christmas party, he missed the cocktail hour so he could set up this photoshoot for everyone with his camera and then later edited and shared those pictures free of charge. Talent and generosity!}

The first time we met Luc and Cassy was 1 week after we'd arrived in Italy and we sat next to them at a welcome dinner. I warned them that sitting next to Emily was putting the enjoyment of their dinner into her hands but they seemed totally unphased by her fun toddler-in-public ways and interacted with her throughout dinner. I remember thinking "why don't these two have kids?" because they seemed like they'd be the best parents. It was just a few weeks later, they announced a bun in the oven. Luc would have been the best father. I remember the day he took our jet pictures, I knew they had just found out if they were having a boy or girl, but I didn't know which it was yet, so I asked him and he lit up when he said it was a girl! Just a few nights before Luc's jet went down, we sat across from him and Cassy at another squadron welcome dinner. The kids were with us and I had broken out the crayons and paper because we had a large group and dinner was going to be slow (3 hours!). Luc started talking to Brian and asking what he was drawing and making suggestions. Brian drew a picture of the Gruenther family and later Luc signed the back with "Gaza" after Brian kept calling him "hey you!" when he wanted his attention. Then Luc told Brian to draw an apple tree because Luc had a boss in high school that when he would interview potential job candidates, would ask them to draw an apple tree because he could tell alot about a person by their apple tree picture. Luc just had a way with kids, he always spoke to them and made them feel special when other adults don't even look down and notice them. He always noticed everyone.  

{Brian's drawing of the Gruenther family}
 

Luc and Cassy's blog is already listed in the blog list in the right sidebar------->

 

Memorial website for Luc

 

 Luc's Photography Website

 



Brian turns 6!

Brian turned 6 years old on January 31st. He chose to have a cinnamon roll for his birthday desert the day of and an angry birds cake for his birthday party at the bowling alley. It was a stressful week for us because our squadron lost a pilot (more on that later) so I felt like I barely threw together his party and cake. But he had a blast bowling with some of our squadron friends and a school bus friend. He loved his gifts and the cake and overall had a nice birthday and party. Now, I need a nice sunny day to take him outside for a 6-year-old photoshoot!

 

He's had quite the transition this year going from 12 hours a week of preschool and napping daily to moving to a foreign country and attending kindergarten 40 hours a week with a 45-minute-long bus ride each way. The poor kid has to get up at 6:30 on school days and we don't see him again until 3:15. Most days I feel like we do homework, play for a few minutes, eat dinner and off to bed he goes. I feel like I hardly see him during the week. He comes home exhausted and hungry and missing us. So he hasn't quite been himself these last 5 months, but we are slowly seeing the sweet, easy going kid coming out again. But he loves school and has fun and learns alot and has lots of friends, so it has been good for him too. He is learning to read and loves math, recess, PE, art and spanish. He loves to color and draws some really creative pictures and will spend 10 minutes describing one picture to you. He's lost his bottom two front teeth and gotten the adult teeth in already. He weighs 46 pounds and is 46 inches tall, still a tall and skinny guy. He loves to run and play outside and prefers that to watching TV. Although he's recently started playing some video games, luckily he loses interest in those after 30 minutes or so, and takes off upstairs to build a Lego fort or something. He still says funny and cute little kid things sometimes like a few days ago he asked me "Which cows are the ones that make the chocolate milk?" But most of the time he shocks me with the stuff he knows, like which colors you mix to get which colors, or how you say some random word in spanish, or when he randomly starts counting and makes it all the way to 400 before stopping because he's bored of counting! Our little guy is growing up fast! 

Neve! Snow!

Sometime in the middle of January we got a nice little snowstorm one morning that lasted a few hours. Brian was excited to stand out in it while we waited for the bus that morning. I was less excited. Emily spent a good amount of time that day watching from our glass door and hoping for enough to go sledding in. But we just got a little snow and once the sun hit it later in the day, it melted. But the mountains behind our house have been covered since and it's so beautiful. In fact, as I type this, it's snowing right now and has been all day. I'd say we've gotten 4-6 inches already and it's supposed to keep going all night and morning. Steve just came in from scrapping and salting our steep driveway into the basement and I have a feeling school will have a delayed start tomorrow morning. Yay for snow and sleeping in!

Mail Call

Back in the day (2002 to 2005) when we lived in Germany, getting mail was always exciting, it is even more so now that we have kids. In case you aren't familiar with the military mail system, we have an APO box where all of our mail comes to on base. The USPS delivers our mail and packages as far as our New York zip code and then the military mail service takes over. At that point, letters and packages get on planes (and maybe even ships?) on a space available basis and fly all over the world and to timbucktoo and back, before finally (hopefully) arriving all out of order and discombobulated. Okay, it's not that bad, it just sucks when all but 6 of your Christmas cards from friends and family arrive weeks after Christmas. But at least we have some way of getting letters and packages, I am grateful for that, just don't ask me how grateful when I've waited in line for 30 minutes to pick up 13 boxes and I have both kids with me "helping," and by helping, I mean fighting over who gets to hold which box and whose presents are inside which box and who Santa likes more and on and on. The picture on the top left was a few weeks after Christmas, when BAM! one day everything arrived. But it's either flood or famine with the mail because today all we got was Steve's government credit card bill from a TDY, due in 2 days, and a birthday card for Brian, whose birthday was 12 days ago, see what I mean? We love living over here and getting to experience the traveling and the culture but there are some definite inconveniences!

Polka Dot Polka Dot Afro!

Our kids are absolutely obsessed with the movie Madagascar 3 right now. Luckily the DVD came with this handy rainbow afro wig that the zebra character in the movie wears. The kids love the wig almost as much as they love the songs in the movie. It's like a dance party every time we watch it! It really is a great movie, hilariously funny even for the adults. Check it out if you haven't already, King Julien will have you rolling on the floor! 

Befana Bonfire

One day we were driving through our town and went past our local park and municipal building and I noticed the town locals were building a bonfire. I went to High School Pep Rallies, I know what a bonfire looks like when I see one. The question was: "why?" And more importantly, "when are they going to light some sh*t on fire?!" Pardon my french but I have some of my Dad's DNA and seeing a controlled fire is awesome! So I paced around the house wondering how I could find out when this fire would take place, because I knew it was something we needed to see. I got the bright idea that when I went to pick up pizza for our dinner, I'd ask the lady there because she is always able to speak a little English to me. She understood my question and informed me that the sh*t would burn at 8 or so, just a few hours away. I rushed home, force fed everyone pizza and we got bundled up and walked up to the bonfire site. We arrived a little early, but it was great because we got to watch them preparing the Vin Brulee, which is hot spiced wine that they light on fire (I sense a theme) before serving. Just after I took the picture (top left), the guy in the green hat put the fire out with the giant lid and then he and his friends proceeded to taste the wine for quality. It sure did take them quite a few cup fulls before they were sure it was ready to serve! We grabbed a couple of cups, which Steve ended up drinking because I'm not a big fan of hot spiced wine apparently.  

 

At about 8:30, some children of the town lit the bonfire, which our landlord's son told us a few days later, is made up of dried crops harvested in the fields around town. It only took a few minutes before it was fully engulfed and we could feel the heat from our lookout 50 yards away. The kids thought it was great too. While we were there, we ran into some Americans that live in our town and Brian rides the school bus with their daughter. They explained that on the eve of the Epiphany (a religious holiday celebrated by Roman Catholics) every town burns a bonfire in honor of La Befana, a witch who flies around on her broomstick on the eve of the Epiphany delivering candy and toys to good little Italian bambini. Our landlord's son tells us this has equal ranking with Christmas morning for an Italian child. There is more to the story than that, so if you are interested, google "La Befana." At the bonfire, they always sell Vin Brulee, serve a traditional bread, and our town sells a calendar. So, now we know what it is and I can't wait to go again next year.  

Piancavallo

About 30 minutes from our home, just over the mountain above the Air Base is a decent ski resort, Piancavallo, which translates to valley of the horses. By the beginning of January, we hadn't been up to check it out yet so we did a little recconaissance mission to see what the snow and slopes were like. Our first trip up there, the snow was not great, it had been a while since a good storm passed through and sunny every day that week, so what snow was left was slick and disappearing fast. But we did manage to find a little ski park thingy for the kids, "Nevelandia." And I'll be damned if I was going to waste that entire hour it took me to round up the kids' snow clothes and get them dressed, so 20 euros later, we were chilling in kiddy snow land. They had this little lift the kids would ride their little sleds up and then the parents would follow behind down the almost flat slope, kicking them along, since it was too flat for them to get any speed or movement at all really. Brian was bored within 10 minutes, Emily took a little longer, but we quickly moved onto the snow bouncy houses and they showed some signs of excitement then. A few days later, a nice snowstorm rolled through the area so we were back and this time found a few good sledding hills the locals and other Americans were using. The snow was great, a few fresh feet of powder. The slopes were perfect for getting some speed, but not too fast for little ones. The only problem was everyone else had the same bright idea as us and the hill was covered with people. It seemed like some people were falling into a pattern of walking up the hill on one side and riding down the other side, in order to avoid collisions. But there were a few completely oblivious sledders out there ruining the system for all. So, after an hour of near misses and a few small collisions, we took our starving and tired bambini and headed down the mountain to home.