Italia, the first few days

      We are staying at Royal Continental Napoli.  It is a rather nice hotel across the street from the Gulf of Naples.  There are 2 castles near the hotel. 1 is directly across from us-I'll let Juliann fill you in on that.
Since we are in the heart of the city, there is constant activity all around: sirens (lots of polizia here!), scooters moving all about, cars whizzing by, people always walking or jogging by (the Stones will blend right in with the runners here), sounds of vehicles crashing into, what I'm guessing, dumpsters or buildings or? oh, not to mention HORNS. Napolitans LOVE to communicate with their car horns. It's funny.
     I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that we are eating quite well.  There are so many restaurants for us to check out here-fun!  We could probably eat at a different place every day. I think we might try that. haha

     We all are working on our Italiano.  It's fun. Some people around here seem surprised when we say more than Buongiorno.  I wish I knew more though!  I get a little frustrated that I'm not able to communicate better..ahh..back to work on Rosetta Stone..
     2 more things: sorry I didn't post about our Arrivederci party. It was so much fun and we all were extremely grateful to see all those who came.  It truly was a marvelous time!  Thank you all so much! (pictures got left on home computer..ergh.. sorry about that.)
     Next post:Italy House Hunt!

Ciao!

     I read somewhere that when in new surroundings that it is best to take time to 'soak everything in' around you.  I think this might be my motto for this Italian adventure.
     This was my first experience flying in Executive/First class.  It is something I could definitely get used to!  Eat, sleep, watch a movie, eat, watch a movie, eat, enjoy the massage feature of the seat, eat, sleep..you get the picture. Wow!  No complaints here...

    So, that was all the way from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany.  As soon as we got to Germany, we learned that many Lufthansa (the airline working with Air Canada-our original airline) crew members were on strike.  That caused our flight, along with 899 other flights, to be cancelled indefinitely.  Yikes!!  I always wanted to take my family to Germany and stay a while but not at the airport! haha  Anyway, an extremely creative and kind Lufthansa clerk helped find flights for us to make it to Naples-8hrs later than our original flight, but we made it!  You know those news stories about people sleeping at airports for hours on end? Well, we were some of those people last week.  In fact, I think we actually did make it in some Germany news footage-there were camera men and reporters right near us at one point...ugh..
     We flew from Germany to Milan and then Milan to Naples. Definitely not ideal but we were so grateful to get to our destination.  Once in Naples, we had to take 2 taxis (do you see all that luggage we brought?!What were we thinking? haha).  The taxi ride to get to our hotel was more exciting than any theme park ride we had ever been on. Just ask Race about it!

Prepping to go to Italy

We have known that we are moving to Italy since May of this year but I finally decided to update our blog about our impending move.
  I'm sorry I'm not much of a blogger or writer...ugh, hope you'll bear with me.  I am a communicator though, and love to keep in touch with those I love so thought this would be a good opportunity to do so.  Race and Juliann will also be blogging while we are in Italy; should be fun for you to get their perspective on this family adventure :)
   I don't think it has totally hit me that we will be living in another country for several months. Of course I'm going to miss everyone here but I'm also going to miss our animals!! Our dogs, chickens and barn cats will be home in the care of my parents. The rest of the 'menagerie' will be with friends-Thank you to those who will be caring for everyone.
   It's hard to know what to pack. We don't want to take too much but also don't want to not take stuff since Boeing is willing to ship 1000lbs of our belongings for us-on top of our luggage on the plane.  We also plan on buying a few things while we are there. That should be fun, right?

   Hmmm....well, I guess that's all for now. We will have an Arrivederci Party before we leave so that will probably be my next post...stay tuned...

August 2009

Well, we are all getting psyched up for Aaron to go to Japan for work. He is supposed to be gone for a month. I'm confident that he will get over there and iron out all the problems and get to come home early! He is that awesome, you know! hehe

It is a pretty big deal that he is going. We are excited for this opportunity for him. We are definitely praying that all will go smoothly!

On the home front, we have been gardening this year. It is so fun to harvest the fruits of our labor-well, my labor. hehe It is like the story of the little red hen around here-who would like to plant with me? who would like to weed with me? who would like to water with me? Oh, no one? hmmm... I guess I will have to eat all the fruits and vegetables myself...

Juliann and I went on a horse adventure a few weeks ago. We got to go to a ranch in Naselle, Washington. The drive there and back was fine. The horses were bratty almost the whole time we were at the ranch-ergh! Our sweet friends who invited us to the ranch, allowed us to ride their horses when we couldn't ride ours. Juliann is totally in love with their horses! Our horses are lucky to be alive...hehehe

Race got to go to Wisconsin w/my mom and dad and 2 of his cousins. My parents bought a travel trailer and made the trek across the states. They all got to go the 2nd largest airshow in the world; in OshKosh, Wisconsin. They all had a great time. Race still hasn't stopped talking about the great food my parents fed him the whole time!

Well, I am out of words, so I will bid adieu for now. until next time...

Race's kitten

Race had been wanting a kitten for a while so we had an opportunity to adopt one from a friend of ours. Race named him Cheeto. He is super cute and sweet. As you can see from the pictures, Juliann has been having fun dressing him up and posing him for pictures. Funny, huh?

Spring follow-up

The kids will be 'officially' done with school this week. They have been participating in an online program for the past 3 years. This year has been even better than the years before. The kids teachers are great. We all bonded right away to Juliann's teach, Ms.Sorensen. She is fantastic!

The eggs that we found earlier in the season have hatched. Actually, as I'm writing this they look like small versions of their parents now-I will have pics soon.

2009-Spring

It was brought to my attention that it has been a long time since I updated our blog. So, here I am, updating....

The beginning of this year was pretty rough but God has blessed us and we are doing well.

We enjoyed the snow but are glad for the sunshine now! It was so funny how we would have snow at the beginning of the week and then sun at the end. Pull the snow gear out, put it away, pull it out put away! Not to mention, the slip-n-slide.

Since we took a big trip in December, we have been happy to be closer to home the last few months. We found some little blue eggs in a cavern of one of our fence posts. I will add some pictures for you to see. Just today we saw that there are 4 baby birds in place of the eggs-so cute!

This last weekend Race, Aaron and Race's best friend Hans competed in a dirt bike event at Burnt Ridge. They all rode very well. Juliann, the dogs and I enjoyed watching and walking around the grounds there-beautiful scenery. We also got to see an absolutely perfect view of Mt St Helens-and I didn't have my camera-ergh!

The spring also motivated us to get 6 chicks-5 Buff Orpington, 1 Frizzle. In a few months they should be laying eggs. We have 7 full size chickens-3 of which lay daily. 2 of them belong to my sister and her family. We love having chickens. They are so fun!
I have been also spending time visiting with friends and family. It has been so fun to get reconnected w/several people I had lost touch with over the years. One of whom, I have been looking for for 16 years! I was so excited to get back in touch and meet her family. (thanks to Facebook!)
May was a pretty exciting month. Juliann became a member of the "Double Digit Club". She got her first I-Pod Nano and a storage-shed-turned-into-an art studio. It has been a gift to me too-she does most of her projects in her studio now!
I had a wonderful birthday celebration. Race cooked me a gourmet breakfast-second year in a row-I am so well taken care of! My mom and sister took me out to lunch and Aaron made me dinner. He also gave me an I-tunes gift card-yippee! (how spoiled am I?!) A few days later, Monica and Jennifer S. took me out to the Purple Cafe in Woodinville. It was a beautiful day and the food was spectacular-with the company being even better! What a great time!
Well, I have been delinquent from my task at hand for too long, so I will have to go. I can't promise that I will update this sooner than last time but I am optimistic!