So much to be thankful for....

Sibling love....

Uniforms and drawing....

The kid's nursery school prefers that they wear uniforms each day and Allison and Ethan recently received their winter uniforms. Today was the first day of wearing them! They weren't thrilled but they looked so cute.... and Italian!


Allison has started wanting to draw all the time. She is finally starting to make recognizable figures! You can see the 2 people at the bottom left and there is also a big balloon with a face on the right. It's so neat to see how she is developing into a little girl....she's not a baby anymore!

Vietri Sul Mare

Today Dan stayed home with the kids and I went with my friend Caroline to a cute little town on the Amalfi Coast called Vietri Sul Mare. Vietri is known for producing handmade ceramics (ceramiche) and there are little shops all over the town filled with pottery.

You can also go to the largest factory in Vietri, Ceramiche Solimene. The main pattern the town is famous for has pastel colors with animals (chickens, frogs, snails, pigs, etc.) around the border.

Vietri is on the coast with beautiful sea views as well! Caroline and I had fun strolling along the streets, eating an uninterrupted lunch, getting fresh local ingredients to make dinner, and picking up some yummy cookies and candy for dessert!

Pompei Scavi

Today we took the kids to school as usual, but since it is a US holiday Dan was off work. So we decided to do an adults-only sightseeing day and went down to Pompei.

The ruins are absolutely incredible. The small city is enormous and could take days to see it all - supposedly it takes an hour to walk the length of the city! We rented an audio guide so we could get a good understanding of what we were seeing, otherwise you just seem to be looking at one ruined building after another. Seeing the town as it was in the 2nd century B.C. to 79 AD, when Vesuvius erupted and covered the city, was amazing.

The society was very organized and many of the tools used during that time (wood fired ovens, sundials to tell time, the innovation of the calendar to the lunar phases) are still in use by the modern world today. Seeing the casts made of the victims was very interesting - they were literally "frozen in time" at the time of the eruption and you can see how many were trying to escape the ashes as they fell upon this town.

The "Villa Dei Misteri" (House of the mysteries) was very beautiful as well. It is a large villa with many frescoes still intact and it was amazing to see the colors still bright after so much time has passed. Even neater is that this villa is on the outskirts of Pompei and almost surrounding it are modern houses where people currently live. Imagine waking up each day and having this famous sight right outside your window!

To see more of our Pompei pictures: Click here

Capri

Saturday we went to the nearby Island of Capri by way of a 45 minute catamaran ride. Capri is known for sweeping views of the aquamarine Mediterranean, ultra-ritzy shops (think Gucci, Tod's, and Rolex), and boutique hotels catering to the jet set - or in this case, a prissy 3 1/2 year-old girl and bullish (almost) 2 year-old boy.

Luckily for us, November is the off season which meant relatively quiet streets and no lines. From the port (Marina Grande) we took a funicular up to the town of Capri where we strolled along the narrow pedestrian roads. Allison and Ethan tired themselves by running wild in La Piazzetta, Capri's main square that overlooks the Bay of Naples.

Somehow, we negotiated a great deal for a suite in a hotel overlooking the ocean (Hotel Bristol). Allison and Ethan enjoyed lounging on the terrace and devouring breakfast croissants, although they tended to get more of the powdered sugar on their faces than in their mouths.

Sunday we went up to Anacapri, a village sitting above the town of Capri with incredible views of Naples, Mount Vesuvius, and the Amalfi Coast. Dan took a one-person chairlift up to the top of Monte Solaro where he took some amazing pictures. We capped our time in Capri by catching a local bus back down to the harbor where we ate lunch before catching the 'fast ferry' back to Naples.

Overall, we had a blast in Capri. The weather was gorgeous and the kids cooperated, although the promise of fragola e limone (strawberry and lemon) gelato helped convince them to "chill out", as Allison would say!

To see our Capri pictures, click here: Capri Pictures

New camera practice...

This past weekend we hung close to home; I had strep throat so we didn't get to go anywhere. It was a shame because the weather here was gorgeous!

We're hoping to make up for it this weekend. Thankfully, Dan's command turns all the 3 day weekends into 4 day weekends! We're heading to Capri and hopefully Pompeii this weekend so we'll have lots of pictures to share when we return.

We finally got a digital SLR camera last week and have been playing around with it a bit. We are still learning all the neat tricks it can do. Here are a few from the past week of practice:

Congratulations Senator Brown!

We are so excited today for our friends the Browns! All your hard work has paid off and we are so proud of you for "going for it" and achieving your goals. We know Corey (with the support of his fantastic family) will work hard to do great things for his constituents and we just can't say enough about how thrilled we are for them! Wish we could be in South Dakota with you to celebrate this victory!