Family photos

One of the main things I wanted to do when we went back to IL in June was to see my grandma.  She had her 98th birthday while we were there, although we weren’t able to attend her party because we were attending Mark’s older brother's ordination to the priesthood, which happened on the same day.  These are all the pictures I took of our families while we were up in IL for the few short days we were there.

My parents, Mark, the kids and I went out to lunch with my grandma at our favorite Thai restaurant in my grandma’s town.  The food is AMAZING!  I wish we could find good Thai food like that here.  Actually, we probably could, I just haven’t looked.

My mom wanted pictures of them with all their grandkids for their Christmas card this year, so I took a bunch of pictures of the 7 of them.  It was nearly impossible to get every one looking at the camera and smiling.  We probably would have needed 3 hours to get a great one, but these are the best ones we got in the 10 times I tried.  (Note:  when you’re part of large group photos, DON’T TALK.  Just stand there and smile.  I have about 20 pictures of both of my parents mid-word or noise or something and anyone looks goofy mid-word.  Just stand and smile – it makes things a zillion times easier.)

Abbie is probably one of the most photogenic people I’ve ever encountered.  These are two of my favorites of her with my parents, although I have a BUNCH of these and they all turned out great.

And here are a few pictures of the kids with uncle Alex and aunt Sarah.

 

Trying to split our time between our families isn’t easy and it stresses me out big time.  It seems like you never have enough time with anyone when you only see them a couple times a year.  Luckily my parents, Mark’s parents and Alex and Sarah have been to our house in Phoenix already this year.  And my parents and Alex and Sarah are also going to be here for another visit over the next few months, so we’re excited to see them all again!

What I’m looking forward to:

Living in Italy has been the experience of a lifetime.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re really enjoyed aspects of our time here and haven’t taken for granted all of the traveling we’ve gotten to do during the past 3 years.  With that being said, the end is now in sight and we can see the finish line.  And really, there’s no place like “home”.

So this is what we’re really looking forward to when we move back to the States, in random order:

• a dishwasher.  Not having a dishwasher for the past three years has sucked, especially considering the amount of bottles I’ve washed in that time period.
• closets.  You don’t realize how nice closets are until you don’t have them any more.  I’ve missed having closets.
• being in the same time zone and friends and family.  Or at least not 7 hours ahead of most of them.
• buying a house.  We’ve never owned a house, so it’ll be nice to finally have our own.
• being able to shop in stores instead of online.  I have missed normal shopping.  I don’t shop a ton, but I’ve had to ask my mom and MIL to get most of the things for the kids since they have access to stores that I don’t have access to, like Ross, Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, etc.
• Target.  Does this really need an explanation?
• variety in food.  Most of the restaurants here serve pretty much the same thing.  The same types of pizzas and pastas.  There’s not much variety really.  It gets old so we don’t eat out much, except for lunch.
• child-friendly businesses.  Places that have kids menus and changing tables and high chairs and cups with lids.  You know, that sort of extraveggant stuff…
• ice.  Europe doesn’t believe in ice in drinks.  I LOVE ice in drinks.  I miss it.  And having an automatic ice maker in the fridge would be really nice too.
• an automatic garage door opener.  It will sure be nice to be able to pull in to a garage and get out instead of having to park the car, get out to open the garage door, pull the car in to the garage, get the kids and everything else out of the car because you can’t get behind the car when the garage door is closed, and then close the garage door by hand, while trying to hold baby at the same time.  It sucks.  Trust me.
• a garage big enough to fit a small SUV/ normal sized car.  We have 3 cars.  We can only park one in the garage because if you tried to park 2 of them in there, you wouldn’t be able to open the doors on either car.  Yes, a normal sized 2 car garage will be great.
• a house without concrete walls.  Hanging a picture here is not easy.  Italian houses have concrete walls so you have to get special hooks to hang things on.  Nails don’t work.
• sidewalks.  I am SO looking forward to living in a neighborhood that you can walk in, on sidewalks, without having to worry about crazy Italian drivers running you over.
• using our bikes.  We have a child seat on one of our bikes and a Burley bike trailer for 2 kids that we haven’t used once over here because there is no place to ride our bikes here.  I’m excited to get some use out of them.
• fast food restaurants.  They have Burger King and McDonald’s here, and then the fast food joints at the BX, which brings us to a grand total of about 5 different fast food places to eat at within a 60 mile radius.  As you can imagine, I am more than sick of them, especially considering none of them are even that good!  Pei wei!  Panara!  Noodles and Co!  Jimmy John’s!!  In and Out Burger!  Chick fil A!!!!  My mouth is already watering!  (And my waistline is already expanding.)
• cheap airfare and short flights!!  It’s no longer going to take us 12+ hours of traveling or $2000+ to see our families!  We’ll be able to get $200-300 tickets instead of $1000+ tickets and we’ll be able to get there in a few hours and not have to deal with jet lag!  Sounds pretty nice to me!
• being able to understand Abbie’s teachers.  It’s been a bit tough having Abbie in the asilo because we can’t really communicate with her teachers very much since they know every little English and I know every little Italian.  She’s learning Italian, so it’s worth it, but it’ll be nice to be able to talk to her teachers and friends.
• American radio stations.    Italian radio stations suck, mainly because you can’t understand what they’re saying and they play a lot of songs in Italian.
• American TV!!!!!  Not having to download anything I want to watch, and then put them on a USB stick and plug it in to the thingy connected to the TV will be really nice.  Which brings me to the next one.
• DVR.  I’ve missed that a lot during the past 3 years.
• central a/c/ heat.  Radiators are okay, but not as good as central heating and cooling.  And because this place is made of concrete, it just feels damp and cold sometimes, unless you have the heat up quite a bit.
• not having to carry around two currencies.  We use dollars on base and Euros everywhere else.
• being able to use all my kitchen appliances.  I have a bunch of stuff downstairs right now because my kitchen just isn’t big enough to have all my kitchen stuff in.  It’ll be nice to use it all again.
• being able to go to the chiropractor again.  They don’t have very many chiropractors over here.  I know of one, and she’s Italian.  I’m looking forward to being able to be seen regularly for my headaches.  It helps a lot.
• hot water that doesn’t cut out 5 minutes in to every shower.  For some reason our hot water cuts out for a couple minutes during every shower.  It’s not fun to have a couple minutes of cold water right when you could be getting out, so you have to wait for it to warm up again so you can warm up again.  Annoying.
• having carpet.  I don’t mind tile/hardwood floors, but I like carpeting in the bedrooms, and this house has none.  Every single floor in this place is hardwood or tile or marble.  Not very conducive to having new walkers in the house.
• not having to deal with 2 voltages.  Some of our stuff is 110v and needs a transformer, some of our stuff is 220v and can be plugged in to the walls, and some of our stuff is dual voltage, but then you need to have the plug adapter to make them fit into the wall.  It’s a pain.
• having more than 2 outlets per room.  Our living room has three outlets.  My kitchen has basically one by the counter and one by the fridge and one by our dining room table.  Oh, and the outlets here only have one plug in spot per outlet, not two like they have in the States.
• not having to pay for public restrooms.  When you have to go and you have to scramble to find change, it’s not fun.  And most of them, even in gas stations, have “attendants” that sit there asking for change.
• easy access to good dental care.  This is a whole separate post of it’s own…

I could go on and on and every time I look at this post, I think of more things to add to it, but I’m going to stop here.  There are many good things about Italy too, and someday I will post about those.  I’m sure when I get back to the States, there will be things (besides the people) that I miss about Aviano, but right now I am SO excited to get back.  Mark and I mention several times a day things that we’re not going to have to deal with anymore when we get to AZ.  We’ve reached our FIGMO point a while ago.  (That’s an acronym for F*** It, Got My Orders, for all you non-military folk.)

(In case you think I’m kidding about my kitchen, this is the extent of my kitchen counter space.  The sink is right to the right of it, and the drying rack right of that.  I’m not going to know what to do with more counter space.  Actually, I take that back.  Yes, I will.  Notice all the pots/pans piled on the stove.  Yeah, that’s because I don’t have enough room in my cabinets or anywhere for them, so they sit stacked on my stove and I move them to the kitchen table when I need those burners and then move them back to set the table.)

Four days at home

Our four days at my parents house were a whirlwind.  We are so lucky to live in Italy, but it’s really hard having young kids and not being on the same continent as the rest of your family.  Our Italian landlords live right next door to their parents.  And they just moved into another house on the other side of their parents.  We walked back by their house and they’d made a new path, with steps and a railing, going right up to their parents house.  I can only imagine all the fun Abbie would have if she could just walking up a short path to my parents house.  I know that our landlord’s mom watches her youngest child all day, and more than once I’ve seen her carrying baskets of laundry, all clean and folded, and bringing wheelbarrows of cut firewood over for them.  Must be nice…  =)

My 96 year old grandma got to meet Ben for the first time, along with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

My sister has three boys now, but the older two, Cameron and Miles, have lots of fun with Abbie.  She LOVES playing with them.  She loved it last summer and she loved it even more this summer.  The oldest one, Cameron, is SUCH a good little kid.  He really watches out for his younger brothers and Abbie and he’s a nice little boy.  I wish we could spend more time with them all.  I wanted to get a picture of just Ben and my sister’s youngest, Treyson, but Trey was sick and I really didn’t want Ben getting sick before we had a long trip back to the States, so we didn’t get them close to each other.

Abbie had a great time with all of her grandparents.  She really thrives when she’s with them and I’m pretty sure they enjoy their time with her too.

Here’s the first four generation shot we took when Abbie was 6 weeks old, back in 2009.

And here’s the one we took on May 20, 2012, almost three years later.

We got a good picture of my parents with all of their grandkids.

Abbie absolutely loves it at my parent’s house.  She loves to be outside, and they have a lot of land, away from busy roads, so she is able to truck around outside by herself and do her own thing.  My parents Golden Retriever, Maddy, is never far behind her either.  Abbie constantly asks when we get to go back to grammy and grampy’s. 

I love this picture of my dad and Ben.

It was harder to leave home this time.  Partly because Abbie is much more aware when her grandparents aren’t around anymore, and partly because my parents are moving so I probably won’t be back to that house ever again.  But we’ll be able to make memories wherever they live.

SO excited!

I think most people are probably pretty unenthusiastic when they find out they have to go to Montgomery, AL for any sort of training.  It’s not exactly a top vacation spot, that’s for sure.  But Mark and I are SOOO excited about going to the States for 2 months TOGETHER!  One of his friends in the squadron just got back from SOS in Montgomery and said that he’d wished he had taken his family with him because they have a lot of free time.  We’re very thankful we decided to spend the money and all go back to the States together.

I’ve been looking at Google maps and it seems as though the apartment we’ll be renting is in a pretty good location.  There’s a big mall 2.5 miles up the road and TONS of restaurants and shopping (Target, Kohl’s, Ann Taylor Loft, etc) all within 6 miles.  PLUS there’s a Hobby Lobby and a Joann’s nearby too.

My parents are coming down to meet Ben in early April and we’re going to take a quick trip down to Mark and my initial stomping grounds – near Destin, FL.  We’re pretty excited to see Abbie by the ocean and to introduce Ben to the beach.  Mark’s parents and grandparents (and possibly other relatives??) are also coming down for a short visit.  And we’re REALLY hoping to see our good friends, Brian and Erika, and their two kids, whom we’ve never met (nor have they met ours).  We haven’t seen them in about 3 years and they were our first military couple friends that we met 6 years ago.  It would be SO great to see them again, and in Florida, no less, (where we met) with our four new additions to our families.  If time allows for it, we might try to head up to Nashville to visit my friend Liz and her family also.

Packing for two months with a 3 month old and an almost 3 year old is no small feat, that’s for sure.  Considering I brought back like 9 bags for just Abbie and I went we moved back to Italy, now we’re adding 2 more people to the mix, but we don’t really get any additional baggage.  Should be interesting…  Luckily a friend that we met while stationed at Vance AFB is sending some baby equipment with her husband, who is going to be at SOS the same time Mark is.  I’m very thankful for that because I was going to have to buy some stuff for him while we were there so this will save us some money.

Since we’ll only be renting one car, I’ll be without a car most of the time since Mark will use it to get to and from work.  So I’m taking the BOB back with us and I plan on putting that thing to GOOD use while we’re there.  I really want to lose quick a few pounds, and I figure walking (maybe running) will be the best way to do that instead of just sitting in the apartment waiting for Mark to get home.  Although we will have HGTV and the Food Network and Bravo and TLC again so then again, maybe I could easily spend all morning in front of the TV.  Man, I’ve really missed the States!

Settling in

We had someone clean the majority of the house before we got back to Italy.  So the floors were cleaned and most of the cobwebs were vacuumed up.  Things were dusted and clean sheets were on the bed.  It was nice to not have to deal with bugs as soon as we got home.  However, looking around at everything that still needed to be done was (as still is) completely overwhelming.  There is still a LOT to do.
Abbie was like a kid in a candy store with all of her old toys.  It’s been very nice having her so interested in playing because we can actually get things done while she’s up because she too busy playing.  And it’s nice to have a fenced in yard again because she runs around outside and plays on her slide too while we’re in the house cleaning and organizing.
The first night we were home Abbie slept from about 8pm – 1:30am.  I spent from 1:30am – 3am trying to get her to go back to sleep and finally gave up at 3am.  I got her up and let her play from 3am – 5:30am, while I got her room and clothes more organized.  The second night she did pretty well, only waking up once at 1:30am.  The third night was the worst.  She was up about 7 times between 9pm and 8am.  And the fourth night she slept all the way through the night.  I’m really hoping she’ll sleep all the way through tonight too.
It’s weird being back in Italy.  I know this is my home, but it feels like I’m on vacation for some reason.  Like I live here, but not really and not permanently.  Being around all my stuff and the base and driving my car really reminds me of Mark and makes me miss him 10x’s more than I did when I was in the States.
My mom and I have slowly been getting the house put back in order.  I had 19 boxes waiting for me at the post office when we got back.  I went to the service counter to get the combination for my p.o. box on base and she took one look at my ID and said “Oh <my last name>.  You have a few boxes here.”   Then I went to the pick up window with all my package slips (they put slips of paper in your box when you have a package and you have to go pick it up at a window).  One of the guys behind the counter got one look at all my slips I had in my hands and said, “You must be <my last name>.”  And then another guy came up a few minutes later and looked at all the slips the first guy was going through and asked if I was <my last name>.  Ha.  So…  apparently most people don’t ship 33 boxes in one month.  I was worried about the BOB getting here, but it made it here just fine and even fit into the truck of my Passat without any problem.  It took us two trips to get all the boxes home, but the 19 that have arrived so far are at home.  I’m still waiting for 14 more from me and then all the ones Mark shipped back from Afghanistan also.
I still don’t have Internet or home phone, which pretty much stinks, and my internet isn’t working on my cell phone either, but at least I can use my phone and send and receive texts on my phone also.  I’m not completely cut off from the outside world, but it sure feels like that not having internet access.  They came out 2 days ago to hook up the satellite, and told me that I would have internet access Monday morning, but no such luck on that.  They still haven’t turned it on.  My home phone situation is a HUGE mess that I’m still trying to figure out and I have no clue when that’s going to be fixed.
Overall, it’s good to be home and I can’t wait for Mark to get home.  We have a TON to do with rearranging our house though and it’s stressful looking around.  I’ve been making lists upon lists and hopefully we’ll be able to get it all done before baby boy arrives.

The trip back

Overall, the trip back to Italy was pretty easy, thanks, in large part, to my mom helping me.  I was most nervous about the check in process, since I knew that they could charge me an arm and a leg if they wanted to.  I ended up having 16 items of luggage total between my and Abbie’s stuff, the dogs, and my moms stuff. 

Luckily, we were helped by two very nice guys at the airport.  I explained to the check-in agent at the United counter that my husband was in the military and deployed and I was going back to Italy, but I wasn’t on PCS orders so I knew I technically didn’t get any extra baggage allowance.  He pretty much cut me off and said, don’t worry about it.  I’ll take care of you.  And he did.  He only ended up charging me the $500 for the dogs, which was unavoidable since the 2nd flight we had was with Lufthansa and they have to give Lufthansa their cut of the fee.  He could have charged me $50 for the 2nd bags for Abbie and myself and $70 for my mom’s 2nd bag, and then $200 for our 3rd bags if he wanted to.  Thank God he didn’t.  So after that I was so relieved that I wasn’t too worried about the rest of the trip.  He even gave my dad a guest pass so my dad could go all the way to the gate with up and we ended up having one last meal in the airport with my dad.

The plane was really nice.  It seemed to have more room than most planes I’ve been on and the seats were pretty comfortable, even for me at 7+ months pregnant.  Abbie did really well on the 7.5 hour flight to Germany.  She didn’t sleep at all, but I didn’t think she would.  Some lady in front of us turned around and asked pretty rudely if Abbie was going to go to sleep at all because she wanted her to be quiet so she could get some sleep since she’d been up since early and had more flights to catch.  I told her that no, she probably wouldn’t sleep at all, but she wasn’t being loud or kicking her seat or doing anything disruptive to her.  The lady apparently didn’t want her to talk at all.  Yeah… Good luck with getting my VERY talkative 2 year old to shut up for another 5.5 hours…  The lady even had an open seat next to her so she was laying down the whole flight too, and was still complaining.

We had a couple hour layover in Frankfurt and Abbie fell asleep in the stroller as soon as I put her in it about an hour before we took off from there, and then she slept next to me on the flight to Venice and slept the whole way.  I woke her up when we landed because it was really hard carrying her and all our junk onto the plane.  We managed to get all of our stuff collected on to three normal sized luggage carts in Venice, including the dogs.  We got a few funny looks from people, but most people smiled and were friendly.  My mom and I managed to push all of the carts by ourselves, while wrangling Abbie at the same time.  She was pretty good about staying close by us and she was pretty worried about the dogs so she wanted to “help” with them.

Overall, the trip went really, really well.  I wish Abbie would sleep more than she does when we travel, but she usually just gets giddy when she gets really tired so it’s not too bad when she doesn’t sleep.  I hope baby boy is as good of a traveler as his big sister is.

Last blog from the States

The time has finally come.  We start our trek towards Chicago tomorrow at 7am in hopes of getting there early enough for my mom to get her seat next to Abbie and me on the flight to Germany.

I’ve shipped 33 boxes of stuff home.  I’m taking 4 large suitcases, 3 carry-on suitcases, 2 book bags, a bag with the pack n play and a mattress in it, the car seat in a bag, a small stroller, and 2 dog crates with the dogs in them on the plane home with me.  We’re going to look like the Beverly Hillbillies, but what do you do?  I’m honestly more worried about the checking in process than the actual flights themselves.  If we can get everything checked in and not be charged and arm and a leg for excess baggage, I’ll be pretty happy.  And I’m REALLY hoping my mom can get a seat next to us.  That will help immensely if we can tag team keeping Abbie occupied.  Plus Abbie absolutely loves playing with my mom so Abbie will be happier if she can sit by both of us also.  I’m not too worried about Abbie on the flight though.  I know she won’t sleep much, if at all.  She never sleeps anywhere but in her bed.  On our flight to the States she slept for MAYBE 20 mins while she was laying on my chest.  She likes to lay on her back to sleep, so maybe if my mom and I can have her in between us with her legs on one of us and her head on the other of us, she’ll be able to get comfortable enough to sleep a bit.  Otherwise she’ll just have to sleep when we get home and I’ll pray she doesn’t get too crabby on the flight.

I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to get my internet up and running once we get back to Italy.  Italians don’t do anything quickly and I’ve been working with someone over there for the past month trying to get it set up so they can install it shortly after I get back, but there’s a good chance I’ll be without internet for a week or so.  If I have time, I’ll be writing blogs still when I get back, I just won’t be able to post them until I get back online.  Although I have a LOT of stuff to do before Mark gets home when we get back to Italy and a fairly short amount of time to get it all done.  So I’m not sure how much time or energy I’ll have to devote to blogging, but I promise once I settled and in to a routine and get over the jet lag, and get the internet hooked up, I’ll be back!

It’s hard to believe that the end is already here.  The first half of this deployment seemed to last about a year and a half and the 2nd half has seemed to fly by.  This is the beginning of the end for me and I’m so excited that we’ll get to see Mark soon!

Perfect fall day

Mark’s parents and brother came to my hometown to visit Abbie and me one more time before we head back to Italy.  Again, I had fun messing around with my 50mm lens and trying to figure out manual mode a little more.  Abbie loves having everyone’s attention and they love giving it to her and I love the break, so it’s a win-win situation for all involved.

Northern IL is SO pretty this time of year.  It was nice walking around town for a while.  We ate at one of my favorite restaurants, watched a few weiner dog races and got some ice cream.  All the walking was making my back hurt quite a bit, as it usually does, but it was still fun.  I accidently zonked out in a chair in the living room when we got back to my house though.  Oops.  The third trimester exhaustion is definitely hitting me big time right now, which is perfectly bad timing.  I have too much to do to be this tired.

Hopefully we’ll get to see Mark’s family sometime next year, but that’s all up in the air right now.  Makes saying goodbye a bit harder when you’re not sure how much time will pass between visits.