Loving it

Abbie helping in her Easter dress

I've had quite a few people ask me if we're liking Arizona.  The short answer is: yes!

The long answer is:  Are you kidding me??  We freaking LOVE it!  So far, we love EVERYTHING about it!  Granted it's not 120 degrees yet - our feelings might change a little bit mid-July, but then again, maybe not!

Living here is amazing!  Everything just seems easier here.  We know where everything is, and if we don't, we can easily look it up online.  And everything is SO CLOSE!  We've never lived this close to all this shopping and it is so convenient.  Within a 5 mile radius is Kohl's, Joann's, Tuesday Morning, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, JC Penneys, Target, Michaels, Best Buy, Pier 1, Ross, Barnes and Noble, Old Navy, Babies R Us, Marshalls, TX Maxx. Homegoods, etc, and that's forgetting a few and not including any of the smaller stores.  I could WALK to Target in about 10 mins.  There are about 40  - 50 restaurants within 10 mins (and they're not all Italian!!!!!) and gas stations, grocery stores, banks, churches and Abbie's preschool (plus the other one we want to send her to).  There are nice parks, SIDEWALKS (didn't have those in Italy near us) and even bike lanes throughout our neighborhood.  We have a great yard for the kids to play in and we can just turn them out there and let them go and they have a great time.

I think the main reason we are loving AZ so much, and the reason we disliked Italy so much, was because of our houses.  We hated our house in Italy.  It was too small for the 4 of us and 2 dogs, to start with.  It was always cluttered because there was no storage.  It wasn't big enough to get away from the kids ever and with Abbie not being the best sleeper in the world, it made it difficult.  This house in AZ is obviously a lot better.  It's over twice as big, so we're not on top of each other.  We can put the kids to bed upstairs and enjoy our "free time" downstairs, watching TV or studying or whatever.  We can make popcorn after Abbie goes to bed without her being able to immediately smell it and start yelling, "Are you making some pa-corn??",  "Will you save some for me?", etc.  The kitchen is ginormous compared to the one we had in Italy and I don't have to keep my pots and pans on the stove because they don't fit in the cabinets.  Our master closet is 2-3x bigger than our master bath in Italy and our master bath here is bigger than our bedroom was in Italy.  We are a bit spoiled here with all this space, but it's another reason we are loving it.

The dogs don't drag as much stuff in because it's dry here, not wet 70% of the time.  The dogs drug SO much stuff into the house in Italy.  Dachshunds don't have much clearance, so they drag tons of stuff in on their bellies and paws.  I had to sweep the floor every single time they came in in Italy since they brought half the yard in with them.  And since it was muddy, they left paw prints everywhere also.  Have you ever tried to clean up wet dog poop?  Even cleaning up dog poop is about 300 times easier in AZ.

I miss my friends in Italy, and I miss living by the mountains and the travel opportunities we had there.  But we are surrounded by pretty decent hills/ mountains here and we're excited to do some hiking around them.  And we have some great travel opportunities here also that we're excited about.  Not traveling around Europe exciting, but exciting none-the-less - and cheaper!

I loved having the experience of living overseas, and someday, I wouldn't mind living overseas again - when the kids are older and more independent.  But for now, at this point in our lives, we are SO happy to be back in the States.  Now if we could just get the house done so we're not in the constant state of renovations....

I am so sick of painting!!!  Three more bedrooms and a hallway to go!

Mark installing our new backsplash!  We love the way it turned out!

We got this!

Above is PART of what we are taking back to the States with us.  It includes:

5 big suitcases
2 carry-on size suitcases
1 large duffle bag
1 military duffle bag
1 small duffle bag
1 kid-sized suitcase
2 backpacks
2 dog crates
and my purse.

It does not show:
2 large car seats
1 pack n play in a stroller bag
1 double stroller plus bag

Of what is listed above, we are taking our backpacks, my purse, Abbie's carry-on suitcase, 1 small red suitcase and the small duffle bag, plus the stroller and one of the carseats on the plane as carry-ons.  It'll be interesting for sure.

I wouldn't wish an overseas move on anyone.  They are a pain in the butt!  Especially when you add multiple young kids and dogs into the mix.  It's just not fun!  And to add to my stress, I was pretty sick yesterday.  Fever, body aches, chills, stomach issues, etc.  Just felt really "blah".  But I'm back up to about 80% today.  I don't have a fever any more, which is great.  My stomach still feels a little funky, but doesn't hurt as of right now, so that's good.  I think it's a combination of stress and not eating all that well the past week.  It'll be SO nice to be back in the States and have more food (specifically fast food) options.  I think I probably feel better because I feel like the hardest part is behind us.  Although when we're trying to fit 18 bags into a rental car once we get to Phoenix, I might be re-thinking that thought...

My mom emailed me yesterday asking if I was making lists of everything I have to get once we get into our house in Phoenix.  I had to laugh.  And then I told Mark and he laughed too.  Unless you've done it, you don't realize how hard it is, and how much is involved with moving overseas, and specifically moving out of Aviano.  I feel like we've both been going non-stop for the past 2 weeks with selling stuff and shipping stuff and getting out of the house and saying goodbye to friends and out-processing from this base and getting dogs health certificates and returning library books and doing final outs with home fuels and FMO and housing and finance and cleaning out the tlf's and pre-checking in bags and everything else we've been running around doing, when I'm not flat out on the couch trying not to puke and trying to stop shivering.  So no, we aren't thinking about what's going to happen 5 days from now.   And everything seems so easy in the States anyway.  We can just run to Target (which will be less than 5 mins away) and grab whatever we need!!!  Or we can run to Wal-Mart (which is like 6 mins away) ANY TIME OF THE DAY and get whatever we need.  Seriously, we're so excited we can hardly stand it.  It just seems like everything is easier in the States and we can't wait to be back!!  Mark asked if we wanted to go camp in the PAX terminal tonight, just so we're there in the morning for sure.  =)

The weird thing about this move is that my mom is right - I am normally a chronic list maker.  I make lists of the lists I have, but since the end of December, I haven't made one single list.  I didn't make any list for the move in to TLF's or the move back to the States.  I don't know why really.  I just haven't been in the mood to make lists.  Something must be wrong with me.

So this will probably be my last post from Italy.  It's been fun.  We're glad we got to experience living overseas and do all the traveling we did and meet all the people we've met, but we are SO excited to be going HOME!  See you on the flip side!

Abbie’s last day at the asilo

Friday was Abbie’s last day at the asilo in Sarone.  I was a little sad for her and for her teachers, since they were sad to see her go.  And I was a little sad for me since the asilo here is free except for the 2E meal ticket per day, and in AZ it’s going to be around $440/month for PART TIME.  Ugh.

Abbie has come a LONG way since her first day at the asilo.  She loves going to school now and gets sad to leave when I come pick her up after she’s been there for 7 hours.  I think she thrives in a group setting like that where she can be social and be around other kids.  She learned quite a bit of Italian and can sing nursery songs in Italian now, which is really cute.  I’ll miss that.

Ben and I walked this walk multiple times per week to take Abbie to school or to pick her up from school.  Usually I would strap him on my back in the Ergo, or I would push the double stroller up the hill so she could ride home.  The street above was about the only flat part of the walk.  The rest of it was uphill to her school, although it was less than a half a mile away.  I loved that her school was within walking distance of our house.  The two preschools we’re considering for Abbie in Phoenix are both about a mile and a half away from our house there.  I will consider putting the kids in the Burley bike trailer and taking Abbie to school that way there.  I loved that I could walk her to school here.  And I lost a bit of weight doing it!

This is one of Abbie’s teachers.  I think she had 4 of them that rotated throughout the day.  Abbie really like Maestra Marta (pictured above).  (“Maestra” means teacher in Italian.)  She didn’t speak much English, but she always gave Abbie a big hug when she got to school.  The night before her last day of school Abbie told me that Maestra Felica said that she would “have a tear” when Abbie left.  It was sweet.

Every day Abbie would ask if she could play in this park right outside the school.  The asilo has a private park not open to the public, but this was the little public park in Sarone.  It had like 3 things, but Abbie still liked it.  I think she’s going to be overwhelmed by the parks in Phoenix.  There is a park about 300 feet from our back yard in Phoenix and it’s even covered, so it’ll be shaded in the 120 degree heat there.  She’s going to love it.

I’m glad we put Abbie in the asilo during our time in Italy.  I know she really enjoyed her time there.  Hopefully we’ll find a preschool in Goodyear that she likes just as much.

Irreplaceable

It’s a weird thing, watching your entire house be packed up before your eyes.  I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least a little bit hard.  It’s very exciting, for sure, but it’s also a little scary saying goodbye to all your things.

So we’ve traveled a lot since being in Europe.  We’ve been to Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Turkey and of course all over Italy.  Our main souvenirs at most of these places have been magnets for our fridge, and we have quite the collection of them now.  We also got t-shirts from some of the places, especially for the kids.  Some day I will cut them all up and make a quilt from all of them.`

Some of the places we went, we got vases, in hopes to some day have a place to display them.  The ones on the left are from our squadron and Burano.  The one on the right is from Turkey.

The vase below is from Ravello, Italy on the Amalfi Coast and the platter is something from Nove, Italy that I won here.  (I took pictures of all of this stuff before it was packed to prove that it was in one piece when it left here.  Hopefully it’ll all arrive in one piece in AZ.)

Our one huge souvenir from our time in Italy is this table that we got at the bazaar this past fall.  It is an antique table, supposedly made from floorboards in a monastery in France.  It is a HEAVY table, and made without the use of nails or screws, so it couldn’t be taken apart to be shipped.  The table has a ton of character, which we love, and is obviously not something we can replace once we get back to the States, since I don’t think there are a whole lot of these floating around the US.  I am very nervous about how they packed it in the crate and I argued with them about putting as much stuff as they did on top of it, but Mark, the packers and the TMO lady all assured me that it would be fun.  Hopefully they’re right because I’m going to be majorly P.O.’d if we get there to find it’s broken.

I also didn’t get a chance to see how they packed up my demijohn’s either, so I hope that these all make it one piece too.

Giuseppe Pino is an artist that sells his paintings in the BX area a few times a year and every time we’ve seen them we admire them.  I love his work, so at the last bazaar, Mark and I bought one, and we love it.  Again, this is not easily replaceable either, unless I can get him to paint us another one and ship it to the US.  I would love to have another one of his paintings, but they’re pretty darn expensive.

We also got these paintings of Venice and Rovinj, Croatia and had them framed.  They’re original artwork, and the framing/matting cost us a pretty penny, so hopefully the arrive undamaged also.

The painting on the left is painted on an antique roof shingle.  We also got this at the bazaar, although I am fairly certain that we picked out a different one and somehow the one we picked out got switched with this one, so when we went back to pick it up, it was already boxed up with our name on it.  I thought we’d picked one out with a painting of Venice on it, not giant mushrooms….  A little disappointed about that, but by the time we opened it and figured out that it was the wrong one, we couldn’t do anything about it.  Boo.  And the big wooden bowl is an antique bread bowl – again, from the bazaar.

Overall, we had 10 crates full of the things we’ve shipped so far.  They estimated it to be between 10k-11k lbs.  We are allowed another 1250 lbs to go in our unaccompanied baggage shipment at the end of February, so hopefully all the rest of our things fit into that.  We’ll see!!  I’ll be happy to see our stuff on the other side, for sure.

I have to say, I like this house much better without all of our stuff in it.  We have so much more space and it seems brighter and more open.  We kept the things we use the most, so it still feels like home, just without all the clutter, which I love.  We might have to do this minimalist living once we get back to the States too, although by then I’m sure I’ll be happy to get all my junk back and to not be sleeping on an air mattress anymore.

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.)

OG Christmas Party

In early December, the OG (Ops Group) had a Christmas party on base for the kids, so we took Abbie and Ben to check it out.

This is Abbie and her best buddy, Luke.  They spotted each other from across the parking lot and ran to each other, which they do pretty much every time they see each other.  Abbie always talks about how much she loves her best friend Luke.  I’ll be sad when these two are split up due to the move.  (And when I don’t live near Jennifer, Luke’s mom, either.  She’s one of my best friends.)

Below is Abbie with Luke and Aiden and then Abbie with Xander.  She talks about these boys all the time.  All of the kids her age in the squadron are boys, with the exception of one girl, who wasn’t here then.  Quite the bunch of 3 year olds they are!

This pool full of balls was a hit with all of them!  And Ben loved it!!  (And yes, this was on his birthday!!)

Abbie did a little cookie decorating and cookie eating.

Then she got to talk to Santa for a bit.  I think it helped that she saw a bunch of other kids sitting on his lap first while we waited our turn.  Sometimes she’s still a little hesitant to sit on his lap, but she comes by that naturally since I still remember being terrified of Santa.

PS:  I just love it when Abbie’s hair is in braids like that.  Too bad it takes me forever to do it to her hair since she’s constantly moving and her hair is so fine it falls out right away too.  But it looks cute while it lasts!

Tis the season….

…..of stress!!!  And no, I’m not talking about the holidays.  As far as the holidays are concerned, 95% of my holiday shopping is done, all of my packages are already wrapped, packed and mailed off to the States and only Mark’s brother is coming up for Christmas.  Since he’s super laid back, I don’t stress at all when he visits.  And I already have a good start on my 155 Christmas cards I’m sending out this year.

It’s the season of stress because another military move is rapidly approaching on us.  March 2013 is our DEROS date (move month, for you non-military folks) and we are moving to Phoenix where Mark will be an IP (instructor pilot) teaching people how to fly the F-16.  I am VERY excited for Mark since I know he will be a great instructor.  I think he has the perfect personality to teach since he’s almost always calm and collected and I think it will be good for students to see a non-traditional “fighter pilot”.  Plus this keeps him in the jet for 3+ more years, but he’s not at an operational base and instead a teaching base.  So the pace of his job should be much slower at Luke than it is here in Aviano, and we’re both excited about that.  This also sets him up well to apply to TPS (test pilot school), which is what he really wants to do in the long run.

Mark and I have decided that we’re going to look in to buying a house near Luke instead of rent.  We have never owned a house before and it just seems like now might be a good time to buy, especially in Phoenix where the market is just starting to come back up.  Hopefully we can get in while the market is low and sell it a few years down the road when the market is higher.  We would like to rent it out for a few years after we’re done living there, but we’ll see.  It’s all a pretty big gamble and it does make me very nervous, but we are so ready to actually own a home.  And the way I look at it is even if we do end up losing some money in the end, if we rent a house we’ll be paying someone else’s mortgage to the tune of around $1500/month.  Over 3 years that’s around $54000 that we’d never see another penny of if we chose to rent.  At least if we buy, we have to possibility of getting all of that money back, plus some.  So Mark and I have been having fun looking at houses online and working with a realtor in that area.  It’s fun, but it is stressful thinking about owing that much money to a bank.

These next two months are going to FLY by.  We are pet sitting for friends from now until Sunday and then pet sitting for another friend for the week after that.  Mark is going TDY to Germany in early December for a week and in December, I have a minimum of 3-4 commitments every single week.  We’re going to Austria with the squadron for a weekend in December, Mark’s brother, Ryan, is coming to spend Christmas with us (yay!!), Abbie has a dance recital, and we’re taking the Volvo to Munich to be shipped back to the States in late December.  It is possible that Mark will be TDY for a GOOD chunk of January, although I am praying like crazy that that doesn’t happen since I REALLY need his help here.  If he goes on the TDY, the day after he gets back (provided he gets back on time) we’d have the packers and movers come here to pack up the majority of our house to ship our things back to the States.  (They’ll take about 2 months to get to Phoenix, give or take 2 weeks.)  And the day after the movers leave, Mark and I are going to Phoenix for 5 days to meet my parents there to house hunt.  We’re hoping to look at a bunch of houses and make an offer on our favorite within 4 days.  It’ll be a whirlwind trip, but I’m excited.  Brittney is keeping our kiddos for us, and once again, I owe her big time.  I think she’ll have fun with them though, and I trust her 100% with my kids.  I’m so thankful to have friends like that that I actually feel comfortable asking to watch my kids for a week while I go out of the country.  I haven’t figured out how I’m ever going to thank her enough for doing this for us.  In the meantime, apparently all I keep talking about is having like 17 hours of travel WITHOUT KIDS to do whatever the heck we want.  Mark keeps making fun of me for it.  Seriously, I am SO excited about that plane ride.  I can sleep, or watch a movie, or read a book, or sleep, or eat in peace, or go to the bathroom by myself, or sleep, or write letters, or talk to Mark UNINTERRUPTED, or sleep.  I won’t have to entertain 2 kids and try to keep them from disturbing people around us, or get up to go to the bathroom 15 times an hour, or worry about them bumping those little trays and having food or drinks go everywhere, etc.  If you’ve ever flown a trans-Atlantic flight with kids, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  And my kids are relatively great travelers, but they are 3.5 and almost a year old, so that speaks enough for itself.  How much do you want to bet we get sat next to a 2 year old on the flight…  I’ll cry.

In the meantime, January is going to be insanely busy for me, ESPECIALLY if Mark is gone.  Somehow I need to go through our ENTIRE house and figure out what we need to keep here for the month between when they’re picking up the majority of our stuff and when they’re picking up our unaccompanied shipment – so what we need to live in this house, without the majority of our stuff, for one month.  Towels, dishes, cooking utensils, toys for the kids, etc.  I also need to set apart all of the stuff we want to sell – all of our 220V things that won’t work in the States – lights, vacuums, hair dryers, adapters, DVD players, etc.  If I don’t set them apart, the packers will pack them.  And then I also need to pack our suitcases that we’re going to be taking with us on the plane and living out of for about a month between the TLF’s here and a hotel in Phoenix.  And it’s going to be in the 40’s here and the 70-80’s in Phoenix.  I need to have all the dogs stuff packed and ready to go, all of our stuff packed and ready to go, and I need to go around and videotape and photograph all of our “big ticket” items to prove that they are in great condition before the packers get here.  That way if they don’t make it back in the same condition they left here in, I have proof.  How I am going to do this with two kids, by myself, is absolutely beyond me.  Did I mention that Ben is mobile now?  Oh, and I’m helping co-host two baby showers for two good friends in January also.

Moving is such an exciting time, and we are ready to embark on this new adventure, but it is a LOT to think about and a lot to organize and a lot to keep track of.  We’ve heard from many friends who have PCS’d before us that people at Aviano act like you’re the first person to ever move from this base, and if you don’t watch the packers like a hawk, most of your stuff ends up damaged in the move.  I will be really upset if that happens since we’ve gotten quite a few things over here that won’t be replaceable in the States.

I’m doing my best to keep this blog up and running, mainly for me, since I really want to have this to look back on someday, as a record of our lives.  But it is also stressing me out right now since I feel I have lots to write about, but I just don’t have the time to blog.  My blog used to be my “release”, but it’s more of a burden at this point, just because I am so busy, and have been since August and will be until at least February, and then again in March and April during the closing on a house and moving in and all that fun stuff.  I’m trying my best to keep up with it and I’m sorry for those of my friends and family who wait for my blogs.  I know you’re having to wait a lot of time between blogs now, and I hope I can get back into the swing of blogging soon, but if I don’t, now you know why.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, surrounded by your families!  I definitely miss being with family during the holidays but hopefully next year we’ll be able to spend them with family!!  This year we’re spending Thanksgiving with our good friends, so I can’t complain.

Until next time…

Abbie’s bad luck

Our poor Abbie can’t catch a break lately!  I feel like the Pordenone Hospital is our second home.  It seems like within a week of us getting back from a trip, we are in the hospital with our little pippers.
Friday, November 2, Abbie was outside riding her bike (with training wheels) and managed to tip it over causing her to fall off the bike.  I wasn’t outside to witness it, but I was told that she didn’t fall very hard and she also had a thick winter coat on.  She did some of her normal screaming when she gets hurt, but when she was still whining/crying about it 20 mins later, I knew something was up and I called the base clinic to see if I could get her seen, but of course, that wasn’t possible.  So then I called the nurse advice line to see if there was some way I could help her at home, and they basically said to have her seen by a doctor immediately.  So that left us with the only option of heading to Pordenone.
My mom and I took Abbie to the hospital, and Mark met us there, while my dad stayed with Ben.  Abbie was doing very well considering her last experience there.  She got upset when the doctors wanted to get near her and she didn’t want to sit on any of the tables, but other than that, she did really well.  We waited about an hour or so to be seen by the peds doctor, who immediately sent us down for x-rays.  Mark was able to go back with Abbie while her arm was x-rayed, and she screamed bloody murder during that part for a minute because they were trying to move her arm, but then she was okay.  The x-rays showed that she had what they called a very minor fracture on the humerous bone of her right arm, above her elbow, so they put a cast on it.  It took 2 doctors and 2 nurses to put this cast on her, while she sat in my lap.  She was really nervous at first, but then she calmed down when she realized that it wasn’t going to hurt.  It took about 2.5 – 3 hours from the time we got to the hospital until the time we left.

Abbie was exhausted when we got home, and even though it was 6pm, I let her go to sleep for a bit before she ate dinner.  I’m fairly certain she would have gone to bed at 6pm and slept until the morning, but I didn’t want her waking up super early, so I got her up and made her eat something.  The first few nights she woke up 4-5 times saying her arm hurt or it itched, so I was up with her a lot.  But after 3-4 days of keeping her on pain meds, her arm wasn’t hurting as much, although it was itching quite a bit.

I had called base on Monday morning to see if we could get the follow up appointment to have the cast removed and they told me that normally the base wants to see people as soon as possible after they get casts in Pordenone.  I was thinking that we would just get the cast taken off on base, 2 weeks later, since the Italian doctors said she needed to keep it on for 2 weeks.
We ended up going to see the orthopedic doctor on base on Thursday morning.  They took more x-rays of her elbow/arm and the doctor told us that her bones were now 1mm differentiated now, and that if we had brought her in there originally, he would have put pins in to set her arm, instead of just a cast.  Since she had had her original cast on for almost a week though, if he had fixed it then, he would have had to re-break her arm in order to “fix” it, so he didn’t want to do that.  He said that her bones not lining up perfectly now wouldn’t cause her any issues later on, so he left it like that.  They put on a different, much lighter and thinner, cast though.  And the doctor and the tech who put the cast on were SO good with Abbie.  She actually enjoyed being there and talked about how nice the doctors were and how they didn’t hurt her at all for 2 days after the appointment.  I’m annoyed that they don’t make exceptions for little ones and get them seen by an orthopedic doctor immediately, instead of sending them to Pordenone and then redoing everything.  The doctor said that the Italian doctors tend to not be as thorough as US doctors are since they don’t have to worry about lawsuits, and also they don’t have as advanced equipment in Pordenone as they do on base, so it’s possible that they couldn’t see the break as well as he could on the x-rays taken on base. Oh, and this cast has to stay on for 4-5 weeks, making the total time 5-6 weeks, not 2… The situation is frustrating.  I am SO thankful we’ll be back in the States in a few months.

Abbie is doing great now.  She can’t do ballet for 4-5 weeks, but other than that, she’s using her arm fine and since this cast is much lighter, she’s more comfortable with it.  She told Mark that the other cast was too tight and that this one is much better.  We have a follow up appointment on base on Wednesday where they’re going to take more x-rays, so we’ll see what they say then.  I REALLY hope that was our last encounter with the Italian healthcare system!

Oh, and Ben was there for the appointment too.  He was a good boy, as usual!