Fall in Italy

**I have no clue if I ever posted this or not, but incase I didn't, I'm going to post it again.  These are from 2011.

As I’ve said a billion times, I love fall.  And this year I got to experience two falls!  One in the States and another one in Italy a few weeks later.  Mark and I took these pictures around our town and driving to base this past weekend.  I cannot get enough of the fall colors.  I wish it was like this all year round!

Apple orchards and a train ride

Today we took Abbie up to Gays Mills, WI, which has numerous apple orchards that are hopping with activities this time of year.  Abbie had it in her mind that we were going to a park, so I’m not sure she was quite as excited about the trip as we were, and she was asking to go to the park the entire time we were gone.

The first orchard we stopped at had a corn maze that we wandered through a little bit, but it was almost Abbie’s nap time so she wanted to be carried instead of walk herself.  (And when she’s tired, she wants you to carry her in a cradle hold, not the way you’d normally carry her.)  So our jaunt through the corn/sunflower maze was pretty short lived since none of us wanted to carry a 35lb kid around for long.  She gets heavy quickly!

We headed to the second orchard and Abbie had more fun at this one since there was a kids section with face painting and swings.  Abbie loves to get her face painted and she’s really good about being very still for them.  They even gave her a pumpkin and the “princess” gave her an apple!

I just cannot get enough of the fall colors in this part of the country.  It never gets old looking at all the trees.  All of these pictures were shot out of the car window, so they’re not perfect, but they still give you an idea of how pretty it is. 

On the way home we stopped at this little train so Abbie could take a ride around the tracks a few times.  She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and it was enough of a “park” for her.

If I could find a part of the world that had this weather (mid-70’s) and the changing leaves year round, I would move there in a heartbeat.  It’s my absolute favorite.

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!

The final countdown

I remember very vividly the week before Mark left.  I was more upset about him having to leave Abbie than anything else.  I knew it was going to be hard for him to leave her, and I knew she’d change a lot while he was gone.
Now that we leave here in two days, I’m again finding the hardest part to be knowing that my parents won’t be around Abbie anymore, and I know how hard that will be for them.  They absolutely LOVE having Abbie here, and she enjoys her time with them just as much as they do with her.  I know it will be a huge adjustment for her to not have them around anymore, and to not be the center of three adults attention.  She wakes up and asks for “gammy and gampy” right away (if I beat them to getting her out of bed in the morning that is), and every time they leave she asks where they’re going and when they’re coming back and if she can go with them, and every time they come home, she goes running to greet them and jumps into their arms.  I would imagine it’s pretty much any grandparents dream.

Our visit hasn’t been all rainbows and puppies and there has been more than once where I was ready to pack up and head back to Italy early.  But overall, we’ve had a fun summer here and I’m glad my parents had this bonding time with Abbie.  They really got to know her better than they ever would have if Mark hadn’t deployed and we hadn’t come home.  It’s kind of a blessing in disguise with this whole deployment thing.  I know my parents and Abbie gained a lot from our time here and it is amazing to me the difference I see in my parents and how they handle and react to Abbie now verses when we first got here.  And Abbie is infinitely different as well since she has matured a BUNCH in the 6 months we’ve been home.  And I think she’s grown 4 inches as well..

Hopefully it won’t be too long before my parents can come visit us (and the new baby) in Italy.  I’m hoping they can come to Italy once or twice next year to get their Abbie fix.  And vice versa.

A chip off the old block

We took our last boat ride of the season yesterday.  The fall colors along the bluffs of the Mississippi are so pretty.  I’m really hoping I get to experience the fall colors in Italy too when I get back (in 4 days!).

When I was little, I LOVED going fast, in anything.  The car, the boat, anything really.  Once I was in the car with my mom when I was around 3 years old, and it was icy.  The car ended up doing a doughnut in the middle of the road, obviously scaring the crap out of my mom.  She said when the car stopped spinning, the first thing I said was “Do it again mom!”.  Haha!  I’m not sure what Mark was like when he was little, but obviously he’s somewhat of an adrenaline junkie now since he flies fighter jets.  I would assume that you’d have to somewhat like speed and excitement to fly those.

So Abbie comes by her adventurous side pretty naturally.  As soon as we step foot in the boat she pipes up with “Go fast Gampa!  I want to go FAST!”  She does it every single time we get into the boat and she pretty much lights up like a Christmas tree as soon as she feels it speeding up.  Yesterday she was shrieking with laughter when we were going fast and her smile couldn’t have gotten any bigger.  The faster we went, the louder she laughed.

Boating on the Mississippi is one of my favorite past times and I’m glad that my daughter seems to enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.  Although I will say that going 70+ mph in the boat is a tad different (a little more nerve-wracking) when you’re not the kid anymore, and you have your own kid to worry about. 

Thanks for taking us for a boat ride, Dad.  Boating with you is still as fun as it ever was.

5QF

1. What is your go to comfort food or sweet?  Popcorn or chocolate chip cookies
2. What is the most romantic place you've ever been to?  I don’t think it’s really a place that makes in romantic, it’s more the mood you’re in while you’re there.  But Paris was fun and so was Prague.  Vegas was romantic for us because we took our honeymoon there.
3. What is your favorite thing about fall/Halloween?  Besides my husband coming home, the crisp air and colorful leaves.
4. How would you spend 24 hours alone?  Sleeping, reading, watching TV uninterrupted, quilting, playing the piano.  But mostly missing my daughter and husband.
5. Does you husband bring you flowers? Are you the bring-me-flowers type of girl?  No, not usually.  He did give me an orchid for our anniversary last year, which I loved.  I love it when he does, but he usually doesn’t.
 
**So this time next week I’ll be back in Italy!!  Hard to believe!  Not sure I’ll be able to participate in 5QF or Milspouse Fill-in.  In fact, I might be out for the next few weeks with everything that’s going on, but I’ll be back eventually!  I promise!

My fighter pilot

Mark sent me this picture over the weekend.  I absolutely love it and I can’t stop looking at it.  As soon as I opened it, I started to cry, which was slightly embarrassing since I was in my in-laws living room.  I don’t think they noticed though, thank God.  Everything just kind of hit me when I saw this photo.  He’s the same person I remember saying goodbye to over 5 months ago, and yet he seems SO different too.  It makes me wonder how he’s going to be different in person also.  I don’t think fighting in a war and experiencing what he’s experienced over there can NOT change a person.  Just talking to him on the phone, he seems more “mature”, I guess.  Not that he was at all immature before he left, but mature in a more seasoned or experienced sort of way.  I’m not worried about him changing for the worse as a husband or a father, I just think it might be a little different somehow, than it was when he left. 

(Mark is on the left.)

I like to pretend that he’s at summer camp over there.  When we video chat, I usually just see him from the neck up, so I don’t see the flight suit and g-suit and all the other flying garb that he has to wear, so it’s easy to pretend that he’s not in a war zone.  However, seeing him in his flying attire just makes it seem all that much more real.  I’m very glad we’re on the home stretch of this deployment.

Mark told me that his name will be put on this jet when they get back.  (That’s also him in the jet.)  I’m excited to get a picture of him by it after it has his name on it.  We both think that’s pretty neat.
It still surprises me sometimes that I’m actually married to someone that flies fighter jets for a living.  Never in my wildest dreams could I have even imagined this lifestyle, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  Well, I would trade the deployments, and the long hours, but other than that, it’s a pretty exciting lifestyle to live.  I am so proud of Mark for everything he has accomplished in the five short years we’ve been married.  I cannot WAIT for him to come home sometime next month.  I lay awake at night dreaming about him getting off of or out of a plane and giving him a big hug.  Not too much longer now!