On our cruise - we met the Midland TX Police Chief Robinson and his wife Kathy who just retired from her position at Fannin as principal. Small world.
We love love love Florence and the countryside's surrounding it - that is where we will spend a month next summer - super excited about it! The really cool thing about our adventures is that we weren't "special" - noone had special menus for us - everything was authentic and so we felt like we were in a different world with each stop. We ate at local restaurants in most towns and tried to do our best to guess at the menus. Scott was brave enough to let a waiter choose his order in Naples. It turned out to be a great decision.
We spent a day before the cruise and a day after in Barcelona. The day before was terrific! There was a local festival going on and there were vendors set up all along the street through the neighborhood near our hotel. We ate dinner in the middle of it all and did some shopping. The return trip brought lots of rain. We tried to go through the zoo, and got to see some of it before giving up for fear of drowning!
Our first day of the cruise was spent at sea. The adults got some spa treatments that were much needed. The boys got to explore the ship and play in the pools.
The second morning we woke up in Napoli (Naples). We never expected it to be so beautiful. This is where we did the HOP ON HOP OFF bus. We took a drive down the Amalfi Coast. Amazing. We toured a castle and had lunch on the marina.
Next up was Rome. We ported in Civitavechia which is a 45 minute drive from Rome. We rented a private taxi, which was a great idea. We saw some things, but Rome is crowded and busy. It was neat to see things we had heard about from history and stand in awe of just how old these buildings actually were.
Florence and Pisa was the next stop. Have I expressed my love for this area??? :)
The next day was spent in Cannes, France. There were sailboats pouring out of the marina when we arrived. We walked into town and let the boys have some fun. They got to have McDonald's, ride a carousel and chase pigeons around a fountain. We walked back to spend some time on the beach near the marina and realized that many of the sailboats were gone. We got to watch them race while we played in the sand. The water was cold! Samuel didn't care and Jonathan got used to it after an hour or so. They built "towers" and then demolished them quickly to start over. One new adventure here was "tendering." We had to ride the lifeboats to shore, and the boys enjoyed that little adventure.
Next stop on our adventure was a half day in Palma, Spain. We went to the great aquarium and then to a nearby beach.
The evenings were mostly relaxing for us. Samuel went nearly every night to "Splash Academy", the area for kids ages 3-15. He made several new friends and loved every bit of it. One of the workers told us that everyone wanted to be on his "team" for every game they played. He was very popular with the kids and the staff. Poor Jonathan was very upset that he wasn't allowed (their rules, not ours) and missed Samuel every minute he was gone. He always went to drop him off and picked him up as well if he stayed awake. We had a balcony on our room that looked toward the sea on the side and the back of the boat. The live band played on the deck every night. It was like having a little concert every night. Overall, it was a great trip for all of us.
Darren is doing good in school - he commutes every morning to the downtown campus for his architecture courses.
Samuel is doing good with homeschooling - he knows all his letters and sounds and is practicing writing his letters and numbers. He is also learning addition and subtraction. We will start trying to read beginning next week. On our trip he learned hola, adios, bonjourno and caio. He has also learned to sign "Hi, my name is Samuel". He is so smart and eager to learn - so we really feel being in such a diverse area at his age will benefit him for the rest of his life. In Palma, Spain Aquarium he played Connect Four with a cute little blonde girl from Sweden. She didn't speak English so it was fun to watch them figure out how to communicate. They played several games over 15minutes then she got bored and flitted off. :)
Jonathan is still trying to catch up to Samuel who is trying to catch up to Darren...ughh..all I wanted was babies and beginning with Darren...God gave me little men trying to be independent :(
Some interesting things we discovered lately...
Most languages don't have a translation for words like baggage claim, crew, economy class, business class - we heard 4 different translations on all the airplanes - Arabic, German, Spanish and English - and they would be speaking the language and then we would hear the English words...it became a fun game to figure out where we were in the flight details. And since they did the English translation LAST we learned to listen for versions of "family" to know when the pre-boarding was coming up! :) And we learned the German word for Swimvest....Schwimmeweste
Oreos taste the same everywhere, but M&M's dont..
Spain's Zoos and Aquariums are AWESOME - their animals and sea life are 500% more active than any I have EVER seen ....and between Scott & I we have proably seen over 50 different zoos/aquariums -so we consider ourselves experts :). And not just a few were active...ALL of them were! It was amazing - we had to drag ourselves away from each exhibit - convincing the kids that the animal couldn't possibly do anymore cool things....
Little Europian girls run around topless their entire life...
Little Europian boys wear speedos their entire life...
Hotel rooms in Europe are MUCH smaller than in the US. Also, it's difficult to find one that will allow you to have more than 3 people in a room, including small children.
We won't be doing much for the next month, so I'll probably update after the New Year. We will be in the US in mid-November until about mid-January - I will be making the rounds to visit everyone. See you soon! Go Cowboys! :)
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