Cinque Terre

My favorite stop was our day on the beach in Monterosso al Mare.  Monterosso is one of the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy.



This area is gorgeous and my only regret about this day is we didn't have longer to explore more of the villages.  We hope to return here.



It was a beautiful day.  The beach was not crowded and



the girls had fun playing with the rocks not sand that made up the beach.



Way back in the day we found out that we were pregnant with Carolyn while on a cruise.  I don't know what it is about me being pregnant on cruise ships.  Anyway one of the places we visited then was a beautiful beach in Jamaica.  When Brian and I took our pregnancy class later on the teacher was talking all kinds of relaxation techniques and said to essentially pick a happy place and try to go there during labor.  The beach in Jamaica was my happy place.  Fast forward to labor with Carolyn and I proceeded to tell Brian what he could do with his happy place..  My happy place was an epidural.

With this next little one I will be giving birth in a German Hospital.  I will be able to get an epidural but I have heard it is different than American epidurals.  O Lord help me.  Anyway if this is the case I might go back to that original child birth class we took and try to find a happy place. (Seriously since this is my third I am really praying that she just falls out after one or two contractions.)

The picture below would be my Happy Place.

Naples

Next stop was Naples.  We decided to focus our day on doing the Rick Steve's tour of the city and eating of course.



We started with gelato which of course this little girl thought was wonderful.  We should have gelato for breakfast everyday.



Then we headed to the Archaeological Museum, where we were able to tour it with the best possible scenario with two kids.  Both were passed out the entire time we were in there.



This museum houses all of the art and artifacts that were excavated from Pompeii.   Maybe it was because we were able to tour the museum in peace but we really enjoyed it.



This museum also has a Secret Room where it houses all of the erotic art from Pompeii.  I thought there would be a sign saying now entering Secret Room something.  Nope Brian and I were walking around and all of a sudden it was like Is that a ... What are they doing....  O my goodness the people of Pompeii had some interesting art.  I was so glad that Carolyn was asleep during all of this.  I can only imagine the questions I would have gotten.



Naples is the birthplace of pizza and I had the best pizza of my life here.  I was too busy eating to get a picture of it.  We ended our day here with the most delicious cannoli but yet again too busy eating to photograph.  Naples was a beautiful city but a little dirty... I could definitely go for a slice of that pizza now.

That evening Carolyn got to meet Donald which was all kinds of exciting for her.  Any of the characters that she wanted to meet that weren't on the boat we would say "Well they must have missed the boat."  She would tell our waiter, anyone and everyone "Buzz and Jessie missed the boat."  She was very sad for them.

Palermo, Sicily

Our next stop was Palermo, Sicily.  We decided that we wanted to head to the beach this day.



Unfortunately so did everyone else in Palermo.  It was beautiful but kind of crowded.



On the bright side we had our own little spot on the beach and the people watching was quite entertaining.



Every fifteen minutes or so a different guy would come by selling fresh coconut.  I am not a huge coconut fan so it didn't sound appetizing to me, but these guys did big business.  It was like the Lemon Ice people on the beaches of South Carolina.



Here is also where I think Sidney's want to be naked came about.  All of the little Italian girls don't wear tops just their bottom of the bathing suits.  So Sid saw that and of course thought she just needed to wear her bottom too.



Back at the boat most nights before our dinner we would go to one of the bar areas and let the girls hear this lounge band.  They had a good time dancing and



Brian would enjoy a cocktail while I enjoyed whatever snacks they had out.

A cruise ship is a pregnant woman's dream.  Food everywhere.  Although I find it funny that I didn't gain any weight after this cruise but after my trip back to the States I gained 7 pounds.  Go Figure.

Malta

The first stop on our cruise was Valletta, Malta.  Malta is an island off the coast of Italy.



We walked around the city and then we headed to  the fishing village of Marsaxlokk.



I had seen pictures of this town with its bright blue, red and yellow boats and knew I wanted to visit here.





We thought that since we were in a fishing village we would be able to get some fresh seafood.  Unfortunately we had one of our worst meals in Europe.  I don't know if we just chose the wrong restaurant or if they were having an off day.  At least the scenery made up for the meal.



It was always nice to come back to the ship after our days of sight seeing.  Carolyn would stalk out some characters.  Although Sidney wasn't feeling Pinochio,



she decided to join in on the fun once Minnie was involved.



When I was going through my pictures this one made me a little sad.  I have to admit I miss the Mullet.  Sid had such a cute little Mullet.

The Boat

Brian was gone to the Czech Republic this weekend for work and my High Goal for myself while he was gone was to finally go through all of our cruise pictures.  You know the one we took back the end of June....



The Boat, The Food, The Service and The Characters were so much a part of what we enjoyed about this vacation.



Sidney had so much fun our first day on board the ship that she slept through our first dinner.



Carolyn loved being able to choose what she wanted off the menu.  And of course the fact that she got dessert each night.
She still asks me "Mom do you miss Zolt? (our waiter on the boat) I miss Zolt."  Little does she know how much some nights I miss Zolt.  Three course meals every night and someone to wait on you was nice!



The girls had a great time running around the boat together.



And only Disney would have a huge screen TV playing continuous Disney Movies.  Brian and I were able to relax and get some sun while the girls watched whatever movie was playing.



Our first day on board the ship they had a princess party and Carolyn got to meet all of the princesses.



I know I was pregnant and maybe a little hormonal but



watching Carolyn get so excited about meeting the princesses made me get teary eyed.



After she would give each princess a hug, she would coming running up to me with a big hug.  It was priceless and probably one of my favorite moments of our trip.  Her Daddy even got a little misty eyed watching her.  Unfortunately Sidney slept through the whole princess party.



There are many other wonderful parts of the boat that I didn't get a picture of like -
The Shows - we saw three Broadway type shows.  They were good enough to keep a 4 and 2 year olds attention.   And my husband actually enjoyed them as well.
The Fireworks - One night was pirate night and they had a huge pirate party and fireworks.  Which may sound a little cheesy but it was so much fun.
The Kids Club - where we could drop Carolyn off to and they would entertain her with various activities.  We would come to pick her back up and she would be running around in a dress up costume with her face painted and she wouldn't want to leave.

I am sure there are other things I am forgetting.  I could go on and on about how much we loved this cruise.  Brian and I have decided that we definitely want to do another one, but we want all of our children to be at least four. with baby number three not due till January we have a while to plan it.

First Day of School

Carolyn is not a morning person, but there were no complaints when we got her up for her first day of preschool.  She was so excited.



One last picture as we were headed out the door.



The report that I got from Carolyn's teacher was that she was so curious and eager to join into any activity that the class was doing.

Curious and Eager describe Carolyn to a T.

The only complaint Carolyn had was the boys didn't want to play with her, which made her daddy very happy.  He had a harder time than I with her starting school.  I think he is already envisioning the day when boys are calling our house.  Lord help us when that day comes.

Lots of Loves

I love this time of year.  Love the weather, the fact that my husband is home, football (even enough to watch some late night games with Brian since we are a 6 hour delay), and of course the start of school..



My baby starts preschool tomorrow.  Today after soccer practice she gave her coach a big hug and a kiss.  I can only imagine the treatment her teacher is going to get.



I also have much love for Pumpkins!  My kids obviously do too since they refused to take a picture without a baby pumpkin in hand.



Love this sassy little girl, who if she isn't running around naked (we are potty training), then she is being very opinionated about what she will wear.



It is a good thing that I  LOVE tutus, princess movies, bows galore and drama lots of drama because



we found out the good news that Baby number three is a GIRL.

In a Nut Shell

We have made the long journey back to Germany.  Slowly everyone in our house is getting adjusted and hopefully Brian will be home soon to  join us.  Just a few pictures from our trip because if I tried to do a post on everything it would never happen.  Since I have yet to share all of our pictures from our cruise we took back in July.  Anyway here is our trip in a nut shell.



We flew out and back on a KC-135 Tanker with the National Guard.  Not the best picture, but the only one I have of us inside the plane.  We all look a little scared.. maybe I was slightly doing an international flight by myself with the two girls.  Although I am not ready to jump on a plane today, both of our flights went smoothly and the girls only had a couple of moments.  But that is the great thing about flying a tanker it is so loud on it that no one can really hear when your kids have their moments.



Got to spend lots of time on the beach at GG's.





Very proud of her spanish mackerel she caught.





Love when the girls are so enthusiastic about pictures.



Got to reunite with our old friend Archie.



Sid's first ride.



She loved it actually had a fit when Carolyn was going to ride without her.



Fishing with Pops.





They caught 14 brim.  Carolyn being a true fisherwoman rounded up to 40.  14, 40 same thing.



Sidney would like to be naked all of the time.  She wanted to swim in the pond so bad.  If her Daddy had been there he would have probably gone out in that water with her.



I on the other hand would not and she had to settle with just her toes in the water.  Carolyn had no interest either in going in the pond water.



We ended our trip with play time with the cousins.





I am glad we got to have a little summer in the States because it is definitely looking more like Fall here in Germany.