Roma

I booked us a place in Rome for a week over Spring break.

Because of our experience in London, I thought we would need a week to see everything we wanted to.  I really learned some great lessons on that London trip, however, and planned this trip much better.  We were actually done with all the major sites in 2 days and took the third day to travel out to Ostia Antica (which was amazing!) and so that left us with 4 days to visit all the lesser sites- um wayyyyy too long for the little ones and the husband who hates hordes of people.  I have to admit  that it was too long for me, as well!  I would have loved to have split it up with a  different kind of activity, like a beach day, but it wasn't quite warm enough nor close enough. 

I had originally planned to go down to Pompeii for a day, but hadn't reserved any rooms in Naples, so it was going to be a down and back kind of thing.  After researching it some more, we found that it was going to be around 6-7 hours of train riding round trip, plus the cost (close to 30 euros a person just to get to Naples and then whatever the train tickets were from Naples to Pompeii- this is when our internet stopped working! and then the tickets to get into Pompeii)  Then there would be all day long, walking around in the sun (no shade in Pompeii) to see a bigger version of Ostia.  We decided to not do that!  Instead we found some fun churches, an Italian Spring Festival, the USO on pizza day, and some beautiful parks!  We kicked the Vatican- because that's our thing.  We like to kick a few major sites in all our travels- we have kicked the Washington monument and the St. Louis Arch as well.  We went back to the Trevi fountain, when we could actually get close to the water!  We got ourselves in the middle of a huge protest with armed policemen everywhere!!  We even found the Hard Rock Cafe in Rome completely by accident and enjoyed an American style lunch, complete with free water with ice and with free refills!!  I know!  We were super excited, too!

The Metro was cheap and so I thought we would use that a few times, but we only used it twice- once to get up to the Vatican, so that we were on time for sure, and then one other time.  The rest of the time we walked everywhere.

One of the things we saw on our walks- a Roman arch on top of a house, or a house built around a Roman Arch- crazy!

Our children are amazing travelers- always have been.  We just don't put up with whining on trips and so they have all gotten used to it.  We also try to bring or buy plenty of food for snacks.  We let them play electronics when we get back to the places we are staying, so they can relax.  Even 8 year old Max kept up the whole time.  A couple of days we walked from our place that was 15 minutes south of the Colosseum all the way up to the Vatican or Villa Borghese park and back.  No one complained or lagged.  They really are awesome children!  Of course we don't force road march them.  We stopped on the way to take breaks in parks

 Sam made me daisy chains, because I asked him to

 The first time he did this, he fell and broke his back on that Roman cinderblock!

 we carried two backpacks full of food and became Hobbits.  We had elevensies, and lunch and tea and noonies.

and have snack breaks and see some sites along the way.

Day 1

Colosseum, Palentine Hill, and the Forum

You come upon the Colosseum first from the place we rented,

but we knew that wasn't the place to get tickets.  One of the people selling tours confirmed this.  The line didn't look so long, but she said it was, because it winds around on the inside of the Colosseum.  It was about a 2 hour wait at that time for tickets.  Instead she directed us up behind some trees to the newer Palentine Hill ticket office.

Sam getting stabbed by Rob on the steps on the Senate building

Casa della vestal virgins

We had to wait for about 6 people in front of us to get tickets there- that's it!  We could have taken our tickets and gone straight over to the Colosseum (they are combo tickets), but we decided to see the Forum and Palentine Hill first.

A Temple to Vulcan and the belly button of Rome

Those are the original doors and the lock still works

That took most of the day, but was really enjoyable, except for the fact that they are both hills and we could only find 2 of the 3 bathrooms in the area- one down at the bottom of one hill and one at the top.  I think we walked up and down hills at least 6 times.  We were so done by the end of the day!  We had downloaded all of Rick Steve's audio tours, so we listened to those as we went along.  

We forgot the splitters the first day, so we each had to just use an earbud and be attached to someone all day.

Afterwards, we went to the Colosseum and enjoyed getting straight in!

The whole day was amazing!  When you see these huge things that were built BC, medieval castles don't seem so amazing any more!

Day 2

The Vatican Museums and St. Paul's

We took advice and booked tickets on line ahead of time to get into the Vatican Museums.  Tour guide selling people (they were selling tours, not people) along the way kept bugging us, telling us that we would still have to wait in a 3 hours line to get into St. Paul's after going through the museum.  I was a little worried about that, but we are just too cheap to pay for a tour for all of us.  We got straight into the museums with our tour tickets- the line was huge!!!  I was so glad we had booked ahead of time.  The museum was wonderful. 

We loved their courtyard. 

Laocoon

 The Sistine Chapel was so crowded with people and they just kept packing them in.  We stood our ground though and listened to our Rick Steve's audio tour.  We had them downloaded on our iPhones, so at one point, I switch to camera mode, flipped the camera angle and took a picture of the ceiling without the guard throwing a huge fit.

You can see God creating the earth in these scenes

They were actually throwing people out for taking pictures.  When we were done, we used Rick Steve's tip of blending in with a tour group to go the short cut route to St. Paul's.  We figured the worst that could happen was a security guard would make us go back and through the other exit.  There were two tour groups leaving at the same time, so I think we blending in easy enough.  We by-passed a long walk and a long line through security and got straight into St. Paul's.  It is huge!!

 The holy door only opened ever 25 years

 Pieta

After St. Paul's and a nice lunch outside on the steps,

Swiss guard with Michaelangelo designed outfits- Sweet!

we made our way down to take a quick peak at Castle St. Angelo, 

over the Angel Bridge

and down Via Dei Coronari where we got exotic gelato flavors.  I had grapefruit and pineapple with mint.  I really liked it after the initial shock of, these things don't go together!

We checked out Piazza Navona, then hopped over to the Pantheon.

We kept on walking, hoping to find a bathroom somewhere, towards the Trevi Fountain.  We found a Lindt chocolate store, instead!

So yummy! And they had a bathroom, as well.  We met our neighbors, the Fary's, at the Trevi Fountain.  We had just bumped into an old friend of Max's, from Ohio, at St. Paul's.  Small world!  We went to a recommended restaurant for dinner, but won't recommend it ourselves.  The pizza was good, but the pasta tasted mushy and warmed over.  We ended the night at the Spanish steps,

where Emma and I were forced to take flowers and then made to pay for them.  I almost put mine down and walked away, when Rob came up and payed way too much for them.  He said, he needed change for the metro, anyway.  I tried to find a way to get them home, but they would have never made it.

Day 3

Ostia Antica

Ostia is about 20 minutes away from Rome- towards the ocean.  It used to be at the mouth (Ostia) of the Tiber river .  The Tiber river changed course and so the town was abandoned.  It is cheap to get out there, because it is considered part of the metro line, even though you go another place and get on a train- so you only pay the metro fair for one trip (1.5 euros.)  It was a little crowded with school field trips, but once you got inside, the city is big enough that you don't see much of those people. 

 These mosaics are outside of shops to tell what they are- fish merchant?

 Ivory or exotic pets?

We got stopped once by the kids, to ask us if we had seen any of the pictures on their scavenger hunt and we helped them out.  The audio tours really helped things come alive.  We loved running around the cemetery (the sepulchers were amazing!), 

seeing the baths of Neptune, 

the bakery

and the theater.

Joe, Max and Sam even put on a play for us.

As we came out of Ostia, we suddenly realized a) we really didn't need to use the restroom and b) somebody was getting fired from a tour bus company when they got home, tonight!  Emma's little bit of Spanish got her to understand the Italian man that decided to tell us all about it.  Apparently there were people in the bathrooms and on the tour bus at the time!  I guess they were in the right place for getting things scared out of you!

Day 4

Terme di Caracalla,  Circus Maximus, Bocca de Verita

We had seen these old ruins down by our place, but weren't sure what they were.  We decided this day, that we were going to go check them out.  They ended up being a huge public bath house for all free Roman's.

Look how huge they were!

We went and ran around the Circus Maximus

and then waited in line to see if the Bocca would snap our hands off!

 Sam was getting his snapped off, that's why he was moving so fast!  Luckily, he got his arm out in time!

The church was pretty inside, but had this little gem on leaving. 

Nice!

We also saw the Piazza Venezia with their big statues of Castor and Pollux (we had to learn who they were, afterwards.)  I told them that the stairs going up to the Santa Maria in Aracoeli were supposed to make you win the lottery if you went up on your knees.  Sam really wanted to try, but Rob was having none of it.  There were a lot of people there!

The temple of Hercules

We went around the Jewish ghetto and across the bridge onto the Isola Tiverina island, but the kids were kind of beat, so we didn't finish our Jewish Ghetto audio tour before we went home and ate grocery store pasta and canned sauce, 

because the restaurants not in tourist areas don't open for dinner hours until 7:30 pm.  

Day 5

Trevi fountain, again, USO, Trajan Markets, Trajan Column, Time Elevator

You can get a lot closer to the fountain in the morning times.

Sam and Max both found coins that didn't quite make it into the fountain that they used for their own coin toss.  Poor Joe- we couldn't find another one for him.

Afterward, we walked to the USO and made it in time for Pizza Friday's.  Some one also brought chocolate chip cookies and of course we got our free soda.  We enjoyed hanging out and talking with all kinds of people who had stopped by as well.  It wasn't easy to find.  I had the exact address and that's the only way we found it.  It almost looks abandoned, but it has a little tiny sticker on the door with USO on it.  You have to ring the door bell and show them your ID card to get in.

On our way home, I pouted until I got my way of going to see the show in the Time elevator.  It is actually a horrible flight simulator that shakes you up like crazy while they show you the history of Rome and how it all looked then.  It was interesting, but made me sick.  

We also saw the Trajan Markets, the Trajan Column.

First shopping mall

Day 6 

Villa Borghese park, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Hard Rock Cafe, Fests and Protest

We walked up to Villa Borghese this day, stopping to visit San Giovanni in Laterano church (which ended up being Rob's favorite for all the statues of the apostles)

 St. John- Notice he is writing

and San Clemente (which we didn't tour).  We tried to see Santa Maria della Vittoria, also, but it was closed for Siesta.  We also found a Spring fest going on.  The little boys participated with some other children in learning to fight, gladiator style.

They said they were promoting their big festival on April 21st.  As far as we could understand, that is their day of Nationalization.  "Big day in Italy!"  That is about all we could understand.  But we bought a couple of their buttons and they said something that looked like National on them. The gladiators had a lot of fun with the kids, so we enjoyed taking a break and watching.

We found the Hard Rock Cafe on our way up to the Villa Borghese and determined to have dinner there.  

After a nice walk around the park

 The Temple of Sam

 The Temple of Max

The Temple of Joseph

Emma didn't want a temple

to find a potty- they really don't have enough of those in Rome, although there are free public fountains with drinkable water everywhere-

we went back to the Hard Rock Cafe for an early dinner,

 then made our way back to see Santa Maria della Vittoria.  Rob really wanted to see it, because it was one of the churches in the book, Angels and Demons.

 We had noticed a large police presence when we came up in the morning with yellow tape everywhere.  Just before we made it to the church, we found out why.  There was a huge protest going on.

The police were all in their riot gear with their helmets on and shields up and ready.  The first wave of protestors seemed to be carrying signs that had x's over what looked like a metro and the word casa everywhere.  I knew the metro was still building, so I figured they were protesting it coming through their housing areas.  The next wave, though had pictures of a satellite x'ed out and Russian flags and Russian flags along side of Italian flags.  We decided that it was a good time to not look too American.  This is about the time that the police let us go around them to the church.  I think they just didn't want anyone behind them any more.  We were out in the open with the protestors for about 100 yards.  I wasn't feeling real comfortable about that.  We made it to the church steps and then I felt a little better.  When more men with ski masks came waving colored smoke and linked arms with lots of chanting and waving Russian flags, we headed into the church to take a look.  This one had a Bernini statue of the ecstasy of St. Teresa 

- which was weird and the overcoming of Mary of the heretics that changed the bible into the common language.  

The fountain outside of the church

It was a wonderful vacation, but we are officially done with Rome!  Check!  I got on the plane the next day and sighed, relieved. 

We made it a whole week in Rome and no one got pick pocketed! 

Some of the street performers 

My camera started acting up, but that just convinced Rob that I needed a new camera- score!  We walked an average of 1400 calories off a day and saw some of the coolest stuff in the world!  Next time, though, we need a beach vacation!

The Accidental Cupcake Addition

I have decided that I want to learn to make amazing cupcakes like they do in the cupcake shops.  I have been finding recipes and trying them out.  

I tried these ones.  They were good, but tart!  And the frosting just turned all sloppy.  I have learned to freeze the cupcakes before I start frosting and to keep the frosting cool as well.  Then I made these.

They were super yummy.  I combined a recipe for strawberry cupcakes (with real pureed strawberries!) with a lemon butter cream frosting that I just made up.  I am starting to get the icing right.

I love my silicone cupcake holders, but they don't take well and I don't want to give them away, so I decided to buy some cute polka dotted paper ones on Amazon- because I buy everything on Amazon now that I live in Europe.  I am pretty sure Amazon is kept in the green by the military community living outside the US!  So, here they come- cute little polka dotted cupcake papers all in different colors.  But as they are coming from Amazon, they also come in a huge box.  Rob rides his bike to and from work (about 8miles each way) most days and doesn't have room for a huge Amazon box.  He decided to take the cupcake papers out of the box and lined them up on his desk in preparation for coming home.  In walks his boss, takes a look at his desk and says, "What's up... cupcake?"  Rob challenged anyone in the office, right then and there, to call him that, again.  No one did, but the next week there was a new sign made for the office.  Outside it had all their names, with the addition of nicknames- like they are in the Air Force or something.  Ok- almost all of them are Air Force.  Rob and his boss are the only ones that aren't.  His boss is a civilian who was Army and then Rob, as the lone active duty Army guy.  I guess they were all just waiting until they could find a proper nickname for Rob.  No one has officially called him Cupcake to his face, but there is a sign outside the door that say, Lt. Col Robert, Cupcake, Kress.  Whoops- sorry, honey!

Easter Market in Maulbronn

Friday we worked at the Patch Bazaar with the scouts, but Saturday, we dropped our scouts off to work and then headed to Maulbronn to check out their Easter Market.  It was held in an amazing Kloster.

Rob saw this sign and read it Bez-erker Kloster and decided it was where the Berzerk nuns worked.

Of course it really means visitors to the Kloster. But when we were looking at the buildings one of the handles popped up and made a bang and we decided it must be some bezerk-er nuns coming to tell us to go away!    

Right before you get into the kloster there is this beautiful graveyard terraced onto the hillside.

It takes up about 3 terraces and then the rest is terraced with a vineyard.  Gorgeous!

Festive Fountain in the middle of the square.

The room wasn't very big that they had the Easter Market in, but for a tiny space, it seemed to hold a whole lot of amazing artists!

We saw eggs of every variation and all beautiful.  We saw some eggs where they had pin pricked parts of them out until they were the most amazing lattices with gorgeous pictures embedded in them.  Those were around 200 Euro.  We decided to stick with a few painted ones.  These are actually painted and then the design is scraped into it with a razor. 

We had three (one for Emma- the butterfly one, one for me the red, and one for Max- the Green.)  You can't see the green, because Max already broke it.  Smashed!  12 Euros down the toilette!  Not even a picture to commemorate it.  

We also bought the three goose eggs which are already blown out for us.  They had every variety of egg to choose from.  We almost got a peking duck one, but it was a lot thinner than the goose eggs.  With all the moving that we do, we decided we better get some hardy eggs!  We will try our hand at decorating them later.

After getting our eggs and looking around the kloster a little, we had butterwaffeln with puderzucker .  Emma and Dad didn't think they wanted any, but they ate half of Max and Mom's!  

I love it when I overhear people's conversations and learn about amazing things like this Easter Market in Maulbronn!

You're Killing me Smalls

I love technology.  I love that I can keep seeing all the places people have gone and have them write up hints and tricks that they found while visiting those places.  I love that I can ask on our community web page if anyone has seen my children and someone almost always answers to let me know where they are.  I love our community where you can put up that you are in need of such and such and someone always has it and says they will run it right over.  But technology, also, brings out the crazies.  There was the one lady that wanted to know if there was an adult store somewhere close, since her husband was deployed.  That got all kinds of comments from people being outraged to the swingers who wanted to invite her down to their parties.   There was the lady who wrote that she was teaching a yoga class at such and such an hour.  That started out fine, but soon people were asking where the gym was and what the hours were and other gym related questions.   This sent her off in a rage, that people would dare hijack her 2 seconds of fame!  There are the multiple shame pictures of a filthy garbage area or non picked up dog poop which grosses everyone out. Then there was the lady today who had a 2 year old playing on the playground meant for smaller children.  An older child happened to be swinging on the swings in that particular park and hit her child in the stomach.  He swore it was an accident, but she couldn't be sure, because you see, she wasn't there.  She then finishes her comments with this gem, "please talk to your children about staying off the park that is meant for smaller children, or better yet, supervise your children yourselves!" Hmmmmm?

I have laughed at these people privately, but sometimes I roll my eyes right back into my head and think, "Is this what America has become?"  It scares me that these are the people who are defending our country.  I don't comment.  I try to fly under the crazy radar at much as possible.  I just store up all those comments I would like to write to these people.  But, I think it is time to let them out.  

"Woman, nobody wants to know that you do that kind of thing!  If you really need some self gratification- find a friend you can ask privately or use google search engine.  It was invented especially for that kind of question.  Please leave your private life off of our community page!"

"Swinging is nasty, immoral and you're all going to hell."  That is all.

"Lady, yours is a yoga class, I never want to attend!  There is a serious lack of Zen going on over there!  Take a large chill pill and sleep it off!"

"Nobody and I mean Nobody wants to see another picture of dog poop pop up in their browser, so stop taking pictures of it!  Yes, there is a person out there seriously disobeying the rules, but let's just pray for a little karma and hope they slip in their own pile once or twice!"

And finally...

"Wow, irony isn't your thing, is it?!  I know I have said some dumb things a time or two in the heat of the moment.  I am sure that it was very upsetting for you to be called away from your beer and sunbathing to take care of your screeching child.  Taking one look at your child, I'm sure your first reaction was to run to the computer and write a scathing remark to all those parents that don't supervise their children!  Truer words were never written- parents, please supervise your children!" (irony)

And I'm out!

Poland

I traveled to Poland with a group of ladies the other week.  I'm not much of a girls weekend away kind of person, so I went with two ladies who were the same and we did it in two days instead of three like the rest of the group.  Poland is about 6 hours away. 

Poland looked just like I though it would- old and breaking down.  Sometimes you would see these amazing houses right in the middle of a bunch of broken down ones.  We just loved all the textures and wanted to run our families up here to take family pictures.  This was a church with broken windows that we thought was gorgeous with the rectory possibly beside it.  The house next to it, look like your typical haunted mansion!

We passed Dreseden on our way up(I really wanted to stop!!) and look what we saw- a Kress store or Manufacturing place. 

We stayed at the Blue Beetroot which is a lovely 5 star hotel with a wonderful restaurant. 

We bought Polish pottery.  See my Chicken?  I love him!  He is a whistle.  I bought one for Emma too.  I was trying to think of something to get her to start her college, moving on stash- probably a chicken whistle wasn't the best option, but it's still awesome!

 and then went to the Mission that is just 30 minutes away

The mission is in an old castle.  Since this part of Poland used to be in Germany, when the war ended, many of the places were pulled down as a way of breaking from Germany.  This survived mostly intact.  

It has this amazing building next to it which used to be an old sanitarium.  They brought soldiers here that became disillusioned by Hilter and slowly tortured them to death.  After the war, someone burnt it down.  It is unsafe to go into it now.

We bought Nativity sets from them.  He also gave us a tour of the mission which is open to host individuals, families and groups.

For just 10 euros a night per person you can stay in one of their rooms!

We have a group of ladies from our base that is going up soon to do some missionary work there. 

 It was a fun group.

  We are now thinking of doing a run down to get some Italian pottery in Nove.  So pretty!

Putt-putting with the partners

I wanted to come up with something fun to do as couples in February for the Relief society weekday meeting.  This is one activity that my mother-in-law said was one of her favorites from her ward- indoor golf.  I asked several ladies or groups of ladies and their husband's- if they had husband's around (some were deployed) to come up with a golf hole.  We had 9 holes in various rooms of the building and they were all completely different.    Here are just some of the holes that people came up with.  

This one was about getting to the temple despite the road blocks.

Besides making the Swiss chalet, she painted that background picture!

Just one of the holes that the President came up with in case someone didn't show up with theirs!  I know, gorgeous, right??

Her second hole- so cute!

This one was killing everyone- I only know of one person that made it through one of the two openings, the rest of us smacked it hard and got it over the pipes instead!

Part of our team- that up and down was wicked!

These guys actually had a green.  

Most of the people didn't have golf clubs, or if they do, they didn't bring them over to Europe with them, so we brought Rob's whole set and put a different club at each of the holes, which made it even more challenging- imagine putting with a 9 iron.  Yah- it made no difference to me!! Ha ha!

Robert did a talk on communication in marriage and then we golfed in teams and had root beer floats.  The YM/YW did the babysitting for us.  It was one of the best attended activities we have had and lots of fun.

Before the day came, though, I had a complete melt down.  My leader and my committee were all taken away and those who were supposed to get the babysitting things done, didn't- so in the end I did the entire thing.  I did movies, a craft (candy necklaces), a game (soccer with a blow up ball and chalkboards as goals) and snacks for the little ones.  The YM/YW were fabulous at keeping them happy and occupied.  

I also thought no one was coming, because everyone I talked to said they weren't!  I thought I had asked the YM/YW to come to something that no one was going to show up at.  One of the bus stop moms on hearing me freak out, said, "why don't you just let them play with you, then."  Hmm.. after I thought about it, I realized that was a good idea.  That way, I stopped worrying about what ifs.  In the end, they didn't get to golf, because there were too many people that showed up.  Even though it was a big success we have decided to cut the number of activities.

We are sort of in a unique situations.  We are in Europe, so at the least opportunity people are traveling and seeing the sites.  In fact, I left the very next morning for Poland and would have left the day before if it hadn't been for the activity I was in charge of.  The area is large and traffic congested, so getting to the church in under 45 minutes at that time of night, is a score.  Besides traveling, there are tons of things going on with the military community- husband's are frequently gone, or busy until all hours, there are committees and events that have to be attended, there are office parties and military balls and teas with the General's wife.  People get tired of so many commitments.  With the church a little drive away, having to go up twice a week is too much, but sometimes you have to go 3 or more. With all the other stuff going on, it just ends up being too much.

This activity was a lot of fun, but in the end, we decided that although many of the sisters need to get together for fellowship, especially those whose husband's are deployed, that coming to the church one more day a week, just isn't fulfilling that need.  We have some reworking to do.  But thankfully, I have a committee again to help me do just that!

Olympic Cuteness

The Second grade decided to do an Olympics at our Elementary this February in conjunction with the Winter Olympics.  The kids were assigned a country. Then they made a flag and medals.  The medals  were passed out to the 1st and 2nd place person at each of about 10 stations.

I had a video to show you them walking in carrying their flags while they played the Olympic anthem, but it wouldn't load. I will try again, later- so cute!

I went in and helped.  I took the high jumping station.  They reached as far as they could and made a mark with a piece of chalk and then they jumped and made another mark.  Then we measured between the lines.  I learned a new thing.  Second graders do not understand fractions beyond 1/2 and they don't even know how to write 1/2.  I was confusing them so much when I said, 9 3/8. 

 What?  How do you write that?  Does that mean I got 938?  Um, no! 

 After the 2nd or 3rd group, I started writing with the chalk on the paper so that they could see how to write it.

I had one little girl who came through who didn't have a single medal.  I felt so bad when she didn't get 1st or 2nd in my group either, so I awarded a 3rd place to her.  Of course they had to call me out on it, but I explained quietly that I wanted to give a 3rd place that time and then one of the little guys said, "oh, so she will have a medal?"  They were all Ok with it when I nodded my head.  

Max was supposed to have Sweden.

He said they wouldn't let anyone be the United States, because everyone wanted it.  Someone got it in the end.  I explained that being Sweden in the Winter Olympics was a pretty good deal! (Not so much in the Summer Olympics.)  He did pretty well.  This is him about half way through and look at all those medals!

So much cuteness!