Holy smokes, moving to a new country is no joke. We have been here for over 3 months which I can not believe it and I still do not feel settled. We have been told by pretty much everybody that it takes about 6 months before you really start to feel settled so hopefully that is true because I don't know how much longer of this craziness I can take. Everyday I feel like we experience something new and we are still trying to get our house together to make it feel like a home. Quinn is in school 5 days a week as well as dance 2 days a week and that keeps us busy. We have been trying to travel as much as possible also so basically the blog is not getting done ever! I am really going to try and get caught up because at the end of the year every year I print it out into our family "yearbook" and I don't want to miss a lot of the great things we did this year that I still have not blogged about!!!
A few weeks ago... ok I think it was actually over a month ago... we went on a trip with the travel agency on base. It was our first time trying out doing a trip with them and it was fun. I don't know if we will do more or not just because it was a very long day with kids! We went to a town called Aquileia which is about an hour or so away and has Roman ruins. It was a very cute town and we were able to check out the Roman ruins, see the church and just explore a little on our own. We found a great pizza place for lunch with a playground that the kids loved. It is very common here for restaurants to have playground or play areas for kids, it makes it so nice and I don't know why we don't do that more in America. Also, everywhere here has pizza with french fries on it.... also don't know why they don't know that in the US.
The kids are super fun to try and get a picture of these days.
Quinn did so great on the tour. We didn't take a stroller because we were not sure if it was going to be stroller friendly. So I carried Finley, Dave carried Leo and Quinn walked the whole day! She is such a big girl and really is a trooper. I love that (for the most part) our kids are very go with the flow. We had a tour guide to take us around the Roman ruins which was very informative. Quinn's favorite part of the tour was a random fairy tree that somebody had made along the walkway. :)
Some of the Roman ruins, they have been built up using what has been found in the area but the red stones are not original.
After the tour, we did lunch on our own. We found a cute little pizza shop that had pizza with brie cheese on it, which is quickly becoming my favorite.
After lunch we walked back to the center of town and were able to do a tour of the church and the bell tower. It was beautiful.
I loved the trees surrounding the church.
Our tour guide was Italian and she asked us what our kids names were. She then asked us why they have such strange names.
The floors had clear walkways over them so that you could see the floor but not step on it and ruin it. The kids were having the hardest time walking on it, they could not figure it out, it was pretty funny.
After checking out the church we decided to walk to the top of the bell tower, that was fun. I was carrying Finley and by time we got to the top I was beat! Then we had to walk all the way town which I thought was actually harder. It was a very small stairway and there were several times we had to shove the kids into the window holes to let other people pass us that were coming down or going up.
The view from the top was great and the breeze felt pretty nice also since I was sweating by time we got there!
I love how Finley is always just "hanging out" in our family pictures.
After we left Aquileia we drove for about 45 minutes to a little seaside town called Grado. It is on the Adriatic Sea and was so pretty. It was our first time seeing the Adriatic Sea so that was pretty fun.
We did not pack swimming clothes because it wasn't that warm but next thing I knew they were both IN the water. Glad I at least brought a change of clothes.
We spent our time there walking along the boardwalk and letting the kids play in the sand/water. We got to see some of the town as well as we walked to find something to eat. We ended up grabbing burgers at a little shop because that sounded delicious and it was!! It is funny how much you miss American food when you can't really get it. There are NO fast food restaurants here so that makes life just a little more difficult. You don't realize how many conveniences you have until they are GONE!
These kiddos did not last very long once we got on the bus. They were great. It was a long day and they did so good!! It was a fun day trip and I am glad we went. We learned a lot and got to see some neat things.
Here are a few pictures from my phone because I don't know how many "day to day" posts I am going to do.
After we got back from our day trip- Leo built this with his blocks and said it was a church. Also, Leo loves to go with me to the cafe after we take Quinn to school. He usually gets a sprite (I let him get a treat when we go, he usually does not drink pop) but today he got a milk and she put a cute smiley face on it for him.
Quinn has school 5 days a week which is a tough transition for us since we are not morning people. More days than not we are running late and a hot mess by time we get there. This day Leo was still in his PJ's and was eating oreos for breakfast. I am not kidding that moving to a new country is hard, I feel like I will never get it together! The other day I was taking Quinn to school and my friend was home with the little ones. As we drove there Q said she was hungry and that she didn't finish her breakfast, which I did not know that because I was running around like crazy getting her school stuff ready. I was going to stop by the cafe and get her a brioche but didn't have any euro so I found a cookie in my door and gave it to her to eat. She said, "it's okay mom, I just ate the goldfish crackers out of Leo's carseat!" I was cracking up, mom of the freaking year right here! See I knew there was a reason I shouldn't clean out my car... we always have something to eat.
I love this picture. The base here has fighter jets just like Hill and they can be pretty loud when they take off. Leo does not like the noise but he likes to watch them. Anytime we are on base and they are taking off he will stand there and watch them but cover his ears.
Travel is good, life is good.
