Bouncing Boys!

Cora's another year older!

I can't believe our baby girl is now 7!  It seems like just yesterday we called her baby Cora, and she was my little shopping buddy.  Going everywhere that I went.  I have to admit, I miss those days.  However, it is super fun to see what a fine young lady she is turning into.  She is a super reader, loves math and loves to go to school.  She also has been progressing really well in her piano lessons this year, especially impressive since her instructor is German who speaks very little understandable English...and her music books are all in German too.  Still she master's everything placed before her.

This year Cora wanted a gingerbread house themed party.  Her reasoning is that her birthday will never ever be in December by Christmas.  Well, Cora, that is very true.  So we invited some girls over and we made gingerbread houses.  Then we put one on top of her cake (chocolate cake with the most fabulous nutella frosting ever!) as a decoration.  It actually turned out really fun.

 All Cora wanted this year was an American Girl look a like doll.  She had already picked out the one she wanted and everything.  She got her hearts desire, but because everyone else gave her accessories and gifts associated with the AG doll she hadn't received yet...she got to open her main present (the doll) first.  (we usually like to save the main presents for last...but not this time)

 Jack kept posing whenever Matt tried to take a picture of Cora.  Most are cut out, but it was hilarious!

 Hannah quickly went up and got her doll and clothes too, and both girls preceded to deck out their dolls.  It was fun to watch.

And here she is, complete with her new doll (named Cori), matching jammies Aunt Trudy made (she also made clothes and scarves for Cora with some assistance from her boyfriend), Her dolls new puppy, and a new bed for the puppy from her Aunt and Uncle. 

Look at that smile...I think it was a magical birthday!

Last day spent in Italy to blog about...Florence

Matt does not like to drive in small, narrow Italian towns.  

Added to the stress of small and narrow are the ZTL restriction areas that pop up all over.  Basically it stands for "Town center traffic limitation"  So, you are driving around...trying to find your way, when all of a sudden a small ZTL sign pops up (looks like a little bullseye), and you think...wait, are we in the center, did we pass the barrier, ahhh!  There are cameras, police, all manner of ways they catch and charge you with a hefty fine, because you don't have a special permit to drive in the town center.  We have heard stories about unsuspecting individuals who have racked up a few of these babies as the wove in and out of ZTL areas.  Then when they got home they received nice farewell gifts from Italia in the mail, in the form of hundred Euro fines.  So, this made us very nervous to drive in Italian cities.  Florence was no exception, and one of the worst we had heard.  We were tempted to just train in from Pisa, but many locals we talked with assured us it was easy to drive too, faster to drive too, and no headache at all.  So we tried it, and it wasn't so bad.  We parked up at the Piazzo di Michelangelo, another tip from our friend Rick, because it was free, and it gave a wonderful over view of florence.

 Firenza

Most of what we did in Florence was museums, and not many photographs are allowed in the museums.  So, we don't have many pictures to document our stay in Florence.  It rained, like we had never seen rain before.  This was torrential down pour that soaked us all through in a matter of minutes.  So, luckily, most of our sight seeing was indoors.

Above is this cute little elevator inside the Ufizzi museum.

There we saw such great works as "The Birth of Venus", several Di'Vinci's and Rembrandt (surprisingly) along with some Donatello.  It was awesome,   I am so glad we took the time to go.

 eating a snack after touring the Ufizzi (which claims to be the first art museum in the world)

 Next on our stop was the small, often overlooked, Galileo museum of Science.

Anya really wanted to go hear, and it was really interesting to see a piece of how this great mind worked.  He definitely was a great visionary.  Plus, it got us out of the torrential rains...

 Galileo

 Galileo's finger on display...interesting.

Anya doesn't think it is real :)

 The Duomo

We didn't stop inside, we were wet, hungry and on our way to our appointment to the Accademia before it started raining again, so we just enjoyed the outside during the brief break in the rain

I want this door knocker, I think he is very majestic

 Getting lost in Florence...

Goodbye Florence,

the sun decided to shine right as we made it back to our car and getting ready to head to our hotel.

Oh, well, it was still a great trip, and we got to see so many amazing sights and pieces of history.

I really enjoyed touring the Academia, and seeing Michelangelo's "David".  I didn't realize how huge the statue is.  My favorite part was seeing all the marble statues he had started, but never finished.  It was really intriguing to see humans forming out of blocks of stone.

We could have done without the rain, and probably would have seen more of Florence without it, but I think we still did the best we could have and enjoyed it!

Hannah turns double digits!

We now have two kids in double digits!  Hannah celebrated her 10th birthday in style.  This year she chose to have one friend sleep over, so that will take place Friday night.  We had a raging family party for her last night.  For her birthday dinner she picked Popeyes chicken...makes it easy for mom :)

Dad picked up the chicken on his way home, and then we had cake, ice cream and opened presents!

This year Hannah wanted a chocolate cake with blue frosting and lots of sprinkles!

I tried to tier it, but I needed to make the bottom layer a bigger size.  You couldn't really tell that the top was smaller after it was frosted.  It still tasted scrumptious though!

And Hannah loved it!

 10 candles, jeesh, blow them all out daughter of mine.

 She got a blue ipod shuffle, she has been wanting one for a long time.  Right after she opened it she had dad create a playlist and sync it for her.  Then she was "plugged" in for the rest of the night.

What have we started?!

(awe, look at that baby Hannah in the background.  She was eating her first meal of rice cereal in that video)

Some of her other favorites were the matching jammies her Aunt made her for herself and her AG doll, whom she named Elise (which is her middle name).  Her other Aunt (and Uncle) sent her Pepper, a pet dog, for her doll.

I think she had a really fun birthday.  Plus we had let her stay up almost until 10pm on a school night (big mistake?  quite possibly!)  She was just so excited to get all her new things set up, and then started a new book from the wonderful pile she got from Grandma J...it was very hard to deny her.

It was her birthday after all...

Happy Birthday Hannah!

We are so glad you are in our family.  There is never a dull moment with you around and we wouldn't have it any other way!

The Caesar Shuffle, or Ancient Rome

To start off the day, we walked along Rome towards the Colosseum.

I love how you can be walking along, and there amidst modern day buildings are ancient day ruins.

 Anya LOVED this.

The other kids thought it was cool and all, but they didn't really "grasp" it.

 I was a pretty constant wet and dribble sort of day.  I love how "done" with being wet, Hannah looks in this picture.  With the magnificent Arch of Constantine in the back ground.  

 The Colosseum.

or Flavian Amphitheater

roughly 2000 years of magnificence.

 Jack found something funny.

silly boy!

 After walking past the Colosseum (we would tour that bad boy later), we headed over to Palatine Hill.  We had read that the lines for tickets are much shorter there, and it is a combo ticket that includes the Colosseum.  The line at the Colosseum was horrendous...so we decided to take this advice.  Sure enough there was NO line at the Palatine, we walked right up to the ticket counter, and then right in to climb the hill of palaces.  Bonus was, now that we had our tickets, there would be NO line waiting for anything the rest of the day!

Here, above, is the imperial Palace.

 This is the ruins of the stadium on Palatine Hill.  They couldn't just go across the street to the Colosseum, no, the people in this elite neighborhood needed their own stadium for their own entertainment.

 Anya loved this day!  They are studying ancient Rome in her Social Studies class.  So she was throwing out little tidbits of information all day.  She loved that she could touch so much history.  Could she be like her mama?

 Constantine's Basilica

This was not a church, but a mammoth hall of Justice.

 Temple Romus

now used as a library for the Archeologists.

I found it interesting that these doors are the original doors...very unique to this area.

 Temple of Saturn, Arch of Septimius Severus and the modern capital Hill in the background.

I loved the mix of Old and "new" that was all over.

 Inside Julius Caesar's Temple.  This is the spot where he was cremated after his assassination

 The Column of Phocus

Oh Forum Hill this was the last monument.   It was a last gift from the Byzantine Empire to a dwindling Rome.  It was the symbolic ending of a great empire, a last nail in it's coffin (Rick Steve's)

 The Temple of Saturn

This was the Forum's oldest temple, estimated at 497 b.c. 

Basically this is where Rome's national treasury was kept.

 Now we are back to the Colosseum.

After standing in NO lines, we are inside this great structure.

 Anya is so HAPPY.

This was her favorite day by far.

 This shows the maze of the underbelly of the Colosseum.  That is where the gladiators were kept, along with whatever they were fighting.  They were led through mazes of hallways until they came to the lift that would bring them up to the fighting arena.  the partial wood floor is modern, built to give us an idea of what it would have looked like.  Of course, back then it would have been across the whole arena.

 

 The Arch of Constantine

This marks the victory of Constantine in the battle of the Milvian Bridge.

Basically this battle eventually led to legalized Christianity.

 When a boy needs a bum change, he needs a bum change.

What better place then an ancient, roman, Column

 Jack having fun in the puddles.

We could not get him to hold still.

He was a little blur the whole time!

One last shot of the Colosseum

This one shows the different columns used on each level. 

Anya could tell us what each kind where and what they symbolized.

It was fun having our own personal tour guide!

That concludes our trip to Rome.  It was fun, and packed with activities.  I am sure we didn't uncover even half of Rome, but we saw all the things we had planned to see.  So that was a success in our book!