This has been an epic trip so far with many highlights, but I will keep it short for now and will give full analysis once we make it back home. We arrived in Germany two days ago after stopping in Lucern, Switzerland. We have an event today in Ludswigburg for the bride and groom, and tomorrow the wedding will take place in a historic castle. The wedding will host people from six to seven different countries, and we have already met the Russians last night, so we're looking forward to meeting the rest of the contigent. In addition to the wedding tomorrow, it will be Ian's first bday and today our only goal is to hunt down a bday hat and candle and we'll be good. Only two more days in Germany and we'll be back in town on Monday. Looking forward to that, but in the meantime, we're enjoying every minute we have here. Until then...
We got in yesterday morning with out any problems on our flights. Minus a two hour meltdown on the last leg of our flight to Rome, Ian has been stellar. We have carted him all around for the past two days with nary a peep. What a guy. Since I have never been here before and have heard some negative things about Rome, I was little anxious to see for myself how things would pan out. So far, so good. We have had a five separate people help us out, whether it was getting Ian down the stairs with our luggage in tow, or help finding our B&B (yes, we got lost even with directions), I have to say that the locals have been exceptional. Today, we got a late start and headed to the Colloseum. It is a skeleton of its former self, but still impresive to the least. To top it off, I think I took around 50 pictures of the place, so there might be a good shot in there. After that, we then ventured over to the Roman Forum and I proceded to take another 100 pictures there. I am clearly losing my mind, but in a good way. Ancient Rome will do that to you, I tell ya. The weather has been scorching hot, around 95 degrees, so that has been the only negative so far. Tomorrow we are heading out to see the Vatican City, Sistine Chappel, and maybe the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain. It still feels a bit surreal that we are here, but I am so glad that we are! Ciao.
We have a busy schedule ahead of us the next couple of weeks and I won't be spending much time on the computer, so there's no better time than now to keep ya'll in the loop. Starting this weekend, my cousin/wife/kids and some close friends of ours are going to be spending the better part of the week hanging out, camping, and enjoying all of what the beautiful northwest has to offer. We are getting really excited to see everyone and I'm sure it's going to be an incredible time. We are then heading out overseas to Europe after everyone leaves here in Portland.
We are flying into Rome for the first part of the trip and staying in the historic part of the city. We are going to see sites like the Colosseum, the Vatican City, etc. Next, we will head up to Florence and check out some art museums, which is what you do when one goes there, right? During our stay in Florence we might do a day trip to Venice, which is up in the air right now, but I would say we are 80% committed at the moment. From Florence, we will then head up through Switzerland and may stay a night in Zurich. For our final destination we are heading to Stuttgart, Germany. We will be there for a couple of days for a wedding, which was the reason for the whole trip to begin with. This will be my first time overseas and am beyond excited. Of course, being of Italian decent, and to finally see the country I've always wanted to visit should hopefully be the highlight for me. I can't wait to experience the food, people, sites, and sounds of the homeland. Depending on how accessible the internet cafes are there, I might from time to time update my travels, so check back when you can.
Here we are, one month until you hit a year, and what a year it has been! When the milestone is reached, I assume I'll go back to writing more random stuff and throwing in the occasional cutesy luvbug moments in place of the monthly updates. This month has seen the most dramatic changes to date and it's exciting to see the transformation of this small child that is slowly turning into a little man.
He has a total of two teeth now (both bottom ones) and his top front two are about to poke through any day now. We have almost fully switched over to table food and ditched the old favorite rice cereal. This is a blessing and a curse. The blessing being that he can now just eat whatever we are eating. The curse is that you have to be a little more creative in what you're giving him -- I can't just give him hot dogs every meal (like I did with the good 'ol rice cereal), but on second thought, that might not be a bad idea! I mean, the way he scarfs these things down you'd think that we were holding out on him this whole time. Look Ian, you had to have rice cereal because you didn't have any teeth and now that you have teeth...ok, ok, you get what I'm putting down?
Let's see...what else is new? Oh yeah, he can now say a couple choice words, 'uh-oh' being his first and most favorite thing to say, to 'hi' or 'hiyaaa', and 'baahhh' (which he says when he is pointing to the nearest ball). He also says some unintelligible words like 'maaaaammmmmm' 'daaaa' 'daa', or 'datoo'...'datoo', which we think might be mama and dada, but that's debatable at the moment.
In addition to his new language skills, he is also starting to pick himself up and stand in place where ever the nearest furniture piece may be. The latter is what has struck me the most and it's really starting to hit me that my little guy is not so little any more. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely a turning point where one chapter is about to close and another is going to begin.
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