Merry Christmas!

There must be two very good little girls that live in this house!

Some adrenaline kicked in Christmas morning for Grace to make a brief recovery.  But she still doesn't look like herself, at all.

I didn't get very many pictures of the actual unwrapping of the gifts.....but the girls were thrilled with all their new pressies.

A family shot, with at least two smilers....

Our Christmas Crowns during our Christmas feast!

Christmas Eve

Grandma and Grandpa Caspermeyer were in Belgium this year to celebrate Christmas with us!

Lots of stories with Grandma!

Christmas Eve Feast!

Poor Grace spent most of the day on the couch with what I now believe was the flu! :(  She was so pathetic.

Hoska ready for Christmas morning!

Pistoia

On our last day in Tuscany, we wanted to take it easy.... a week's long vacation can be exhausting when you're going, going, going.....


We decided to head over to Pistoia, which is only about 20 minutes from where we were staying.  It was a great little town, and absolutely THE best meal we had  in Italy the entire week.  Unfortunately at this point I don't even remember what we ate, but I guess it is important that we went to a little known town, with very little tourist industry, and got off the beaten path a little.  And voila.  Best meal in Italy!

Here a few shots from the town itself....

Where we were staying was very near the Carrara Marble mines.  I bet countertops are CHEAP!   And check out the facade of the church...

Here is an album from Pistoia:  Pistoia

And that officially concludes our trip to Italy.  I hope to get back again.  It was a dream come true!

San Gimignano and Volterra

One day we decided to check out some real Tuscan hill towns.  San Gimignano is known for its 14 medieval towers still standing.  They call it the Manhattan of Tuscany for all of the 'sky scrappers'.

There really isn't anything noteworthy to see here....again, it's the experience of the town itself.

From San Gimignano, we  headed over to Volterra....which will ever be imprinted in my mind as where I got my beautiful Italian leather bag.  :)    But it's also known as one of the most important Etruscan cities and still has a gate to prove it!

But again, it was the Tuscan experience we were after.....

Unfortunately, it was rainy, cold and starting to get dark when we stumbled into Volterra.....  there was quite a bit to see there of interest, including a Roman Theater built in 10 B.C., only rediscovered in the 1950s.

Here is an album of all of our pictures from these two Tuscan hill towns: San Gimignano and Volterra

Cinque Terre

I really want to finish all my Italy posts before Christmas and the New Year.  I think I have two more to do.....so let's hope I can get it done!  And let's totally disregard that NOTHING is wrapped for Christmas.  :)

The Cinque Terre.  It is one of those places that MUST be on everyone's Italy To Do list.  MUST.  It is an absolutely breathtaking area.  It was only about an hour and a half drive from where we were staying.  So we headed out early one morning for the experience.  Cinque Terre translates to 5 lands, and it is literally 5 little sleepy fishing villages in a remote part of the Italian Riviera.  Two of the towns recently suffered substantial damage due to some mudslides during a torrential rainstorm and they are still rebuilding.

We started our day off in Monterosso al Mare, which is the northern most town and has a parking lot.

Click the image to enlarge, but THATs the parking lot.  We may or may not have worried about our car all day long.

This will really just be a post with a lot of pictures, and some captions - and a whole album at the end to enjoy and daydream with.  There isn't any museums or hugely famous landmarks.  It's just the breathtaking views and the town themselves that make the area so spectacular and worth the visit.

From Monterosso, we took the train to Riomaggiore, which is the southern most town.

We did some serious walking to get these shots....uphill pushing two strollers full of dead weight and sleeping babies.  Ahhhhh, but it lets us eat and drink whatever we want!

Next up was Manarola.

Yep.  Parking spots for boats!

What a jumble of pastel buildings!  So beautiful!!

We ended up skipping Corniglia (the fourth town), and heading straight to Vernazza.  It was getting late.....so late that I have one picture to show for Vernazza....

Vernazza and Monterosso were the two towns hit so horribly by the mudslides.  Vernazza's rebuilding is much more noticeable.  What has been rebuilt looks so new.  But there is so much more to do.  It has been a little over a year since the mudslides.  But issues continue.  The area is also known for the hiking trails.  While we were there the trails were closed because of more mudslides. 









Here are the rest of my pictures.  Cinque Terre.

Looking through them again makes me want to go back!  It was so lovely, and we didn't have the best weather.  I can only imagine how much more wonderful it would be with a beautiful day.  You can easily spend several days in the area, and we rushed it into one day.  Next time!

Audrey's 18/19 Month Stats

We waited too long to book Audrey's 18 month appointment, so she went at 19 months.

Weight: 9.300 kg = 20.5lbs.  25th Percentile
Height: 83 cm = 32.7 inches 50th Percentile
Head:  47 cm = 50-75th Percentile

All of the percentiles above based on the World Health Organization charts.

I am trying to switch to the WHO charts, but my subconscious begs me to also compare to the CDC charts.

On the CDC charts she would be below the 5th percentile for her weight.  She would be between the 75-90th for her height, and her head would be in the 75th percentile.  It's so confusing why they differ so much, except knowing that based on the rest of the world, Americans are so much bigger in general.

Hello. My Name is Lucca.... (Pisa, too!)

One day we took a short drive to visit the town of Lucca, and then to see the tower in Pisa.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time in Lucca.  It was a really pretty, sunny day.

The old town of Lucca is surrounded by ramparts.  We started our day strolling along the ramparts.

We also found a small park on the ramparts where we let the girls swing for a little while.  Check out the snow capped mountains in the background.

After a delicous lunch, we headed over to Pisa to check out the infamous Leaning Tower of Pisa....  probably less then 30 minutes away, and on the outskirts of town.....and to be honest, when Matt and I saw it, we were completely underwhelmed.  I don't know what we were expecting but I think we thought it would be much larger then it was.  And what a tourist trap!  With the sun setting much earlier here now that the time has changed, we didn't really get a chance to do much else then tour the area around the tower.  We hear the town of Pisa actually has a lot more to offer, so if we're ever over that way again, we might have to skip the crowds and the tower and see Pisa itself.
 

We couldn't get over how many people were trying to hold up the tower, so we got a picture of Grace doing it, too.  

We didn't go up.  But we did tour the Cathedral and Baptistry (pictured below) and they were beautiful. 

We even got to hear the amazing acoustics at work in the Baptistry, which is the largest in Italy.  Every 30 minutes, a security guard sings just so you can hear the echo.  A single sound echos for 10 seconds.  Grace and I climbed to the top and checked out the view from above, too.

Here's an album of all of our pictures from Lucca and Pisa:  Lucca and Pisa

Sinterklaas/Saint Nicolas arrives in Brussels

I promise, I'll get back to my posts on Italy soon!!  But wanted to share our videos from our Wednesday afternoon adventure down to the canal in Brussels to see Sinterklaas/ Saint Nicolas arrive with his helpers, Black Pete.  Yes.  They are in black face.  And they arrived after a long voyage from Spain with oranges to give out.

I think the Black Pete's scared Audrey, so that's why I get bowled over at the end of that last video! Can you blame her?  :)

Villa Stabbia

Home base in Italy was Villa Stabbia.  It is an agriturismo, which basically means it's a working farm that also provides lodging.  Villa Stabbia has 5 standalone houses on the property.  The one we stayed in had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and living room.  It was perfect for us.  They also make incredible olive oil and raise/train horses.

The olive trees lining the driveway.

The olives.

 Picking the olives was a favorite pastime for both girls.

The harvest started while we were there, and here they have the  nets spread under the trees picking the olives.

And one day we stayed close to the farm, and let the girls play at a playground in the tiny little town across from the Villa....

And a family shot, which has now found it's way to the top of our blog for the time being....

Here is an album of all of our pictures taken around the farm:  Villa Stabbia

Road Trippin' to Italy

On the 27th of October we set out on a road trip adventure for a week long stay in Italy.  It's roughly a 12 hour drive from our house to where we were going north of Florence.  With two little ones, that's a lot, and probably more like 16 hours if you factor in potty stops and meals.  So we opted to break it up and spend the night in Switzerland.  It's a good thing too, since Audrey decided to get sick.  We're still not sure what happened.  It could have been car sicknesses.  We turned her forward facing for the trip so it would be easier to get to her and so she could also watch a movie with Grace once we broke the DVD player out.  That could have been weird/disorienting for her?!  Or it could have been a virus.  But weird that the rest of us didn't get sick.  We made it through Belgium and Luxembourg unscathed.  And somewhere in France, as we were going through a toll booth, she erupted.  What a mess!!  Poor thing.  She didn't seem terribly phased by it, but we pulled over immediately IN THE SNOW to clean her up.  Thankfully there was a bathroom right after the toll.  And we had a change of clothes nearby.  But unfortunately, this was only the first of about 4 eruptions.  When we finally got to our hotel in Wassen, Switzerland, it had been a long, messy, stinky day.  Thankfully Matt had thrown in a bottle of ALL into the car, and we were able to rinse everything in the sink....well, except for the car seat.....  but we knew there was a washing machine waiting for us in Italy.  So we managed.....and with the help of a 16 Euro car air freshener, too.  Best 16 Euro car air freshener EVER.

Switzerland was exactly as imagined.  Snow and everything.  Our hotel was perfect.  With beautiful white duvets piled at the end of our beds and a wooden beam ceiling. 

And when we woke the next morning, this was the view......

It was really beautiful.  But once we went through this tunnel.....

...which was 17km long....roughly 10 and a half miles, the snow turned to rain and it started to get warmer as we headed further south until we finally made it to our villa in Tuscany with this view......

Stay tuned for our adventures 'Under the Tuscan Sun'.