Pompei.

Before seeing the ruins JJ wanted to ride a few rides!

We rented a car for the weekend and took our first little day trip today to the town of Pompei to see the Pompeii Archaeological site (yes, I checked with my history junkie husband and this is the correct spelling for both Pompei and Pompeii). It was actually only about 1/2 hour drive away and was pretty neat to see. It's the oldest "stuff" that Brian and JJ have ever seen : )

We started out in the old amphitheater and JJ was a little scared to walk out through the tunnel. For some reason after that he decided there were dragons living in the ruins! We have no idea why, but he would randomly say, "Ssshh, Mommy, the dragons are sleeping. Look, the dragons are in there."

We got down there early, so after we spent a good amount of time in the ruins we were ready for lunch. Unfortunately we were way to early to eat lunch by Italian standards (it was only 11 am), so none of the restaurants were opened. The only place that was open was Burger King and although they did serve caprese salad and pizza, I refused to have the first pizza that I ate here to be at Burger King so we just went home for lunch! Tomorrow we'll be off on another day trip and will hopefully finally get some "real/original" pizza.

Merry Christmas from ITALY!!!

A little sleep on the plane : )

Brian's Chief put this tree in our room for us which was very nice of him

Merry Christmas everyone! Soooo, here we are in Italy! The flights weren't that bad and JJ actually slept for the complete second out of third flight. During the third flight (Munich to Naples), JJ threw a few fits, but was mostly good. At one point, I was looking at the beautiful new scenery that we were about to enjoy and I heard JJ yelling, "Mommy, I'm talking to you!" Apparently he wasn't as enthralled with the view as I was : )

Getting adjusted to the time change has been quite a challenge. I had been emailing with a Navy wife/mom who has lived here for three years and she warned me that the first night JJ might wake up at 10 and want to get up and eat and play. I'm now concerned that he's reading my emails because sure enough, at 10 pm he wanted to get up and eat and play! Since we were told this was "normal," we let him and then he finally went back to bed around 12:30.

For some reason we thought last night would be better . . . we were very wrong! Last night he was awake from about 9:45 pm until 3:45 am! He wanted to play, eat, cry, kick, whine, drink juice, etc. . . basically everything but sleep! He went to bed tonight at 8 and has already woken up once, so we'll see how tonight goes : (

We've now been here for two days and since we don't have a car, we haven't been able to get off base yet. We're really looking forward to getting out and starting to really experience life in our new country. So I'm going to be changing the format a little of the blog. I'll still talk about JJ and his silly antics, but I'll also talk about our experiences living abroad for the next three years. I hope you enjoy : )

Christmas in Arizona.

JJ only wanted to play with Tristan's new toys . . .

Except some new trains that he played with for awhile : )

Tristan did a great job of handing out the presents

We had another Christmas at my parents house in Arizona with my parents and Michael, Krista, and Tristan. We had a very nice few days with lots more food and presents. For more great pictures and stories, check out Krista/Tristan's blog at tristancook.blogspot.com : )

Christmas in Washington.

What 2-year-old wouldn't love a sound machine complete with sounds of breaking glass, farting, a shot gun, screaming, etc!?!?! (Thanks again to Katie and Luke!)

We had a great time in Washington and even got to celebrate Christmas three times! The first was with the Graves/Dunivan clan and our Aunt Rosalee. It was a very nice afternoon and JJ didn't even completely destroy the Graves house which is not quite baby proof : )

The second celebration was with our friends Tifani and Michael and their two boys, Elijah and Isaac. The boys played together really well although JJ seemed to want to play more with Elijah's present than with anything else! We also accidentally came home with the wrong Thomas the Train, which had to be corrected since the boys can actually tell the difference!

Our third Christmas was with Brian's family. JJ got a new Leap Frog handheld game system and a few other toys and clothes, but his favorite was definitely Cars 2! When he opened it, he just kept saying, "Cars 2, Cars 2, look Mommy, Cars 2!"

It was really fun to have lots of celebrations with our friends and family. JJ is very happy with his new presents, now we just have to find somewhere to fit them into our suitcases!

Washington.

JJ found a bag of toys that were going to be donated, so at least he had something to play with for awhile and Nana seemed to have a fun time doing some "pretend play" with him!

Very happy Oma with her two grandsons : )

JJ made his cousin Sawyer get in there with him which Sawyer did not enjoy!

After a 22 hour, two day drive which involved an overnight stay in Redding, two sedated cats, and JJ endlessly watching movies on the iPad, we finally arrived in Washington. It is really, really cold here but are still having a good time : ) The first day we were here, Brian's mom went and bought JJ an "appropriate" winter jacket. Apparently the windbreaker that I bought before we left just wasn't cutting it, especially since JJ's wanted to play outside everyday, but then complains that it's cold! He told me yesterday, "I'm freezing!" He is definitely my son.

We were able to stop and see my grandma on the way up which was really nice. We were there for an hour which was about 15 minutes too long and JJ started throwing fits, mainly I think he was just tired of hearing, "no JJ, we can't go in there, no JJ, we can't play with that. . ." Sometimes being two is a hard life : )

We've been having a nice time here and very grateful that we are able to visit with friends and family. I will update more pictures later.

Where's All My Stuff?!?

The movers got to our house at about 8 am last Tuesday and were completely done with packing and getting everything out of our house by 1:45 pm! We were expecting a two day pack-out, but they were super fast and finished in less than a day. We had a friend watch JJ while the movers were there, which was definitely a good decision, and then we stayed with our friends on Tuesday night in San Diego. On Wednesday morning we went back to the house to finish some cleaning and we had JJ with us which was pretty interesting.

On the way to the house we kept telling him that none of his stuff would be there and that it's on the way to our new home in Italy, but he definitely doesn't understand that yet. When we first got to the house he was running around room by room and screaming, "look, all the stuff is gone, look, look!" After that he "helped" us clean a little and then starting throwing fits and crying, "I want to go." It's going to be a rough/interesting few months for all of us, but we keep reminding ourselves of the adventures we will have and that gets us through.

December Nights.

JJ's dinner. . . a whole bag of kettle corn!

On our last Friday in San Diego, we went to a festival at Balboa Park called December Nights. There is a lot of international food and Christmas lights and tons of people. We were able to walk around for awhile before it got too crowded and JJ was trying to run away, so it was our time to leave. Brian and I had been years ago so we really wanted to go again for our last time. JJ really enjoyed all the lights so we were glad that we went.

Disneyland.

Brian took Tristan on the new 3D StarTours ride. I don't know if the "big" boy or the "little" boy liked it more : )

We had one day left on our Disneyland passes so we met up with Krista and Tristan there last week. It was lots of fun and even without a nap JJ did pretty well. We went on lots of rides and since we went during the week the lines were really short. The boys even got to meet the princesses, which was really cute. I don't think very many boys go through to meet them so they were super sweet with Tristan and JJ. Since Brian wasn't excited about that, he went and staked out a spot for us to watch the Christmas parade. The boys sat through the whole thing and seemed to be in awe the whole time. The night was topped off by "snow" falling on us on Main Street. It was pretty much a perfect Disneyland experience. The next time we're at a Disney Park it will probably be Disney Paris : )

Thanksgiving.

A little Thanksgiving Battleship; what's more festive than that!

For our last American Thanksgiving for a few years we had lots of laughs, lots of tears, lots of game playing, and LOTS of food!!! Tristan and JJ actually played really well together all weekend which was a huge relief.