Playing Games.

Playing Wii Fit hula hoop.  Nice form boys : )

One of the fun things about JJ getting older is that he's more into playing games now.  He loves playing games on the iPad, the Wii, and now board games.  Brian's mom sent JJ HiHo Cherry-O and Candy Land and JJ has been having fun playing both games lately.  Honestly, Candy Land drives me a little crazy, but JJ seems to enjoy it.  I don't know why the box says it's a 15 minute game, I swear it takes us 45 minutes to finish the game!  I'm sure family game night is in our future.

Anzio.

This is in the Chapel where they listed all the names of the soldiers that died during WWII at the Battle of Anzio.

We headed up to the beach town of Anzio last Friday and it was a really nice day trip.  The town is the site Operation Shingle during WWII which was an allied forces shore landing on January 22, 1944 and also has lots of Roman history.  We first went to the American cemetery, which we were surprised to find out is almost as large as the cemetery in Normandy.  Then we had a nice lunch outside before heading to some other sites in the town.  

Brian had done lots of research on things to do and we headed to the Roman villa ruins, which included the villa for Emperor Nero, a wildlife preserve and hike that ended at some additional ruins and the beach, and the beachhead museum.  Unfortunately, we were there in the middle of the day and this town runs by "standard" Italian hours, so everything was closed for at least 3 hours in the middle of the day, which was right when we wanted to go to see everything! We drove to each site with the same outcome - closed for at least 2.5 more hours from when we were there.  Soooo, with Brian discouraged, we headed to the beach.  No luck again!  The beaches that were accessible to where we were are all privately owned by the local hotels, so available to hotel guests only.  We can say that we've been to Anzio, but we might head up there again sometime to actually see the things that Brian really wants to see : )

Cumae.

For some reason JJ was scared of these caves because he was convinced lions were living in there.  Not sure where he came up with that. . .

Sorry, not the best picture, but the view was amazing.

We've heard that people who live here forget that there's lots to do in Napoli, instead they always go to other towns.  So Brian has started looking into what's available in our own back yard.  He came home from work a few weeks ago and said he'd read about some ancient Greek ruins about 15 minutes from our house.  So after JJ's nap, during the hottest part of the day, we decided it was the perfect time to go hiking through the ruins.  It's an area called Cumae and was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy (cite Wikipedia : ) ).  We didn't get to explore very long before all three/four of us were melting, but it's definitely somewhere that we'll be taking guests when they visit, we'll just remember to go first thing in the morning before it's too hot.

Paestum.

We went down to Paestum a few weeks ago which is a small town on the Amalfi Coast.  We're slowly going to all the towns, only a few more to go!  Paestum was founded around 600 B.C. by the Greek, so the ruins are actually Greek, not Roman.  The Romans didn't come to the city until centuries later.  It was a relaxing day, but pretty hot.  It's starting to get very hot and humid here, but we're still trying to get out and enjoy ourselves : )

Brian.

Happy Father's Day!

Brian has been traveling and working A LOT over the past four months.  In case you don't know, he works directly for The Admiral of Naval Forces Europe/Naval Forces Africa/Allied Joint Forces Command Naples.  He travels around the world with him setting up their communications systems wherever they go.  In the past few months he's been to Ramstein (Germany), Kosovo, Izmir (Turkey), Brussels, Madrid, DC, Seattle, Tampa, Lajes (Azore Islands), Djibouti (Africa), and Souda Bay Crete (Greece).  He flies around with the admiral on a private jet and gets to stay in amazing hotels.  Although he's been working a ton while traveling, he's been able to enjoy some of the places that they've been for at least a few hours of free time.  We are very proud of him for all the hard work he's doing and I only get a little jealous of some of the places he gets to go!

Since he's been traveling so much, his request for Father's Day weekend was to stay home and relax, so that's exactly what we did.  Here's what we did today - 

JJ woke up nice and early, Brian got up with him and let me sleep for another hour

Went to church

Came home and ate lunch (Brian made himself and JJ grilled cheese sandwiches!)

JJ and I took a nap while Brian played video games

Went in the pool at our house

Brian cleaned my bathroom

Brian vacuumed

Brian made dinner (I tried, but he insisted, so who am I to argue with him when he really wants to cook!)

I cleaned the kitchen while Brian gave JJ a bath

Brian put JJ down for bed

Brian is now currently drinking a large German beer and playing video games again

I know, it might look like it wasn't a very special day for him, but we all had a great day : )  

Preschool!

JJ went to preschool this week!  We've/I've been looking for a good preschool pretty much ever since we got here.  We've visited a few schools, but were debating when to enroll him and what kind of a school to send him to, i.e. Italian, American, or bilingual.  Most Italians seem to send their kids to school starting around the age of three full time.  I knew that JJ didn't already need to be in school 5 days a week already, so we were trying to find a good part-time program.  I found a school that a lot of people from the military here send their kids to and they all love it.  The teachers speak Italian only during class, even though one of them speaks fluent English, but half the class is American kids.  The school offers a free trial week, so we decided to take advantage of that and see if it's a good fit.  

Well, JJ seemed to love it!  The first day he was only supposed to be there for a few hours, but the director of the school called me and said JJ was doing great and they would like him to stay a little longer!  The next few days he stayed for full days and did really well.  There was never a morning that he didn't want to go.  The only "fights" that we got in were trying to get his shoes on in the morning, which I think will be a battle for the next 10 years, and one morning he really wanted to wear his pajamas to school!  He was standing at the door with his backpack on yelling at me, "Ready to go to school" and fought me when I said that he had to change into "real" clothes first!  I'm meeting with the director next Tuesday to discuss enrollment options.  They've already told me that he seems to fit in really well and he was acting like he'd been there for weeks or months, not days.  Looks like he'll be learning Italian! Brian and I should too then : )

Ok, this picture has nothing to do with preschool, but I thought it was cute : )  Brian is gone again this week, so I find myself eating dinner by myself again every night.  Last night, JJ decided to sit and "read" while I was eating dinner.  I guess that's not such a horrible alternative : )

Outside.

JJ has gotten very good at pedaling his little trike, so now we'll be buying him a bigger bike for his birthday.  Shhh, don't tell him : )

JJ "reading" the directions to Brian.

The weather has been very nice lately, which is good so that we can go outside and JJ can get some energy out and I don't go completely insane!  Our landlords left this pool in the garage and said we could use it, so JJ and Brian put it together and it has already brought endless hours of fun.  JJ loves to "clean" it by using the skimmer and we bought some pool toys to keep him entertained in the water.  Today we're going to buy some chlorine tablets to kill all the mosquito larvae that keep showing up in the middle of the night!  It's pretty gross, but that's what happens when you live close to a big lake and the ocean and then you have a body of water in your yard!