Halloween and Thanksgiving

School is in full swing and they seem to be liking their classes, friends and teachers. We are all staying busy with after school activities like cheerleading, Girl Scouts and gymnastics.  They are cheering for flag football on base and they both are in Girl Scout troops. Shannon is one of the helpers in Leyton's troop.  They both have showed interest in gymnastics. They love to tumble and do cart wheels and all that fun stuff. We found a local Italian gym that teaches gymnastics. They both went to two introductory classes before they both said they wanted to continue. So we signed them up.  E only lasted .75 classes and decided to call it quits. She wasn't liking it. It is out in town so it is all in Italian. I don't think LC understood much more then E did, but E just didn't like it. It made her sore and she didn't like it. hahaha. Leyton, on the other hand, stayed interested. It was odd too because LC would always complain that there were no friends in there and that she didn't understand much, but stayed with it. We are very proud of her. It looks hard too! It is a lot of conditioning where they stretch and do strength stuff, which makes it more odd that LC is sticking with it. She is all sweaty when she is done, a little sad that no one will talk to her, but keeps wanting to go back.  I think they thought they would be hitting the gym apparatuses right away but they barely did any of that. 

We also decided to head to Belgium for Thanksgiving. Here are some pics of what we've been up to:

LC made a very important decision and decided to follow Jesus for the rest of her life and got baptized. 

Grammy and Papa sent her this beautiful jewelry box and jewelry for being baptized. 

Selling Girl Scout Cookies are a little different here overseas. They cannot go door-to-door, they have to sell them in common areas only on base. So they have to sign up for session to sell cookies. Here is LC and her friend Jazzlyn trying to get buyers. 

And here is E and Mom manning a table at the commissary with an older cadet who had over one million patches. 

Of course we still make our trips across the street to see Ollie! 

Halloween. E is a cat and LC wanted to be a rainbow unicorn. They also drew out their pumpkins and I carved then up. Like years past, we went on base to load up on candy. Mommy stayed home and handed out candy in our Parco. 

LC with her friend Eliana. They both ride the bus together. We met up with them for a few minutes on base and they went door-to-door together. 

On our way to Belgium for Thanksgiving! 

We stayed in Brugge, which was a great choice. It was an awesome town with plenty to do and see. 

All the architecture was really fascinating and they were starting to put up all the Christmas decorations. 

Building up all the Christmas markets in the main square. They also had an ice skating rink. 

I think E was mad here because we didn't get to go ice skating. The weather was much more chilly then the weather we left in Italy. 

The girls looking through an opening in the wall. They pretended they were in jail. 

Hands down, one of the highlights were the Belgian waffles. Absolutely amazing. You would think all waffles were created equally, but these were just great. The dough was really sticky and came our sweet, soft and hot. Of course, like gelato in Italy, the waffle stands in Belgium are a dime a dozen. We made sure we got our daily intake. So delicious, especially with all the yummy toppings. 

We went to the chocolate museum where we got our fair share of different kinds of chocolate and learned how it is all made. This is a lady and the tramp piece that is made entirely of chocolate. 

Really cool looking building. 

The apt we stayed at was an old factory that had been made into apartments and redone. It reminded me of a prison or possibly Alcatraz. The apt was very modern and really nice. Good find, Shannon!

We spent the last day in Ghent. Another older town with a lot of character. 

This is a view from the Castle in Ghent. 

We gave each of the girls 20 Euro to spend as they like on this trip. LC chose to go to Claires and buy these glasses. Weird kid. Unfortunately, We left them at the apartment. oops. 

Ghent Castle. 

This was LC's and E's Christmas program at school. 

Buon Natale! 

We also made a quick day trip to Roccarasso. There was tons of snow and it even snowed all day. The one down side is that we forgot to grab the kids' jackets so they had to wear Shannon's stuff and Shannon spent the day in the lodge. They were also old enough to rent their own sleds, but the hills were a little varsity. They didn't have as much fun as we've had before cause they kept crashing and getting injured.. haha. 

And last picture... the girls decided to cut their hair short. Our good friend Sara came over and cut off some inches. Here they are modeling their news cuts! 

New School year and Birthday Parties

Closing out the summer means school is back in session. After getting back from the USA, we got the kids ready for school. This meant back to school parties on base, school supplies and shopping! We decided to put E in the DoD school. Logistically it made since to have them in the same school at the same times and we has been very happy with the DoD school.  Ellis was excited to go to an "American school" and wasn't really sad to say goodbye to her international friends. Some of her American friends from her international school also made the leap to DoD. We also got lucky and E was selected for the Kindergarten Italian Immersion program. During the days leading up to school we say down with her teacher who took E through a few batteries of tests to see where she was at and she was really advanced! She already knew most of the sight words, knew all her letters and sounds but didn't know shapes and three dimensional shapes. Leyton also was selected for the 2nd grade immersion program, which would be two years in a row. Most of her friends from 1st grade immersion also moved on to 2nd grade immersion so she knew most of the kids already. The big win was the drop-offs and pick-ups. Instead of making two trips to two locations for two kids, we just had to do one trip to the bus stop, and thrown them both on and off the bus. So it was a nice change for us and freed up some time on the road. 

We made another trip to the Cavalier de Pepe Winery with some other friends and had some good wines and food.  This is the same place we stomped wine last year during the harvest. 

Our big Kindergartener! 

Closing out the summer also meant two birthdays. We celebrated E's birthday in September and Leyton's in October. Mommy made delicious rainbow unicorn cupcakes for E's birthday! 

Pleasing to both the stomach and the eyes! 

Because their birthdays are a month or so, plus or minus, and the practically have the same friends, we decided to throw them a joint party. Here is E with the Unicorn piñata. 

Before we jump into the parties, here is a picture of a new friend of ours. An American couple moved across the street from us who happened to have a Golden Doodle dog, named Ollie. The girls fell in love instantly. We dog sit for them and even have our own key to their house to go play with him whenever we want. He actually is a very neat dog. He loves kids, is very sweet, and best of all, he doesn't shed! The girls are using this to petition for a dog for our home. They even said they would help out every day and water and feed it..... hmm... 

For the second year in a row, we participated in the color run. The girls didn't like the 'run' part but loved throwing color and getting colored. 

Also similar to last year, the kids had a vocabulary hat parade. They chose an interesting word and designed a hat. Because they are both in immersion, they both had to be italian words. Leyton chose "Bow" (Fiocco in Italian)...

And E chose "valentine" (Valentino in Italian).

Now on to the joint birthday party ..... We had it at the Carney park rec center which was perfect. There are parks near buy and the place has fooseball tables, pool tables and plenty of safe places for the kids. And best of all, the kids could trash it. I don't remember how many kids we had, but it was a good amount. 

Of course, the theme was rainbow-unicorn-sparkles. Here is mommy showing off her flair. 

The girls each selected a unicorn cake; one strawberry and one lemon, and we had a local lady make them. They turned out really good and tasted even better. 

And lastly, we celebrated LC's birthday in October. She wanted pancakes with frosting in the morning for breakfast so here is that.  Happy 8th Birthday, LC!

We will close out the year in the next post that will take us through fall and Christmas! Thanks for coming back!