Gramma/Pa Visit

We had another set of visitors come to Italy to see what it is all about. Gramma and Grampa flew directly in to Venice, spent a few days there, then trained to Florence and Pisa before visiting us in bella Napoli. We tried to pack in as much as possible - we saw some of the sights are around Naples and took a short trip to Rome. Gramma and Grampa were also to see some of the girls' school activities like cheer practice and school programs. They even assisted LC with her big living museum school project. She selected Amelia Earhart. She had to learn all about her, write down a lot of facts about her and her importance, memorize a speech and transform into her in order to present themselves to other classmates and parents. We were so proud of her and she worked really hard! The weather has been great and we've been able to spend a lot of time outside which may be a sign spring is coming.... here are some pics: 

We went to Herculeneum. This is a small town that was also devastated by the Mt Vesuvius eruption. It is not as large and spread out as Pompeii is, but it is essentially the same thing, just easier to get to and a more intimate setting. You are able to walk around the tug-out city and see how the people used to live prior to the eruption. You can see it is much lower than the modern day city, which was built on the buried remains. 

The end of the walk was a shock - there were skeletons of people who never made it out. 

This was the old beach area... the four openings were boat houses on the beach (inside is there the skeletons were). And the water is the old beach. You can see to the right of the photo the amount of ash that buried the town. Pretty crazy. 

We hoped on the train to Rome and checked out all the sights. We haven't been to Rome since we've been here - we have been saving it for when family would come. So it was nice to be able to see all the sights!  First stop was to the Coliseum. Always impressive! 

Trying to get a perfectly timed photo of the girls doing a cheer jump. We were never able to get the timing down correctly. 

Behind the Coliseum is the Forum. 

Then on to Trevi fountain. 

.... and the Pantheon.... 

Outside of the Pantheon... 

We also went on a tour of the Vatican museum and the Vatican grounds. We only saw a fraction of the museum but were able to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peters Basillica. 

Gramma really wanted to see the Pope, but we weren't that lucky. 

The Spanish steps. 

And ontop of the Vittorio Emanuele II monument ("The wedding cake" building)... which offered spectacular views of Rome.  We crammed a lot into the 2-3 days we were there. There is just so much to see in Rome that it would take over a week to scratch the surface. 

It was also Carivale week while they were here. The girls got to dress up and parade around the school. Ellis was a sheep. 

And LC was a Siren. Both of their costumes were all hand made at school. 

E's Class. 

LC's Class.

Something that we also haven't got around to was climb Mt Vesuvius. It was a perfect day for an easy climb to the top. 

Inside the crater! There was some steam coming out too.... scary. 

The views from the top were fantastic! 

Here is E and LC in their Cheer uniforms. They cheered for Basketball in the spring and seemed to like it. 

Here is LC... I mean Amelia Earhart. She did so well memorizing her speech and completing a poster with all the facts. 

This was as school-wide project for all the second grade classes. There was a program in the cafeteria where they sang songs about their people. 

And then after the program all the kids went to their places around school and waited for parents and other students to come up to them. Then they would rattle off their speech and explain the life of the person they chose. They each had a poster that they made that presented pictures and facts about their person. She did so awesome and we were so proud of the hard work she put in. 

2019 and Norway!

January is upon us and school was back into full swing after a great Christmas break with Family. The girls are back to all their after-school activities like cheerleading and Girl Scouts. We were thrilled when Leyton was baptized at the church and we made a trip to Roccarasso. We went there our first winter in Italy and was blown away by how much snow they had just a short distance from Naples. Speaking of snow, we also went on a trip to Norway to see what that place is all about.

LC after getting baptized at church. 

A little bit of a snafu when we went on this trip -- I was supped to grab the girls' snow gear and load it in the car, and I thought Shannon was going to grab it. So that equated to no snow gear for the girls.  Luckily we brought their boots, hats and gloves. Shannon let them we are all of her gear and so we were able to salvage the trip. 

It snowed hard the entire time we were there. Last time we went the kids were stuck riding with adults because they were so young, so Shannon and I were able to maneuver the sleds and keep it from flipping. But this time they each wanted their own sled. Once we were at the top their story changed. It took a like of coaxing to get them to go down. They of course flipped over and got some bumps and bruises. The hills were very steep and they were a little intimidated by them. Eventually we decided to call it and meet mommy in the lodge, grab some food and head on back. 

The girls also both took the plunge and chopped their hair off short. It made for easier maintenance.

Both girls are in Girl Scouts. The cookie sales is a little different since we are overseas. The girls can only sell cookies in base at booths. So instead of going door-to-door for sales, the girls had to sign up for a couple booth sessions to sell cookies around the various U.S. bases. 

Our big trip to Norway .... we have been wanting to do this trip for so long, especially now that we were so close being in Europe. We took an early flight out of Naples and landed in Oslo mid-day, just as the sun was starting to go down.  Our apartment in Oslo was right on the water. It was a lot colder here then what we left in Italy, but man was it beautiful. 

Rick Steves recommended an open face sandwich restaurant, Engeret, that we hit up immediately. We were drawn to all the smoked salmon and capers.... yum! 

The next day we went to the Viking ship museum. There we learned about vikings and saw the various artifacts.  They think the ships that were in the museum were built in years 800-900.  

Downtown Oslo was pretty neat. We had to walk around in all our winter gear since it was a bit chilly. We also had to carefully navigate the icy sidewalks. 

After our day in Oslo, we set off in our rental car to our next stop; dog sledding. The girls have been fascinated with dog speeding after watching some movie that had Cuba Gooding Jr in it. We knew this would be a great opportunity so we booked us a day of dog sledding. The drive out to the place was absolutely amazing. It reminded me of Alaska. Everything had snow on it and the lakes were iced over. 

We got a quick tutorial on how to drive the sleds, with instructions on how to operated the brakes and turning.  But they said the dogs would just hollow each other and to not worry. 

The dogs took off like rockets as soon as everyone got going. The four of us were on one sled that had 6 dogs and they had no trouble pulling us along. 

The scenery was great and we had a blue bird day. 

After a  couple of hours on the trail we stopped at a little hut they had set-up. The dogs rested while we ate some stew. The girls loved playing with the dogs. They wanted to know their names, how old they were and if they and any puppies. 

After our brief lunch stop, we loaded back up for some more riding. 

Once we got back, we helped unleash the dogs and put them in their kennels. 

The girls were really sad to leave, especially LC, who cried because she didn't want to leave the dogs. 

After dog sledding, we met up with Shannon's cousin, Brooke, who permanently lives in Norway with her family. They have a get-away cabin in the mountains but reside in an area south of Oslo. 

Their cabin was in a beautiful area that had ski trails everywhere. The first morning we strapped on the skis and went for trip around the lake. 

Magnus was a pro at skiing and was able to talk us through how to use them. It had been a while since Shannon and I had cross country skied and the girls had never done it. 

The girls were able to pick up on it, somewhat, but after a while called it quits. 

So we headed back to the cabin for hotdogs and playing in the snow with Clara and Liam. We had a  nice relaxing time at the cabin. Shannon was able to catch up with Brooke and we ate good food and talked. 

The next morning we did some more skiing and ended up at a restaurant where we had hot cocoa and a few warm dishes. 

The next morning we said good bye and headed to our next destination. The plan was to drive to a train stop, park the car and ride the train west towards the coast. We had looked at fjord tours near Bergen that we were aiming for. However the road that google maps took us on was closed for the winter. We called Magnus who gave us alternate directions to the train stop, but it would put us back multiple hours. 

We eventually made it to the train station and got on. 

Again, we saw some amazing sights along the way. A ton of snow and ice! Because we lost those few hours, we were not able to make the fjord tour. Luckily we never bought tickets so we headed straight in to Bergen.  

No snow here, as it is on the coast, but lots of rain. 

The next morning we got all our rain gear on and walked towards the famous downtown area. The walk turned out to be pretty miserable and we all got completely soaked. 

We ducked into a tourist information center and waited out the rain for a while until it was light enough to walk back. We walked around the town a bit and got ice cream. Then it was back on the train back to Oslo for the night and a flight out the following morning. Such an amazing trip and and amazing country. We are already itching to come back in the Summer.