Kayla's Haircut

Before

After

Kayla was really excited to get her hair cut short like her best friend, Meghan. She was jumping and giddy the whole time she was getting her hair cut. I had to keep telling her to stop bouncing.

Herforster Fest

It was pouring rain the day we went to the fest for our village. It was really small - there were only 2 rides - a little merry go round and bumper cars. Kayla dropped one of our coins for the bumper cars into no mans land underneath the bumper car border and then Jessenia didn't put her seatbelt on and hurt her face. It was quite an adventure! Luckily the food was great. We loved the spiesbraten sandwiches and the bratwursts were really good too.

I like Jessenia's wide eyes in this picture.

Spencer with a Freeze Pop

Spencer was using gravity to get every last drop of juice out of his feeze pop. He's running away from me in this picture still holding the freeze pop to his head.

Trier with Grandma Diane and Jessenia

Kaiserthermen (Roman Bath) ruins

Porta Nigra - the original Roman gate into the city.

D0m cathedral

The fountain in front of the pink palace

The pink palace - I'm sure it has a real name, but that's what we call it.

Roman Ampitheatre

German Pancake

While Jessenia was visiting, she found a recipe in a magazine for a German panckake. It puffed up a lot and looked kind of crazy. I've never actually seen or heard of these here in Germany, but it was pretty good. It tasted like French toast, and we ate it with homemade jam and cool whip for dessert one night.

Cochem

We really enjoyed seeing Cochem castle. My mom did, however, injure her achilles tendon. We tried waiting for the shuttle bus up to the castle, which is at the top of a steep hill, but it was already full when it got there and only took about 2 more passengers. Instead of waiting another hour, we hiked up the hill. The kids did pretty well and luckily it was a really nice day. Our tour was actually really good even though it was in German. The guide was really animated and great with the kids and spoke to us a little bit in English too. The kids even got a chocolate gold coin from a treasure chest at the end of the tour.

Brayden actually wanted to be in a picture with the girls for a change.

Kayla and Jessenia


This guy must be from Holland. Check out the bright orange wooden clogs!

The overlook on the drive to the castle with the Mosel river and vineyards.

Cochem Castle

Mask from Italy

Jessenia in the mask - her shirt even matches.

Kayla in the mask, which is now on the wall.

We Kiss the Ground You Walk On

Our friends the Ellers, used our house when we were in Italy while they were waiting to permanently move to the US. They scattered kisses all over our entry and left us a note that said they kiss the ground that we walk on. Thanks Eller Family!

Lucca

Lucca is a really charming walled village. There is a tower in the town that has 6 or 7 trees on the top. We wanted to go up to the top, so my mom stayed at the bottom with everyone else that didn't want to hike up lots of stairs, but Brayden insisted that he wanted to go with dad. Brayden did great going up all of the stairs, and we were really glad that we got to see the view.

Brayden wanted a picture with the blue hole in the tree.

Florence

Florence (Firenze is the real Italian name) is a really beautiful big city. Most people go to see the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery where you can see the statue of David and other famous works of art, but we found out that it would cost 84 Euro for our whole family and decided no museums, famous or not, are worth that price for a tour with kids, but my mom actually went with Jessenia. We saw the city via double decker bus. It was a hot day, but we really enjoyed the 1st bus route which was about an hour. We decided to do the other bus route, which was a huge mistake. It was a 2 hour plus tour that went up to Friesole where our bus driver then parked in the sun for ten minutes while we were stuck in our positions with 2 sleeping kids.

Brayden was really cute on the bus ride. He danced to the elevator music and "fished" over the side of the bus with his headphones. Some lady tried to tell him to stop fishing, but I let him do it anyway. It was on our long bus tour that he started doing it, and I could totally see his need to entertain himself.

This bridge is a really famous original bridge with a specific name that I can't remember. The buildings on it stick out over the water.

View of the Duomo from up above the city.

The Duomo

We ate a lot of gelato while we were in Florence, and just after Kayla dropped her entire ice cream on the ground because "it was a little heavy for one hand"(yah, I was incredibly annoyed), she started chasing the pigeons. It was so cute to watch her chase the pigeons when we were all so hot and tired and out of energy.

Allen next to the chapel right outside the train station.

The Beach

We went to the beach almost everyday while we were in Italy. It was so warm in the water, and the beach that we went to had a really long sandbar, so the kids could go out really far and really enjoy the water. Both of the boys had much better things to do than take pictures, so these were the best I could get.
Spencer

Jessenia

Kayla

Allen

(In case you were wondering, we were definitely the whitest family at the beach.)

Montenero

There really wasn't much to see in Montenero that couldn't be seen in 30 minutes. We saw the church, rode the cable car and saw the ocean view.

The Cable Car

Ocean View

Brayden went behind the gate and it looked like he was in jail.

Volterra

We really loved Volterra. It's an Etruscan walled city as well as the fictional home of the infamous Volturi from the Twilight Series. We were even able to get a "New Moon" tour map from the tourism office.

My mom and me in front of the clock tower.

The narrow shaded streets.

This is a really silly picture of Kayla and Jessenia, and even though there was a better picture of the two of them, I really like that they look like they are having so much fun.

Overlooking the valley from the top of the city.