Thankful Trees

This is our third year of doing "thankful trees". I got this idea from a MOPS meeting a few years ago and have loved doing it with the kids. You start out with a blank tree and leaves. You then write things that you are thankful for on the leaves, and glue the leaves on the tree. Madelyn pointed out that the leaves should be falling off the tree since it's fall. I took pictures of the kids with their thankful trees today. Here are their lists in no particular order:



1. candy
2. beach
3. food
4. mommy and daddy
5. our house
6. God
7. toys
8. Kathryn and Taylor (cousins)
9. Nature-God's creation (her clarification)



1. parks
2. pool
3. Mommy and Daddy
4. our house
5. tamborine (made at church)
6. that God made the world
7. that he was able to stay home (no school on this day)
8. changing seasons
9. that God made the world


1. Special bag (which holds her Halloween candy that we are still working on)
2. socks
3. Mommy
4. God
5. Clay
6. Puggles (AWANA class at church)
7. God
8. God
9. Daddy



I am thankful for so much-our family (both immediate and extended) and our many blessings (health, house, job, church, too many to name really).

Madelyn has been learning about thankfulness in her class at church and also during Bible at school. Here are some of her verses:

1 Thessalonians 5:18-Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Psalm 107:1-Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.
2 Corinthians 9:15-Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.

It's hard to not be thankful after reflecting on these and listening to her say them.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Italy Wrap Up

I think this will end my posts about Italy. We had an amazing time, and I would definitely go back one day. I think the amount of time we were gone was just about right. I didn't miss the kids and home until we were in our last couple of days of the trip. I think we met one rude person in our entire two weeks in Italy, so we were definitely treated well. Some interesting things I noted and discovered-peanut butter is almost impossible to find, but it can be done. I really dislike Nutella (is that weird?). I did get tired of bread and cappuccino for breakfast by the end of the two weeks. I wish Italians would discover the "to go" concept. I missed having my big coffee cup to carry around. Venice was not my favorite city, but contrary to some stories I had heard, it does not stink. Not one bit. If we ever go back, I would like to go back to Tuscany and visit southern Italy since I've never been to that part of the country.

Here are some of J.D.'s travel tips:

1) When you turn in a rental car, look carefully at the receipt for anything that references "carburante" (fuel) or "addebito" (surcharge). Apparently, it's not uncommon to stick refill fees on the bill and wait for the customer to say something. It's not difficult to get it removed later if you still have the receipt, but it would be easier to handle before you leave the lot.

2) Do not go to any self-serve credit card machine with an American credit card. This is especially true at toll booths and transit ticket machine. Most places can read the magnetic strip on American cards, but you need a human employee to assist you.

3) GPS is absolutely indispensable in getting around, particularly if you get lost. One exception to the rule - in city centers, you are better off turning off the GPS and relying on a good map and street signs. The turns come too fast for the GPS, and it can't account for one way traffic and lane reversals.

4) VAT refunds are a major headache. Think of them as the European version of manufacturers rebates. You have to show the merchandise at a customs desk to get a stamp (outside security) and then process the refund at a refund point (inside security). If you don't process the refund at the airport, you can mail it in later, but you have to get the stamp at the airport.

5) Rick Steves is great for tourist attractions, but for hotels and restaurants, you are better off looking at flyertalk.com and chowhound.com, respectively.

6) I strongly recommend staying at an airport hotel on the final night if you have an early departure. If your final city is Venice or Rome and you won't have the rental car, the airport hotel can also store your unneeded luggage and purchases.

7) Pay the extra money for a centrally located hotel. You will save time on transit and your feet will appreciate a mid-afternoon break.

8) Try to keep your total imports of gifts, souvenirs and wine under $800/person. Otherwise you can run into import duties at customs.

Madelyn Update

Madelyn is thriving in first grade. She is a voracious reader. She will read anything you put in front of her, and she's borderline insulted when she has to read something besides a chapter book. She's really enjoying American Girl Doll books and Ramona Quimby books. I met with her teacher today for parent/teacher conferences, and Madelyn is excelling academically. I did ask if she seemed bored in class, and while her teacher assured me she seems engaged and eager, she also mentioned starting her and a few of her classmates in the school's enrichment program after Thanksgiving.

Recently, the class had a contest to draw the cover of their "I Am Thankful" books. For this book, the class members all submit a page of what they are thankful for, and the teacher sends the pages off to a publishing company where it is bound and returned. Well, Madelyn's drawing was voted as the best, so her drawing will be on the cover of the book. She was so excited to have won. She really was proud, so I asked her teacher if I could see it today. I will say that she did a very neat job. The drawing was simple-just a rainbow, flowers, birds, and clouds, but she was very careful with it, and it was obvious that she had really tried. Her teacher said she worked much longer and harder on it than anyone else. So, I'm glad that she was rewarded for her efforts.

While I wasn't surprised by this, her teacher did ask us to work on one thing with Madelyn. Madelyn is a rule follower, and it bothers her when others don't follow the rules. Apparently, Madelyn likes to remind people when they aren't following the rules at school, and it sometimes annoys the other kids. I can't imagine why :-) While her teacher assured me that it doesn't affect the overall relationship Madelyn has with her classmates, she did ask that we work on teaching "If it doesn't cause bodily harm or damage property, let the teacher handle it." She does the same thing at home with her siblings, and we've tried to curb it. We obviously need to try a little harder.

As for her extracurriculars, Madelyn is taking gymnastics, piano, and continues to go to Sparks (AWANA) at church. We tried ballet and tap with Madelyn, and she just didn't like it. I was a bit disappointed with that, but I didn't push it. Gymnastics, though, seems to be something she does like, so maybe we can stick with that. Piano is a new hobby, and she is doing very well with it. So well, actually, that her teacher asked if she could participate in a festival this spring where she will be judged (based on her own ability, not compared with other students) and given remarks by the judges. It will be a lot of work on her part, but I think it will be a great way to challenge her, and she only competes with herself.

I'm really enjoying Madelyn as she grows. She's so smart and has such a strong personality, which can be challenging at times, but I know it will serve her well as she gets older. I love being able to have real conversations with her and being able to get a better idea of what's going on her mind. I'm usually pleasantly pleased when I find out.

October 12-14

October 12 - This was a day that we hadn't initially planned, but our friends Andy and Kate said we would enjoy the ceramic/pottery town. We drove to the town of Nove, and enjoyed an afternoon of ceramic and pottery shopping. JD had done some research, and we started at the "best" shop, La Ceramica V.B.C. This proved to be true, and we found pottery stamped with American brands "Tiffany", "Lenox", and "Williams-Sonoma". They make pottery for these companies and apparently hold back some items. We chose a few pieces of "Tiffany" marked items and then discovered some mosaic pottery that we really liked. We picked up a few pieces of that as well. We went to several other ceramic stores, but La Ceramica was definitely the best. At the end of the afternoon, we enjoyed a delicious pizza at Pizzeria da Asporta. Who makes pizza with arugala sprinkled all over the top? This place, and it was amazingly good! Then, we drove towards Venice.

We made it to our hotel, The Crown Plaza (Thank you, travel points!) and enjoyed a fine but unremarkable hotel that was located about 20 minutes from Venice's Marco Polo airport.

Oct. 13- We checked out of the hotel and headed toward Venice, but not before hunting down a hardware store for some packing tape. The clerk at the hotel was a wonderful help, but we had to use Google translator to communicate what we needed. Once he figured it out, he gave us excellent directions to this hardware store and the lady working there was very helpful. Why did we need packing tape? Well, we had to do some slight rearranging of our pottery boxes to meet airline size requirements. Once we had the tape, we were on our way to Venice.

Suburban Venice is located on the mainland of the country. This is where the airport is, as well as our hotel for our last night in Italy. We stopped by this hotel, Titian Hotel, because they were gracious enough to let us store our extra luggage and boxes for the night that we stayed on the island-what you think of when you think of Venice. We dropped off our luggage and drove to the airport to say goodbye to our rental car. There's no driving in Venice, so we decided to leave the car behind. From there, we went into the airport to purchase our bus and vaporetti tickets. We caught the bus to take us to the vaporetti-boats that operate like buses on the canals in Venice. We purchased a pass that allowed unlimited rides for 36 hours. It was a pretty good deal considering one single ticket cost 6.50 euros. We hopped on a very crowded vaporetto and headed toward our hotel. We were able to get our first glimpses of Venice -large, beautiful buildings with flooded basements, large churches, many canals, bridges, and lots of tourists.

We walked to our hotel, The Westin Europa and Regina (Thanks, again, travel points!), just off of St. Mark's Square. The hotel was beautiful! We dropped our bag off but couldn't check in because it was too early, so we ventured out and bought tickets to the Correr's Museum and Doge's Palace. We were both pretty much done with art museums, so we breezed through the Correr and got some lunch. We then went to Doge's Palace. The doge was the Venetian ruler, but we read conflicting commentary about how much power he really had. One doge, for example, was executed for going against the will of the senate and council, so it would seem that he was just a rubber stamp for what the other ruling bodies wanted. Regardless, the palace was pretty spectacular-large, lots of art, gold and marble. Included in this tour was a tour of the old prison which was attached to the Doge's Palace.

Then we ran back to the Westin, checked in, and freshened up. One of the benefits of being so close to the action is that we were back in St Mark's Piazza in three minutes and the line into the Basilica was short so we went inside. We listened to a podcast guided audio tour and walked around enjoying the art. After leaving St Mark's, we hopped a vaporetto over to the Rialto Bridge where we got some pictures of the setting sun. From there we walked to a restaurant, Cantina Do Spade. Cantina Do Spade had rave online reviews for its price point, but it's a little difficult to find. The best explanation is to take the main drag (Ruga dei Orefici) north from Rialto Bridge until it intersects S. Giovanni and turn left. Take the second alley to the right and follow it back two blocks. The restaurant is just before the Do Spade bridge on the left.

We got back to the hotel around 930 and were both exhausted. Asleep by 10.

October 14 - The Westin wanted a ridiculous 45 euros per person for breakfast so we ventured out for a thoroughly Italian experience - breakfast at a Pasticceria. A blog had listed Pasticceria Tonola as one of the best and said it was just behind Chiesa di San Rocco. Unfortunately, only one of these things was true. We wandered around for 30 minutes before we started asking directions and found it. In JD directions (meaning good directions), walk from San Toma towards Frari church. Once you emerge into the square facing the church, walk around to the left and walk through the archway towards Accademia and go down that street. . When that street deadends, take a right and walk one block and the bakery is there. We got delicious pastries (JD got seconds) and delicious cappuccinos. It was also the cheapest breakfast we had and we were the only English speakers in the shop.

After breakfast, we went back to Frari and did another audio podcast. It was a beautiful church and relatively tourist free. From there, we wandered out to Canel Della Guidecca and caught a vaporetto over to Isla di San Giorggio where there is a bell tower providing wonderful views overlooking the city. Unfortunately, we arrived in the middle of the lunch break, so we enjoyed lunch and killed time at a nearby sandwich shop. When the bell tower reopened, we went up and took a bunch of pictures . We then grabbed some gelatto and spent the afternoon wandering through the city. When we were ready to leave, we caught a vaporetto back to the Westin, picked up our bag, and headed back to our airport hotel, the Titian.

To view photos of Venice, click on the photo below:

Venice photos

October 10th and 11th

October 10 - it was a runaround day but in some ways the most exciting. We at breakfast and then retrieved our car from the garage. We had made much more deliberate plans to exit the city than we had coming in, and made it out of town without any problem. We headed south to the small town of Montevarchi where the Prada label has its outlet store. They call it Space Outlet. We got to the store around 9:10, and found out that the store opened at 10:30. We needed some supplies and an extra suitcase to hold all of our booty, so we darted over to the Intercoop, which is Italy's version of the super Walmart. We made it back to the outlet by 10:15, and there were already 40 people in line. By the time the doors were opened, the crowd had grown to over 100 people. We learned that Prada is still Prada and most of the prices were still ridiculous. JD attentively helped me choose shoes for a while, and it took a while because I scoured the store for the "cheapest" boots I could find. I did find some that were at a price point that I would spend of a nice pair of normal leather boots. We then headed to the men's section. We finally checked out around 1:00 pm and got on the road.

We headed for Pisa, where we needed to be at 3:30 to pick up our tickets to climb the famous tower. GPS said we only needed 90 minutes, but we got turned around twice and then traffic was really bad around Pisa. We ended up getting to the parking area at 3:15. Pisa is nice because you can park just across the street from the Tower. We took a bunch of pictures, including the cheesy must haves of us "holding" up the tower. We then climbed up to the tower. The lean was very obvious when climbing the steps and when standing on top, but not so serious that your mobility was affected. We got some great pictures of the surrounding area. Once we were down, we grabbed sandwiches and ate them sitting on the steps of a statue at the cathedral. We then browsed the tourist stands for souvenirs and got on the road around 5:45 pm.

To see our pictures from the Prada outlet and Pisa, click on the photo of the tower:

Pisa and Prada

We then headed up to the Ligurian beach to of Lerici. We got off the autostrade and began taking smaller and smaller roads towards the sea. We eventually went through several tunnels and popped out right on the Ligurean Sea. Our hotel (Hotel San Terenzo) is one of the few on the sea side of the road along the sea, and our room had a good sized balcony overlooking the sea. There was also a beach club next door and the hotel had privileges there.
After dropping our bags, we strolled back into town to a gelateria, and were excited to learn that portions were bigger and prices lower than any other place we'd been to.

october 11 - This was basically a lazy beach day. We did hike up to the Castello di Lerici above town and were rewarded with some gorgeous views of Lerici and San Terenzo. We read for a while on our balcony and then went down to put our toes in the water. The water was too cold, so my toes were the only part of me that touched the water. JD decided to take the plunge. He stayed in just long enough to get a photo and then jumped out. We wanted to enjoy our balcony a little more and so we grabbed some takeout food and then watched the sunset over the mountains in front of us.

To see more photos from Lerici, click on the photo below:

Lerici