Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Jacob's First Day of Preschool
This summer Jacob did a little "mini-session" at his future preschool for 1 week but it wasn't actually considered preschool. So on September 2 Jacob started preschool for 2 days/week. He goes on Wednesday and Thursday which is the middle east equivalent of Thursday Friday. On August 31 we went for orientation day which I think really helped Jacob be ready and go into his room easily. Since there weren't any other kids when we went I was able to get a couple of pictures of him in his room with his teachers.
He was so excited to go to school his first day. I think he is the most excited about carrying his Spiderman lunch box.
We are headed into our second week of preschool and Jacob is so excited to go tomorrow so I would say that he is enjoying school. He loves having all the kids to play with and the activities that they do. When we ask him what he does at school he tells us "I like to eat" so I guess he enjoys lunch time :) I'm so happy he is having fun.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Alps Tour pt 2: Italy
The next day of our trip started bright and early. This was a long day of driving but it brought us through some beautiful areas and began our time in Italy. First on the driving agenda was the Furka Pass. The Furka pass is high in the Switzerland alps. This driving road has been in books, on tv shows and of course James Bond. Micah again loved driving all the switchbacks. I think I should mention that even with all the driving and time in the car the kids did fantastic! Hailey would use these days to catch up on sleep and Jacob would either play with the iPad or watch his DVD player. I also brought suckers which were a life saver!
We arrived in Varenna in the late afternoon.Varenna is a tin,y quaint little town on Lake Como. Our original boat tour was canceled due to weather so we just walked around town, ate dinner and relaxed.
At last, the next day was finally better weather and our boat tour was rescheduled for the morning. We took a tour around Lake Como and got off at one of the large villas to tour. The villa we toured is frequently used in movies such as James Bond and Star Wars. They also said they have a wedding every. single. day! Jacob enjoyed riding the boat and getting to run around the gardens at the villa.
When the boat tour ended we were once again on the move. Our original plan was to leave early and get to Castelrotto in time to enjoy the town but the boat tour change messed that up. However, our drive to Catelrotto included another "driving experience" for Micah going over the Stelvio Pass. Most of the drive had great views and beautiful scenery however we did hit one patch that we were in the rain clouds and could only see white. Eventually we made it below the cloud line and had good views again. Once we made it to Castelrotto it was time to eat dinner and get ready for the next day.
We woke up and took a five minute drive to cable car Seiseralm Bergbahn that took us to the tiny valley town of Compatsch. First I have to talk about getting on this cable car. It's a good thing we have lived in the Middle East so long or we may have never gotten in a car. Once you made it passed the turn stile that checked your ticket you were in one mass group of people. Basically everyone would just push their way up to the front and when the cable car doors opened there was a mass push of people to see who could get on. After the order of Switzerland and France this was CRAZY! As I said, being "from" the Middle East we were pretty used to this style of "line" and were able to get into a car pretty quickly.
Once we got off the cable car in the town of Compatsch we headed to pick up our bikes for a day of biking in the Dolomite mountains. I was the one designated to pull Hailey in the trailer since I had reserved an E-bike which is a bike with a motor that helps you peddle. Micah had Jacob in a regular kid seat with no e-bike. We started off up the mountain and I had no problem pulling Hailey up the mountain but we kept having to stop to wait on Micah and Jacob. Finally Micah decided he couldn't take any more (true mountain biking is HARD) so we headed back to town to see if we could get him an e-bike too. Unfortunately they told us they didn't have any with a kid seat available so we decided to get lunch and decide what to do. We were going to return the bikes and just go for a hike but when we arrived there was an e-bike sitting there with a kid seat already attached!! I went in and asked if we could have it and after some discussion (it was reserved for someone who hadn't shown up) we were off on the bikes! I'm so happy this worked out because biking through the mountains on those trails ended up being one of my favorite days. The amount of people out hiking and biking in that area was amazing. There were all these little rest areas with restaurants and bathrooms and playgrounds. I told Micah that I would love to live somewhere that this could be a normal weekend activity.
Even though we had a great day biking we made it back to our hotel by late afternoon. The next day we needed all of our stuff to be in one bag for our trip into Venice so I spent the pre dinner time with Hailey re-arranging and organizing all our bags while Micah took Jacob out to play.
The next morning we were headed to Venice but first we did a driving tour through the Dolomites and then drove along the shore line of Lake Garda. The Dolomite drive was a lot more crowded of a drive and we were stuck behind buses quite frequently so Micah didn't get to enjoy it as much as he wanted. It was a little bit of a culture shock to start the day in the mountains with people in their hiking gear and jackets and then suddenly be along the lake seeing people in the swim suits and beach gear! Lake Garda appeared to be a very popular place for a beach style vacation with lots of people sun bathing and tons of sailboats out on the lake.
Our car had to be dropped off at the Venice airport before heading in to Venice. Micah had found a place to store luggage so we were able to store the car seats and all but one bag before taking the boat into Venice. This was a life saver. I can't even imagine trying to carry all our stuff around Venice to our hotel! In true fashion we arrived in Venice in time to eat dinner and wander around some. We wandered around San Marco square listening to the music and taking in the sights, of course some gelato was involved as well!
We only had one day in Venice so we picked our top sights we wanted to see and set off early to try to beat the crowds. The first stop was the Campanile Tower for a 360 view of Venice. The city is so beautiful!
Up next was St. Mark's Basilica. The line to get into the Basilica at this point was decently long but thanks to Rick Steves' (travel book author) we knew that if we went to this other building and checked our back pack we could skip the line--Crazy huh?! So within 5 minutes we were in the church. I think at this point I have been to Europe so much and toured so many churches that it takes a lot to get me excited. Nothing really stood out to me here so it was just basically another catholic church. As usual, they don't allow pictures inside so we have pictures around the outside.
After St. Mark's we headed in Doge's Palace. To be honest, I felt really unstressed in the palace and wish we would have had more information on what we were seeing. We did have a little information so it was completely aimless. Right we entered the palace, I noticed the main courtyard was very pretty and not that crowded so I decided to try to get a couple of pictures of the kids. Hailey cooperated on her own but once Jacob sat down she wouldn't stop trying to crawl. They still turned out super cute!
When in Venice, it of course is essential to take a Gondola ride. They are ridiculously expensive for what you get and honestly, I would never do it again, but I am so happy I can say that I have! You can see what Hailey thought of it ;)
We did a lot of just wandering around and shopping after we had checked off our list. Here are some pictures from the last of our wonderful vacation.
We arrived in Varenna in the late afternoon.Varenna is a tin,y quaint little town on Lake Como. Our original boat tour was canceled due to weather so we just walked around town, ate dinner and relaxed.
At last, the next day was finally better weather and our boat tour was rescheduled for the morning. We took a tour around Lake Como and got off at one of the large villas to tour. The villa we toured is frequently used in movies such as James Bond and Star Wars. They also said they have a wedding every. single. day! Jacob enjoyed riding the boat and getting to run around the gardens at the villa.
When the boat tour ended we were once again on the move. Our original plan was to leave early and get to Castelrotto in time to enjoy the town but the boat tour change messed that up. However, our drive to Catelrotto included another "driving experience" for Micah going over the Stelvio Pass. Most of the drive had great views and beautiful scenery however we did hit one patch that we were in the rain clouds and could only see white. Eventually we made it below the cloud line and had good views again. Once we made it to Castelrotto it was time to eat dinner and get ready for the next day.
We woke up and took a five minute drive to cable car Seiseralm Bergbahn that took us to the tiny valley town of Compatsch. First I have to talk about getting on this cable car. It's a good thing we have lived in the Middle East so long or we may have never gotten in a car. Once you made it passed the turn stile that checked your ticket you were in one mass group of people. Basically everyone would just push their way up to the front and when the cable car doors opened there was a mass push of people to see who could get on. After the order of Switzerland and France this was CRAZY! As I said, being "from" the Middle East we were pretty used to this style of "line" and were able to get into a car pretty quickly.
Once we got off the cable car in the town of Compatsch we headed to pick up our bikes for a day of biking in the Dolomite mountains. I was the one designated to pull Hailey in the trailer since I had reserved an E-bike which is a bike with a motor that helps you peddle. Micah had Jacob in a regular kid seat with no e-bike. We started off up the mountain and I had no problem pulling Hailey up the mountain but we kept having to stop to wait on Micah and Jacob. Finally Micah decided he couldn't take any more (true mountain biking is HARD) so we headed back to town to see if we could get him an e-bike too. Unfortunately they told us they didn't have any with a kid seat available so we decided to get lunch and decide what to do. We were going to return the bikes and just go for a hike but when we arrived there was an e-bike sitting there with a kid seat already attached!! I went in and asked if we could have it and after some discussion (it was reserved for someone who hadn't shown up) we were off on the bikes! I'm so happy this worked out because biking through the mountains on those trails ended up being one of my favorite days. The amount of people out hiking and biking in that area was amazing. There were all these little rest areas with restaurants and bathrooms and playgrounds. I told Micah that I would love to live somewhere that this could be a normal weekend activity.
Even though we had a great day biking we made it back to our hotel by late afternoon. The next day we needed all of our stuff to be in one bag for our trip into Venice so I spent the pre dinner time with Hailey re-arranging and organizing all our bags while Micah took Jacob out to play.
The next morning we were headed to Venice but first we did a driving tour through the Dolomites and then drove along the shore line of Lake Garda. The Dolomite drive was a lot more crowded of a drive and we were stuck behind buses quite frequently so Micah didn't get to enjoy it as much as he wanted. It was a little bit of a culture shock to start the day in the mountains with people in their hiking gear and jackets and then suddenly be along the lake seeing people in the swim suits and beach gear! Lake Garda appeared to be a very popular place for a beach style vacation with lots of people sun bathing and tons of sailboats out on the lake.
Our car had to be dropped off at the Venice airport before heading in to Venice. Micah had found a place to store luggage so we were able to store the car seats and all but one bag before taking the boat into Venice. This was a life saver. I can't even imagine trying to carry all our stuff around Venice to our hotel! In true fashion we arrived in Venice in time to eat dinner and wander around some. We wandered around San Marco square listening to the music and taking in the sights, of course some gelato was involved as well!
We only had one day in Venice so we picked our top sights we wanted to see and set off early to try to beat the crowds. The first stop was the Campanile Tower for a 360 view of Venice. The city is so beautiful!
Up next was St. Mark's Basilica. The line to get into the Basilica at this point was decently long but thanks to Rick Steves' (travel book author) we knew that if we went to this other building and checked our back pack we could skip the line--Crazy huh?! So within 5 minutes we were in the church. I think at this point I have been to Europe so much and toured so many churches that it takes a lot to get me excited. Nothing really stood out to me here so it was just basically another catholic church. As usual, they don't allow pictures inside so we have pictures around the outside.
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