The End of 2009.....The Beginning of 2010

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and safe traveling. Let me try to catch you all up on what's been going on without writing a novel!

Thanksgiving turned out fantastic. Michael had to work Thanksgiving day but had the whole weekend off, so we celebrated Friday instead. A friend of ours came over with Michael after work Thursday and he spent the weekend with us as well. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, applesauce, and bread with butter. For dessert we had homemade apple turnovers, pumpkin pie, chocolate rum cake, rice crispy treats, and cupcakes. Our friend (Jeremy) brought over the game Mario Kart for Caleb to play, along with the steering wheel, so he had such a great time playing games with us! We spent all weekend stuffing our faces, playing games together, and just hanging out and enjoying ourselves...it was such a wonderful weekend.

The base had a tree lighting ceremony for the big Christmas tree they had set up. Caleb's teacher set it up so that the class all met up at the library and walked over to the ceremony together. Caleb also gets so excited when he sees his friends outside of school! The Navy band was there playing music, there were various groups of children singing Christmas carols for the crowd, and they had refreshments. I'm not sure how many grades participated, but Caleb's class was one of the classes that made a "Christmas card" that was set up on display at the ceremony. It was a huge poster with all of their hand prints and presents with a child's name on each one. Apparently it was a contest as well, and his class won second place (which was the same prize as first place)...so all of the children and parents get to take an ITT trip together! We haven't found out where or when yet, but Caleb asks about it all the time he's so excited!

Jenna came December 18th and stayed with us until the 30th. For those of you who don't know who Jenna is...she's my best friend that I have known since preschool. It was so great to see her and have company from home for the holidays! Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems when it came to making plans and getting off the base to explore with her because the Navy picked that week and a half to screw with Michael's schedule and call him in for unexpected meetings and work...but we still had a wonderful visit and got to spend a lot of quality time together! The weekend she got here we took her to Pompeii to explore, got harassed by a scary old lady trying to sell us stuff, and then had her experience true Italian pizza at a little restaurant. Because of all the unexpected switching around and shit the Navy was pulling, that ended up being the only trip we got to take while she was here. We spent a wonderful Christmas together, and then Monday night we went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant to let her experience a real Italian dinner. We all tried a dinner and dessert we'd never tried before (mostly because we didn't know what it was when we ordered it...being that it was in Italian haha) and had a phenomenal night! Tuesday was Jenna's last night here, so we got a babysitter and us grownups went to see Avatar, which we all thought was a really good movie. All-in-all it was a great visit and we really enjoyed having her here!

Seeing as how Michael's schedule got switched, he ended up having to work Christmas day and the whole weekend. So we celebrated our Christmas Eve on the 23rd, and did our Christmas day traditions on the real Christmas Eve. Our friend Jeremy managed to get Christmas Eve off so he came over to spend the holiday with us as well. Our Christmas Eve tradition is a big seafood dinner...so we had fried calamari (I actually had to clean and prepare the fresh stuff...so that was a new experience!), fried shrimp, baked clams, gnocchi, green beans, corn, applesauce, and we baked up a ham. It was SOOO yummy! For dessert we had mississippi mud and Christmas cookies. I let everyone else pick what kind of cookies they wanted and we ended up with chocolate chip, peanut butter, cut outs, and peanut butter blossoms. Next year I think we'll shoot for something new! Caleb went nuts over all of his gifts...he definitely made out really good this year! He got lots of toys like cars/trucks/tractors, action figures and transformers, a pirate ship, games, kitchen playdough set, etc. He also got lots of new clothes, two pair of sneakers, art easel, football, baseball bat/glove/teeball kit, and a bike. He got a really neat clock from my friend Jenna that not only shows the time but will also say the time for you when you press a button. It also glows red or green depending on how you set it up...so that your child will know when it's time for them to get up and when it's time to sleep. There is also a game that helps them learn time, but we haven't tried out that feature yet. This was a great idea considering the fact that Caleb asks what time it is about every 10 minutes throughout the day...now instead of asking us we'll just hear his clock telling him all day long! The couple that I babysit for also bought a vtech camera for Caleb that takes over 400 pictures, lets you do fun little edits, and also has games. We can hook it up to the computer and upload the pictures, so I'll have to get to that one of these days so you can all see the world through the eyes of Caleb! I know there are other things he got, but I can't remember it all to list right at this moment!

We had a very quiet, alcohol-free New Years by ourselves this year. Not that we don't love and appreciate having company over, but we decided to take a little break and have some "us" time! The Italians out in town started shooting off fireworks in the afternoon. Around 11pm New Years Eve they kicked it into high gear! Michael and I have never seen anything like it in our lives, not even on tv. It was a grand-finale that was spread across the entire horizon in a 365 degree circle around the base....miles and miles in every direction...and it lasted nonstop until close to 2am. There's no way I can describe how awesome it was.

Not much else has been going on. The past couple months we've been busy with the holidays and lots of company over all the time, so things are just slowing down and going back to normal now. Caleb has been out of school for 2 weeks, but he finally goes back tomorrow. Michael is getting switched back to working nights the middle of January unfortunately...but hopefully that means he'll be switching back to days not long after the baby is born. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'm 29 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty large and uncomfortable already! The baby is quite the feisty one, always kicking and punching and rolling around. Lately it's taken to shoving it's arms and legs so far down and to the side it feels like it's almost sitting on my hip bones! We are starting to get pretty excited for the big day and can't believe how fast it's all going by. I also spend a lot of time playing piano again, thanks to my amazing husband! It's so funny because I'll be practicing piano and Caleb will go play his drums at the same time and he will get all excited that we're playing music together!

We have decided to take a little family vacation for the last time before the baby is born. The 15th we'll be driving up north and staying at Camp Darby. The 16th we're going to a ski resort but just plan on spending the day sledding with Caleb and playing in the snow together and having fun. The 17th we're going to go to Florence and experience everything we can there, and then we'll come home on the 18th. We are SO excited for this trip...it has been long overdue!

I uploaded what pictures I have right now onto snapfish and am sending them out. We apologize that a lot of the Christmas pictures came out blurry, but we've been fighting with our camera because it seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes. It's not the best but it gets the job done most of the time. We love and miss all of you, and we hope you are all doing well and keeping healthy! We will send more pictures and update again after our trip up north. Ciao!

Quick December Update

Merry Christmas! Things here are good. I will update more this next week after I've gotten the house back in order and pictures all together...but here are a couple short videos of the baby in the meantime. Watch closely! Hope you all have a happy and healthy new year, and we'll be writing more soon!

...life is good...

Can't believe it's the middle of November already! Time has been flying by for us lately. The family is doing great.

Michael is working dispatch for a little while so that he can expand his training and learn more and different jobs. I'm also very proud to announce that, by request of his chief, Michael will be taking an EMT course to become certified, which would carry over to the U.S. outside of the military as well. It's a very tough one month course that starts the middle of January and goes into February. He has been working days since he went to dispatch, which has also been absolutely wonderful for all of us, as we get to spend a lot more time together.

I have been feeling better than I have in a long time. I finally have some energy back and, as long as I stay away from smells like poop and cigarettes, I don't get sick anymore! I still babysit part time and just take care of Caleb. My college classes will be starting in February...I'm only taking 1-2 classes at a time so it won't be too overwhelming at first. I'm 22 weeks pregnant Monday and definitely showing now.

Caleb is doing fantastic in school. We have been getting nothing but good reports from his teachers about how well he works with the other kids and is excelling for his age. We recently found out about some sports programs that are available to kids his age. Unfortunately it was a little late to get him into the soccer program, but t-ball is starting in April, and they are trying to see if they can set up a basketball program soon.

Good news...we finally have a kitchen table! It's wonderful to be able to sit down together as a family to eat dinner, and it's a damn nice table if I do say so myself. We also ran across a couple dressers that were being given away for free. They're extremely nice, heavy duty dark wood dressers...so for the first time in 2 years we don't have to live out of boxes and suitcases anymore! We also picked up a spare twin size bed the other day, and a good size dresser came with that as well. It's not as heavy duty as ours, but it has a lot of space. I'm making it my project to paint and fix up, and we're going to use it for the baby's room.

Halloween was a blast. Unfortunately, the company we had ordered Caleb's costume from never got it out to us (long story), so we ended up getting him an FBI kit at the NEX. It turned out great though because he plays with it all the time, his favorite thing is the baton to beat up bad guys! That morning Caleb and I got up and went to the breast cancer awareness 5K run/family walk. There was a huge turnout, bigger than anyone expected, so it was really exciting. Caleb had a good time walking with me because he said we were like a parade! They had a lot of tents set up and a big blown up jumping thing for kids, so he had a lot of fun jumping in that too. That evening we all went out trick-or-treating and it was a lot of fun! There were a lot of balconies decorated, kids and adults were running around in costumes, and people were giving out handfuls of candy. A couple times while we were walking, a random adult dressed up in a costume would run up to Caleb and throw a handful of candy into his bag!

Today we spent the day in Pompeii. It is absolutely beautiful there! We spent a good part of the day there, and we probably only saw about 1/4 of it. It's enough to just look around and take in the views and the structures...but if you look closely, there are little carvings and statues and paintings everywhere. We plan on taking at least 1-2 more full day trips there so we can actually see it all. After we were finished walking around the ruins, we walked to a little restaurant just outside of it and had some FANTASTIC Italian pizza. We sat outside at some cute tables underneath a big tent/canopy, and the weather was absolutely perfect the entire day. The paths and walkways in Pompeii are all uneven rocks and big stones, so parts of it were like a hike. If you're not careful you can trip and fall with every step, but we had a great time and couldn't have asked for a better day.

Here are some videos I've taken in the past month or two, and I'm also sending out a link to snapfish for our Halloween/Fall 2009 and Pompeii pictures. We hope you enjoy!

Beginning of September Update

Sorry we haven't updated much lately, life has kept us very busy! I don't have any new pictures or videos to share right now, but I will get some to post soon. Now that I'm pregnant, we're eligible for a 3-bedroom on base...so we spent this past labor day weekend moving ourselves into our new place. We couldn't be happier with the apartment! There is a ton more room in the living room, lots more cupboard space in the kitchen, two bathrooms, a separate laundry room, and obviously an extra bedroom for the baby. The balcony off of the living room is a little smaller than the old place, but it's still perfect for us, and we also have a small balcony off of our bedroom (that also links up to the baby's room). We have a couple more things to get, and then I'll make a video to show you all what it looks like here. We have also gotten extremely lucky when it comes to appliances! We have a brand new washer, new microwave, brand new fridge and dishwasher, the showers look almost new with no mildew whatsoever (much different from the old place), and we now have a big extra freezer that we got for free! Some people moved out downstairs and left it, so Michael went and talked to the people down there and they let us have it. A freezer that size goes for around 300euro here, so we are VERY fortunate!

Michael is doing great. He finished one of his online classes, is still taking another, and a new one will start this next month I believe. He has been doing great in school, works hard every night (can't wait until he works days again!), and spends lots of time with us. In the next few months he should hopefully be able to start talking to his detailer to start negotiating his next set of orders. I pray to God he doesn't have to do a year unaccompanied tour, but unfortunately it's a good possibility. Things change every day, and they're always making new rules and switching people around, so who knows what will happen by then.

I am doing pretty good as well. Overall, I'm feeling a lot better than I have been the past couple months, but I have my good days and my bad days. I'm still babysitting a couple days a week, one baby in the mornings and one in the evenings. Besides that I just spend my days with Caleb and do lots of reading and research about natural births. I'm really pushing to have a home birth, but no-one out here has dealt with that before and is having a hard time giving me answers right away, so it's taking time to work things out. There are a few different possibilities at this point, and thankfully I have a couple people who are helping me out now with finding answers, so cross your fingers!

Caleb got accepted to school!!! We are SO excited for him! He is supposed to start September 15th, and it's Monday through Friday from 7:55am-1:30pm. It is going to be a wonderful experience for him, and he is really happy as well because he loves school. If he hadn't gotten accepted we would've continued taking him to the "drop-off" program, but this will be much better for him because he will actually learn things, instead of just going to play for a couple hours. This will also be a great opportunity for him to meet more kids his own age, since all of the kids in his class are 4, turning 5.

We went out to dinner at our first real Italian restaurant this past Saturday night, and it was fantastic! We got there around 7:30pm and opened the restaurant...since most Italian restaurants don't open until 8-9pm. They started us out with a taste of the house wine and little pieces of some sort of sandwich with vegetables on it, and then a basket of some sort of really good crusty herb bread with pieces of meat in it (which was all free). Caleb wanted pizza, so I ordered him pizza for 6euro, thinking it would just be a big slice of pizza, but instead he got an 8 piece pizza all to himself! Michael and I got appetizers of the most fantastic mozzarella cheese I've ever tasted, surrounded by paper thin slices of ham. For dinner, Michael had a lobster and pasta dish, and I had pasta and scampi topped with tomatoes. It was delicious! Throughout dinner they also gave us more free bread, but this time it was a plate with some sort of a breadstick tasting bread that was cut like slices of pizza. Afterwards, we all had a little gelato. Some people say that there are better restaurants and food than this one, but this was our first real Italian restaurant, and we thought it was a great time and great food!

Our Family is Growing

So I'm sure everyone has heard the news by now...but for those of you who may not have, we are having a baby! I'm just over 7 weeks pregnant now. It was July 22nd, Michael's first day to work nights, so he and Caleb were still sleeping when I walked to the hospital at 6:30am to get a test done. When i walked in the lady says, "um...I'm not sure if we can do this test today, your pregnancy test came back positive." I nearly passed out! We have been trying to have a baby, but because of personal reasons, we never would have thought I'd get pregnant anytime soon. They took me into the room and I was far enough along to see the baby on the ultrasound, and printed a picture to bring home to Michael and Caleb. I woke Caleb up first, showed him the picture, and explained that we were having a baby and he was a big brother. Of course it will take some time for him to fully understand what's going on, but he knows that "our baby" (as he calls it) is in my tummy, and he's very excited! He took the picture and woke up Michael...who didn't quite understand the picture until I explained to him what it was! We are all very happy and excited. Sometimes Caleb will randomly lift up my shirt and put his hand on my belly. I asked him once, "are you saying hi to the baby?" He said, "I'm just keeping an eye on it." He's a riot, he will be a great big brother.

Let's see...what else has been going on? We went back to Carney Park to go camping for the weekend of our anniversary, but ended up only staying there one night because none of us got any sleep (thanks to noisy people) and I have had pretty bad morning sickness...or more like all-day sickness. We still had a fantastic time and got lots of swimming in. We bought Caleb a lifejacket to help him learn, and by the time we left the pool we had him swimming all over by himself with no help, and he was even going down a small water slide, landing completely under water, without anyone there to catch him. He had an absolute blast. This past weekend there was a big picnic for the base. There was music, lots of stuff for kids to do, raffles, demonstrations (for example, they did a working police dog demonstration where they had the dog go after someone), and they had lots of tents set up with information about various organizations. There was also a short parade, it was really neat. The Italian polizia, caribineri, our military police, bike patrol, the Italian motorcycles, and our firetrucks were all in it. It was really neat seeing all of the different police vehicles that are used, and the weird sounds some of them make!

Michael is doing great. Working nights has taken a little bit more out of him, because he's not used to staying up all night and sleeping all day, but it's only 3 months and they switch back thankfully! He's taking a couple classes online as well, working on that degree. He has been absolutely wonderful...I have had horrible morning sickness and have spent most of the last week sleeping, being sick, and trying to get comfortable on the couch. He has taken over a lot of my chores around the house and has really helped out a lot, I don't know what I would've done without him! Besides being sick, I'm doing good as well. I've taken a little break from my ISP classes to rest, but hopefully in the next couple weeks I can get working on those again. Caleb is happy and healthy! He has been going to a drop-off program at school twice a week for a few hours, and he loves it to death. The teachers say he's been doing good in school and playing very well with the other kids. We are excited for school to actually start in September because it will give him a little more of a "learning" experience, instead of just playtime for a few hours here and there.

Here are a few random videos we've taken over the past couple weeks, and I'm also sending out a link for snapfish for a few pictures we have as well. Sorry I'm not in many of them, but feeling how I've been feeling lately, I've been the one hiding behind the camera! I hope everyone is happy and healthy...we miss you all! Lots of love.

Hiking Trip

Yesterday we drove to Carney Park and went hiking up the volcano. There are trails everywhere, it was awesome. Technically the trails aren't part of Carney Park or the military, but you can access them from there. So we had to park inside Carney Park and then walk out the gate, down the road a little, to find a trail leading in. We spent a few hours climbing and didn't even hit half the trails, and that's only on one side of the volcano. If we had taken a trail on the other side of the road there are a lot more trails on that side as well. A lot of the trails were really nice, they're pretty big and open so it wasn't too hard to get through. There were a few spots here and there where we had to help Caleb and Sucre out to find their footing, or lift them up if we had to climb a little, but it was such a great experience. Caleb had an absolute blast, as did Michael and I (and Sucre actually did too!). As we hiked higher up the volcano some of the trails got smaller and more overgrown. It would've been better if we had worn pants, because there ended up being a lot of prickers, but it was so hot there's no way we would've been able to hike in them. This weekend we're going camping for a couple days, so we'll go hike again and explore some of the other trails. I sent out an e-mail to everyone with the pictures we took on snapfish, they don't do the view justice, but hope you enjoy anyway!

What?! It's the middle of July?!

The past couple months seem to have flown by. Michael and I were looking at pictures of Caleb from a couple years ago, and we were in disbelief at how much he's changed and grown up. We've had a lot of adventures the past couple years, from taking an amazing trip to Chicago a couple weeks after we met, to living out here in Italy, and all the bouncing around in between. It's been interesting. :-)

We got Caleb a kite, and as you can tell from the video, he has had a blast with it. Daddy was trying to teach him tricks with it, and he was doing very well. It's a Transformers kite with Bumblebee on it. Caleb was interested in Transformers before, but after watching the movie with us one night he is in love with them. He was glued to the TV, pointing and yelling every time a fight scene came about. Caleb grew out of his bike. We were looking at a couple bikes, trying to decide which we wanted to get, when we came across a scooter at Auchan. Caleb had ridden a scooter down in Texas with a little boy he met at the playground, and he really liked it. We gave him a choice between a bike and a scooter and he wanted the scooter, so we bought it. We're still going to get him a bike, but the scooter is good for now until we do. It's great because it's a jr scooter, so he has to learn to balance is and steer it, which he's getting the hang of pretty quickly. He rode it all the way down to the store with me to get some groceries, and then rode it all the way back. It's definately some good exercise! Uncle Nikolas and Uncle Daniel sent Caleb a double barrel shotgun. It's been his new favorite toy lately. We use it to teach him about gun safety too, and it's neat because when you pop it open to take out the shells, they'll fly back out at you just like a real gun, so you have to do it the right way. He's been shooting deer, chickens, bad guys, and of course anything in the house that the darts will stick to.

Michael has been busy juggling work, school, and family time. He's doing great though. They should be switching to nights in the next week or two. It kinda sucks because he'll have to sleep during the day a lot, and Caleb will be starting school eventually so he won't see him too much during work days, but at least he gets time off every 2-3 days. Also it's good for Michael because he prefers to work at night when it's cooler, and there's different work to do at night than during the day. It's only for 3 months, and then he switches back to days again. I'm doing pretty well. I was sick with a fever the past 7 days, but it's all over and I'm feeling a lot better now. I will be babysitting a 3 year old little girl for the month of August from 6:30-5pm, Monday through Friday. I will also be babysitting our friend's baby from the end of August to middle of October. That will only be 2 days one week, 1 the next, and then alternating back and forth. It's only a few hours in the evenings while our friend is at school. I may also be babysitting an 8 month old baby boy from September until June of 2010. They are coming over tomorrow morning to meet me, and then we'll decide for sure if it's going to work. That would only be 3 days a week, from 8:45am-12:15pm or so. It may sound confusing, but it's really not. It works out so that I'll never babysit more than one child at any given time (not including Caleb obviously). There are a lot of jobs like this around the base, so I'm continuously looking to see what's available. I'm also taking ISP's (Independent Study Programs) online to get certificates that I'll later transfer over to college and get another associate's degree. Getting the certificates themselves don't cost money, but they don't really mean much until you transfer them over to something, which does cost money. Michael is taking the same classes and going for another associate's degree as well.

We miss all of you. We're still waiting to see pictures of everyone as well, so get your butt moving! Lots of love from the McGuire family.