Happy Birthday Samantha!!

It's hard to believe, our little Samantha is one year old! Such a big girl!! We had a fun birthday celebration on her birthday -- Thursday, the 14th. Since Brian was headed to work and we weren't sure when he was coming home, we started with birthday apple muffins, complete with a song and candle.
Then Sam opened her presents. She was really excited about her new walker. She is soooo much more confident in her walking, even in just the few days since she started using it. She also got some fun lights-and -music toys, some cute clothes and books from both grandparents, a lovely purple handbag (she loves putting stuff in and taking it out of bags), and a little pink and blue mobile phone (from Grandma Hone). She loved all the attention and could hardly stop playing with one present to open the next.


Samantha had a nice lemon cake for her birthday. We made her own cake in a little ramiken and gave it to her on a plate. Brian even got to come home in time to sing and help blow out the candle.
One more quick cute picture... On Friday afternoon, Sam got herself stuck in the fireplace grate. If you zoom in on her, she's actually smiling. I watched her first stick hands down there, then her head, then the rest of her and her feet came off the ground. I waited for her to get frustrated when she discovered she couldn't get back out. But she didn't! She just sat there smiling, and I pulled her out after the picture. Silly girl--- tried to climb right back in.
 

Family Christmas Pictures

We decided to use the handy-dandy self timer device on our camera to take a little family picture for our Christmas card this year. Now I know why many people prefer to hire a professional photographer to do their pictures and get the little ones to cooperate...




You'll just have to wait for your Christmas card to arrive to see the final result of our efforts! 

Us in Venice

Okay, I know this is way too many posts about a one-day trip... just goes to show we took way too many pictures. Oh well. I thought I'd include some of US on our trip, rather than just buildings and crowds.
The best way to get around quickly in Venice is to take a water taxi. They go up and down the Grand Canal and they are CROWDED, we discovered. We waited in a long line in the rain when we first arrived. Having the stroller proved inconvenient at first -- everyone kept pushing in front of us and we missed two taxis. But then I got smart and pulled the rain cover off and pushed back the top so everyone could see the adorable Samantha inside. As soon as she started chatting with people, we were generously shoved to the front of the line and had no problem getting on the next taxi. We met a nice couple from Boston with a baby. They live in Germany and he's been in Iraq for a year with the service. Nice to meet some Americans. Here we are, on the water taxi...

Venice has some nice food markets, which we almost missed because we were googling over the jewelry. (Okay, actually I was googling, and Brian was enduring... he pointed out that I should be worried if he started googling too much.) We bought some delicious cherry tomatoes that we ate with our dinner, and some amazing clementines that we brought home with us.

We stopped for lunch in a little restaurant and bought a pizza for me and a calzone for Brian (and baby food for Sam.) I decided to order hot chocolate as well, and Brian got a sprite. I include the picture of the hot chocolate, because it was more like chocolate soup, it wsa so thick! It reminded me of the chocolate Alicia got in Paris that was all over her arm, cheek and somehow, her neck! When we got our bill, it looked like the hot chocolate and the sprite cost more than the food. The server assured us that wasn't the case, but we left wondering how it added up to 16 euros for a quick bite! Be warned: Venice is expensive.

Here's daddy Brian and the little Sam, waiting for the taxi to take us home. I just thought it was such a cute shot, had to include it.

Venice is sinking!

We were shocked to see so much of the city under water. When Alicia and I were there in the summer of 2001, we were told that Venice is sinking up to a few inches every year (I don't remember the exact amount). Well! When Brian and I got there, we were surprised to see so much of the city under water! Apparently during the winter months the sea rises quite a bit now, and much of the "edges" of the city get immersed at high tide. We took lots of fun shots because we were so amazed at it all.

Here's the main square at St. Marks. It's the one with the big church tower, on all the postcards of Venice. It was about a foot under water all the way across. They had some raised walkways for transport across the square... all the people you see in this picture are on the walkways. Unfortunately for us, those walkways were so crowded, there was no way we could get Sam's stroller on there, so we took the "back roads" and never really went into/across the square.

For the more adventurous (I've spelled it wrong, haven't I? my London life has killed my spelling), there is the plastic bag wader boot option. They were selling these plastic bags with little rubber bands and plastic bottoms, so people could wade around in the water. Brian scored a pair from a trash can (ha!) and went back for a peek at the square while Samantha slept and I shopped for blown glass necklaces! He came back with a soggy shoe, and a good idea of why they were left in the trash in the first place.

Some more flooding houses... no lunch on the patio today!

Here's one of a jewelry shop with half a foot of water throughout the store. Is that even safe? People were wading in with their wellington boots or their bag-waders, and vendors were still turning a profit!

Doesn't it look like we're at the beach, sort of?

This is my favorite... the water-logged tomato washed ashore. I thought it was quite an artistic shot, no? Well, this was the best of the five shots I took of little Mr. Tomato.

Who knows if Venice will be completely submerged in 20 years? See it while it lasts, folks!

Artsy pictures of Venice

I thought I'd load some of the cool pictures of Venice that we took while we were there. Then, I'll load some of "us" and Venice, and tell about some of the things we did. So, here are a few to enjoy, just the scenery...

The Rialto Bridge is one of the most famous bridges in Venice. You see it all the time in movies and on postcards. There are shops all across the middle of the bridge with vendors selling blown glass, lace, leather goods, and Venecian masks. In this particular picture, Samantha and I are actually standing front and center at the top of the bridge, me in a purple coat. But I don't think you can see us, even zoomed in.

The light was just slightly too bright here, but I thought it was a dreamy shot anyway. Brian took it. Notice all the stairs on all the bridges... It's so amazing how all of them are built with a nice arch so that the boats can go through in the canals. But it's not so cool when toting a child in a stroller up and down and up and down. :)

The sun came out and Brian walked to the end of a pier to get this lovely shot of the Grand Canal. It really was quite a lovely afternoon.

I'd tell you what this building is, but I'd be making it up as I went along. I just thought it was happily situated and the afternoon sun was lighting it beautifully acroos the water.
 

Weekend in Italy

How 'bout a weekend in Italy? We took a little trip to see Mauro and Larissa at their place. That's right, we traded visits -- first they came to London, then we went to see them in Mauro's hometown, Gorizia. It's quite close to Venice (2 hrs by train). And it's also very close to Slovenia -- just about a five minute drive.

For those unfamiliar with Slovenia, it used to be part of Yugoslavia, until it broke off in 1991. It's now its own country and, according to Mauro, is thriving because Italians cross the border to gamble in the Slovenian casinos. He and Larissa were nice enough to drive us across the border to Nova Goriza (the town next to Gorizia) so we could add another country to our list. (And no, we did not gamble in the Slovenian casinos.)

We took pictures at an old train station that borders both the Slovenian town and the Italian town. The border is still fenced off, but at the train station, there's an open square that we walked around, freely crossing back and forth between the two countries.

We also took a picture of the sign (below) showing pedestrians what their restrictions are. (i.e. don't cross the border, even though the fence is down.) Believe it or not, we are standing next to the sign in the picutre below. But the flash just picked up the sign and not us.

I just thought it was so cool to have an open border like that. I had Brian take my picture in the middle of the square: I'm in two countries at the same time! How amazing is that?!

I wish we would have had a camera for the rest of the evening, but we left it at home. Mauro's cousin's girlfriend's daughter was turning four, and we got invited to her birthday party. If you think that relation sounded a bit confusing, it gets worse... Mauro's aunt was there, her name is Tina. The four-year-old daughter of the girlfriend is Lina. And the little dog under the table was called Nina. Tina, Lina, Nina!! Stop the madness!

It was such a fun party, and so much food for a four-year-old! They had homemade mini pizzas, mini pastries filled some with delicious tuna, some with potato salad, and some with something like fry sauce and mixed vegetables. They also had skewers with cherry tomatoes and fresh mozerella, along with fresh pineapple skewers. For dessert, they served the most delicious cake with pudding on the bottom and whipping cream on the top. Mmm... I would take another piece right now, thank you!

The little girl, Lina, was in a bit of a pouty mood. So Larissa pointed to the statue of Santa sitting on the mantle and told her, "You better cheer up and be happy because Santa is watching you and he knows if you're being nice or not." Lina scowled at Larissa and answered, "No, Santa is not watching me because I turned him around!" Sure enough, Larissa looked more closely at the Santa statue, and he was most definitely facing the wall! Clever little girl! She got a doll for her birthday that cries real tears. All us adults took turns making it cry just to see the tears. It was a fun night.

I'll have to write more about our trip later. We took tons of picts of Venice... still to come!

More of Sam

Just a couple more shots of Samantha doing her cute stuff... She was thrilled to finally push buttons on the computer for a change. It was "off" so we let her bang away, and she liked the beeps it made, telling her the keyboard was immobilized.
My mom sent some cute little hair elastics for Samantha's birthday. I'm no hair expert, but I attempted some little piggy tails with her last week. She wouldn't hold still, so they are crooked. But they're kinda cute, eh?
 

Some fun visitors

Hi, only a minute to be on here tonight. Just wanted to report we've had some fun visitors staying with us lately. Brian's old roommate from Boston, Mauro, and his wife, Larissa, stayed over the weekend with their new little girl, Isabella. It was so much fun reminiscing old times and talking about our babies together. Sam had a hay-day with them... following them all around the house and checking out their stuff in her room. She didn't sleep much the whole time they were here because she was so excited!

Here are just a few pictures of them and us... Mauro and Brian with the little girlies.
Here's Samantha trying to take Isabella's bottle... we gave her one, don't worry.

Here is a close up of darling Isabella... look how much hair she has! It stands up on end and is sooo cute! She's three months old.

And here's a little family shot. They took one of us, too, but I will have to save it for another email time.