The Italy Trip Recap

I feel obligated to post a recap of our travels while living abroad mostly out of an obligation to my future self who will be annoyed (maybe?) if I just stopped documenting our time here. So here you go future Caroline, here's what you did in Italy in August of 2017:

We flew in to Milan which several people had told us was not a city we needed to bother spending much time in so we didn't. We were only there for the night as we took an evening flight. For the trip we decided NOT to bring carseats or rent a car and instead take the trains which we heard can be late and expensive, but overall we had a really positive experience with them (and it was more affordable than renting a car, paying for gas, and having to deal with the nightmare of trying to find parking everywhere we went). Our first train ride was from Milan out to Vicenza where we linked up with an Army friend of Miles who is stationed there. We were only in Vicenza for a couple days and that included a day trip out to Venice. Venice was beautiful, but crowded and hot. That probably was the theme of an August trip though - beautiful, crowded, and hot. I can definitely see why people find Venice to be so endearing.

Poor kids, having to go to Venice on a hot day. What a rough life.

I took very few pictures from our time in Vicenza, but here are two from a lovely run I went on before we left. This is Monte Berico and the Basilica that overlooks the city of Vicenza.

We took the train to Rome next where we spent the majority of the trip. We did all the touristy things - the Colosseum, Roman Ruins, Pantheon (our AirBnB was a stone's throw away from the Pantheon!), Vatican City, Spanish Steps, we even went out to the coast for a beach day which was a nice break from the tourist things (though those were wonderful).

From Rome we took the train to Florence where we spent the last few days of our trip. I'm so glad we ended the trip here as it wasn't nearly as busy or grand as Rome, but felt more like a peaceful, relaxed city. 

This was probably the best meal of the trip, possibly ever!

While all of the trips we have taken since moving abroad have been special in their own way, Italy was definitely a surreal one. I wouldn't recommend going in August, but it just meant we had to eat gelato at least once every day! 

BOB Strollers - the real MVP

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Halloween 2017

Halloween recap - better late than never. So I had gotten a little to excited about the idea of dressing up the kids as Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweep for Halloween, but Finn quickly made it known he had no interest in dressing up as a chimney sweep and partaking and when I listed all the things I would bribe him with he said he would put the costume on, but didn't want me to take a picture and didn't want anyone to see. Ugh. As much as I wanted to just force it on him, I didn't want to embarrass the kid or make him self conscious and thought I should probably respect his wishes which is totally annoying. Mary on the other hand was bribed with one Haribo gummy and she was good to go!

Unfortunately when it came to trick or treating Mary didn't want to be Mary Poppins. Both kids wants to reuse last years costumes and be American First Responders. The firefighter costume (which was a hand-me-down from a friend) has been in circulation since 2014!

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