more pictures

My boy is a professional slouch.

















I can't imagine where he would have got that from



















He is getting pretty good at sitting up straight.




















And here he is at his first "Autumnfest." It's sort of like a halloween party/ car show/ fund raiser. All the Commands (i.e. Security, public works EOD etc...) set up booths to sell stuff or hand out candy and what not. Funny story concerning the security and EOD booths. (EOD, by the way, stands for Explosive Ordinance Disposal, they are quite hardcore and let's say, protective of their CO) Security had a Jail-n-Bail booth set up where we would take money ($1 per minute) to put people in our smelly makeshift jail. If the arestee wanted to they could pay their way out for twice the cost. I thought it was fun. Anyway some anonymous person paid to have the CO of EOD thrown in jail. Of course he didn't go quietly, so a three on three or four (security to EOD) brawl ensued when my partners and I went to pick him up. I picked the CO up by the waist and proceeded to haul him the fifty some odd feet to our jail while the others pummeled each other, much to the amusement of everyone else around them. I made it about five feet away from the jail door when someone snuck up behind me and put me in a nasy UFC-esque choke hold. Now with no oxygen to the brain I surged foreward the last few feet with the help of my cohorts and tossed the CO in. HA! we win. Until EOD came back while we weren't looking and busted everyone out of the jail. Oh well, we'll get 'em next time

my mommy went to houghton,

and all I got was this diaper.

sunday afternoon in Sicily

three months old, and I can....

not your mama's prefold and plastic pants

my first sewing project in Sicily, made from a receiving blanket and a prefold that was getting a little worn:














here it is on the boy:













and the cover he's in today because I'm washing my wool








yes, yes he IS the cutest baby you've ever seen, thank you for noticing.

why I CD

http://www.borntolove.com/wrong.html

in case you're interested (Sam).

the "how" is yet to come.

taste of home

anyone want to give me the number off the back of their magazine so I can look at recipes online? Apparantly they figured out I'm no longer a subscriber, so they took some of my privileges away =(

speaking of recipes, I have got to find a good one for tiramisu. We bought one in Motta (couldn't figure out how to ask for a piece, so we bought the whole pie. stupid americans.)

it was worth every penny though ($13 euro for 12 average sized slices).

muah! perfeto.

for those who are interested....

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/flash/

this is a short video about the differences between italians and the rest of Europe

I laughed.

The Cat: Everywhere You Want to Be

Honestly - on my computer chair, on my bed, on my fave TV seat. . .then yesterday am Carolyn said that she "couldn't" brush her teeth because:

I haggled

we needed area rugs.

I found them; an Italian guy was selling them on the side of SP.106 SP is short for "Strada Provinciale" or something close to that, which basically means county road. So the wife and I were heading down county road 106, the one that gets you from one part of the base to the other, and on the side of the road a bunch of these rugs were hanging. We decided to stop as there was a particular rug that E and I had both independently noticed on seperate occasions and mentioned to each other. Since we were on a time schedule--the thrift store has dollar bag saturdays every payday weekend and we received a three dollar coupon as part of INDOC--we kept going, deciding to stop on the way home. After getting E's hair cut, sampling some local wines at the NEX, and realizing that the thrift store wasn't open this particular saturday, we headed back, in the rain (another side note: Catania flooded last night. Somehow I'm glad we're this far up the hill).
By the time we reached the rug guy it had slowed to a slight drizzle but the rug we wanted was gone. grr. We realized this only after parking precariously on the side of the road and investigating what other cool wares the man had to offer. We told him about the green rug that we had previously laid eyes on adn he informed us that he had sold it, the last one of its kind, to "Americano." He took us to the back of his truck to show us more of his stuff, and we noticed a very similar rug to the one that we had in mind. Turns out it was the same pattern and colors, but this one had tassles on either end. "Cool, I can live with tassles."
The man was willing to part with said rug for 70 Euro ($84ish US). Another rug however, came with his recommendation as it was bigger than most of his stock and thus more suitable for the Americanized homes that we live in. He offerd that rug to us for 200 Euro (approx $240 US.) The wife and I really liked our original choice but this new option had its appeal as well. The concessionare could see the hesitation and said "for you my friend, both for 200 Euro." E and I decided that this was a stellar deal, but it was too bad that my wallet was lacking the funds for this. I told the gentleman that I only had 145 Euro on my person, otherwise we would gladly take him up on this great deal. He replied that he would also consider any american money we had ($5) and any gas coupons we might be able to part with. (side note: gas coupons are like little pieces of gold. I buy coupons good for 5, 10 or 20 litres of gas at about two thirds of the cost that gas would cost on the economy. These coupons are rationed out based on the size of your vehicle and its horsepower. For my Nissan I am afforded 300 litres a month. I pay about $210 for the 300 litres which ends up costing me a little under one euro a litre.The locals pay about 1.22. Since these coupons are rationed and signed for with serial numbers it would be a bad idea to use these as currency. I was told stories about people paying "umbrella girls*" with these tickets. Anyways, thankfully I had left my coupons at home so this was of no further issue.) We thought briefly of buying one rug, or coming back some other time with more money, but as we were trying to come up with a way of phrasing this in Italian the man offered to sell both rugs to me for what I had on me.

Hooray cheap rugs from Italy:





this is the one that we really like.










this is the big one, we also like it. The boy is thrilled to have something else to sit on other than tile.

















So I guess I didn't really haggle, per se, but I did get a great deal. I think.



*Umbrella girl = lady of a certain class who sits under an umbrella by the side of the road waiting for passers-by, get it?

a few of my favorites

I'm not sure if this is a sign of endearment or dominance:














how the kid spent most of each flight:


















how I spent most of each flight:



















bathtime in the sink at the TLA:














slingin' it in Catania:


















one unlucky chick at the fishmarket:














check me out, I got my chair back!


















and, finally, the only house pics you're getting for awhile: from the front (our yard and house line is right down the middle of the two sets of windows on the left and over to the line down the middle of the carport on the right of the car), and the back yard

our baby in some compromising situations, and some country side

the boy is very happy to finally be off the plane













the boy is also very happy that almost all of our stuff made it here









this is our neighbor's garden in Motta

















here are some of the fabled "geep" going down the road, also in Motta. On a side note, you don't want to hit and kill one because it will cost you at least a hundred euro









and finally a father son moment where I teach the boy all about the tuck. Don't look Little B.
















more to come later. you may actually get to see some pictures of the house as soon as we get rid of all the boxes and come up with some way to arrange the furniture we have.

Arrivederci

where do I sign up for that?

apparently the Oklahoma State Police don't believe in scrapping anything, so they took this repo'd bike put some decals on it and pull people over with it. I want one.

The Daily Waasup clipping

so, we have internet now*

I would post some pictures but my computer is being stupid. It may be the DSL connection that it doesn't like but as soon as I figure this out I will post some pictures

I added a new link in the side bar :)

were you able to get to the honey festival last weekend? (not for the baby, as noted previously)

or will you plan to
ride your bike through Etna park on the 9th? (okay, the idea of a park and a volcano is somewhat creepy)

or perhaps you are thinking of attending the ricotta cheese workshop on the 10th? (this has to be my choice)

or visiting the scrapbooking/fellowship time at the Mineo Community Center on October 13?

or go on the Taormina Day Tour on the 21st?

or join the cooking class on the 31st?

or go "shopping for local food" on November 7?

Looks like lots of fun!
While I was composing this post my mom called. She was looking at the map of timeshares to start planning a visit. Lipari (island on the North coast I think) and Messina (on the northeast tip) were mentioned.

Random Photos

While googling "motta", the town where Emily (+ etc) will be living, I came across

a random stranger's sicily pictures

which seem pretty interesting. E mentioned the volcano and the weekend festivals when she called the other day.
Also while googling, a random fiat panda photo:

75th percentile

the baby weighed in at 13.13 with no diaper and an empty stomach today, 25 inches long with a big head. They said he was right on target for all things measurable (no surprise there), and smiled at the docs just long enough for them to get the needles out (3 shots-hep b, dpat, and something else), and then proceeded to sleep the rest of the afternoon thanks to baby tylenol.

also today we found out that we may be responsible to pay for the 4 days that d was in a motel without me...totalling about $600 that we really shouldn't have had to pay. No good. Still working on it, so we'll see.

indoc is going well, we're learning a few basic italian words/phrases along with pronuciation. Tomorrow is a guided tour of the local city of Catania along with a nice dinner at a 5 star restaurant (4 courses, 15 euro...not bad!). I can definitely see myself spending loads of money while we're here, as long as unforseen expenses don't keep popping up (grr).

Will keep you posted as we have extra minutes...right now there is a LOT of running around trying to get all our ducks in a row. At least the car is fun (type in fiat panda if you're interested...picture a golf cart with doors)

ciao

yeah, I think I'm gonna love it here.

The trip in a nutshell:
Left at 4:10 for the airport, departed on time at 6:30. Arrived in NYC on time bought coffee but couldn't even taste it because my next plane was leaving earlier than I realized, so I announced to the terminal that it was fresh, hot, drug-free and smelled great (still no takers) before placing the cup next to the trash and heading to Norfolk, where I switched my bags from one arline to the next, visited with Dr. Sam and proceeded to sit in the terminal for the next 4 hours waiting for air traffic control to quit deliberately slowing traffic down in some kind of protest so that I could fly to Newark (yes, I realize that is basically one big circle. ah, the irony). Luckily I talked to the ticket agents and once we realized that I was going to miss my connection from Newark to Milan we were able to change my ticket so that I flew from Newark to London instead. London's Gatwick airport is HUGE, but I loved flying from there to Sig because the service was great. The master chief that I talked to on the last 2 planes over warned me that Catania's airport has a habit of losing bags, and he was right; my two suitcases were nowhere to be found and are now scheduled to arrive today at 4. It was a really good thing I met that master chief though, he was quite helpful; he even got the number for security's dispatch in Sig and let me use his cellphone so I could try to get a message to dan so he wouldn't have to sit in the airport wondering why I wasn't arriving when he thought I should be.

We're still getting situated; the TLA is great...there are 2 bedrooms, a bathroom with a little squat-and-get-your-nether-regions-sprayed-off toilet right next to the regular toilet, two balconies overlooking a well-organized garden...we heard 2 different roosters this morning and a childrens party (complete with the chicken dance song in italian) last night, and were able to sleep in until 11 this morning (5 am your time, not exactly sleeping in).

I'd say more but now we're off to see a local market store with some of d's new buddies. Suffice to say it's beautiful, dry and hot here, and I cannot wait to fill y'all in on the rest of my initial assessment.

oh yeah, and the baby is a world-class traveller. He may be the only one who didn't complain almost at all for the entire 24 hours that we were en route.

ciao.

ATTN: Dan

Dan,
E called from Norfolk. Her flight has been delayed. She is continuing to work on it and THINKS that she will be getting to Sicily at 2:30pm your time on Friday. She has also found someone that she thinks will help her get ahold of you.
I was at the doc office when she called and when I called back she was sitting on the Norfolk to Newark plane(I think, unless the destination changed - it was a very brief conversation). She was able to see Brenda in Norfolk, and the baby is doing great. We'll probably have TUNA with fried rice tonight to celebrate.
I'll likely talk to her again when she lands in Newark in an hour or so. Unfortunately, I will probably be on the road again to get Nick's finger x-rayed. You could call her if you get this.(yes, I know that it is bedtime there)
Anyway, I'll update as soon as I know something and am at home.
love,
other mother.

numbers

1.5 hours to drive from my mother's house to the airport, which means we need to leave by 4 a.m. thursday morning at the latest.
5 (count them: 1,2,3,4,5) different planes to make between thursday at 6:30 a.m.--when the first one leaves--to 11:40 p.m., which is which is when the last plane arrives (5:40 a.m. friday morning US time)
24 total hours of travel, 14:40 of which I'll be in the air.
$20 for 300 international minutes if we use the phone cards from the NEX. I feel certain that we can do better than that with a little patient searching on the internet.

D says that I'm going to love it in Sicily, to which I respond, "no duh." He's well set-up at the temporary housing and says we'll be able to move into our permanant housing this coming Tuesday, and our belongings will be there not too long after (one of the benefits of postponing our arrival so many days). He's doing his "indoc" training right now and actually finds it kind of interesting. He'll have the weekend off, along with the use of a fiat from the temp housing people (can you imagine?) so we can explore a little of the island where we'll be spending the next 3 years. I am definitely looking forward to it all =)

Prayer is much appreciated.

long story short

well, actually, there is no short end of this particular story.
grr.
I'm not going to update you on ALL of the hassles we've had trying to get to Sicily, but here's a brief synopsis of our weekend:

D, the kid, and I went to Horseheads Saturday to pick up our passports which were supposed to be on a Saturday hold. No such luck, and the transportation office in Gulfport didn't answer their pager (of course), so Sunday at 3:30 am we left for Rochester to drop him off. Delta was great; they let our overweight suitcase through with no debate, and gave me a security clearance so I could watch the plane take off in person since I wasn't on it like originally planned. Yay Delta.
The cat is at my parents' house. He set up camp on the steps and is attacking everyone who dares attempt the trip up or downstairs. I told the chinese kid who's living with us to ask his mom for recipes ;-p
D emailed me last night from the city Dr. Sam lives in and said everything was going well; he was about to board the plane for Sicily and wasn't too bored yet.
I called the transportation office this morning, and the guy (who may or may not be responsible for most of this hassle) said the passports were delivered back to Gulfport this morning. I would be interested to know if they ever left, but that's my cynical side showing. SOOOO...he's going to send them to us again, they should be here Tues. or Wed, and he's going to book tickets for Thursday. Hopefully by then D will be a little bit settled into our temporary housing and oriented with the base enough to not be completely clueless when I start asking questions (hehe).

just to show you that life isn't all that terrible, here's the new thing the kid learned last night, along with the clothes I got from my neighbor and the suitcase from my aunt (thanks aa) to put them in:

why again are we leaving?

the view from here

this blog is looking rather lonely, so I thought I'd give you a photoblog of what we did this weekend.

Yesterday (Saturday), the outlaws walked D, the kid and I around their land and we discussed where we may or may not build in a few years.














This is what the view from our potential front porch would be:














Then we came home and had a pleasant evening with the inlaws and hannah and tim.














Today(sunday), the outlaws came to wellsville to celebrate the kid's dedication to the church,














and to eat the inlaws out of house and home.

I wish I knew the # to call for audioblogger

'cus this kid figured out how to talk. Well, not exactly talk, per se, but definitely how to make noises of every shape and volume, all in the name of a good converstion with the dog, blanket, or accomodating parent/relative. Very cute. I think there might even have been a giggle or two.

In other news, our trip is going quite well, although it is coming to an end quicker than anyone wants. Waaz is flying out sometime this weekend and I'll be following about a week behind. Not exactly ideal, but it will work. Our list of "people to see" is running down, and our list of "things to do" is mostly checked off. One thing that wasn't on any list anywhere was contracting colds, but we are accomplishing that task as well (he's almost over his, I'm just starting mine, so far the kid has not even sniffled).

Hopefully we will be dumping pictures today, so I can post a few new ones before we leave.

~mrs. waaz

Having your kid in the hospital: $7,947.12














Nursing: $0



















knowing that I have at least 12 years before my child becomes a hoodlum: priceless.

FYI

if you're squeamish, you might want to have someone else screen the monster post so you know which paragraphs to avoid...