November has been a really good month! Caden turned 6 years old, my sister and mom came to visit, we took the family to Rome, the kids are settling into school and making friends and we found a great bible-study to be a part of!!

We spent Caden's birthday on a train to Rome ( I thought that is was a great idea- he thought it was "ok"). I fell in love with Rome once again. We stayed in one of my favorite hotels ever the "Albergo del Senato" the location was amazing! The weather was great - sunny during the days with one night of thunder storms which was spectacular to watch. I love the history of Rome the beauty of the architecture, the stylish and friendly people, and the best gelato shop I found since moming to Italy!

After Rome we visited Florence, Verona, Lake Como and Venice . . . it was a month of exploring our surroundings as a family!

Lice! I hate them!!

The end of September did not go so well! Maya had been scratching her head a lot for a couple of days . . . but I did not think anything of it! On Sunday I decided to have a look . . . at first I did not want to believe it, I called Maury over, I went out side, we thought maybe she just had fleas (I know silly). No, she had lice! In Italy - nothing is open on Sundays, no drugstores, no supermarkets NOTHING . . . so I started to panic a little and called around to the other rugby families. Luckily - one of the girls had some shampoo left by the family that used to live in our house (great). The problem was that the directions were in Italian! So I had a friend translate the directions and then I went home to rage war on the lice (war is ok against lice I have decided)!! As I am cleaning the house, doing the laundry and getting Maya to bed the power goes off for 2 hours . . . Monday comes and as I am doing more laundry and the power goes out again!! UHGG

It was a rough week . . .

First Day of School - 16-24 more years to go!!

After three attempts to enroll Caden at the 'scuola per l'europa" in Parma and being told to come back because; no one speaks english; the person you need is gone; and the electricity is being worked on . . . I finally enrolled Caden on Monday the day before school started. On Tuesday morning Maury and I packed up the kids and left for school at 7:30 am (school starts at 8:30 but there is no parking at the school so you have to leave early in order to find a parking place). Caden woke up quite excited for the 'special' day. After using our Garmond to find the school we found a parking place right away and we waited with the rest of the students and parents until the doors to the school opened. Once the doors opened we all crammed through at once (this is so typical here :)) and walked our little ones up to class.

Straightaway we liked Caden's teacher - she seemed kind and patient (both nesecary qualitiess in dealing with our little "pirate"). Caden seemed fascinated by the classroom- he found a book about sea creatures . . . Maury and I could have left and he never would have noticed! We spoke with the teacher a little more (gave her our phone numbers because the information that we gave to the office had not made it to her) and said our goodbyes to our little, big boy! He did not seem concerned with our leaving one bit.

The kids in his class are from all over the world - I absolutely love that about his school. He is meeting kids who speak other languages, and have different customs and beliefs. My prayer for him is that through his experience at school he will become a person who is interested in and respects other cultures, and ways of "living life!"

Of course I cried a little on our drive home . . .

For me, this was the end of sleeping in and having some early morning freedom . . . as much as he is growing up I realize I had to as well. On hard days I have longed for the start of school. . . but now I dont feel quite ready . . .

(the picture is of when I picked Caden up from school)

A Mid-Evil Festival

I am finally starting to feel a little bit at home and yet there is so much here that I don't understand or know about. Our Italian classes will start in mid September which I am excited about.

Last weekend we had some friends come up from Rome ( they are missionaries there and were a breathe of fresh air for me) and we all went to a mid-evil festival in a small town outside of Parma!! I have never been drawn to this kind of festival in the States but in Italy it was perfect . . . and the kids LOVED it!! What could be better then a "real castle" with knights ( and according to Maya a princess sleeping in the tower) - it was really enchanting! As magical as it was it is still a little lost on my kids though - Maya asked yet again if we could go to Disneyland tomorrow . . . . and she is talking about the one in California!! We took the kids last June and she has asked to go back at least 3 times a week since we went!!

Montpellier, France

Maury here...

We played our second pre-season match in Montpellier, France this week. A 10 hour bus ride there was actually not so bad...team bus is pretty nice and I got some reading done which I haven't had much time for until then.

Come to find out that Justin Marshall (ex-All Black scrumhalf) just signed with Montpellier and I met him in our hotel (he's living there until he and his family find a home). I've admired him as a player for years so was special for me to have a nice conversation with him and then play his new team later that night.

We had a motorcade ride to the stadium and played before about 10,000 people (in the 25,000 person stadium) for this 'pre-season' match! I guess it was my first realization that we are playing professional rugby in a 'rugby playing' continent. All in all, a great match though the score was not in our favor (49-14). I think, even for this top Italian team (Viadana), the magnitude of the atmosphere at the stadium took them a while to 'settle in their game'.

Looking forward to more matches abroad...

(the picture is from our first pre-season game here in Italy)

Cinque Terre

Our first excursion was to Cinque Terre! We were not sure what to expect but we wanted to get out of the heat and go someplace fun for the kids - so we headed for the beach! We took the train from Parma to Monterosso (one of the towns of Cinque Terre). The kids loved the train, everything was new to them and it was fun to see things through their eyes.

Once we arrived we headed straight for the beach - the beaches are all small rocks and the water is quite salty but the kids did not really notice, they simply loved being in the water. After the beach we took the kids to a fabulous dinner in old town Monterosso ( I was shocked at how well they did). Caden declared that "Italy has the best food ever." We walked a bit after dinner and then got gelato and watched some "flame throwers" in the city center. All in all it was the perfect day until we were heading home through the tunnel. Maya took off running and fell - cutting her mouth and lips and creating a waterfall of blood - which made me declare, "I hate this place," scoop her up and run for the nearest store. We were able to get help and she will be fine but it is hard to see your kids get hurt in a foreign land where you cant speak the language or put a call into your doctor. The next day Maya seemed well and we decided that there was no serious damage - we had another great day at the beach . . . that was last weekend, this weekend we went to Lake Garda (beautiful!!!) and Maya sliced her eye lid open . . .

Nostro Casa

. . . our house was quite dirty when we arrived and only had the basics in-regards to furniture and kitchen items. We were all a little disappointed at first, but as we cleaned the floors and swept the spider webs away it started to feel a little bit better. Maya does not like spider webs so she was good at pointing all of them out to me and helped make sure that I did a good job cleaning them up! :)

The weather here is quite hot (think Bakersfield . . . yes, Bakersfield it even smells like Bakersfield sometimes) and there is no central air - the homes are made of brick and cinder blocks to help keep them cool. Our house has beautiful wood doors and shutters but we have to keep the shutters closed most of the time to help keep the house at a bearable temperature. Our kitchen is not much to look at but it has a nice door into the backyard. All in all I think this will be a comfortable home for us.

It has been nice to see and start to learn a different way of living. For instance in the morning everyone opens up there homes and sweeps the patios. In the month of August everyone is on vacation so stores and restaurants are closed for weeks at a time. We are having to wait to get a lot of things that were promised for our house because people are on vacation. But the waiting is not really frustrating it is kind of refreshing - it seems to be a more balanced way of life.