Happy 50th, Patrick!

I've taken one of these photos for the last couple of years or so, with Patrick on our living room sofa with the kids at home. This year, we have a different sofa, which is actually older than the sofa from previous years, but this one is still in great shape.

Natalie is wearing the same school sweatshirt as last year, and when I told her that, she wanted to hug a pillow against her chest to hide the identifying design on the front. We made her put Eric on her lap instead. Eric is always smiling for me for photos, but Alex did not want to smile, and I didn't make him.

Patrick still had to get up really early to leave the house by 6:10am to get Alex to school by 6:30am. The kids greeted him "Happy Birthday". Natalie was saying that he was half a century old. Alex said that he was celebrating his "semi-centennial".  They wanted to rub in how old he is. :)

He went to the gym after the kids were in school, and had lunch at Freddie's. He texted me that he wanted to have some "thin, crispy, unhealthy fries", and Smash Burger was too far, so he went to Freddie's. He took the little ones to piano lessons while I picked up Alex from school after work. We all met at home at about 6pm to go out to dinner.

We met Patrick's mom and dad at El Mirasol, Patrick's favorite restaurant, and where he has had many birthday dinners. Alex remarked at how it was nice that they live in town now, so we can see them more often. Patrick had his usual Enchiladas Mole and two of their top shelf margaritas. I showed him the picture of him holding up a margarita for his birthday two years ago, so he held up his margarita so I could take a new picture.

Patrick's birthday presents from us included a Dr. Who apron, an electric knife sharpener, two pairs of Feetures brand running socks, and two Green Bay Packers tumblers. He immediately started using the knife sharpener and washed his tumblers so they would be ready for first use. He is difficult to buy for, but I think he may like his presents.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! We love you very much!

December Daily Day 7

I'm going take daily pictures this month and I'm going to document the daily details of my December for whenever I get around to finally putting this in an album, so be warned that I might be sharing some boring details. I'm a bit behind so I'll have to go back and write about the first week of this month later.

Today, Natalie took Eric to the bus because Patrick had to leave by 7am to get Alex to school by his requested time of 7:30am. Natalie had a "spot" that hurt on her back today, so she didn't want to go swimming. She said that she might be doing well enough to go to swim practice tomorrow, except that we are going out to eat tomorrow evening to celebrate "someone" becoming "half a century" old. That someone is, of course, Patrick. She seems to like to say "half a century" to Patrick. Speaking of birthday, Anthony texted Patrick a happy birthday greeting this evening already, since it is already past midnight in Venice. He is taking advantage of the time difference.

I drove Alex home then turned around and went back out with Eric to his Jiu-Jitsu class. Meanwhile, Alex went driving with Patrick. Alex said his goal was to be able to drive in the street (and not just a big parking lot) by Christmas Break.

Magaly, our maid, came today, so that meant that Eric's sheets got changed. Yesterday, Patrick and I got him a Star Wars: The Force Awakens comforter and matching sheets at Target. We also got some Jurassic World sheets. These will replace some old (but still well loved) Pokemon sheets and comforter that my mom got Anthony way back. Patrick and I can't remember, but it might have been when Anthony was even younger than Eric is now. That was a long time ago.

Eric had just gotten in bed, and I went to his room to say his nightly prayers with him and to sing to him. I told him I wanted to get a picture of his sheets, and he arranged his comforter so that I could include his sheets in the picture. Look at that sweet smile! Along with the nightly prayers, we've been adding prayers for all of his grandparents, prayers for his sister's back to get better, and prayers for Anthony to do well on his project this quarter and for him to find a good summer job close to us. Eric is such a sweetie!

Sunday Birthday Celebration

Patrick's birthday is this coming Tuesday, and today, his parents invited us over for Sunday dinner to celebrate his birthday early. It's been a hectic week after coming back from vacation last week. None of our Christmas decorations are up yet. There is a lot of stuff to clean up and put away before putting up the new tree.

It was nice to see their Christmas decorations up, including their tree. Patrick's dad has been feeling better, his clavicle healing up nicely, so he was able to haul out everything and put them up. Eric especially enjoyed looking at their tree, so I thought I would document it by taking a picture of him next to their tree. Notice that Eric is wearing his Jiu-Jitsu medal again, three weeks after he won first place at the tournament. At first, Grandma thought it was a new medal, but no, it wasn't.

Grandpa grilled steaks for us, and Grandma made the fixings--caesar salad, sweet potato fries, and corn. Patrick really enjoyed having someone else grill some yummy steaks for him so he doesn't have to do all the work. Grandma also bought two of these chocolate mousse type cakes and put the special "50" candles on one of them. I didn't get an actual picture of Patrick with this cake, but we got to take home the second cake to have on Tuesday for Patrick's actual birthday, so maybe I'll get a photo then. I took a video instead. There was extra cake because Alex and I didn't have any. After all, it's better to have too much cake than not enough!

I took a picture of Grandma and Grandpa getting the cake ready in the kitchen after we had finished with dinner. They seemed like they were trying to be secretive, huddling in the kitchen with the cakes. They had some trouble opening the plastic container of the cakes, so Patrick sent me in there to help them out. Grandpa got it open by himself as I walked in. Grandma then gave him actual matches to light the candles with. That's when I snapped this photo because I thought it was so cool that Patrick's parents were still doing their best to make his birthday special, even his 50th! Grandpa reversed the candles (0-5 instead of 5-0) so Grandma had to fix them after he had already lit them.

We all had a great time, as usual. Alex hasn't been able to come with us a lot of the other times we've visited them, because he usually had lacrosse or some other activity going on, so it was nice to have him with us.

Patrick was trying to stand on his tiptoes to be taller than Alex, and then Natalie also tried to stand on her tiptoes to be taller than Patrick. They were goofing off and having fun. I took the opportunity to snap a picture of Patrick with his kids during his birthday celebration. I try to do that every year to see how the kids have grown. Alex started leaning on Eric's head and looked away, not really wanting a picture of himself, as usual. Grandma snapped some pictures also.

It's back to another hectic week tomorrow!

Friday Day Six Italy

On Friday we visited the Colosseum. It wasn't supposed to rain and the day started out partly sunny. Later, more clouds rolled in and a few raindrops fell, but not really enough to notice. We were glad that we did the indoor stuff yesterday when it was drizzly for most of the day.

I took this first photo from the top of Palatine Hill, where the emperors used to have their palaces. You can see why, as the view is spectacular, even on a cloudy day. There's a good view of the Forum in the foreground and the Colosseum in the background. We had to trek quite a ways to get to the top of the hill, as it wasn't clearly marked and there were staircases that were closed off for "safety". Alex was looking for spectacular views and really pushed for us to walk to the top, even when Anthony said he was tired and hungry and just wanted to find somewhere to eat and to go back to the hotel.

Our day actually began at the Colosseum first. There was a long line to get tickets and maybe we should have bought the tickets online, because that line to get in was much shorter. It wasn't too bad, though, and we even found out that anyone under 18 years old gets in free. We've been bringing Alex's passport everywhere here, because they still actually count him as a "child" because of his age, and we anticipated that no one would believe he was only 16 just by looking at him.

Alex took this photo for me, and Patrick and I noticed that he started smiling while he was taking the picture. We realized later that not only did Anthony photobomb us, but he was getting closer with each photo--because Alex and Anthony never take just one photo. I'm going to miss Anthony after this trip, but I am also going to miss the boys interacting with each other. They are really fun to be around.

Alex didn't want to pose for many photos, but thankfully, he posed for this one. I love this photo with my boys with the Colosseum in the background. I took many, many more photos, but I thought I would just do a few photos on this blog post. Most of the photos I took were of architecture that I thought was interesting or "pretty", and not necessarily historically significant in any way. What I've loved about our visit to Italy has been seeing the architecture and how they've laid out the cities.

This is a shorter post today because the Wifi at this hotel really sucks and it takes all night to upload photos. Anthony took a train back to Venice this evening after we had one last dinner together. We have a 6:45am flight out of Rome tomorrow morning. I'll be publishing all of these blog posts when we get home so it'll almost be like being with us during our trip. :)

Thursday Day Five Italy

Yesterday's forecast was for rain all day, so Patrick had the bright idea that we would go to the Vatican so that we would spend the day mostly indoors. As you can see from this photo of St. Peter's Basilica, it was definitely a gloomy day. I even braved the drizzle and my camera getting wet to get this photo. I was standing near the Vatican Museum.

There were a lot of different little museums all in one. In one museum there were a lot of sarcophagi. Patrick and I did a little bit of reading, because the descriptions talked about the differences in the design of the sarcophagi, so that was interesting. Alex was done after a couple of them. He said, "They're all the same." In another museum, there was a lot of pottery. None of us spent much time in that one.

I have to relate one funny story about the interactions between Anthony and Alex. Warning--this may be offensive to some people, but it was funny in the context of the two brothers having fun together. For some back story, one of the museums we saw in Venice had a painting of Jesus, and his facial features were not "conventional", to put it in a nice way. Alex took a picture and called him "Autistic Jesus". So, when we saw these two paintings at the Vatican Museum, Anthony pointed out the Jesus figure with wings in the upper right corner of the painting on the right, and he called him "Bird Jesus". Alex built on that and referred to the painting on the left. He dubbed the bearded person "Dumbledore" and said that the lion figure in the lower right hand side of the picture on the left "Aslan" as in the lion figure from "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". I love how the boys are constantly joking with each other and having fun.

There was so much to see, that I really only took photos of things that looked interesting or that caught my eye. This photo is of one of the panels on the ceiling on the way to the Sistine Chapel. I liked it because most of the painting was in black and white with the focal point in color. There other panels like this one with the black and white with color, but the rest of the paintings were all in color.

At one point, we had seen so many pieces of art and artifacts that we skipped some "museums" and went directly to the Sistine Chapel. We weren't allowed to take any pictures there, but Anthony and Alex both managed to sneak a couple of photos in. They had several people there that were watching for that sort of thing. I listened to a Rick Steves podcast about the Sistine Chapel, so I spent a lot of time listening to some interesting info about Michelangelo's paintings, then we were able to go out the tour group entrance and got to skip a huge line to get into St. Peter's Basilica.

But first, we climbed a whole lot of steps to get to the top of St. Peter's Basilica. We opted to walk the whole way, and honestly, we're all physically fit enough that it didn't matter, but that top section was tough because it was very small and the ventilation wasn't good. The top section consisted of narrow steps that only one person at a time could climb. One area even curved because the walls were curved in that area. Everyone who wanted to go to the top had to go through that section, even the ones who took the elevator up to a certain point, because the elevator did not go all the way to the top. There some spectacular views from up there, even if it was a cloudy, drizzly day.

After going to the top, we were able to go into St. Peter's Basilica itself, a very massive building filled with so much to look at. This is a picture of St. Peter's Tomb. There were several other tombs there also, and the catacombs that included the tombs of previous popes were underneath.

At this point, Anthony was very hungry and focused on eating lunch. It was already 2pm and he had not had breakfast. Everywhere we went in Italy, there were local restaurants with people waiting outside trying to get customers to go into their particular restaurant. There were so many restaurants that I guess they had to do whatever they needed to get people to go to their restaurant. We chose one of these men that were standing near the exit of St. Peter's Square with a flyer. His restaurant was a couple of blocks away but he went with us to show us which one was his. We all had pizza for lunch then we got off at an earlier Metro stop so we could walk around.

We ended up going to the Pantheon next. It was a little tricky navigating through the various streets. Honestly, there were a lot of interesting looking buildings and piazzas that I took pictures of some just because they were cool. There were so many, though, that I tried not to take too many of what would eventually look like the same thing over and over again.

It was nightfall by the time we made it to the Fountain of Trevi, but at least that meant that we could see the fountain lit up for nighttime. Interestingly, I had Anthony take this photo of Patrick and me with my phone. After a few seconds of posing, we realized that Anthony was making faces at the phone and then pointed it towards Alex. He was taking selfies of himself and then took photos of Alex, too!

Wednesday Day Four Italy

Yesterday we were scheduled to travel from Venice to Rome. I wanted to take some final photos of the awesome breakfast buffet we had every day while we were in Venice. This is merely an example. Patrick and I had cappuccino daily. There was also bacon, eggs, and some other sort of entree. Yesterday's entree was a poached egg with bacon. The other items on my plate are sautéed mushrooms (yum--I love mushrooms), brie, and cheese stuffed in a slice of ham. There was also the usual fruit (peaches, apples, and pineapples), croissants (some were stuffed with fruit), a selection of fruit juices, made-to-order crepes and some type of dessert cake. One day it was tiramisu. Yesterday it looked more of like a pound cake type. I have been forgetting about my diet while we are here in Italy, that's for sure.

To balance that diet out, we have been walking about 20,000 steps daily. Unfortunately, yesterday was a travel day, so I didn't even reach 8,000 steps due to the three hour train ride, but the rest of the time we basically walked all day. Everyone in Venice walks everywhere, since there really aren't any cars. There were lots of narrow "streets" which were basically sidewalks. It was difficult sometimes to figure out how to get to a particular location, because there were so many little side streets and alleys.

This photo shows one of the few times where we rode somewhere instead of walking. The first day we took a water taxi to a location near our hotel and then had to walk the rest of the way with our luggage. We took a vaporetto (like a bus except on the water) to get to Murano island to see the glass-blowing. Our last day we took a vaporetto to get to the train station. We could have walked to the train station, but with our luggage and the potentially crowded streets, we would have had a much harder time getting around.

The photo above shows some sights we saw as we rode down the Grand Canal (main waterway through Venice) towards the train station stop. The buildings had a lot of character. Apparently this made it difficult if anyone wants to do construction, because they have to conform to a certain set of standards, but for the tourist, it makes a picturesque view. Even though it was cloudy and overcast yesterday, the view is still fantastic.

The boats closest to you on the right in the above photo (almost out of view) were "regular" boats that were used as water taxis, more like taxi cabs on water. After that as you move forward in the photo are the gondolas that were mainly for tourists that want to take a ride on the water, but not really as a means to get to point A to point B. Next to the gondolas is something that looks like a bus stop, but instead that is a stop for the vaporetto to unload and load passengers.

This is a photo of our view out the window during our train ride, and it is not a pretty picture, but we imagined that it would be more picturesque if we had taken the train in the summer when everything would be more green. Instead it was cloudy and drizzly, but it was the first chance we had to see something green during our time in Italy. Venice was all stone and sidewalks. So far, Rome has been very urban (more on that tomorrow). There aren't a lot of green spaces here.

Patrick made an error in our travel plans. He thought our train was leaving Venice to head to Rome at 2:10pm. Instead, that was supposed to be the arrival time and we missed our 10:30pm (or so) train to Rome, so we had to buy new tickets for the 12:30pm (or so) train to Rome instead. Patrick was so upset at himself, but this was still earlier than we thought we were going to get there. Anthony's train didn't get in until about 6:30pm, so we hung out at the hotel until he arrived, then we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was all good. We got to where we needed to be. Tomorrow I'll blog about our trip to the Vatican and other rainy day sights in Rome.

Tuesday Day Three Italy

On Tuesday, November 24, our third day in Italy, Patrick, Alex, and I decided to just wander around in the morning after breakfast. I was very tired because I did not sleep well at all the night before, but as long as I kept moving, I was fine. We went to the Rialto Bridge, one of the famous landmarks here. There were a lot of shops and kiosks there, so we had plenty to look at. The bridge itself did not look impressive because of the massive scaffolding structure that surrounded it for renovation, which included a large ad that merely said "This boy is sitting on the bridge." The significance of that statement was lost on us. It was an annoying ad for a clothing company. I ended up buying a postcard that showed what the bridge was supposed to look like.

We also crossed the Grand Canal using another bridge, and I liked the view, so I had Patrick take this photo of me with the Grand Canal in the background. Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, even if it was a bit windy and chilly. The high temperature was around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but it got cold into the 30s with a breeze when the sun set.

We eventually met Anthony at his apartment at about 2pm. He took us to one of the small take away restaurants near his apartment so Alex could try one of the "Doner Kabobs", which was basically a large meat-filled wrap with lettuce, tomato, onions, and tzatziki sauce. Anthony and his roommates often had these when they didn't feel like cooking because they were "cheap" at 5 Euros for one large wrap and because they were very filling with all the meat they packed in them. As soon as Alex heard about those, he had to have one. We took the food back to Anthony's apartment, and when we finished eating, we went to St. Mark's Basilica and then the museum there.

I took this photo outside on top of St. Mark's Basilica, which overlooked the Grand Canal and Doge's Palace. Patrick thought he should have been on his tip toes since the boys tower over him now. Alex is also now noticeably taller than Anthony. Notice Anthony's fraternity sweatshirt, which is apparently the warmest thing he brought with him to Italy. We're not sure why he didn't bring his big coat from Boston, but Alex offered to leave one of his jackets behind for Anthony.

We weren't allowed to take any photos inside St. Mark's or the museum, but I had to sneak this one in. These four horses used to be on top of the Basilica, but were removed for renovation and then left inside and were replaced with copies to reduce their deterioration from being exposed to the elements.

The Basilica itself was very impressive with the large murals on the ceilings and walls made up of mosaic tiles instead of being painted directly. Alex was also impressed with the floors and their tile patterns. After we went to the museum, Alex went back with Anthony to his apartment, and Patrick and I went back to the hotel. We met up with them and with two of Anthony's roommates for dinner. After dinner, Alex and Patrick watched the Barcelona vs. Roma soccer game on TV. Tomorrow, I'll post about our travel day from Venice to Rome.

Monday Day Two Italy

Patrick, Alex, and I all managed to stay awake for the rest of the day on Sunday, without naps. We went to bed around 9:30pm Venice time, and got up around 8:30am. I felt like I had a good night's sleep, although technically still behind on sleep. We didn't sleep so well last night, but that's another story.

Monday morning, we started by having the breakfast buffet at our hotel, which was included with our stay. They had made-to-order nutella crepes, fruit, bacon and eggs, croissants, salami, ham, and Patrick and I both had cappuccino. Alex had the peach juice, but they had other fruit juices. After our very filling breakfast, we set out to see St. Mark's Square. St. Mark's Square is a large space "nearly two football fields long" that is surrounded by historic buildings: St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Palace, the Campanile bell tower, and the Correr Museum. There are also lots of shops and restaurants lining the square.

This is a picture of Alex with Patrick in St. Mark's Square, with St. Mark's Basilica and the Campanile bell tower in the background. It was cloudy and a little chilly with the temperatures in the 40s, and there was a light drizzle while we were in the museum and Doges Palace. There were quite a few tourists in this area, although there are apparently many more during the high tourist season in the summer.

This is the entrance to the Correr Museum. I wanted to be in at least some of the pictures, so I asked Patrick to take a picture of me here. We spent quite a bit of time in the museum. There was a lot of art from various periods of Venetian history. Besides art, there were doge memorabilia and armor, fortunately all with English descriptions. Most of the significance of the art was lost on me, but I did appreciate some of the traditions and history of what was depicted on the art. I guess that just shows that I was a history major instead of an art major.

This was one of the many rooms in the museum. I had to wait a bit for everyone to get out of the way before I could get this picture. I liked the shape of the room and ceiling decor, but also how the room was a little dark with the next room well lit.

Also contained within the Correr Museum were two "lesser" museums, the Archaeological museum and the Monumental Rooms of the Marciana National Library. After the museum, we proceeded to the Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale). Honestly, I can't remember when the museum ended and the Doge's Palace began. There was a lot of art.

The Doge's Palace was the seat of the Venetian government and home of its ruling duke or doge. Besides the duke's living quarters, the Palace also contained the various public rooms where the government went about their business. By the way, some of this explanatory information is from the Rick Steves Italy 2016 book. I didn't try to remember all of this info.

They had quite a few large globes, all with signs saying "Please Do Not Touch". Patrick said the little kid in him really wanted to touch those globes. I asked Alex to step next to the globe for a picture. As usual, he declined and instead suggested that Patrick stand next to the globe so that the globe would look even bigger--since Patrick is much shorter than Alex. Alex loves to remind all of us, including Anthony, that we are all shorter than he is!

This photo shows one of the many rooms that contained original pillars from the Doge's Palace. There was a lot of renovation of various buildings, with ugly scaffolding in the way of the beautiful architecture. Notice that Alex and Patrick are both peeking out from behind a couple of the pillars.

Many of the rooms of the Doges Palace had very ornate details, including the doorways and ceiling. I took photos of some, as did Alex, but after a few photos, we stopped just because almost every room was that way. I like this photo just because I was able to sneak a picture of Alex in. I have to be sneaky to get pictures of Alex.

This is the Bridge of Sighs. After we saw some of the judges' chambers and rooms where various councils used to sit, we saw the prison cells. The Bridge of Sighs connects the area where the prisoners were judged and sentenced to where they were incarcerated. Supposedly the bridge got its name from the sighs of the prisoners who looked out the windows and saw the outside world for the last time before being put into their cells.

Anthony met with his project team during the day, and then met us at around 6pm near St. Mark's Square to show us his apartment. His apartment is a short distance from St. Mark's Square, and the restaurant where we ate dinner is directly next to his apartment. In fact, the back door of the restaurant is the next door over to the door of Anthony's apartment. I had to get one picture with my oldest boy. I used to say "biggest" boy for a long time, but Alex would take exception to that. I have really missed this boy!

Sunday Day One Italy

As I'm starting to write this, it is almost midnight on Monday, November 3rd. There is a seven hour difference between this time and our home time in San Antonio. The time on this post is Central Standard Time. I'll be publishing this post on the blog after we get back home, though, so that no one will know we are not at home until we are back home.

Our flight to Paris left Houston on Saturday afternoon at 4:35pm. Cynthia very graciously drove us to Melissa's house were we parked our van, and then drop us to the airport. We were on that Air France plane for 9 hours, which means that we got into Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France at 8:50am Paris time. Alex slept a little, but I didn't sleep at all and neither did Patrick. I was surprisingly awake, though.

We had to go through two long lines to get our connecting flight to Venice. The first line was security, and that was expected, but the second of those lines was very frustrating because it was a line to merely stamp our passport and it took 45 minutes. We would've been in that line longer, but it was already 10am when they let us go to a shorter line because our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15am! We had asked earlier, but they kept saying, "You have time." Ugh. We were practically the last ones to board that plane, but we made it. We got into Venice at about 11:50am on Sunday (Venice time, which is the same as Paris time).

Our trip was a Costco Travel package deal, so at the Venice airport, we were met by a man with a "Costco Travel" sign. I've never been met by a person with a sign at an airport before. I had imagined that he would have our last names, like they do in the movies/TV, but no, he only had a "Costco Travel" sign. He drove us in a Mercedes van to a location on near the water where we got into a water taxi to take us somewhat close to our hotel. This first photo was the view we had during our ride in the water taxi--which was basically a boat hired just for us. We walked the rest of the way. It was quite a walk, actually, but he knew exactly where to go, and I was thankful he was guiding us, because the route was not straight and the streets were not clearly marked.

We were impressed with our room. This was the bed that Patrick and I slept in. We had reservations for three--two adults and one "child", so we weren't sure what to expect. We thought maybe that Alex might have to sleep on the sofa. He did, in a way, because he slept on the sofa bed. It seemed comfortable, and he was quite happy with it. As you can see from the photo below, he was right in front of the fireplace, which had some blue lighting and candlesticks decorating it.

We also had some cookies on the table for us to snack on, and an elegant ice bucket with sparkling wine on ice in it that Patrick and Alex had later in the evening. The bathroom was small, but there was both a regular toilet and a bidet. Alex said that he had never seen an actual bidet before. The shower head was one of those nice wide ones, and we were worried that Alex would hit his head on it, but we should not have worried. There was also a nice desk that I did some of my blog writing on. We unpacked and awaited Anthony's arrival. He was able to spend the rest of the day with us, since it was Sunday and his project team only meets on weekdays, just like regular "class".

Anthony's friend John, who also lives in his apartment with him, was in Murano, the glass-blowing island across from Venice. Since Anthony had not been there yet, he wanted to go, so we went on a rather brisk walk to the water (not sure what it was called, maybe the "Grand Canal"). My little legs are not as long as Anthony's, and he was used to walking in a brisk pace after having been in Venice for a month already. We took a vaporetto to the island, which is a sort of bus except that it takes passengers across water.

When we got to Murano, we suddenly got a little worried because it was Sunday, and apparently there are a lot of businesses that close on Sunday in Venice. We walked around to various glass shops until we found one that said they had glass-blowing demonstrations.

I haven't seen a glass-blowing demonstration in a long time. Patrick wasn't impressed, saying that he and Alex had seen better demos. It was still fascinating the way they start with a molten mass, blow it out, and push and pull it into cool shapes. The first item he made was a vase/pitcher. To make the wrap-around piece, a second guy applies some molten glass as the first guy turned the vase. Interestingly, they use hard metal tools like one that looks like pliers to push and pull at the molten glass, when usually such a tool would scratch or break glass. The glass is molten at the time, of course, and hot enough that when they were done with each piece, they would let a piece of paper touch it. The paper would ignite to show that the glass was indeed still very hot.

Alex took this next picture, so that's why it is tilted. The owner of the glass shop where we had watched the demo took us to the second floor to show us his more expensive pieces. There were many rooms filled with different types of glass artwork. Each room contained the work of a specific family or artisan, who specialized in one type or another. One had a lot of mosaic type pieces, with many colors put together. Another room had what looked like paintings on the glass. I didn't take any pictures because we weren't supposed to. They are very protective of their original designs and worried that competitors will steal their ideas. That's why I relied on the pictures that Alex took because he did not see those "no photos" signs.

I did take a photo of this horse head with my big camera because Alex's phone camera wasn't showing the rainbow of colors in the glass. We were in a room far away from where the owner was, so I thought it was safe to take a picture for my personal use. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that I had also taken a picture of Alex. He did not like me taking pictures of him, but this accidental one was okay.

The owner was very kind and even gave Anthony a small glass penguin that Anthony had chosen for a friend before we went upstairs to the second floor. Anthony then picked out something else for himself, which he bought with his own money. We took the vaporetto back to Venice and walked back to the hotel.

Every day at 4pm is tea time, complete with complimentary snacks as well as tea at our hotel. We got back shortly before the end, which was at 5pm. The boys were hungry and devoured the treats immediately. A short time later, we went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Pretty much every restaurant we've seen so far is an "Italian" restaurant, so we chose one that we liked based on atmosphere and price. We actually had a small lunch at about 2pm at another restaurant, where we shared two small size pizzas. We had anticipated tea time and then dinner after that, so we purposely ate a small meal. By the time dinner rolled around, we were famished.

At both restaurants they set out these wrapped packages on the table. At the first restaurant, they were foil-wrapped and so we couldn't see what was in them. I took the above photo at the second restaurant so I would remember to tell this story. Anthony said that the packages contained "little swords" that you can "fight each other with". Of course, they only contained crunchy breadsticks and not actual swords, so his description was humorous, but it made sense. I do miss Anthony and his jokes, even the ones that make me groan, especially when Anthony himself is laughing so hard that he can barely finish his joke!

We went to get gelato after eating dinner. There are almost as many gelato places are there are Italian restaurants. Yum! I'm going to have to have my daily ice cream fix with gelato during this trip. On our way back to our hotel, we noticed that the streets were all very empty, and most of the stores were closed. It was only around 7pm! Anthony said that Venetians don't seem to stay out very late, on weekends and on weekdays. I guess that means that we'll have to get back to our hotel early every night. That will give me time to post on this blog. I'm staying up to finish this one, so I hope I can get faster tomorrow.

Book Fair

I took a similar picture to this one last year during the annual book fair at Eric's school, so I took another one this year. Usually we go to the book fair on Family Night, when it stays open until 7pm, but this year, Family Night was on Monday. By the time we got Eric home from Jiu-Jitsu and we had dinner on Monday, it was just too late. Eric was a little disappointed, and we like to encourage reading, so I told him that I would get him out early from school on Wednesday this week (Veteran's Day Nov. 11th) and take him to the book fair. I was off work on the federal holiday, so I signed him out at 2:30pm, since the book fair closed at 3pm.

We spent a few minutes looking for one of the books he had seen during a class visit to the book fair--Plants vs. Zombies: Timepocalypse. Plants vs. Zombies is an iPad game that Eric enjoys, but because it was a book based on a game, I wasn't too keen on getting it for him. It turned out that book was sold out. Instead of that one, he wanted three other books, one of which was Lego Star Wars Character Encyclopedia. It's more of a reference book, but there seemed to be cool info on the Star Wars characters in general, and he is very Star Wars obsessed right now since the seventh movie is coming out next month.

The second book Eric wanted was a Goosebumps Monster Survival Guide, that described some of the monsters that were in the recent Goosebumps movie that the whole family saw in the movie theatre. Goosebumps is a series of books that he is interested in, and I wanted to encourage that, although the rest of us didn't think that movie was very good (but Eric loved it).

The last book was the last in the Origami Yoda series that Eric doesn't own--"Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue". Interestingly, I used to have to make him choose a fiction books, because he gravitated towards non-fiction like dinosaur books, but now the books he chose were all fiction books.

We finished shopping in time for everyone else to finish school, so we went straight home and followed our Wednesday routine. It'll be interesting to compare the book fairs from year to year to see how Eric's taste in books changes.

Willie's Night

When Eric got off the bus today, he had his Willie's Night sticker on his face, so Patrick took this picture. The sticker actually says "We Want Willie's Spirit Night Tonight!" The third Tuesday of the month is when his school has a fundraiser at the local Willie's Grill and Icehouse restaurant where a portion of the proceeds go to his school. They send these stickers home to remind parents. The kids all enjoy eating at Willie's, so we usually try to go.

This year has been more difficult since Natalie and Eric both have piano lessons from 4:30-5:30pm and one of Alex's clubs meets on Tuesday afternoons. We have to pick him up at 6:30pm. Logistically, that creates a conflict with family dinner. When Natalie has swim practice (at 6:45pm), she doesn't eat before practice, although unfortunately, that has not been a "problem" too much this school year since she hasn't been able to go to swim practice very much. If we do end up going, usually I'll go with Eric and Patrick sometimes gets to meet up with us with Alex.

This week, Natalie was home sick from school because of nausea. We're not sure what's up with that except that there is a "stomach bug" going around her school and Eric was home one day last week when he threw up in the nurse's office after lunch. If she is still the same tomorrow, we will take her to the doctor's office. Alex also decided that he needed to be picked up earlier, at 5:30 instead of 6:30pm. Since Natalie didn't go to her piano lesson, Patrick went straight from Eric's piano lesson to pick up Alex. They came home and it was only Patrick, Eric, and I that went to Willie's. Alex has a ton of homework this week and wanted to get started.

While there, I read on Facebook about one of my old posts from six years ago (that you can find here), where Eric used to say, "Hey Mama!" or "Hey Papa!" before telling us something. Patrick got annoyed because he heard it so often, but I enjoyed hearing Eric talk. Eric and I decided to say "Hey Mama" or I would say "Hey Eric" before everything we said. Patrick just shook his head at us, but it made the time go by faster as we were waiting for our food.

So, even though it wasn't a family dinner with everyone, we still had a fun dinner with just the three of us--a glimpse of our future.

Weekend Update

We had a busy weekend, not crazy busy like in the past but still busy. I wanted to make breakfast before the kids all left for their activities, but my waffle iron is broken, so I couldn't make waffles. Instead, I made some banana chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon. This photo only has the banana pancakes without the chocolate chips, the first batch for Alex. He has been trying to stay away from sugar, specifically chocolate, because it makes his face break out, so I make the first batch without chocolate chips and then add the chips for the rest of the family.

I set my alarm for 6:30am on Saturday so I could make sure breakfast was done for the kids to eat by about 7:30am. Patrick left with Alex at 8:15am for school. Alex took a practice SAT/ACT test from about 9am-1pm. It was set-up to help the kids find out which test they would do better in plus as I understand it, they changed the format of the tests this year, so this way the kids could experience what the new test was like.

I left the house with Natalie (and Eric in tow) for Natalie's school at about 8:30am. She was volunteering to help with things like planting and painting at her school. Patrick and I both talked with her about how she should protect her back, specifically, not do a lot of bending over for gardening. Since it was drizzly and cloudy outside anyway, she ended up painting instead of gardening. That was under a cover so she didn't get wet.

When Patrick and I both got back home, we took Eric to his first Jiu-Jitsu tournament, which I've already posted about. After the tournament, Patrick took Eric to lunch at Chick-Fil-A then picked up Alex from school. I picked up Natalie and we went shopping at North Star Mall. She got a dress that she plans to wear for Christmas, and a new comfy sweater that she wore to church Saturday afternoon. We then went to Fuddrucker's for dinner.

On Sunday, Patrick and I went to the gym in the morning, then he went to Clicks Bar where the Alamo Cheeseheads group congregates on game days. Natalie, Eric, and I put on our Packers shirts and met him there so we could have lunch. The little ones had the Buffalo Wings, I had the Philly Cheesesteak, and Patrick had the bratwurst. We left in the middle of the second quarter after we finished eating. The kids weren't that interested in watching football, but it was nice to be there to eat lunch with Patrick and see all those Packers fans.

The kids preferred to shop, at least a little. When we left the bar, we went to Target to get a few items, but mostly so Eric could go to the toy section and look at the Star Wars and Lego stuff and so Natalie could go to the books and then the office supplies. Those are their favorite sections of the store. Patrick came home before the end of the game, which the Packers unfortunately lost 16-18 to the Detroit Lions after they made such a big deal about how the Lions haven't won in Wisconsin since 1992.

Alex's friend Coral came over to hang out and then to have dinner with us. Grandma and Grandpa came over just as the Packers game finished, and Patrick grilled steak for dinner. Grandpa's broken collarbone seems to be healing up nicely.

I don't want to leave my first-born child off my weekend update. He posted this picture on Facebook last week. He and his friends had gone to Milan the weekend before, and this picture was taken inside Il Duomo in Milan, Italy. They have been taking weekend trips to sightsee around Italy and Facebook alerts me when he posts any photos. I miss him so much and I look forward to seeing him in less than a week!

Eric's First Jiu-Jitsu Tournament

Eric participated in his first Jiu-Jitsu tournament today, held at his school. Both Patrick and I got to go, after dropping off Alex and Natalie at their own activities. I'll skip to the punchline here before going in to the details. Eric got a gold medal!!! We are so proud of him! This first picture is a picture of him with Daniel, the owner and instructor of the Jiu-Jitsu school.

When we first got to the school, Eric found a friend to play with. They were even grappling with each other before the tournament started. We parents just looked on and wished we had their energy. We wondered if they would have enough energy during the competition after all the running around they were doing. This is a picture of Eric jumping over the middle part of the mat. The mat had black borders with two middle areas that were light gray. He jumped over the middle black area. Even though he is a little blurry in this photo (because I couldn't use the flash in there, so I had to bump up my ISO, which made all the pictures grainy/blurry), you can appreciate how energetic he is.

Patrick helped me pick this photo out as an example Eric trying to complete a submission. He didn't quite get it, but he got enough points doing other moves that he won against this competitor and then a second competitor to win first place and the gold medal. Interestingly, his two competitors were both girls. They had two guys coaching the kids during each match, each giving instructions to one of the kids. Eric's coach said that he liked coaching Eric because he listens. There were several times I heard him tell Eric to hold his position (so he could get points) and Eric did. I had no idea what the strategy or moves were, so it was nice to hear a commentary about what they were supposed to be doing.

They tried to match up the kids according to age and weight class, which was difficult given that there were only nine kids competing. They separated the kids into two groups. Eric's group had two boys and two girls, and the other group seemed more varied in size and skill with five boys. One boy in the other group in particular, was a gray belt, the only non-white belt of the kids, and he was noticeably more skilled. This picture was after Eric's second match and I love the look on his face, so tough but with a hint of a smile and looking directly at me as I took his picture.

This may seem like an unusual photo to see in this post. What happened was that Eric wore his gold medal all day after he received it. He wore it when Patrick took him to lunch at Chick-Fil-A. He wore it when they picked up Alex. He wore it when we went to church this evening. As we were leaving church, we noticed this cardboard cutout of Pope Francis. I wanted a picture of Eric next to the Pope, and I figured that I might as well get a picture of Eric's tournament shirt that he got as part of the tournament fee. The front has a picture of "Jaws" with the caption "Jaw Jitsu". Eric decided to open his jacket up all the way so I could get a really good picture of his shirt and his medal. That boy sure is proud of his gold medal, and we are so proud of that boy!

November Art a la Carte

Today was Eric's monthly art class called Art a la Carte. As with last year, they scheduled the art classes too late for me to be able to go to last month's art class, but I was able to switch days off with my office mate so that I could be there for art class today. This first photo is of Eric in the process of painting his artwork. Just look at how hard he is concentrating on his work.

Interestingly, where there was often only me volunteering last year, there were four parents there volunteering today. One was one of the Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students), so he seemed to be there just for fun. He ended up sitting down at an empty seat and following along with the class instruction to make his own painting.

The art teacher started talking about Leonardo Da Vinci and how he was the ultimate Renaissance man, dabbling in lots of things, such as both art and science. She talked about emphasis in art, where the artist calls attention to a focal point using something to emphasize that focal point. She showed painting of the Last Supper where the lines purposely lead up to Jesus Christ and how use of colors can play a part in emphasizing the focal point. She showed several photos of cardinals and their bright red color. Her example painting shown in this photo uses emphasis based on size (the larger cardinal) as well as color.

This is Eric's finished painting. They started by sketching out their cardinals. The kids chose whether they wanted a landscape or portrait orientation and where they wanted the birds placed, whether they would be one behind the other or next to each other. After sketching that out, they then used a cotton ball that had been dipped in water and then blue acrylic paint, that was then used to "wash" the background. Next, they used acrylic paint to first paint the red of the birds, then the brown branches, then the details such as the black on the birds' face and orange of the birds' beak. The art teacher is very good at explaining to these young children how to create their own masterpiece.

One of the moms that volunteered was going around helping some of the kids by doing some actual painting. I don't understand that at all. They weren't even her kids. I'm pretty hands off when I volunteer. Originally I felt that I needed to help Eric to make his art more realistic, but he enjoys doing his own thing so much and he doesn't want my help at all, so I just encourage and praise. I do the same with the other kids. I learn a lot from the art teacher during this class every month, and I also learn from the kids. I'm already looking forward to next month.