Hey all, it’s been a few days.
I’d say we’ve been super busy, but honestly we’ve mostly been relaxing. And, ok, a little busy (finishing my first new freelance assignment since I got here, woohoo).
Anyway, just a quick recap of the week:
1) Friday night Chris and I got our first date night since we arrived! The base childcare center had a parents’ night out event and stayed open from 6 to 10 p.m.; originally we signed them up to stay just until 9 because we didn’t want them up so late (for some reason?) but quickly realized we wouldn’t be able to do much in that time and extended. You can’t really get dinner here until 7:30 usually (and it looks weird when you are that early as it is, haha) and dinner usually takes a couple hours. So, we went bowling on base beforehand to kill some time. Despite a couple power outages randomly, we had a great time. For some reason, bowling is one of the few games that I can so consistently lose at and still enjoy. I’m not sure whether that says more about bowling, or about my own character. Eeek.
If you are wondering, neither kid got bitten at the daycare this time.
2) Saturday we had vague ideas of doing a day trip somewhere, but we decided we were just tired. We ended up spending some time at Ikea and started kind of hunting around for ideas about furniture for our new house. Turns out we should have brought all our stuff and then some, but we had figured we ought to be paring down our stuff in preparation for having a smaller place. Turns out, not so much. Thanks a lot, House Hunters International!
Pretty good view from Ikea!
3) Sunday we played at the park and then decided to check out our new town, though naturally we didn’t anticipate that everything would be closed on Sunday afternoon. Give us a break, we’ve only been here three weeks and haven’t figure it all out yet! The kids did get to see the outside of our new house though. They were exactly as impressed as you would expect a 2- and 4-year-old to be when presented with the outside of a house to look at.
4) Annnnnnd Monday was Halloween. Italians don’t really do Halloween, but there was trick or treating at the large housing complex where most of the American military personnel (and some civilians) live. Fiona got a little freaked out by the Big Bad Wolf and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, but otherwise we had a great time.
Owen INSISTED he was going to be a ghost. The costume was super creepy and he loved it
Much cuter without the mask
She was a witch but wouldn’t wear the hat
Other than that, we’ve just been rolling along! We’re still hunting for an island car, and later this week we sign contracts for our house. Our absentee ballots arrived, thankfully. And today Owen had his 4-year-old shots, which went amazingly poorly. I decided not to blindside him this time, so he was obsessing all day about it and bargaining and begging to avoid them. Once the time actually came, he had to be restrained for FOUR pokes and screamed at me that he hated me and he hated the doctors and THIS IS THE STUPIDEST THING EVER AND I HATE IT.
However, he DID tell me repeatedly on the way home that polio germs were trying to get into him and his body was blasting them (pewwwww pewwww pewwwww), so I think some of the message did sink in though. And now we are done with shots until he’s like 10, supposedly. I’m not sure if that is a bigger relief for him or me.
