Visiting Venice with kids: the details

Planning to go to Venice? Good for you! We had a great time on our trip and found that things went pretty smoothly for us because we'd done the research ahead of time on how to get to where we wanted to go. Now, I'd love to help you do the same! I already touched on the fun stuff we did in Venice in this post, but i [...]

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On packing light: Tips from my mom

So packing light is something I've been wanting to address for a while now. We're big proponents of limiting the amount of stuff you take on a trip as much as possible. Not only can this save you money -- checking a bag or bags can get expensive quickly -- but it also saves you the considerable trouble of dragging it a [...]

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The Giro d’Italia comes to Sicily

Pausing this France recap for a minute -- Wednesday the kids and I watched a (tiny bit) of the Giro d"Italia! If you are unfamiliar, the Giro is a three-week bike race that is one of Europe's premiere cycling events, along with the Tour de France and Spain's Vuelta a Espa [...]

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We’ve been here HOW long?

During the first hectic couple of weeks here, when everything was either baffling or infuriating or both (I'm looking at you, government bureaucracy), Chris and I said more than once that we kind of wished we could fast-forward six months to when everything would have calmed down. Six months was always the marker we u [...]

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Planning for visitors (woohoo!)

So, yesterday Tuseday our first-ever overnight guest arrived! Our friend Mike (who we stayed with in Naples) is on the island for work, so he is staying with us so we can all hang out. If we haven't scared him off by Friday, his wife is also going to join us and we are go [...]

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What we’ve been up to lately

Well, somehow it has been more than two weeks since I posted. Um. Whoops. I certainly didn't mean to let that much time go by, but the combination of having a lot of freelance work due at the same time and just trying to get back into a routine made the days fly by. Some updates: 1) Owen started preschool! We hav [...]

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A train strike adventure for Chris

The scene:* Chris and his buddy Mike, sitting in the backseat of a stranger's vehicle somewhere in Rome. The Beach Boys' "Surfin' in the USA" is blaring and the non-English-speaking driver is singing along. A fellow passenger and birthday twin, James from Liverpool, is joining in. James' wife's jacket, studded with [...]

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The car hunt becomes urgent

Chris' summary of buying a car here, in our experience: "We'd like to buy a car, please." "Haha, LOL, good luck." So, as you may remember we are shipping our minivan to Sicily. It is on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic right now, I assume. Ever since we've arrived, we've been been looking for an island beater [...]

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We got the house!

Wooohoo! As soon as I posted my last update, we learned that the electric has been switched to our name! We should be good to go now! Only another couple weeks until we can move in! I'm SO RELIEVED. To celebrate, here is a cute picture of my cute kids doing something cute. Because cute.

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Driving in Sicily, now that we are here

I posted once before about warnings I'd read about driving in Sicily. Turns out, descriptions such as "the seemingly erratic driving nature of Sicilian traffic" were a bit of an understatement. Last night, for example, resulted in us and others having to go the wrong way on a one-way street because we ran into an u [...]

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Days of yore

Today is our anniversary! Chris and I got married six years ago today (yes, Sept. 11) in Bolingbrook, Ill. I might be biased, but I think our wedding was a blast! 091110_husk_c250

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Signs of aging

Well, today it became clear that I'm definitely getting older (as if the two kids growing like weeds in front of my eyes weren't a good enough hint). 1) I got glasses. 2) My new credit card arrived and I got so excited it might as well have been a pony. This seems like a good opportunity to recommend that an [...]

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