Yikes, it’s been quite a while! I’d apologize, but to be honest the last couple of months I’ve just been flailing around trying to keep up with everything that needed to be done. It’s been a fun but incredibly busy summer!

So, a quick recap since I last left off …

1. We had visitors! My parents and youngest brother came to visit for a week! We spent a couple days on the island of Ortigia, visited “fancy beach” Lido San Lorenzo, walked around on Mount Etna, had BamBar and beach time in Taormina and visited the beaches at Cassibile.  If that sounds like a lot of beach, it is because it is HOT here in late July/August and the water is the only place to be.

   

   

   

   

   

2. We moved! A couple days after my family left. Moving was very stressful, but we are beyond thrilled with our new place, which is an apartment in a town much closer to base. I wasn’t sure how we’d like apartment living at first, but now I can’t stop gushing about how much we love the new pad. While it is technically about half the size of our old mansion, it is still quite large at 2,400 square feet and has five bedrooms and two big living rooms (plus a garage that has replaced our basement for storage needs!). We honestly don’t feel like we’ve given up space, which is sort of amazing when you think about it. It also have SEVEN air-conditioners (we don’t run them all at once, ha!), which is a huge upgrade. It is definitely hotter in New Town compared to Old Town since we aren’t on the mountain, but since we now have functional air conditioning we are actually more comfortable. Good upgrade, ha. We also have found ourselves with a lot more usable outdoor space for the kids, as there is a large area where they can ride their bikes and play soccer.

We’re also loving living in New Town. I didn’t think I cared that much about driving to base when we lived 35 minuets out, but living only five minutes away? Holy cow. It’s been a game changer. All of the sudden we have a lot more free time (especially Chris) and everything is just so easy. It is especially helpful now that the kids have so many more activities going on (currently soccer for both, and Fiona starts ballet in a couple weeks). I love spending less time in the car.

The absolutely best part of the new place, however, is our landlord/neighbors. We are living in a apartment building where the rest of the tenants are a couple, most of their adult children and their families. They are absolutely wonderful! They’ve been so welcoming, bringing us delicious food and inviting us to their parties and just generally looking out for us. There are little boys right around Owen and Fiona’s age living in the building, and the kids love playing together outside or having play dates inside. It is great!

3. We went to Malta! We just got back earlier this week from Malta, an island only a 25-minute plane ride from here. We stayed in the Hilton Malta using points we’d horded for the purpose, and it was FABULOUS. This trip was actually a huge departure for us since it was totally just about relaxation, rather than marching around seeing absolutely everything possible (see: Belgium, 4 cities in 4 days!). I’ll write more about this later, but we basically spent five days mostly playing in the pool, eating delicious food and generally relaxing.

4. Fiona turned four! We celebrated Fiona’s birthday in Malta! Our little princess got her nails painted in the morning, spent a bunch of time in the pool and then we hit the national aquarium and a nearby playground. We ordered a cake from the hotel and the maid was sweet enough to decorate a bit for her birthday. All in all, it was a great day!

5. Owen started kindergarten. Cue the waterworks, because Owen started kindergarten. What? How? Why?! This was his first week and he seemed to really enjoy it so far. He has two great teachers and is already making some new friends! His ride to school is much shorter now than it would have been otherwise, so that’s another reason  to be grateful we’ve moved to New Town as well.

6. Fiona started a new preschool. Fiona also got to start a new school this week! Since we’ve moved, the old school was just too far for us to continue with. We are very pleased with the new school though, and Fiona seems to really enjoying herself so far. Her class is small, only about eight or nine kids, and when I picked her up yesterday she was giving big hugs to another little girl and begging for a play date. Yay!

It’s also been an unusually busy period with some of my other writing projects, but for everyone else that’s pretty boring so I think we’ll stick the bullet points, ha. Now that school is starting, I’ll have a little more free time and I’m hoping things settle down a bit. On the other hand, I have had a whole list of projects I’ve been intending to do “when things are less crazy” for at least a year. So possibly I just need to accept that life is just going to be generally crazy for the foreseeable future?

6. We are growing our family! Now that we are “out” with this news, I can add it to the list here. We found out in late July that we’ll be adding another little traveling kiddo this spring. We couldn’t be more excited!