David, Lisa, Kayla & Isaac

Well, I have another long post here. If you'd prefer to just look at pictures of Rome, look here! Also, don't forget that you can click on the thumbnail pictures on this page and they will enlarge! Also, new videos from our trip to Italy have been added here. Enjoy!!

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We left Senigallia on a 7:45am train. To make that, it meant leaving the apartment at 7, so it was an early morning for everyone! Kayla appeared to be breaking out a little bit in hives (although after thinking about it, I think it was heat rash - on her back right where her hair meets her back was all bumpy from having sweat drip down on it) and we figured it would not hurt to give her Benadryl. And wouldn't you know she fell asleep for 3 out of the 4 hour train ride we had?! It was great that she was able to get that sleep because our day was going to be a long one. When we got to the Rome train station, we waited until we found a small bus to cart all of us and our luggage to our hotel. We checked into our rooms, quickly changed, and then were headed out to view the city. Our room was quite nice, and the little crib they had for Kayla was adorable!

Our first stop was a McDonald's (how terrible is that!) because we knew Kayla would eat the chicken nuggets and fries (this was our first of several stops for Kayla's benefit on this trip) and then we went on a whirlwind tour of the city.

Public transportation in Rome is amazing. We took the underground trains and to say Kayla got excited when the trains came would be a huge understatement! She would squeal and her face lit up and she could not control her excitement! And I must have said a million times, "We DON’T cross the yellow line", and made her repeat it. Even now that we are home, she often tells me "no cross the lellow" when she sees a train (in person or in a book). So, the message stuck I guess!

The next two days were by far the toughest for our family. Of course when you are in Rome you want to see everything there is so see. However, the way to do that is to go fast and furious from place to place to see as much as you can (since we were only there 2 days). What that meant for Kayla was that she was either confined in a stroller, walking but holding our hands, or being carried ALL day long. This part of the trip didn't really allow for much flex time, and since we didn't know the area, it's not like David and I could stop and cater to her needs (to run around and be free for awhile) since that would have held everyone else up. So, we had to grin and bear whatever came, and she did have 1 significant meltdown each of the days in Rome. And she was a little cranky in addition to the meltdowns, to be expected. She still did better than we could have asked given the circumstances. But this was a tough part for us. Gianni was such an excellent tour guide and was giving us so much information about all the places we were passing. Unfortunately, during those few moments when we weren't walking, instead of being able to listen we were trying to placate Kayla so others could listen, or take that 2 minutes rest to allow her a little bit of freedom. As a result, I don't have a whole lot to tell you about the history of any of the places we went. But thank goodness for Google! So, I'll give a link to the places we went, in case you are interested in knowing anything about them! :) (And so I can read about them too!!)

We started out our tour by going to the Coliseum .

Shortly after leaving the Coliseum Kayla feel asleep in her stroller for about an hour, which was a blessing! We then walked towards the Roman Forum and then filled our water bottles from the free water fountain (they had lots of these in Rome, which was good because it was HOT!).

Then we went to the Pantheon. Unfortunately, it was a Roman holiday, so the Cathedral was closed for the day. Kayla, however, enjoyed playing with the water in the fountain!

Then we walked to the Piazza Navona, where there was a huge fountain and also tons of vendors selling paintings and such. We had about 30 minutes of free time here, and we let Kayla out to run and have some freedom! Of course she loved that and then hated having to get back in her stroller!

Then we went to the Trevi Fountain which was a massive fountain. Kayla really enjoyed this one. We let her throw a "penny" in it too!

Then we walked to the Spanish Steps.

We had a little bit of free time to walk the Via Condotti, which had high end stores (Prada, Gucci, Cartier, etc) on it. This is where Kayla kinda lost it. She was ALL DONE with the tourist thing and just wanted to run around. It had been a really long day (starting before 7) and even though she had taken 2 good naps, it was just too much for her. We bought her a Bubble Gun that made fun noises, which brought a few moments of happiness... however, when we had to put it away it caused more sadness than anything and she was so frustrated that she couldn't do it all on her own and it was a disaster!

She finally just started screaming and I had to pick her up and carry her and sing to try to calm her. But she didn't want the singing, kept telling me to "stop it" and she was just a mess. And, therefore, I was a mess. I felt so bad for her that we were putting her through such a stressful situation and there was literally nothing I could do about it. She was tired, she was probably hungry and she was sick of being cooped up and sick of visiting all of these places. I really didn't know what to do. After many sympathetic looks from parents (as if to say, been there done that, poor things) and many "shut that kid up looks" from non-parents (they'll get their turn!!) we reached the place where we were going to eat dinner. Kayla, still rather upset, saw a stand with lollipops and immediately started begging for them. Well, I'm no fool. We bought one and got it in her mouth so fast and immediately she snuggled into me and had a smile on her face. We then went back and without her noticing bought like 5 more, to deal with any meltdowns that were to come later! At home under normal circumstances, I don't reward tantrums with sugar. But this clearly was not a normal circumstance. In fact, I did many things on this trip that I don't usually do - let her drink soda (in exchange for bites of food) and other things like that. Oh well! We kicked those bad habits now that we've returned home... so no permanent damage done!

After dinner (which for me was less than enjoyable because I felt like we were sitting with a time bomb that was going to explode any minute) we headed back to the hotel. The MINUTE we allowed her to be free in our hotel room she was like a different person - completely happy and excited for freedom! We gave her a bath since she was SO VERY DIRTY. After sweat, fountain water and the filth from the streets (Rome was a rather dirty city), she was covered in black. When she got out, it was a matter of minutes before she was tucked into her bed and asleep.

Too bad we had to wake her up early for the early departure of the next day! We had another very full day ahead of us, and it started off early! We started off in the Vatican Museum. We got to see a lot of famous paintings/carpet weavings/etc). Kayla enjoyed that we were in a confined area and that we were letting her run free (although we had to keep arms distance away as we were right by all the artwork). Thankfully it was mostly behind glass or had barriers so we didn't really have to be concerned about her doing any damage or anything. I thought the guards might have been annoyed by her running around, but instead they were smiling at her.

The picture of her in my arms was the beginning of Meltdown #2 in Rome, where she screaming the entire length of that long hallway before falling asleep!

Kayla slept through the Sistine Chapel, which was a blessing! David and I were able to spend undivided time and attention to the beautiful ceiling in there.

After she woke up we ate lunch and then visited the Vatican Post Office where I mailed a post card to my parents! The other pictures are of the sweet staircase that you take to exit the Vatican.

Then we headed off to St. Peter's Basilica. I had to put on a skirt because shorts aren't modest enough to enter the church. Thankfully Linda had warned us of that so I brought one along! This was one of the highlights of the day for Kayla I think. We let her have a LOT of freedom in here. Her favorite thing to do (here, and in many of the other churches) was to run around in circles. All of the floors of the churches have tiled marble floors and have designs in the shapes of circles. She would run and run and run, or spin and spin and spin until she was too dizzy.... then she would move on to the next circle! She did fall and split her lip open once.... but minimal tears were shed and then she was back to doing circles.

In the church is the only time we "lost" Kayla on the trip. Like I said, we were giving her a lot of freedom. The 3 of us were walking along when someone stopped and asked me to take a picture of them. David did not see this happening and Kayla went running after me saying "mommy" (apparently, as I didn't hear this). David assumed I had her since we were right there together, and I assumed he had her because I was taking a picture for someone! Well, I met up with him and asked where Kayla was, and he said I had her! Oh my! Thankfully another parent must have been watching this unfold because he immediately pointed her out to us (um, just about on the other side of a barrier). It was only for about 10 seconds that we'd lost her, but SCARY.

We left the church and began another walk/train ride/bus ride to the Catacombs. Kayla amused herself by washing her body with water (um, yes dear, you are filthy, but rubbing water around is not really going to help the situation right now!) and then chilling on the bus. Kayla was not the only one being silly!

She fell asleep shortly after our tour had begun, which was nice because again David and I could listen and not have to try to keep her quiet or chase after her. Considering there were lots of very dark paths that we were walking in, that was a blessing! Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures inside, so we just have a few from outside.

We ended up eating cheese and meat and bread back at the hotel for the evening before packing up. It was an exhausting 2 days, but we got to see and do the top tourist things, so the goal was met (with a small price to our sanity and Kayla's happiness)!

Posted by Lisa at 01:38 PM | Permalink

I know I'm way behind on blogging.... sorry to keep these updates and pictures as ransom for so long! I'm going to post them in 4 different posts, one for each of the cities we visited. Then it won't take me even longer to get them online!

I feel like I can't really post about this vacation without spending a lot of time talking about how Kayla was on the trip. One of our biggest concerns about going to Italy was how she would handle things. We knew we would regret not going.... we were just hoping that we wouldn't go and regret it! I would not choose to take a sight-seeing vacation or take an international trip with a toddler. However, we didn't choose this trip out of the blue, the trip chose us. It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to travel to Italy with David’s family and with tour guides who lived there for years and speaks the language fluently. Not to mention that Linda and Gianni basically took care of all of the details with transportation and hotel reservations and all for us. So, those are things we would never be able to do on our own. Plus obviously the whole reason for the trip was Nikki and Virginia’s wedding, which was an amazing experience in itself! So... anyway, I hope not to bog everyone down with details. If you just want to see pictures, look here, I won't be offended (although there are no shortage of pictures there)!! :)

We had our flight plan all figured out.... David and I would take a Tylenol PM to help us sleep on the plane ride, we would give Kayla some Benadryl to help her sleep on the plane (not that we ever drug ourselves or our child to sleep… but this was an extenuating circumstance), we would all get about 6 hours of sleep or so and when we got into Rome it would be 10:30am (6 hour time change) and we would just go with the flow and be a little tired but be adjusted to the new time zone. FAIL! We all did take our drugs, but the plane ride and food and movies and such was too exciting for Kayla.... she was awake until probably 11pm or so before she finally fell asleep.... for about 3 hours. Part of that time David was holding her, part of it I was holding her, and for part she was laying on both of us. The benefit to a child under 2 is she can sit in our lap and we only had to pay 10% of our ticket price for her to fly. The bad part is that she has to SIT on our laps.... for 9 hours. Well, yeah, that obviously didn't work out as nicely as we'd planned. David and I got maybe an hour of sleep, and that's optimistic. However, Kayla wasn't particularly crabby, so, go with the flow, right?! I had told myself before we went on this trip that I would do my best not to care about any sort of schedule for Kayla (not that I’m a slave to a schedule anyway, but still), considering I would just be setting myself up for disappointment. I told myself not to care if she slept or didn't sleep, napped or didn't nap, ate or didn’t eat, as long as she was in good spirits and wasn't crabby because of her tiredness. I am glad I had that attitude or the vacation would have been a disaster! After getting off of the plane, we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the Taylor's, however, we couldn't find them. With no phone, no knowledge of the area or what we were supposed to do, we camped all of our stuff and David went on a hunt! We found them after about 30 minutes and then quickly got on a 40 min train shuttle ride. When we got to the train station we then had a 4 hour train ride... Kayla napped only about an hour and David and I got little to no sleep... so I was quite worried about how things would be. However, if we could make it until bedtime, we knew we’d be exhausted but would have quickly adjusted to the new time zone.

When we got to Senigallia, Nikki met up with us and we brought our luggage to his new apartment/flat where we were staying. He and Virginia let all 9 of us stay in their new apartment where they haven't even lived yet! It was so sweet and so generous of them to let us do this. We were a little crammed in there, and 1 bathroom with 8 adults and a child was interesting at times. But it was really fun to all be together and we had a great time there!

After we got settled from our long trip, we all meet up for dinner. Virginia's father owns a rather fancy hotel, and her family treated about 25 or so of us to an amazing meal there in the hotel restaurant. We had some incredibly unique foods - and were absolutely stuffed by the end! The food just kept coming and coming and was so yummy! We had shrimp, calamari, muscles (I tried muscles for the first time and just LOVED them), pasta, salad, breads.... oh, and lots of wine! And then frozen coffee or lemon-cello dessert drinks to finish off the meal. Kayla was TIRED, and a bit of a terror (I was nervous she was going to disturb other guests), so she and Noah (2nd cousin of same age) played outside a little bit. We (the 3 of us) ended up leaving dinner a little early to get Kayla (and us) to bed! By the time we got home it was about midnight.... so we were running on very little sleep for a very long time! Kayla wouldn't even let me read a book or sing her a song or rub her back (actually, this was true almost the entire trip). She was just so exhausted that she was just begging to get in her crib and go to sleep!

About 2 hours after we'd all gone to sleep, David (apparently) was having a dream that he was living out and went and MOVED Kayla’s crib out of the way to get to the fridge, opened the door and pulled out a pitcher of water then immediately put it back and shut the door. Then he opened it again, studied it for a minute, then closed it again. Then he decided to open the bi-fold doors that we locked (instead of walking around) go to the bathroom... and then on his way back, he re-locked them! Kayla was woken by his initial movement of her in her crib, but he did not seem to notice! When he was done with his little escapades, he laid back down and was asleep again! He has never sleep walked before, so I was confused and frustrated by this! I was trying to get Kayla back to sleep, but after not succeeding at getting her back in her crib I woke David up to deal with her. We were all up for about an hour and a half before she finally settled back down, and then we slept for another 5 hours. So, only 7 hours of sleep for us all after a night where we got next to no sleep on our travels. To say we were tired would be quite the understatement. To say I was frustrated with David would also be an understatement! :) But he did redeem himself, by taking care of Kayla and getting her back to sleep!

Friday morning we went on a tour of the city. We went and visited a castle, went to see Nikki's restaurant/bar that he and some of his friends own, and then went to lunch.

Lunch was one of the more traumatic events for Kayla. She was ALL DONE with traveling. She was tired, she was cranky, she was very unhappy and hungry and letting everyone know about it! I was rather nervous that this was going to be a common trend on our trip, but it thankfully was one of just a few meltdowns (which given the circumstance I am considering a huge success). After eating a little food and getting out of that area, she was much better. We then all went to the beach and OH MY WORD does Kayla LOVE the beach. She ran immediately into the water, waves and all, and was just shrieking with happiness! She was really precious! And she has no fear. She ran through shells without complaining they hurt, she ran chest-high into the water without fear of anything! It was so much fun to watch her running and be having so much fun! And the water there was SO warm, it was amazing. As the tide came in it created a little tide pool that she and Noah enjoyed playing in too! At some point we realized that she was so exhausted that she was going to hit a wall shortly, so we decided to walk back to Nikki's place. We walked for maybe 1 minute and she was asleep on David's shoulder! She had a cookie in her hand, and I tried to take it away (after she was asleep) but she woke up and griped it harder! Silly girl. She slept for several hours once we got back to the apartment, so thankfully she finally got some good rest.

That evening at 8 we were meeting back at the hotel for "appetizers and cocktails" hosted by Virginia's family. We had some amazing, unique foods that were presented so beautifully. Kayla ate octopus (my child who won't eat pasta couldn't get enough of the octopus - whatever!)!! She did really well there too, not causing too much trouble, which I thought was a possibility. She had a pillow fight with David’s siblings and Nick and she also played with Noah. Also, there was some sort of festival going on where middle-school aged kids were all dressed up in costumes and were playing drums or tossing batons – it was quiet entertaining to watch them all!

After the cocktail time we all went back to the apartment and ordered some pizza (at like midnight!) and sat out on their patio and talked and had such a good time together. It really was fun to be spending some quality time with the Taylor's.

The next day was the wedding and one of my favorite days of the whole trip. We traveled by bus to the church. I brought stickers for Kayla to play with and she did and was more or less very quiet throughout the hour long ceremony. She was extremely interested in all of the music that was being played and was always a bit sad ("more?") when it was done. But we were thankful that she was so well behaved during that part. The ceremony was obviously all in Italian so we didn’t understand anything they were saying! But it was a beautiful service and both Nikki and Virginia looked very happy.

After the ceremony we were bused to the reception site which was just amazing. The grounds were stunning – with garden’s and flowers and stonework. And the food was absolutely amazing. I have never seen so much food in my entire life.... seriously. We started off with appetizers and cocktails. There had to be at least 50 different kinds of unique things that were all presented in such a beautiful way. And then waiters were carrying around more trays! I could easily have filled myself on those alone (and clearly David ate his weight in food this day!). After at least an hour or two of this, we were seated for the main meal. This was a 5-course dinner... including risotto, salad, meat, seafood filled ravioli and something else! The waiters came by with a bowl full of food and you would tell them how much of it you wanted... then they came back shortly to see if you wanted a refill. Kayla and Noah weren't so interested in sitting (or eating) so we had them go and play together under our table. When they got bored, we gave them packages of breadsticks to try and open... and the mess that ensued, well.... it was worth it anyway! It bought us some peace for a little while!

Then came the cake and served with the cake were these fruit filled Italian ice type things which were delicious. Then shortly thereafter were the desserts - these tasty pastries, maybe 15 different kinds per tray. And of course the waiters are just circling around you, tempting you! Then they opened the cheese table, with maybe 5-10 types of cheese... and breads, crackers etc to go with it. And then was the fruit table. Then the nut table. Then they opened up a crepe station. Then the cookie/cake type things. Then the gelato bar (Italian form of ice cream). Then they started up the grill and went back to appetizers. It was just amazing. Like I said, I have never seen so much food in my life! We were there for probably 8 hours and ate during most of that time. Oh - did I mention the wine and other drinks? They were plentiful :) They had this peach juice that was delicious – we probably went through several bottles of that alone! They had a live band and Kayla was mesmerized by the music. She would just stare at the band and then twirl and twirl until she was too dizzy to continue!

About 9pm we headed back on the bus. Both Kayla and Noah took their turns singing into the microphone on the bus! Kayla is quite a little attention hog! When we tried to take it away she immediately started singing again and turned her back on us so we couldn't get to it - it was pretty funny! We got back to the apartment and changed, then headed to the beach for the "after-party".... where there was MORE food! They were grilling sausage sandwiches and had lots of drinks. David and I went for a walk on the beach while Kayla and Noah were playing in the play houses on the beach. We finally headed home about midnight in utter exhaustion.

While getting ready for bed we had an incident with the power to the apartment. Someone was plugging a camera battery into the convertor and somehow one of the other plugs came out and the bottom line is that we lost power. And we couldn't find the breaker box in the dark, so we decided to wait until the morning. The only problem with that is that we had brought along a white noise machine which Kayla sleeps with at nights. Since the apartment is downtown and businesses start opening and making a lot of noise very early, and since at that point it was light outside (and therefore inside), we were worried she would wake up early. And she did. At 6am. After just 6 hours of sleep for her, and less for all of us. Mom Taylor bailed us out and she took Kayla in bed with her for awhile, but after it was clear Kayla wasn't interested in lying down, she took her on a walk. Kayla fell back asleep for awhile, and thankfully David and I got to sleep in and finally catch up on some sleep. Without a good night’s rest that night after so many short nights we would have been dragging the rest of the vacation, so we were extremely thankful to Mom Taylor for taking Kayla off our hands and letting us sleep!

This day was our last day in Senigallia and it was just a relax day. We ate lunch at Nikki's restaurant and then went back to the beach. Kayla again had a blast in the ocean. We were there for hours and she was living it up. At some point we could tell she was exhausted so I took the stroller and went on a walk with her. She fell asleep almost immediately and then we all chatted at the beach until it was time to go.

For dinner that last night Nikki's family treated us all to dinner. It was another amazing 5 course meal with muscles, pasta and seafood, risotto and a yummy desserts too. After dinner Kayla and Noah played on some rides and we all did a little dancing. Then a few of us went back early to get Kayla to bed and then finish packing up. We had to be up for an early 4 hour train ride to Rome.

One of my biggest observations of our time in Senigallia was the generosity of people. I was absolutely blown away by the generosity of everyone. To Nikki and Virginia - thank you so much for inviting us to your wedding, to treating us to so many amazing experiences, and to give up your place to all of us while we were there. And to their families - thank you for all of the amazing meals you treated us to. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us and we just had a blast. After leaving Senigallia we visited 3 other famous cities (more entries to follow), but I think we both will treasure our time in Senigallia more than any other part of the trip. We are so thankful for the generosity people extended to us to make it such a wonderful time.

Posted by Lisa at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

David's youngest sister Laura graduated from high school this June and we went down to celebrate with her! Plane tickets out of Chicago were so significantly cheaper than Grand Rapids we decided it was well worth the drive. We ended up leaving GR on Wednesday after David got home from work and spent the night in a Pricelined 4 star hotel for cheap! It was a sweet hotel room, very modern and state of the art! Our flight wasn't until Thursday evening, but we decided to come out a day early so we could take Kayla to the Shedd Aquarium! That is something we had said we'd wanted to do this summer, and since we were already making a trip to Chicago for the airport we figured we'd do it then! It's amazing how having a child changes you; I was excited to go because I was excited to see her reaction to everything! And I was not disappointed. She was enamored by the fish (especially the sea horses, the clown fish- aka NEMO, the turtles and the sharks). They recently re-opened their dolphin/sea lion/beluga whale exhibit, and while they haven't started shows yet, they were doing a training session and we got to see them all do tricks! We got a front row seat and the sea lion at one point was only feet away from us! Kayla was terribly excited by this! She also loved to watch the dolphins jumping and waiving. We got there as soon as it opened and stayed well past her normal nap time - she almost fell asleep on David's shoulders! But it was a really fun day and we were happy that we went!

As usual our plane was delayed such that we didn't arrive at the Taylor's until well past 11pm (and Kayla was WIDE awake the whole time!). Oh well! The next morning we got up early to go to Laura's graduation ceremony. Kayla ended up doing really well during it all. I had anticipated that she and I wouldn't be in there very long and would instead be running around outside.. but the auditorium had a natural hum to it and so no one heard Kayla's chatting! And it was the most efficient ceremony I've ever been to. They had the whole thing done in about an hour and a half, maybe less, and there were over 500 graduates! Not bad. After the ceremony we went outside to meet up with Laura. We were struck by the intense heat. It had been in the 60's or lower 70's in GR lately and hasn't been hot at all. I hadn't worn shorts yet! But the heat in NC was sweltering and we were HOT HOT HOT! As we got ready to go (it was past Kayla's nap time and way past lunch), we noticed that Brian's car was not where we had left it.... it had been towed! Apparently the parking attendant misinformed Mom Taylor and told us we were allowed to park in this parking area, but in hindsight, we were not. So, it took almost another hour to get our car back. Kayla did pretty well all things considered!

That evening we just relaxed and enjoyed time with family. The next day was all about getting ready for the party. David was outside painting and working on making the outside ready for the party with the boys. All of the girls were inside working on food and cleaning and such. The party wasn't until 4, and we were ready for it! The food was delicious and although we didn't know any of the guests, it was really fun to spend time with all of the family. At the end of the party, we took a group picture of all of the family that came (although unfortunately Laura was out with her friends and wasn't back before the family started to leave).

We left first thing Sunday morning, so it was a quick trip for us. But we were happy to be able to go and support Laura and to visit with all of the family that came to celebrate with her!

Posted by Lisa at 03:58 PM | Permalink