Cute baby and LOL

I don't know if Val is really the cutest baby in the world or if I'm just biased but dang that girl is cute. She is the sweetest baby every. She is really calm, she sleeps, she eats. The past few days she has started laughing which of course makes me laugh. She coo's. Be still my heart!

Sometimes she is a deep thinker!

We went swimming yesterday and AJ and family came. Khloe's teeth were chattering but she had fun.

 

Sean met a girl at the pool from St George named Eve. She was the funniest kid. Don and I were sitting under a shade tent listening. She told Sean she lived in St George but was here visiting her dad. "My parent's are divorce. Do you know what divorce is?" Sean said "yes, I know what divorce is. I'm adopted." The girl looked horrified and she said "POOR YOU!" Sean looked confused and said, "no, it's a good thing." She then ask a bunch of questions about his parents, "where do they live, what do they look like." Sean tells her "Jennie is brown and is from Texas, my dad is white and from the U.S." He then clarifies that Texas is in the U.S.  He shares all sorts of details about his birth family and the girl just continues to look mystified. Then she ask "where are the people how take care of you?" Sean said, "you mean my parents?" She said "yes" he points at us and Eve said "oh, I thought they would be younger." Ha I really did laugh out loud. I asked"who you calling old?" Funny little girl. She had a little sister with her named Abby who barked and whined like a dog the entire time. Eve asked her if she wanted her to practice baptizing her and then proceeds to do so. We were also entertained by an autistic teenager fighting with his little brother. He flipped the little brother off and then the brother said he was going to tell his dad. The autistic kid flipped out and the brother just kept tormenting him. "I'm 50% sure I'm going to tell dad." Every time the autistic brother talked the percentage would go up or down. He was getting really mad and they were throwing water at each other but they never touched each other. They really started screaming at each other about the time they dad was walking back to the pool so he made them go home. The kid reminded me so much of Carter but Carter would have totally flipped if someone messed with him like the little kid did. Such entertainment and made me glad Carter is a grown up.

Weekend with Sisters

Sean loves spending time with his sisters. They had 3 night and 4 days and it wasn't enough. After we took the girls home Sean cried, big crocodile tears, "I miss my sisters." It made me so sad.
They like to facetime but that requires the girls having access to their mom's computer which they don't have during the day. It's just a big deal to hook up that way, it takes planning and different people's schedules. The girls have a home phone in their room. So all week since they went home they have been calling each other. Some days they've talked 2 hours. Some days Sean says "well, if we don't have anything else to say I'm going to hang up. OK, bye, I love you. No, I love you more." I think being able to call whenever he wants has been helpful. It's not the same as living with them but it's a lot of contact.

We did 4th of July tie dye and regular tie dye. The shirts didn't really turn out like I planned but that's tie dye. You get what you get and don't throw a fit.

They used to be so little sleeping together in the bed. Now they are all so giant. They were so good, they would just go to bed and go to sleep no craziness. 

Travel-weary

Picture when we first got on the plane. We'd already been up since 6 am and spent five hours at the airport waiting for our plane. We all rode to the airport together and planes left at different times so we got there a little early. Customs was kind of strange we went through about 6 different lines where people would stamp our passports or put a sticker on them. 

Here we are in Chicago after the five hours in the airport and the 10 hours on the plane and US customs. I was thinking that people in Italy were rude and then we went through customs in Chicago. Oh my rude heck. The people were so rude. One guy was yelling at some poor man who didn't know he was supposed to pick his luggage up after customs and go back through security. He called the guy a liar. If you haven't been through customs before how are you supposed to know what to do. There were certainly no signs or helpful people. Poor guy. The people at McDonald's were really nice. Leave it to the highest paid people in the airport to be the biggest jerks. I don't know if they're actually well paid. I'm guessing they have good benefits since they are state employees.

Naples

Technology! They are all gathered around Sean because he had internet and was checking his clan on Clash Royale. This was a pretty crappy restaurant. The tour driver dropped us off here but I think they really hated tourist. The food was cheap but not very good. I had a calzone that was really strange. Maybe it's how calzone are supposed to be and we just do it wrong in the US.

After Pompeii we went to the city of Naples. The boys were sooo done. They are leaning over this ridge threatening to jump if we don't go back to the ship. They all had to go to the bathroom and were bored stiff.

Panoramic view of Naples. I wasn't overly impressed with Naples. I kind of felt like it was the Ensenada of Italy. Nice to have visited but felt no need to stay any longer.

Pompeii

Pompeii was the only day the weather wasn't perfect. It wasn't bad just warmer than any other days. Warm, close to hot but not quite there. Someone said June is still spring in Italy and it really was.

Sean did not like the story of how this child died in Pompeii. He knew the story because a couple of months ago we read a book called "What was Pompeii." I've seen pictures of this actual cast in books so it was cool to be here seeing it in person.

                                      

  

          

It was kind of mind boggling to be in such an old city.

They had a display of some modern art in Pompeii. Hence the big head in the back ground. 

         

The drains are relatively new but they have these steps across the street so when people crossed the street they didn't have to step in all the poop and pee and other disgusting stuff flowing down the street. That must have been a powerfully bad smell. You could see the ruts in the road from the wagon wheels. 

Marseille

We rode the Les petits trains de Marseille. The kids said it was "REALLY, REALLY BORING!" They didn't like much about it other than getting off. Some of them actually fell asleep. I thought it was fun we rode all the way up to the top of the city.

Don, Sean and I rode a ferris wheel. We could see over the city.

I didn't get a picture but there was a really cool fish market. They had octopus, squid and lots of fish I'd never heard of.

There was a huge shiny metal covering over the square. It was kind of like the bean statue in Chicago. It reflected everything. We are standing below and I'm taking the picture of the top of the structure.

The day we were in Marseille was the day of the European Russia vs England soccer game. Russians are kind of crazy about their soccer. I think all Europeans are crazy about their soccer. The day before they had riots and 30 people were arrested. I don't know if riots is the right word but it made national news. While we were there the streets were still full of Russian soccer fans marching around singing and the police and news media were everywhere. It was kind of intense. We stayed on the other side of the street.

Barcelona

I thought Barcelona was a great city and I could spend a week just exploring. We took a hop on hop off bus around the city. 

On the top of the bus. Sean was listening to the tour in Chinese. Getting his language education for the day. I guess all the Spanish was not enough.

There was a place called Plaza de Catulna. It was probably one of Sean's favorite spots. (Barcelona was full of favorites for Sean) There was this plaza full of pigeons. Thousands of pigeons. There were vendors selling bird seed for 3 euros a bag. Sean fed two bags of food to the birds. they would eat out of his hand. One of them flew on my arm and hung out there for awhile. If you were scared of pigeons it would be a really awful place. It was fun, kind of like the butterflies in Argentina.

We got off at the second stop and took the cable car about the city. It reminded me of Sugar Loaf mountain in Rio. We could see all over the city.

Don, Sean and I were having a big debate last night (2 weeks since we got home) trying to remember where Sean had the BEST spaghetti in the world. I told Don it was in my pictures. The answer Barcelona. Sean just loved this restaurant.

The statue of Columbus.

There were blanket salesman all around. I was looking at some soccer shirts and all the sudden the salesman starts folding up his blanket. I looked over and a police officer was showing Don this sign. I guess they can't fine the blanket salesman because they don't have anything so they fine the tourist. He didn't fine us but I guess he could have.

Florence and Statue of David

My mind was boggled by all the artwork in Florence and how open it was. They had art work by Michaelangelo which is over 450 years old out in the open. It was not behind glass. It was right there in front of you. There was nothing to stop you from reaching out and touching it. It took self controlfor me to not to reach out and touch it. How is that possible? How do they keep hand prints and dirt off the artwork. Maybe  Michaelangelo was such a prolific painter they figure they have artwork to spare. I don't know but I thought it was crazy.

Sean  was not impressed with the big naked guy. I thought it was a wow moment! Such a famous statue and there we were standing in front of it.

It took me awhile on the internet to find the name of this statue. It's in a median where six major roads converge. There at the gates of the city is this huge Pistoletto statue  of a woman leaving the city gates with an enormous bundle on her head. It looks wooden.

Standing above the city of Florence. Impressive view!

All these statues were in a room that you couldn't walk in. You could stand at the door and look in the room. Not sure what they did to warrant protection. Maybe they are just exceptionally fragile.