Tagged: holidaze

12
Nov
2010

FAIR & FASCINATING FLORENCE

One thing that mesmerized me in Italy was the feat of engineering that is the autostrada (motorway) through the northern Apennines down to Liguria along the west coast of the country. Italy was the first country in the world to begin building motorways. The ones that we used to get from Milan to Genoa to Rapallo and the ones to Florence and Pisa have lovely names: The Motorway of the Flowers and the Blue Motorway. To distract myself from the rather narrow lane widths and the high-speed (130km/h limit for cars) race-car driving style of our fellow motorists I concentrated...

09
Nov
2010

RAINY RAPALLO

Apparently the time to skip Italy, if you want to avoid the tourist jam is July, August & September. What luck for us, then, that we chose to go the first week of November. The weather could have cooperated just a teensy bit more, but we had some sunshine at the end, so we were happy, and after all, rain in Italy on vacation is better than rain at home, right? The place we stayed was an apartment building up the hill in the west coast town of Rapallo. It belongs to the parents of my colleague, Sara, another love...

10
Aug
2010

AND ONE TO GROW ON!

So, THAT was a good birthday! Woken to roses, singing, hugs and presents: everything I wished for and then some! Martin got me a silver book bead for my Pandora bracelet. Karin gave me the latest Katie Melua CD, and together they gave me an ACTUAL box of rocks, which cracked me up completely because whenever one of the kids EVER, in all their lives, asks what they’re getting for their birthday/christmas/gift-receiving-holiday, the answer I invariably give them is “a box of rocks.” They even made the box themselves! My kids are great. And Anders? Even greater. He took my...

24
Jul
2010

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE

I tend to like photos of people and faces better than things and places. My husband and my daughter both take photos of things around them: a flower, an interesting statue, the city skyline, someone’s dog; not me. I DO take photos of flowers and trees and such, when I’m out walking or when it’s springtime and everything is blowing my mind with its beauty, but usually it’s the photos of friends and family that I want to have to remember vacations and trips and happenings by. My sister’s son, Bryce in his summer ‘do. Second cousins once removed: Martin,...

20
Jul
2010

PLAYING WHILE TRIPPING

When I was growing up, we went on a lot of road trips. We had a huge purple* station wagon first, and then a big wood-paneled brown one that we came to call The Bomb. We 3 kids sat in the back seat, and sometimes (it being the 70s), one of us would be lying in the very back, or sometimes on the floor in front of the back seat. Road trips are very boring, if you are not well-prepared and if you have the type of family that doesn’t entertain itself by bursting into frequent song. My dad and...

18
Jul
2010

ONLY A VERY SMALL PART OF IT

Who was watching over me during vacation? Left my purse ON THE FLOOR of the pharmacy aisle in one of the million billion Target stores we visited during the past 4 weeks. Didn’t discover it was missing until I had finished with pharmacy, noodled through cosmetics, spent ages picking out random greeting cards, strolled through housewares (finally! sheets are in my colors again!) side-stopped in groceries, wandered over to music/books and then had a complete and total heart attack when the fact that my purse was not in the seat of the shopping cart with its strap wrapped around my...

04
Jul
2010

HOT HOT HOT

The dial-up connection at my mom’s is killing me. By the time I get email checked it’s been over an hour online and I just don’t have the gumption to write a post. We’ve been busy, busy, busy, and time is flying by. The weather has jumped from lovely high 60s and low 70s to high 80s and low 90s and I’m sweltering now. The kids were great on the plane trip and we had a yummy, though very pricy, sushi lunch at Amsterdam airport, and we arrived with no problems. The day after we got here my sister and...

13
May
2010

SLOW DOWN YOU MOVE TOO FAST

It was Ascension Day today and the start of a 4-day weekend. I slept in and lazed about the house most of the day, reading. The weather has been freezing cold; cloudy, rainy & gray, so I didn’t feel like going outside, or really doing anything much. I did manage a load of laundry and ran the dishwasher, but that was about the extent of my productivity. Oh, and I updated the activities pages on the AWC site. I feel so lazy, but I don’t care. Angie dropped Chelsea the dog off in the early evening. We’re dog-sitting until Sunday....

01
May
2010

MIND GAMES

Happy May Day! It’s hard to believe it is already the first day of the fifth month of the year. Spring is fully sprung and the zillion shades of neon green greet my wondering eyes wherever they wander. All the grass is new and the old winter residue and beigeness of last year’s growth has been covered over completely now by the new growth. Yesterday was Walpurgis Eve and we celebrated, as we usually do, with our friends Mats & Annelott at a bonfire held in their overgrown back acre, with several other couples and 3 dogs, one a new...

03
Apr
2010

I HOPE MY KIDS NEVER GET TOO OLD FOR THIS STUFF

This has been an altogether lovely week leading up to Easter. Lots of sunshine and a wonderful dog in the house to love on. The kids were home all last week so they went out walking and playing with London several times a day in the sunshine and then we went for a long walk in the early evenings. Tiny, tight green buds are starting to show on the tips of every branch. Easter flowers are blooming: crocus, daffodil, snowdrops, wood anemone. The furled knives of tulip leaves have stretched up tall in gardens all over the village. Tractors are...

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