Reversibles

I made this awesome toy for my friend who is having a baby in TWO weeks!! Her kid is going to love this...in like two years, but oh well :)

Signage

I don't have new pictures of the house. But here's all the signs I loved in Rome.Just in case you weren't sure. He is booking it to the exit.

Ouch.

This set of signs was in English...someone dropped the ball on this particular one.

Would you buy this cute purse for your daughter?Would you not notice if this guy was picking your pocket?

You should probably be careful around these trains. They are clearly poisonous.

Kyle is all about equality with Luigi and Mario and was thrilled to be in their homeland.

Pictureless Update

Without living in a house where there's a computer everywhere I turn I just haven't "been able" and by that I mean I've been way too lazy to upload pictures.

But I promise I will. There's tons more Rome pictures. They will not be forgotten even with the awful flood.

And our house is coming along. We have drywall! And some other stuff was done but I don't know what it was called. Maybe mudding. But I don't know what that word really means.

Our cabinets will be done Thursday. They were custom made and we picked a dark brown finish and a gray textured countertop. We both stress about if this was the right decision probably daily.

And now we need to pick the carpet and then our part will be done! After that we just wait for them to finish painting and putting in the stuff we picked out. Hallelujah. We're halfway there :)

Our Biblical Experience

As in the Great Flood. We started cleaning before we got the camera out. So these pictures are not it at its worse. Now just picture the front and back wall ripped out as well as all the cabinets, oh and the ceiling. And about 1.5 feet of drywall all around the family room. They just keep taking more and more. But here are the pictures from the first night, they aren't the greatest but we weren't really going for asthestics...

Here's our first batch of helpers. Wendy brought over Jeremy, Jamie, and Justin that night within minutes of us getting home. Kyle counted that 20 people came over to help within 24 hours including Jerome, Kassie (we're not counting Story cause she whined the whole time), our friend Shelton's crew, our neighbor, Janet and Chuck and Mom and Dad, and more. It was amazing. We felt really loved.

Welcome Home!

Remember the girl in the first episode of Lost who just stands there screaming while people are gushing blood and trying to help others all arond her?

That was me when we came home last night.

We got to the back door and heard the calming sound of rushing water.

We burst in with a flood of profanities. Kyle ran to the water and turned it off and as soon as he came back into the room (after assuring his computers were safe and dry) he wrapped his arms around my sobbing body and told me it'd be okay.

We've had a ton of help cleaning out the ceiling that had fallen into our kitchen and soaking up the resulting flood.

I think there's still a long way to go.

But at least I'm not sobbing.

Roman Holiday II

THURSDAY

We head out to Naples and Pompeii.
And apparently Pompeii takes care of dogs (much like that graveyard with cats). We didn't give them any money for the dogs. Kyle's mom would be so ashamed of us.

Pompeii is the city where the volcano erupted and covered the city's people and they all were killed.

We are so ready for the next eruption.

We had to skip Naples to get back to Rome for our killer New Year's Eve plans:

(And yes, that is Star Trek: The Next Generation that we are watching on the laptop to ring in the New Year).

FRIDAY

After getting out of bed around 1pm (although I totally got up at 9:50 to get breakfast before returning to sleep--and good thing too, I got an amazing fudge breakfast cake) we went to this abandoned town--I have no idea what it was called. We saw maybe 3 people the whole time we were there.

To see this great beach.

The wind was out of control. We both had sand in every crack and crevass.

But it was so worth it to touch the Tyrrhenian Sea, which we totally thought was the Mediterranean Sea. Whoopsie!

SATURDAY

We will be leaving at 5am to travel home and after 20 hours of flying we will get home 14 hours after we leave. Kyle says, "wrap your mind around that!" See you then!