Italy ♥

Italy ♥

Summer air in Italy is sweet perfume

Jasmine

For all these years I have been missing out.  I've heard the word Jasmine thrown around in reference to flowers, a girls name... but in all that time I didn't know what the Jasmine flower was, what it looked like or where it grew?  And saddest of all, I didn't know what it smelled like.  Oh how much I've missed.  Why are more people not talking about this vine?  The smell of this stuff here blows you over like an Oklahoma wind.  I smelled it in the air one morning in the first days of June and I wondered what in the heck that glorious deliciousness was.  As the next few days came it became more and more potent.  When I finally found an Italian to tell me what in the heck that was and what flower it was coming from I  began noticing the bushes everywhere.  Literally everywhere.  And now, I can't imagine our final homes front walkway or back porch not covered in this stuff.  Wherever Joey finds a job one of my first questions will be, does Jasmine grow there?  If not...no way;)  And I'm barely joking.

Lavender

It's July now and the Jasmine flowers are shriveling and diminishing in their potency.  But never fear, our lavender is swooping in to save us!  These beauties line our driveway.  I just received 100 empty sachets from amazon to fill with these dried babies and lace our house (and yours...want one?) with their fresh scent.  I planted Lavender in Oklahoma and in San Antonio and guess what happened in both places?  Yes, they died.  In all my prayers I pray that there's no specialness here in the soil that the West coast or Utah doesn't have.  Because this growth potential is the key to A LOT of my happiness here.  Wait until you see pictures of my tomato plants!!  I am soooo excited!

 Hydrangea

And even though these flowers (one of my favorites) aren't nearly as perfumey, I can't forget to list them here because they grow so beautifully in our area:  Hydrangeas, or in Italian, Ortensie.  Every yard has them (except ours of course, so I've planted two...we'll see if my black thumb can kill them:) 

 With all it's imperfections (and it's paling in comparison to glorious Austria) Italy can grow some goods.  And it makes me so very, very happy.  

xoxo

Ashley

Ju-B

☛ Ju-B ☚

I know, I know, if you're on facebook you've seen it, if you're on Instagram, you've seen it but I had to post it here too...because, dear family, this photo means a lot to me.  When I saw it on my phone, (Joey took the photo), my heart kind of melted at the sight of her, my Juliet, so bright eyed and confident that the entire world surely loves her.  And immediately after that I felt happy and relieved and proud of myself...(yes, of myself) that, in fact, how I feel about that perfect baby of mine called Juliet, at least sometimes, actually does show through.  Despite all the whining I do about having three kids in Europe, despite all the grumpiness and intolerance that I show toward her (and the others) that tortures me every night as I lay in bed, at least sometimes, surely she can see that I absolutely admire and adore her.  I had no idea that it was so obvious...but, here at least, it is isn't it?  I want to blow this picture up large and hang it in our house as a reminder to myself that they know how much I love them (as parents, don't we always want to be sure?) and a reminder to her how much we adore her.

And that's the end of that devote'!:)  But here's a little more about the funny things that Juliet is doing right now:

Juliet loves to laugh.  If you're laughing she will laugh.  And every part of her seems to understand exactly what you're laughing at.  I like to think that her happy soul is looking for any excuse to spread its happiness...that's how idyllic, Juliet is to me:) 

At almost 3 years old Juliet still loves to be held.  She hardly walks 5 steps before she's angling her walk toward my feet, her head still looking forward and her arms outstretched up to me.  "I want a hold you."  I trip over her almost every time.  It drives me bonkers.  But when my patience is thick I press her head into my shoulder, which usually drives her bonkers, in which case I stop but in the case where it doesn't, she lays on my shoulder or giggles into my ear while I kiss her head all over.  

At night she must be read a story.  And she'll cry "Mommy...Mommy" over and over again in the same loud but calm tone until I come in to put her blanket just so, over her body.  If Joey has read her a story she tries to manipulate me into giving her another one and visa versa.  

In the morning her curls are frizzy and all over the place. And with her chubby tan thighs, her nightgown, her baby blanket all wadded up in her chubby arms and that face...we can hardly resist her when she tells us at the crack of dawn, "I'm hungey mamma."  She says it just like that in the cutest little cherub voice.  

She's taken to missing her baby days lately and sometimes talks baby talk.  She grunts and groans and searches high and low for old pacifiers.  If she finds one, she's sucking on it until one of us takes it away.  

She has an opinion.  She knows exactly what she wants and she shouts it loudly.  She talks sooooo loud!  It's absolutely exhausting!  And sometimes cute;)  

If Juliet could watch a movie from dawn to twilight she would.  She loves to "watch a show".  Jack Jack Attack (the short film after The Incredibles) is her current favorite but she'll sit with us through big kid movies too.  

The other day for some wierd reason we were talking about belly buttons with Isaac.  Isaac lifted his shirt and was looking at his.  Juliet said, "Isaac, you're belly button is coming unbuttoned."  We cracked up.  A few seconds later she climbed up to Isaacs ear and whispered, "Isaac, you're belly button (volume increasing now) is FAT (yell)!"  

A few weeks ago she had a really late nap.   That night she could not fall asleep so I let her stay up with me and eat a bowl of cereal while I finished up the dishes.  She talked my ear off.  I kept asking her, "are you ready to go to bed?"  "No, mama, let's keep talking."  So finally I asked her if we could move t into the living room and sit on the couch.  Right next to the sofa I have a fairly large porcelain figurine of The Buddha that I bought recently.  After I bought it I told her how sad it would make me if she broke it.  I told her that she was not aloud to touch it at all..only look at it.  So, we're sitting there a few weeks ago and she began asking me if I would be sad if she broke it. 
"Would Isaac be sad?" 
"yes." 
"And Georgie?" she went on and on about it.  After a few minutes of this she said in her very grown up voice, "Well," she smacked her lips prissily and while her face was turned toward me her eyes looked off to the side, "I haven't broken it yet, but somebody is going to hit it with a bat."  

And that's our Ju-B!

xoxo
Mom

Living A Story

I have decided to set some goals around here and give our blog (and my life) a little more sense of purpose.  After all we are living in Europe and there is a little more to this life that I want to remember than,"we went here, then we did this and then we did that"...it's getting boring and when I think about what I want us to remember about our time here, the wrote travel is not it!   In order to up the game  in these parts on photo shooting, real family journaling, and improving my international cooking skills through observant travel I am planning on beginning 3 "series'" if you will. This is purely for my benefit, no blogging goals or plans to make the blog public again at all but I want to look back and feel like I really did something with my time here...that I learned and I shared and I absorbed and took advantage of every moment.   So, here's the deal:

Once a week: I will post something that one of us is loving about Italy right now.  These posts will be titles, Italian Love, so if you're not interested (again, this is more for us) than don't read the ones with this title.

Once a month:  I will write a letter or an update on each of the kids...something they have said or are doing or what we are loving about them right now. One post each month about each of the kids. 

A recipe:  I am very observant when it comes to food.  I love it, I think about what I am going to eat next before I have even finished the current meal and I remember food from the most random occasions. On every trip I come home with a new food that I want to try and replicate here at home. Why in the heck not blog about it!  It will be good for me!  The title, Food Travel will appear after every trip and on other random delicious occasions.

I have had reservations for sometime about blogging anything other than mundane family updates because we share this with only our family, mostly males who could careless about any of this other stuff. So, if you see the title of "Italian Love" or "Travel Recipe" just don't read it!  This is about me pushing myself, giving myself a little sense of purpose and actively choosing to live a better story!  Feel free to ignore me!  

Xoxoxo

Ash

A Distinct Night Marked by The Sound of Heavy Breathing

Our Chicken Experiment:

A Failed Success      

This is a story about the end of an experiment, an experiment that had been going relatively well until something got hungry, wildly hungry.  Back in April we purchased six, four month old chickens from a nearby farm vendor.

The kids were excited from the very start, treating our girls as pets that they named, held, stroked, chased, and played with from the time they got off the bus until dinner time every single day.   When we arrived home in the daylight, they would run straight to the chicken pen in the back.  Isaac surprised me with how comfortable he felt holding from day one.  When they were initially jumpy and scratched he persisited.  He manhandled their little faces to show us the intricacies of their little beaks, learned to toss them over the fence and watch them "fly" and even took some turns cleaning up chicken poop.  

Georgie just loved being near them.  She also carried them around but she seemed mostly to love involving them in her fantasy farm land, showing them off to friends and harvesting their eggs.  She was the first one to the pen in the morning (6:30am sometimes people!) and the pen was the place we called her in from at dinner time.  She had her favorites and knew them all by name.  Her hen was named Shelly.  The chicken named, Softee, pooped on her friend once and she says she never cared to carry her again!  Softee had been deemed a pooper!    

(these are not actually our chickens...but my friend Daniela's.  But I wanted pictures to make it more interesing;)

Juliet terrified the poor lady beasts but not because she didn't love them.  She grabbed them by their feathers, by the neck, the feet, anything she could get a hold of when she wanted to hold them and they ran from her, oh how they ran!  And when one of us was around to place one in her arms it would usually scratch her by accident and she would immediately drop it flat on its face or its belly.  She asked me 3-4 times a day to take her out to administer this little treatment to her beloved chickens;)   

The kids and I took to watching their pre-laying behavior on a few Saturday mornings and laughing our heads off.  They get this frantic running and squawking thing going on, running back and forth from one end of the pen to the other.  They raise their poofy butts higher in the air, put their head down with crazy determination and RUN!   And, of course, because of their wide set, shortish legs it all happens with a waddle.  It's hilarious!  The kids loved it!  (and so did I...:( And when they are done laying, they come out from whatever place they've chosen for privacy, squawking over and over again with their head held high and proud, telling the world what they just did.  It's really, really cool to watch! 

While We Were Away

So, anywho, onto their sad, sad end.  When we returned from Lake Garda and went immediately to check on the chickens we saw the feathers...feathers, feathers everywhere.  (there was not a bone or a bloody gut in sight...the sucker had eaten EVERYTHING!)  Within seconds our neighbor, Aldo, who had been checking on them while we were away, came to tell us that two of our hens had been eaten by "un Volpe"(fox).  Gasp!!  Georgie buried her little head into my stomach and cried;(  Overall the kids handled it better than I would have expected.  But we all felt sad, disappointed and unsettled.  Aldo told us that the fox would be back that night and that we should be sure to lock them in the coop (something we hadn't been doing) and maybe place a few rocks in front of the door to secure it.   With crossed fingers, we did as he instructed.   

The Second Night

I stayed up late that night, peering out the upstairs bathroom window to check on the hens.  At 11:30pm  I heard it breathing....heavy, heavy, loud breathing that sounded just like a gigantic pig.  I went for a flashlight and shined it out there.  I couldn't see anything but I was sure that it saw my light and went away because the breathing sound disappeared.  Confident that pigs only ate vegetables and worms I kept trying to wrap my brain around how a fox could possibly make that kind of a noise, or maybe it was a wolf?  I spent at least an hour on google trying to find out what kind of predators lived in Northern Italy.  I read articles about the reintroducing of wolves and bears into Slovenia in 2002, I read about bear sightings near Belluna and Udine and I figured that, as wild as that sounds, it could have been a bear.  When we awoke in the morning we found our 4 remaining hens had laid 2 brown eggs and were alive and well.   But the big tub we'd had full of chicken feed (with a secure lid on it) had been busted into 3 pieces and all the food was gone!   We ruled out a fox...20 pound foxes can't break plastic tubs!  But whatever it was didn't get at our chickens so we felt a little relief.  

The Third Night

But not enough to sleep soundly the following night.   I awoke 2 times before I was finally awoken at 2am by the screaming of chickens.  I will never forget that sound.  Hearing something die did not sit well with me...I could never be a hunter or slaughter my own food, this I now know!  I was shaking all over and I still hear that sound in my head sometimes!  I grabbed the flashlight, ran down to the bottom floor and stood at the back door.  I heard the beast through the door, chomping and breathing and ripping and chomping and blahhhh!!  There was a part of me that figured, "the job has been started, let the beast finish or else I'll be cleaning up half eaten chicken guts...eeeewwww!!"  But the curiosity got the better of my fear and my disgust and I wondered if maybe he'd only gotten to one hen.  Maybe I could save the other 3.   I opened the door and walked out.  I heard it still, breathing and chomping but I couldn't see it.  I shined the flashlight toward the pen.  I saw not even a shadow.  The breathing stopped.   It growled at me in the lowest and deepest of animal growls.  In that moment I became convinced it was a bear.  I stood for a few more seconds that felt like minutes, stepped out a bit more, hoping that I had gained enough weight while in Europe to scare it away and then returned inside to wait for the morning.  I spent the next two hours searching google, yet again, for the possibility of bears in our area.  The sounds had convinced me but bears?  here?  I knew any Italian I knew would deem me crazy if I told them what I believed.

As It Turns Out, It Was A Cingiale (Wild Boar)

Georgie woke up early the next morning and, after a peak out the window, came to my room.  "Did you see the chickens?"  She had seen that the chair and rock we had placed in front of the coop door had been turned over and the door itself had been ripped at the corner seams.  There were no chickens running about.  All of them had been killed and eaten.  In someways it was a relief.  The whole event, from beginning to end, had felt more unsettling to me than I ever imagined chicken death would, mostly because I felt helpless as to what to do to save them.  For the 2 days that we waited and stressed and discussed possible prevention I just felt terribly out of control to be able to protect something that I was in charge of.  To worry about them every night for the next two years because of our inadequate pen and coop that we weren't willing to sink more money into felt like a bit of a nightmare!  I finally mustered the guts to go out to the pen around 10am.  It wasn't as bad as I had expected.  There were, of course, feathers, everywhere but for a slaughtering-of-4-animals-in-the-night it was a remarkably clean job.   I found two little bloody hearts (how ironic:(!!) a foot and one or two other gutsy spots but all in all it was mostly feathers.  I began looking for proof that the animal was a bear. After looking around it became obvious that it had entered from under the crappy fence that Joey and I had put up (we thought we did a good job but it has slowly come unraveled and loose at the top and bottom).  I felt sure that a bear couldn't fit under the fence, so, my first hypothesis was surely wrong.  I found a chunk of really course hair on the fence that looked like it could have come from a fox or a wild boar.  So, again I returned to google, and there I made a discovery that made it all make sense:  Wild boars are indiscriminate eaters.  They'll eat anything, including chickens.  We have seen evidences of a wild boar all over ours and our neighbors yard and we have seen one walking across the road when we came home late one night.  I listened to wild boar sounds on youtube and the sounds all matched up.  It was a Cingiale.

In the end, we deem it a failed success.  On the short term our excitement over egg hunting and chicken ownership lasted for only 2 short months.  Six animals that we were responsible for died.  All that work, the hope, the anticipation...we are still so disappointed!!   But on the long term we tried it, we learned a lot and we know that we enjoy chicken owning!  We know that in the future, more time and more money need to go into our final, safe and secure coop.  And we know that as we plan for that endeavor, because of our positive experiences here, it is worth it to us.  In the meantime we'll join the ranks of countless others who buy their eggs from the grocery store...cue Charlie Brown music...wah, wah, wah! 

xoxo
Ashley

p.s. And now we have a bunny!!  Best pet every!!

Ketch Up!

In just a few days we have family visiting...LOTS of family!  And LOTs of traveling comes along with it, with LOTS of photos and LOTS of storytelling.  Before any of that happens, I need to catch up on the semi-important things that I haven't journaled about yet so there's is not total procrastination at blogging about our big Merback European Adventure!

Happy Birthday to Me!

For starters I never bragged on my family about their spoiling me on my birthday!  Joey and the kids bought me a tray full of my favorite flavors of Gelato.  After the candles were lit and the song was sung  we all grabbed a spoon and dug in family style:

And I turned 33....KRAZY!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

An Italian Opera

On my birthday weekend some friends of ours watched the kids for us while Joey and I went with two other friends to Verona to see the Opera, Aida.  Belissima!  

We sat in an ancient coliseum built in 30 AD (around the time of Christs death...that old!!) and watched the entire floor of the stage filled with water to make a "lake" crawling with white "alligators", torches and rings and giant rocks lit on fire,  "elephants and Giraffes, line the stage, all while listening to Italian Opera.  We're not big Opera people but in this setting, it was pretty freaking cool.  The weather was perfect, the company was great, and we won't ever forget it!

The opera ended at 1:30 am so we spent the night in a cute little working farm just outside of the city, ate the delicious included breakfast with our friends upon waking in the morning and then headed home to retrieve our "real life" and our children....magical weekend!

 A New Pet

On an even happier note, we have a bunny!  A cute little black baby bunny who's name has evolved into BunYun.  What started out as Kitten Michino (kitten in Italian) Fiore (flower) Merback became..."BunYun"...after those nasty onion ring chips called FunYuns.  Don't ask me where or how.  The only thing I know is that 3 days after getting the bunny the kids called me down for a circus performance with said amazing bunny.  They had her jumping off shoulders, baring teeth and climbing body parts and kept referring to her as the amazing "BunYun".  We've never looked back;)

Our favorite friend Daniela's family has a beautiful little farm with chickens and rabbits on it (for eating).  Two of their cutest rabbits, a breed called Lion Head, had a litter of 4 bunnies and her Mom offered to give us one as a pet when she heard we lost 2 of our chickens (more on that later;).  When the other 4 chickens were finished off by the cingiale (wild boar) I promptly called Daniela and said, "yes! we'll take a cute little bunny!"    

She really is the perfect pet for us.  We're becoming quite sold on the idea of eternal rabbit owning!  While all the kids have taken to her, Isaac seems to be the most proactive about toting her around the house.  It's pretty cute;)  

Funny story that the kids have said repeatedly that they will never forget:

BunYun was hopping around in our living room with Isaac and Georgie while I put Juliet to bed.  She found a pipe sized whole in the wall that we had forgotten existed and wormed her way into it....*&%^ Holy crap...our new rabbit (after just killing 6 chickens, mind you) was now sure to die somewhere in the walls of our house!

After some waiting and stressing for 3-4 hours of hearing nothing from the rabbit I finally got the idea to reach into the hole and take photos with my iphone.  With that done we discovered  that the space she'd hopped into was actually quite small and that the bunny was, in fact, alive!  Phew!  We resecured the carrots and lettuce just outside the hole and waited and watched for her to get hungry!  Sure enough, after 5-6 hours she emerged, Georgie spotted her, wittingly whispered of her location to Isaac and he successfully POuNcED!  Bunny Saved!!  WooHOO!!  We can have alive pets after all!

And that about catches us up...I have only one more story to tell of heavy breathing and chickens screaming in the night...stay tuned;)

xoxo

Ashley

Baska

We hit a new country!   CROATIA! And from now on when we dream of crystal clear, relaxing family beaches with nothing but our little people, a scoop

 of gelato, and a cozy place to stay, we will dream of Croatia!  

Here's Juliet at the entrance of our cute little apartment with our own private garden smelling the glorious fumes of fresh bread baking in the bakery situated just at the front of our apartment.  We walked by it every time we came and left.  

We spent our entire first day here:

 The kids chased fish in water that was clear as your bath and because we were in a large cove there were no waves to tackle them and tire them out.  The beach was literally a 1 minute walk from our apartment...just across the pedestrian only street.  Ahhhhh!!

The second day we spent the morning hiking to the ruins just above the town.  There were wild fig trees growing everywhere.  We suspect that the end of August will be a good time to return for a free harvest.  We kept pinching ourselves, commenting how never in our lives did we think we would visit Croatia.

The top had great views of the town of Baska and its coast.

Our hostess Sylvia recommended a yummy restaurant just up the beach from

Us. We ate there both nights!  Why mess with a good thing!

Pan fried, cheese stuffed Ravioli

Fresh that day Tuna Steak (my seaside break from vegetarianism!!) with spinach potato sauté which was way yummier than it looks.

 Isaac ordered a spaghetti with mussels both nights that I couldn't stop swiping from off his plate. The tomato sauce was some of the best I have ever tasted...The tomato sauce always seems to blow me away in seaside spots.  I am noticing a trend!

 On the way back from the restaurant Joey and the kids did a Gelato tasting on the way back to our apartment. That means you get one scoop from a few places along the way and judge the best ice cream...yea, it's pretty fun!  

Georgie literally cried when we left Croatia. With only a 3 hour drive between us, this place is one we surely will return to!  

Xoxoxo Croatia!  

Hotel:  Authentic Apartments Baska found on Booking.com

Restaurant: Cicibella

Best Gelato:  Aida

Lake Garda! and a School Year of Success!

On Friday Isaac and Georgie finished their first full year of Italian School!  And we drove off to 

Lake Garda

to celebrate.   Joey told the kids that they have now done what no one else in the entire extended family has ever done...gone to school in a foreign country, in a foreign language.  At 9 and 7 years old, they are bilingual!

 I think (or at least I hope) that made them feel a little bit special.  Because they deserve to feel special.  What they did this year was hard...harder than we probably ever gave them credit for.  And they succeeded!

 They deserved this "kid friendly" trip to this HUGE, gorgeous lake just outside of Verona with a handful of their best buddies and no demands from Mom and Dad saying, "behave, walk faster, lets go, come on!!"

 We stayed at a Euro Camp sight called Camp Eden and our friends stayed right there withe us.  WE stayed up late talking and playing cards and spent the day times playing at the campsights' pool complete with slides, a huge playground, an amazing view and a gelato shop (of course!)  Swim caps were required(...they are at every Italian pool).

 We spent one morning rock climbing in the dolomites, Isaac and Georgies first time ever in a harness.  It was fun!   

 Our friend Jeff has all the gear and was nice enough to share it with us.  

Our kids are really close to the same ages and get along swimmingly.

 The kids really love each other.  

Especially these two who are using large leaves as umbrellas for the rainy hike down the mountain.

 This morning before heading home we stopped at the beach and skipped rocks, skinny dipped (Juliet only) and enjoyed the view.

 We love our life here...sigh.

As we watched the kids on the beach we commented on the three of them all doing their own thing, indicitive of their individual personalities, and somehow still playing together while doing it.  Isaac skipped rocks, requesting our audience from time to time and showing Georgie all the cool rocks he was digging up.  Georgie gave Isaac her full attention whenever he asked but spent any spare moment wading in the cold water (it wasn't warm outside either folks), dunking her face in to see the water life through the lens of her pink goggles.  She stared out at the view and talked to herself from time to time.  Juliet walked in with her clothes on, cried about being cold until we took her wet clothes off, and then walked around up to her knees in full glory (naked), collecting rocks and putting them in my pocket and chasing after any duck that came by.  She watched Isaac and Georgie playing, laughing when they would laugh and trying to act big like them.  It was one of those, "Life is good" moments when you want to pinch yourself to make sure that its real.  Great day.  Great weekend.  I think we might be getting a hang of this traveling thing, or at least how it works best for our family.

xoxo
Ash