Stephanie and Brandon Xmas pics...

16 Dec 2007 Christmas time in Florence trip

We went to Florence last Sunday and had a good time, except for one problem...Ann-Marie vomitted all over me on the way there. Mostly it was on the blanket which we had over us, but still some got on everything. I was prepared with the Dramamine, the baggies, etc....but she pushed the baggie away saying "enough!!!" and then proceeded to vomit all over the place. This was on the way THERE. So we kinda rolled up the blanket and walked to the tiny bathroom on the bus. As I stood there...verbally saying...."ahhh, yuk....ummm...hmmm...what are we going to do???" Ann-Marie started one of these uncontrollable snort-type-'keep it undercover' kind of laughs that only happens when you are NEVER supposed to laugh. I couldn't help it, I busted up laughing as well....there we were...the bus swaying, we were standing in a tiny bus bathroom covered in a stinky vomit smell...CRACKING UP...holding a vomit covered blanket which I had no idea how to even 'ball up' just right to do anything with it. It was actually hilarious. What else could we do? At this point though, I was still hoping it was only motion sickness and not the stomach bug that had been going around. Everyone on the bus knew what had happened, smelled it...couldn't open windows...and gave the evil eye...but what the heck. We just tried to go with the flow....LOL.

We had a nice, uneventful time the rest of the day. A bit of motion sickness on the way home but no more vomitting. One of those memories...."We'll always have Florence"

See the pics below.

Again more Florence at Christmas time...

This Olive Tree is located on the little side alley that runs from the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffici Gallery, it is celebrated here in Rembrance to the 1991 terrorist attack here. While in Florence there were very little lines in December and we were able to get right in to the Uffici gallery and also the Galleria D'Academia (where Michaelangelo's David is and etc). It was really nice.
Ann-Marie with a street performer. The same guy who was here when Steph visited in Feb 2007
The gorgeous Duomo in Florence.

Chipping golf balls and Ann-Marie on a Merry-go-round

The Ponte Vecchio, (old bridge) you can see there in the middle- the white sign. While on the bridge we noticed they were hitting golf balls into the river. I couldn't get any pics of it at the time, it was blocked off and the sun was right in the camera. So I came down here so I could show you guys.
And here is one of 5 'holes' that they were aiming for.
Ann-Marie having fun on the carrousel horse in Florence.

More Chirstmas time in Florence

That guy with the movie camera would not move out of the way. Anyway, last time we were here, with Stephanie, it was covered up with paper (which looked sorta like the real thing). In 2001 while in college I studied this door. Look at the link to read all about it.

Here is Ann-Marie standing next to Stephanie's pig. LOL. But really, if you rub the nose you are supposed to have your wildish dreams come true.
The Florence fire/police department were handing out balloons, with a donation. They had a Big ol' Santa there, which Ann-Marie felt compelled to tell "Merry Christmas" to. They all thought she was very cute. Then at the end of the day, this little boy and Ann-Marie were playing and thought it was hilarious that Ann-Marie's hair was sticking up with the balloon there. This kept them occupied for quite a while.

Christmas tree lighting ceremony

The elf happens to be a soldier that I know, so this is pretty comical to me. Anyway, he was asking her name and asked her if she'd been a good girl this year. He said Santa already knew whether she had been or not. This was funny, she got real nervous and serious and turned around to me and asked me if she'd been a good girl.
With Santa. The elves told her to say "stinky feet" for the picture.

After the picture they had small talk and then she hopped off Santa's lap and ran over to me saying, "he said he was going to bring something special!!!!" It was cute.

Tree lighting fun at Club V

From about 3:30pm until 4:45 or so there were activities for the children to do such as ornament making, face painting, and pin the nose on Rudolph. There were pictures with Santa and an area where Mrs. Claus was reading Christmas stories to the children near the fireplace. Near the time when the tree lighting occured, everyone filtered outside and (5pm) there were children singing and the high school band playing. They sang a couple of cheery Christmas tunes and then right before the tree lighting they dedicated a song to the fallen soldiers, injured and those away from home and then they sang a sad song which made the whole crowd get teary. It goes to show you that as a military family, we are lucky to have these cool things to do and yet our lives are always peppered with the reminders of fears and loneliness and the pain of sadness for the fallen soldiers and families of them.

After the tree was lit and a few short speeches (even Santa couldn't get cheered up for his speech after that) they opened up the parking lot near the theater where there were a few vendors with hot spiced wine, cocoa and chestnuts roasting. They also had horse carriage rides! Everything was free... I guess morale, welfare and recreation paid a flat fee to the local vendors for them to come. We didn't personally stay for carriage rides, the lines were long and it was a long day for Ann-Marie. But we had some cocoa and chestnuts.


Can you tell in Ann-Marie's pin the nose on Rudolph picture above, that she's peaking? I didn't realize it until I saw this picture and then I asked her. I guess I just thought that she had some innate sense of where Rudolph's nose should go. The lady who is holding her blindfold knew it, by the way she is laughing in the pic.

Ornament making

I forgot some!

Ok, sorry guys, I wanted to update with the ones we put on the tree tonight. I forgot I had this little sack sitting over in the corner which had all the newer ones I'd gotten recently...Here they are!

3 little violins from Salzburg, Austria.

Little bells from Slovenia. One even has an etching of that weird 'human salamander' thing we saw inside the cave.

Italian collection of ornaments

Pinnoccio's pewter.
The Veneto lion with an American flag.
Murano glass ball I got when I went to Murano with Aunt Della, Uncle Jim and Aunt Ivy.

Jake and Stephanie and Brandon...

This pic was just taken 5 minutes ago; just before she went up to bed.

Since you guys are not here to help decorate the tree and go down memory lane with me....I'll bring memories of Christmas Past TO YOU through my blog. Yesterday we put our tree together...I could barely carry it in the house! I guess I got spoiled having strong men around the house to do those things and I didn't even know it was that heavy!

Today we put the lights up. Jake, if you were here we'd have double the lights on it, I am sure of that. Some of the sets were broken (you know how that goes) but I didn't replace them this year...I just let the back of the tree go without! The lights are red and green alternating and I've got the dial set 'slow'. I hope you guys enjoy putting up the tree via cyber space with me. In my heart you are all with us....so...put on the Christmas music and get your cocoa ready. And anyone else that is happening to read this...please jump on in with the comments if you like....we're all family and after all, Christmas times-a-comin'!

oh yeah, and notice the star? It's just propped there. As soon as Ann-Marie got it out of the box she said, "Oh, no...how are we going to put this on?" We laughed. She got up on my shoulders and tried to put it on the top but she got to giggling so hard and got scared to move once up there. So I just kind of propped it near the top. LOL

Just variety...

The above ornament is a Russian doll ornament. We have about 10-12 and they are ALL different. I got them in Germany last year. The face is ceramic and the rest is elaborate cloth. Just beautiful.

What the heck is THIS? Anyone know? Kids... Jake? Do any of you guys claim this one? I can't even tell if it is a cat or a bear or what. LOL Oh well, it's on the tree!
This is one that Mom made for us quite a while back. She made several of these, only two survive this year for our tree. Remember how mom used to put ornaments on the tops of gifts? Well those are all on the tree now too.

Some of Jake's NON sports themed ones...

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard are all standing around the flag. This ornament has a little dial in which enables you to put the flag up and down.

Parachuting Santa symbolizes Jake going into an airborne unit again.

And some of my favorites...

This one says "Krankenschwester" on it which is what a nurse in Germany is called. It translates as Kranken = sick and schwester = sister so "sick sister" which the nurses all used to be nuns so I don't know....guess it makes sense. I bought it for myself December 2006 before leaving Germany.
An unknown person left the above one wrapped in Christmas wrap in December during Jake's Iraqi deployment in 2003/04.

This one was given to me by one of my favorite patients. Her name was Angie. It says 1993 on the back.

And have a look at these!

Ann-Marie made that one while in American kindergarten in Bamberg Germany.


And the one she is holding says "Baby's first Christmas 2001". It's tweety bird snuggling up with Bugs bunny.
Notice Shakespeare has on his Christmas neck thing. Doesn't he look pleased about it? LOL

Hey guys, remember these?

Mum and Pop (Jake's mom and dad) often send an ornament...here are just a few:


That one above still has a piece of paper rolled up inside....I did look at it to see if it actually was a note from Christmas' past in which we'd left a note for santa, but it was blank.

The Redsox one below is in a place of distinction this year! Oh and it's right next to all of Jake's NE Patriot's Christmas ornaments. (I promise I didn't put them all in the back of the tree honey...lol)


And this next one is dated "2001" on it.

Awww, remember this one, honey?

"Our first Christmas together 1998" Hey, why is there a blond lady sitting there? Actually the whole picture is laughable....it's a young blond sitting with a salt and pepper gray older man and they are 'clinking' their wine glasses while sitting on the floor in front of the tree. LOL.

I remember Christmas 1998. Jake had recently proposed and all I could do hold my engagement ring up to the Christmas lights and stare in awe at the "sparklies" when I would turn my hand slightly.

The Holland bulb (but this one is not a flower!)

We got this in Delft where Delftware became famous. It is VERY heavy and I'm always afraid it is going to fall off the tree and break. We got this on our trip to the Netherlands in November of 2005.

Hey Brandon...lol...you forgot something....

I believe the one above was made by Brandon's grandmother?

The above one has his name and it says "1997"

Oh....Stephanie???? Is this one yours???? Did you make it? I can never remember where some of these came from!!! Of course there are a lot of other ornaments but ya can't take pics of them all.

Look honey!

For some reason this one always gives us a chuckle as it gets pulled out of the box. I used to think it was hideous...but now I love it. It has "Jake" inscribed on it.

German set

The one above is actually a pretty big bulb. It's made out of paper mache I think and has pictures decoupaged on. We have a set of 6 of these with different pics. I like them because they are so big!

We actually got these, I think, here in Italy last December at clearance sales. I remember I used to see these little straw decorations at the German Christmas markets and I didn't buy any then because they just seemed too expensive.

Tiny detailed German figures. We have tons of these. I bought these at various flea markets in Germany right before coming to Italy in December 2006. I think I even sent a set of these to Jake for his miniature Christmas tree. I love that little skiing santa.