Zip line park

Everyone loves the zipline park....

Except for when something like this happens...

Thankfully he only did this once!

"Snowhenge," Food, Arts & Crafts, and Fun

 So we've had a lot going on...pictures best explain it...

"Snowhenge"

Creators of Snowhenge...note the bamboo poles used to help create and shape it. 

the Net's photo of an Italian Sunset

I tried to comb Rosa's hair...rats five, comb 12 broken teeth.  Match goes to Rosa!

Yes that's a crab with pasta on the plate.  It was actually mostly in the crab shell.  It tasted great!

Pianogurl whipped these up for Deep Thinker's b-day party...theme was survival a la  Bear Grylls.

Pianogurl also made this cake....

The Net and I put our survival skills to work.  We made a bamboo bench.

It still needs work.

The Net made this for the survival b-day party.

Speaking of survival, the mice moved into this in our barn and dug out some insulation.

And some more insulation.

Another photo the Net took.  Great eye!

Ants, Smoking Closets and Alarms…

What a weekend! One of the first things we noticed upon returning home is that the ants are moving into our house. Ferrara has gotten a lot of rain lately, and apparently, we’ve been designated the local emergency shelter for the affected ant population. Add to this the fact that Songbird has decided she’s terrified of ants and we’ve had quite the dramatic production going on here. We’re still not sure what to do about that. 

I’m having Florida flashbacks. We used to get teeny tiny see-through ants called ghost ants climbing all over the counters and bathtubs looking for water. It wasn’t pleasant, and they were almost impossible to get rid of! I confess I welcomed the monthly pest control plan we had in both of our Texas homes. Italy is a little to eco friendly for that, though, so I think we’re on our own.

After episode 1 of the ant drama died down, I started the laundry. There’s always so much laundry. I think it breeds at night in the clothes hampers! Anyway, about halfway through Thursday, we started to smell something strange. (Songbird would like me to point out that she smelled it first). It was familiar, but I couldn’t remember why, and it was really strong in the entryway. Finally it dawned on me that it smelled like we’d blown a fuse. I opened the box to turn the offender back on (this is a pretty normal occurrence), and was greeted by a little smoke, but all of the switches were in the “on” position. Weird. We went around the house checking everything, but everything was still functioning and the smell was still really strong. I didn’t see flames anywhere and kept a pretty close eye on it until The Linguist came home and called the electrician.

He did an initial assessment and told us he’d return the next day to take a more in-depth look. When he arrived Friday he opened some kind of panel in the wall and started freaking out and saying whoever wired this should go to jail. Our wires had been taped together instead of being routed through more official-looking clear pieces that he was waving around in the air while he ranted. He said that because the wires weren’t in there correctly, there was arcing between the wires when we ran high-usage appliances (like the dryer, oven or dishwasher) and we’re darn lucky we didn’t end up with our house on fire since we use those particular appliances a lot. 

Disaster averted, we spent Saturday handwashing our dishes and hanging our laundry on an old rack we found in one of the outside buildings. The electrician came and fixed the wiring last night, so hopefully we’re out of danger now.

Everything seemed just peachy until we tried to leave for church this morning. As the linguist set the house alarm instead of calm, the alarm started shrieking. He attempted to turn it off again which made it stop for 30 seconds and then started wailing again. Then we heard the shrieking rise in pitch (which indicated that the inside alarm was going off, as well.) The kids and I shut the door to the van before our hearing was permanently damaged.  The Linguist (poor guy) spent 10 minutes or so trying to get the alarm to turn off, but to no avail. In the meantime, cars driving by and people walking by were staring at the house as they passed. 

We finally had to call the electrician (again), who came over half an hour later to try and fix the problem. He was able to turn the alarm off and we left for church an hour late. He came back later and finished the job!  So our alarm is now good to go.  We’ve seen him enough since moving in that he might be considered our closest friend in Ferrara!

And so ends this week (Italians start the week on Monday)…we still have ants (which resulted in another fit of hysteria from Songbird), but we have averted the fire danger and shouldn’t be plagued by any rogue alarms in the future.

On to Sonsbeck!

We left Oberamergau and traveled North to Sonsbeck, Germany, to visit some friends who are stationed there. I can’t even describe how wonderful it was to stay in their home, and enjoy the food, conversation and fun that comes when you spend time with good friends and family. It was true comfort food for the soul!

They baptized their oldest daughter and blessed their youngest in the German-speaking branch we attended with them Sunday. The people we met were so kind and made us feel very much at home. It was a reminder to me of how the gospel creates family wherever we go. It also made me think about how quickly time passes. When we met them, Pianogurl was in the second grade and Deep Thinker wasn’t even born yet. Between us we had 5 children. Now our numbers have grown to include 12 children!

One day we visited a spectacular museum in the Netherlands that focused on the battles around the Arnhem Bridge. You may have heard of it in the movie “A Bridge Too Far.” I hadn’t, but we devoured the museum with interest. Basically, there were several military groups that were assigned to seize control from the Nazis of the bridges in the Netherlands during WWII. The other bridges were all successfully taken, but Arnhem was not. The museum (which is actually in the hotel that served as headquarters during the attempted takeover) has a number of different artifacts, personal accounts, computer/movie exhibits that tell the story of what happened at Arnhem. The crowning feature, though, is an interactive exhibit where you board an airplane and “jump” with the paratroopers down into Arnhem. As you walk through, it’s like you are in the streets – greeting the locals and battling the Nazis – complete with fire, gunshots, bodies, etc. Finally, you cross the river to escape the enemy. Deep Thinker and The Net thought it was about the coolest thing ever -- we had to go back through again.

The rest of our time was spent with the kids playing and the adults talking and taking care of the kids. We really enjoyed holding their new baby, who was just about 6 weeks old – so tiny and sweet! It was with much reluctance that we loaded up our van to head back to Italy. Many tears were shed on the way home. Sometimes it stinks to be constantly on the move. The silver lining is that they are close enough we can see them again in the near future!

The drive home was long – 11 hours in all – but once you factor in stops for gas and bathrooms, it took closer to 12 ½. Pianogurl didn’t feel well for about the last half of the trip and the kids were all so ornery from sitting in such close proximity, that I seriously considered leaving a few of them in Switzerland!

Speaking of Switzerland, it was breathtaking! We drove through a narrow valley that looked like green velvet stretched over rolling hills. The snow-capped peaks stretched above that. It was so pretty that it almost didn’t look real! Most of the rest of our time in Switzerland was spent in tunnels – a couple of them were so long I started to wonder if we were ever going to come out! We crossed the border into Italy and the tunnels became almost non-existent, so we got a good look at the gorgeous Italian Alps, as well. We also enjoyed the beautiful lights from Milano, although we didn’t appreciate the extra traffic.

We arrived home at long last and found the house intact and even a little bit warm. It even almost felt like home…