Just some random pictures

This  Cake was so funny. We couldn't find a place that sold cakes, at the time....so we ended up with this. 

James helping put  our new couch together.

Pictures of the movers

I was amazed at how the movers were able to maneuver that big truck in such a tiny area. 

Sweet times

Jana's drawing for the magazine "Nature Friend"

Samantha's drawing for the magazine

Add

Jana cleaning the car. Way to go my Jana girl! She did an exceptional job.

Just a few extra pictures

Waiting to watch daddy fly the F-16.Woohoo!!! Go Daddy.

 

Ike got to fly an F-16. It's been many years since he's done this. The kids and I took the afternoon off so we could watch him take off. It was so cool!!!!

 The crib and twin bed were not going to fit in this little room.  We went out into the Italian economy and bought this bed.  It comes with closets and all.  Now that's a bed:)  It also provided places to stick stuff in. Italian houses don't have closets. Just another challenge to overcome. It might not seem like a big challenge, but sometimes when you're in the midst of it all, it seems bigger than what it really is.

Feeling Settled...What's going on with the Williams clan?

We have the house together( if that ever really happens) and have been doing school for three weeks. We are ready to get out and see Europe now. They ( those that have moved to Aviano) say it takes about six months to feel accustomed to the way Italians live. I've also talked to many that have moved from Germany and England to Aviano whom all have said Aviano is different and seems to take longer to adjust to the lifestyle. I can see why that is.

I've learned that I have grown accustomed to the convenience's of the American lifestyle. It's been a bit challenging at times figuring out how to live like an Italian.  The electrical outlets are different in Italy... none of our appliances, that I feel are a necessity :-) , actually work. My husband has been a champ in finding the right tools to help me in this area so I can "feel" like I can do whatever is I need to do with the appliance we own. The recycling is getting easier and I don't have to stop as often to think about where the trash is suppose to go. I have figured out how to wash the dishes in a tiny space without breaking my back. I get a good workout for my legs. I have also figured out that I can't use the dishwasher, dryer, and washer at the same time. I've popped the circuit breaker too many times to count. You would think I would learn after going outside numerous times to push the lever back up so our electricity works again, but I still forget until we have no power. The laundry takes 4 1/2 hours to do one load and that's only if you want to leave them at a damp dry. That being said, I am getting used to not having laundry or dishes ever caught up on. We usually have one or the other that was forgotten, due to not being able to turn it on. I also have figured out how to flush most of the toilette's and wash my hands without asking for help. I am not scared to drive down the one lane roads meant for two way traffic anymore, my breaks work really well. I've also figured out that the bikers on the road have the right of way. When you want to pass them,just swerve around them, even if there's on coming traffic because the other car will end up hugging the road so all three of you can fit on the road and nobody has to slow down a bit:-) Trying to communicate with Italians when neither one of us speaks each others language is quite entertaining. Hand motions, grunting, and blank looks are not rare for this family's way of communication. I think the people watching us probably think we are from the caveman era. All of this just takes time to get used to, patience, and lots of laughter( something we're still working on). We have a lot of mistakes to be made and things to learn, but we are feeling a bit more comfortable and sane.

We are involved in many activities. One of our highlights throughout the week is our weekly co-op on Thursdays.  It is held at the base chapel  with other military families.  We are taking many classes which include economics, art, music class that is looking into the greatest composers, book club, writing class, piano lessons, cooking class, and a dance class for Jana. Samantha was too small for the dance class. Jana also is involved in horse riding lessons, and violin. While she loves the horses and learning how to ride, it's been a bit of a challenge (good kind of way) because she is learning mostly through observation. Her teacher speaks a limited amount of English and all the other children in the same class speak Italian. Her teacher is wonderful and willing to learn how to communicate better to help Jana become a good rider. Jana told me her teacher said the other students thinks its really "cool" to have an American in class with them. That gave her that extra boost of confidence she needed.  James is involved in Taekwondo, which is on base, two nights of the week and Ike is teaching him how to play the mandolin.

Samantha is still learning the violin with the added piano.
 I am able to work out again and am enjoying  taking violin lessons with the girls. Ike and I are also on the worship team together. Ike plays the piano while I play the violin for church.
 Ike is feeling settled with his new job. He is getting into really good shape because the young men at the squadron are in charge of putting the pt together. He came home many nights sore from the difficult workout, he almost threw up at. They keep him on his toes.

 We have been attending a southern Baptist church. The pastor is American and his wife is Italian. They have a big heart for the military, Italians, and for people in general. The church has welcomed us in as if we were family, which in a sense we are. The congregation is made up from mostly military families so it is constantly changing. Our theology might not line up with theirs but there's something to be said about a family of believers gathering together to worship our Saviour. Sweet fellowship. We are gaining some amazing friendships through our church. I am thankful we can live across the ocean, yet still feel at home and loved by the people God has so graciously put us in contact with.

This business is only for a season. All too soon it will be gone. I pray as we go through this time we will seek our Lord with earnest greediness not forgetting why we are here and what we are to do, to Glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I thank Him for life here on earth and the everlasting life that is to come.

Samantha and mommy's tea time

Isaac and his co-op group

Samantha enjoying the piano

Sick day. School in bed

M,M,M...banana bread

This is how Isaac spends his days


I will have more pictures of Jana and James when I get my USB cord. 

Movers are here

We had quite a surprise, when Ike went to work on Thursday, only to come home to tell us tomorrow the movers were coming with the rest of our belongings. Excitement filled the air for all of us. I felt excitement, disappointment, and a little anxious . I had just spent three wonderful days planning our school year out and was ready and excited to start learning through our books together. I felt like this was one of those annoying mosquitoes buzzing around my ear, yet unable to find it to actually squash that annoying little thing. It was a never ending process of complete chaos. I also knew the chaos that organizing all those cherished belongings, brings into a home. I wasn't quite ready for that yet. It was a bitter sweet moment for me. I wanted all our belongings, but not the work involved in getting all that stuff put into place. I so easily forgot of God's love and Grace and focused only on the difficult circumstance facing me.
It was interesting the day of the movers. The picture shows the big van trying to back down the road to go get the next load. I was amazed at the way they could maneuver that big truck in such a tiny area. The next picture shows how they unloaded. They had to unload the truck and pack it all into the ground floor. While the other two men went and got the next load, two men stayed and took the boxes to the correct room. They had to unload the truck quickly because if anybody needed to go up the road or down the road they would be stuck.
They were quick, polite, and it was funny communicating with them. They all knew a bit of English, but sometimes when they were calling out the number from a box they said it wrong and we would be a little confused. They started showing us the number as they were telling us after a few mistakes from one of the men. He was also teased by his coworkers for his communicating skills with Americans.
I'm glad we are moved in and feeling settled. The only thing missing was our couch and a bottle of vodka, which wasn't a big deal for us, three children potty trained on the couch:-) The big deal has been trying to find a new couch.

Caorle Beach

Day at the Caorle Beach                                                                                            July 28th 2012

As we woke up this morning, we decided it was the perfect day to be spontaneous and head to the beach.  Ike heard about this great beach.  It was 1 hour away from us and seemed to be the perfect place for us to go.  What we didn’t know, was that being spontaneous and going to the beach don't seem to match up very well… when you have nothing to go with.  We got off to a late start, but we were determined to go anyway.

The more we thought about what we needed, the more we thought how crazy we were.  We had nothing to go to the beach with except swim suits.  No towels, no cooler, no nothing.  I knew that the BX (Wal-mart military style) didn't have anything regarding beach stuff so we had to go out into the Italian economy to buy what was needed. Figuring out what store to go to was also another nice challenge.  It’s not easy when you can’t read Italian very well and even when you can read it, you still don’t know what it means.  We went to three different stores to find our “needs” for the beach.  Of course , we had to stop to eat lunch before entering the last store, those little tummy’s were telling us they needed food or this would not be a pleasant experience.  If you don’t already know, eating around here is not something you do fast.  You and they take their time eating.  By the time we were ready to depart we were mentally exhausted and tired from all the running around just to get the necessities. That wouldn’t stop the Williams clan.  We wanted to experience Italy so we were going to experience Italy.  Here we go….

I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to drive in Italy.  Well, this was one of those things that Ike knew where the city was, but to locate the beach was another story.  The GPS (almost a necessity in Italy)  gave us a few options, we decided that we had no logical guess to punch in, so the best option was to play "eeny, meeny, miny ,mo" and hope for the best.  That didn’t work very well.  We kept driving and ended up in an area we knew was not the beach.  We didn’t have our handy dandy map, so at that point we decided to look at the map through the GPS and saw the other options that would have been a better pick.  Our mistake only took us about 20 minutes out of our way.  Oh well, we eventually made it to the city and found a parking spot.   Parking an American sized minivan in the European underground parking area is no easy task.  Once we parked and found the center of the city, I gazed around and saw no sand, no water, and no umbrellas.  Hmmmm….it was well past three and now we don’t even know if there is a beach around.  My thoughts went to enjoying the scenery and busyness around us, while Ike’s went directly to finding the beach.  He stopped some stranger and tried to communicate beach to him.  The guy gave him a funny look and walked on. We soon found out why the funny look.  All we had to do was walk around the corner and there before our eyes was the beautiful Caorle beach full of umbrellas and dark sand.  The color of the water was an astounding aqua blue with spurts of rock formations at the shore side.  The excitement was in all our voices, but soon ended for the walk was quite a bit longer.  It seemed to us the thousands of umbrellas we could see were part of the hotels behind them, which made us cautious  in just going under an umbrella.  So we kept walking, thinking we would find a clearing somewhere.  We finally had enough and were tired, so we decided just to stop at an area…to our surprise, there was a little table set up for people to pay for an umbrella.  It wasn’t with the hotel that we assumed.  Thankfully the lady at the table spoke English and explained to us that we had to pay 10 Euro to have an umbrella and the one we bought (because doesn't everyone need an umbrella to go to the beach) and carried that far, couldn’t be used in the front of the beach.  We also asked about a free area to sit in and she said “yes on number 31”  we were on 12.  No thank you, we will just pay the 10 Euro.  We didn’t even end up using the umbrella because it was so far from the front of the beach we had no use for it, but to put our stuff under it.  Most of "our stuff" ended up in the front with us anyway, in fear of theft.  Oh well, lesson learned.  You can put towels down in front…just not umbrellas.

We were definitely known as Americans just by our swim suits.  Our full suits and shorts down to our knees for the boys were a true American style.  I even had some lady come up to me trying to make money by asking if I wanted my picture taken.  We didn’t see many naked bodies, but did notice girls around Samantha’s age who didn’t wear tops and  saw only one lady without a top laying down under her umbrella. 

It was a wonderful time when we actually got there.  The older children swam out to the big blue jump area with daddy, while Samantha, Isaac and I played in the sand.  Isaac was a bit fearful of all the waves and wouldn’t leave my side.  Once we were about to leave,  he started warming up to the waves, as long as he was sitting on my lap.

Around six we all started getting hungry and decided it was time to say farewell to the beach and go eat a hearty dinner.  We were the first ones at the restaurant to eat an actual meal. (That’s becoming a norm for the Williams clan)  There were others enjoying a drink and snack…but it wasn’t dinner time for them.  Jana needed the restroom “really bad” so I asked for the key and headed in that direction. I was surprised to find out the keys are entirely different than an American key. It was an old style key hole, where if you peer into it, you can actually see the other side of the restroom. I peered into it, but couldn’t figure out how it was latched so I could unlatch it to open the door. I wiggled and jiggled and looked and jiggled some more. That door was not budging. I had to humbly and sheepishly go tell the waitress this “dumb” American can’t figure out how to open the door. She took the key and I observed very closely, so I wouldn’t have to go through that again, and noticed she put the key in half way and turned. It opened easily.
  We were now all comfortable, enjoying a nice meal, and ready to go back to the TLF from our very adventurous and different kind of day. We learned so much just by making all those mistakes, and next time we will feel more comfortable going out…to make more mistakes. But now is time to relax and take in the day thinking of all the funny challenges and not so funny challenges.  Thinking of how we have fallen so short of what we were called to be and do which in return reminds us of God’s grace and love for his children. It makes me think of how in all of our hardness, mistakes, and failures, God gently teaches and conforms us and as we sit back, just as we did at the dinner table, and rest in Jesus we are able to have true peace and comfort in our souls because we have been loved more than we could ever imagine through it all.

Isaac enjoying his nectarine

Samantha and Mommy's sand castle

 

Leave the beach????

Rocks near the shore

The blue floating device the children swam to.  (They did have kickboards if they needed it.)

Finding treasures underwater

 

It makes me laugh every time I see it. My boy James.

This one makes me laugh too.  My little Jana girl. She loves her adventures.

Our 10Euro umbrella for about three hours of non-use.

This is how the Italians do it.  They strip them down and wash them off.  We couldn't figure out how to keep the sand off the tiny body after he was cleaned off.  I need to observe that one a little better.

All the umbrellas on the beach, closed down and ready for the next day.