Finally.... I almost did them justice. Almost. Tony even said they were good. Last night, I made my mom's enchiladas, and for the first time they came out pretty good. This was quite an accomplishment for me considering I've been trying for three years to make them on my own. Every time until last night they were a disaster. Finally doing this changed something in me last night. This dinner was always my mom's specialty, growing up we'd have her enchiladas all the time. We loved them. And before they were her's, they were her grandmother's, my great-grandmother's. And now I can make them, and that makes me feel so awesome. While I was making the enchilada sauce I had to call my mom for help really quick and found out I was supposed to also add salt to the sauce. After adding that, I took my time with it like I used to watch her do, letting it simmer, gradually getting the last few flour lumps out. And after a while, it finally was done cooking, and a little bit later the finished enchiladas were coming out of the oven. I can't wait to make them again already, lol, I can't wait to get them even closer to how my mom makes them.

So, our Christmas was awesome this year. I got a beautiful painting of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus; it's hanging in the living room. Seeing Tony's face when he opened his present was one of the best parts. With my sister and soon to be b.i.l.'s help I was able to get Tony a Nintendo Wii. I had told Tony that they weren't able to get one, that the stores were all sold out. So, he was really surprised when he opened it. Carlee was the main event though. It was amazing to see her excitement with the presents. She even wanted to help unwrap ours lol. She loves all her new toys too. We got her a new kitchen playset. It has a stove, oven, and refridgerator, along with shelves of food, pots, pans, and spoons, etc. She loves it. She started playing pretend right away, without us even teaching her to. She "poured the milk" into a teacup, added some "ketchup," stirred it, and brought it to me. lol. It was the cutest thing.

I already have lots of ideas for Christmas next year, and I'm already really excited about it. Tony laughed at me for that. But honestly I can't wait!

Right now, I'm getting ready to go home for my sister's wedding. I'm excited to see everyone, and to see everyone's faces when they see Carlee. I only wish Tony would be able to come with but he can't. I'm looking foward to seeing my sister get married. I'm so happy for her. I'm glad I'll be able to make it there. I can't wait to go shopping too! and going to the craft store! I got a few craft books for Christmas and I can't wait to buy supplies that I need for them. One is a really cool knitting book, another an embroidery book, and I also got a loom knitting kit. I already made myself the striped leggings that the kit teaches you to do. It was so fun. I can't wait to get some more looms and patterns to do.

Well, I gotta figure out what we're gonna have for dinner... since there are no more leftovers from last night. :D  ¶ 10:22 AM 1 Comments

  back to normal My cat is back. My cold is gone. My financial account at CTC is fixed. I'm back to being really excited about Christmas. :D I even went caroling with friends last night. hehe, it was fun. A longer update later.  ¶ 4:27 AM 0 Comments

  The Fugliest Christmas Sweater Ever Isn't this sweater awesome?!? HAHAHAHAHA! This is my friend B and me in our wonderful ugly Christmas Mom Sweaters, my FIRST ever! :D Don't you just love the beads on the sleeves? awesome huh? Tony was so embarassed that I wore it to the neighborhood Christmas party. I thought it was hilarious. My tee-shirt says, "Santa... I can explain." haha..

So, we had fun chasing the kids around, getting Carlee's picture taken with Santa, and stuffing our faces with sweets. Seeing Carlee walk around in her Christmas dress almost made me cry though... she's getting so big.  ¶ 10:57 AM 0 Comments

  well... They brought me a "new" dryer on wednesday... Thursday I tried to use it and found out that it didn't even heat up. So, Friday they had to come back and fix that one. Thankfully Tony was off, so while the dryer was getting fixed, I headed off to base to take my final. That went good. I immediately felt better after getting that load of stress off my shoulders. Spent a few hours at base with my friend, and then headed home. Saturday, we took Carlee to get Christmas pictures taken with Santa. And I believe it was either Friday or Saturday that I realized my cat was missing... nice. Nemo's gone again. She had to have gotten out when the repair guy was here. She's nowhere in the house. We drove all over the neighborhood, she's not anywhere... I don't know... all this crap that keeps going on is really annoying me and putting a damper on my Christmas spirit.... on top of that Carlee and I both have a new cold... ahhh! but I just keep trying to hold on to that excitement of seeing Carlee open her presents.

On another Christmas note, while my friend B and I were at the store, I found some really gawdy Christmas sweaters... you know the kind, with snowmen, and reindeer, etc. lol... well, I thought it would be hilarious to wear one home to see Tony's reaction, but I didn't want to spend $20 on it to only wear it for fun. Well, last night I went over to B's house, and she surprised me with one of the gawdiest sweaters ever, there's even beads all over the sleeves! LMAO! I loved it, and wore it home. Tony laughed so hard at me. I'll have to take a picture in it later to show everyone. Anyway, that's all for now. We've got more santa pictures at a neighborhood Christmas party tonight.  ¶ 4:13 AM 0 Comments

  soooo The repair guy finally came a little bit after I blogged. He said he couldn't fix it, I needed a new dryer. So I talk to some lady that he called on the phone, and arranged for them to come out after I got back from base.

I went to base with some friends since they had to go to. I ran by the airport to figure out what I have to do in order to space a fly... went to the main base to take my final... well, the website was down... ALL day. So I couldn't take my test. Thank goodness I still have one more day, but I would have liked to get it done earlier. I also went by the CTC rep's office... the main office hasn't answered her yet; I still haven't gotten a reply from them either. That's still up in the air.

Now I'm home... and they guys came and replaced my dryer, so at least I got something accomplished today. Oh, I did take care of the money we owed housing.. Yesterday Tony ran over the lawn mower's extension cord... with the uh... lawn mower. LOL. That was fun.

Anyway, it was fun to hang out with my friends, but I really wish I could have taken my test. Now I have to drive back to base tomorrow... I'm so looking foward to it.  ¶ 10:03 AM 0 Comments

  a little stressed... This past week's been fun to say the least... Last week, the dryer started squealing really loud. REALLY loud. It had a little squeak to it before, but it didn't bother me enough to call in a trouble call. Well, this was really bothersome. So, I called. They came and "fixed" it on Thursday. By Friday it was squealing again. So, I walked over to housing, which was supposed to be open but wasn't. I was frustrated knowing it would have to wait to the next week. Then over the weekend, there was a gas leak, and everyone's gas got turned off. It was right after our Christmas dinner at a friend's house, and thankfully we had already eaten. But, when we went home, our water wasn't getting hot at all. So I call my friend, and she says, "dude, you have to turn on your water heater." So, she came over to help with that..... only it didn't want to come back on. At all. Nada. So... we went without hot water until Monday.

I finally made it up to housing then, and apparently a lot of people's water heaters weren't coming back on, something about a lot of air in the pipes or something. Oh, and I reopened my dryer work order as well. Well, they didn't fix the water heater until that evening, and today they are supposed to come fix the dryer. Besides all that... I've got my last final to take today, which I had planned on taking yesterday, but Tony needed the car for work.

So, yeah... then when I tried to register for a few spring classes, CTC is showing that I owe 138 dollars for some reason from Fall semester. Which I don't know where that came from, since I paid the full amount right after I registered. So, I can't register for Spring until I pay all of that, which I'm not going to because it shouldn't even be there. Today, I'm going to base to take my final, and to stop by the CTC office, hopefully the rep. can tell me what's going on...

Oh, and apparently I'm "cruel" to my child for putting her in a baby harness once in a while. Sheesh... I wish I could voluntarily close my mind that much so that in my world "cruelty" is a baby harness. gah. I wish this repair man would hurry up and get here so that I can get down to base. blah.

Ending on a good note... Our little video rental store FINALLY got PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2!!! It was supposed to be out last week, but the box never made it here. SOooo... I had to wait. I was the second person in the store yesterday at 11:02. haha. It opened at 11. It's sad that the highlight of the week here was that movie being on the shelf.  ¶ 3:42 AM 2 Comments

  Thanksgiving in Tuscany I know it's been forever already... Every time I tried uploading these pictures something kept going wrong... But here they are finally.

Day 1 Nov. 22
So, we flew out of Catania to Pisa. Right after arriving at the airport we took a bus drive to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was incredible! The only not incredible thing was we forgot to get the baby backpack off the bottom of the bus, so we had to carry Carlee around all day. But it was okay. It was so amazing to actually be there... never in a million years did we ever think we'd see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. First, we had a walking tour of the area by a local guide. We walked around the Church, baptistry, and then the tower. The Church was beautiful, and to be in and near buildings that are so old was amazing.

So after the tour, the group had to split into 3 in order to climb the tower because they only let in 15 people at a time. Tony and I had to take separate groups because Carlee wasn't old enough to go up. But it worked out. I would of loved to go up together though. As soon as you take the first step into the tower you can feel the lean. It's crazy. And then walking up the 294 steps is tiring, and one of your legs gets way more exhausted than the other because you keep trying to compensate for the lean. The view from the top is amazing too.
After everyone climbed the tower we had the night free to ourselves to explore Pisa. We decided to eat dinner (since we still eat dinner on American time lol). We found a nearby little pizzeria, we ordered some wine too, well, because we had to since we were there. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit, found some desserts and a dulceria and ate them at the steps of the church marveling at the tower all the while. After a while, we went to the meeting place and took a bus ride to Florence where our hotel was.

Day 2 Nov. 23
Our second day was a day filled with walking tours of Florence..... Florence is breathtaking! I loved it. First we walked up to this hill in order to see a panoramic view of Florence. From there we walked down to the center of town. We saw the duomo (Church) and even went to the museum where the Statue of David is!!! That was amazing! We also saw some unfinished Michelangelo works, and it's incredible to see an unfinished figure of a body and then look at the back and see a block of marble. We didn't get to take many pictures because all of the places pretty much don't allow cameras.
After our walking tours of Florence, we took a bus ride to the country side. The fall colors there were just breathtaking. After what felt like a long and winding ride we finally arrived at the winery for our Thanksgiving dinner. The food was awesome, and we forgot how many plates Italians serve for dinner hehe. The first plate was roasted wild boar and noodles, and it was delicsious. Second plate, was prochutto (sp) and salami. Then came out the various meats (including our surprise TURKEY!), beans, and vegetables. The turkey was a surprise, because the guys said they don't even have turkey there, and don't eat it either. So that was nice. After eating, we took a walking tour of the winery and that was neat too. Then we headed back to the hotel.

Day 3 Nov.24
On the third day, we drove to a town called San Gimignano. This was I think my favorite stop. It's a medieval town from the 11th/12th century, and all the buildings are still there. The roads are still as narrow as they were in medieval times. It's amazing and made me wish I could travel back in time to see what is was like back then. We toured the Church, saw some of the original 14 towers that are still remaining. On our free time, Tony and I ate lunch, and then went to a Museum of Torture. It was about all the ways that they executed/tortured criminals from medieval times to present. It was insane some of the things they used to do, and to see thae ones that they thought were the most humane... they really weren't. So, that was interesting.
The next stop was a city called Siena. Another medieval town. We took a walking tour starting out at the Duomo where we saw Saint Catherine's mummified head and her thumb. St. Catherine apparently prayed there before her trip to Avalon, and so this Church wanted her body to display. But, Rome wanted it, and so did another city where she had lived, so eventually they decided to divide the body among all of them. We also saw the oldest bank in the world, established in 1472 I think, and still going! Amazing huh? We also learned that Italians don't consider themselves Italian unless they're winning something like the World Cup. Instead, they consider themselves whatever their region is, Florentine, Roman, Sienan (?) lol.. oh, and Siena apparently hates Florence to this day. why? Well, back in the day, Siena were wealthy merchants, but they felt that had to have control of a river in order to be respectable. So, they went after Florence's river. Florence fought back, and the wars went on for 300 years before Florence finally took over. The tour guide said that when that happened, Siena started paying tribute to Rome, such as making their archictecture more Roman, and even put a Roman crest on their flag. They did this to spite Florence saying, "Better to be Roman, than Florentine." :) After the tours, we had free time. We decided to eat and tracked down an open pizzeria. We don't have too many pictures of Siena either, because by this point we were running out of room on the memory stick, but here's a view of the Church:
The Church was actually supposed to be the biggest in Italy, but the Plague hit, killing 40,000 out of 50,000 people. Afterwards, the survivors eventually decided just to finish the Church where it was at instead of making it to the plans. So, it was an interesting day.

Day 4 Nov. 25
This was our free day to explore Florence more and shop if we wanted to. We slept in and rested a bit, since walking around for 3 days straight carrying 25 pound Carlee will tire you out! hehe... Then we attempted to go shopping, but were shocked at the prices... So, we found a cache in the area, ate lunch in a neighborhood park, fed pigeons, (Carlee was so cute with them lol), walked around some more, then finally made our way back to the hotel. In the evening we went to a nearby restraunt Alfredo's and it was sooooo yummy. I wish we had known about it the entire time, we would have eaten there every night! And then we packed. On Day 5 we hung out at the Pisa airport, before finally flying back to Catania.

The trip was just incredible. We loved it. The area was beautiful, Carlee was perfect! I think it really had to do with the fact that she had our attention the entire time. If we had tried to do this trip on our own, I think she would have been more upset alot more of the time because Tony would be trying to drive, I would be trying to read maps and navigate, and she would never have our attention. So I really liked the way the trip was set up, we didn't have to worry about any of that. I think we're going to try to take more ITT trips like this.

Anyway, I uploaded all the pictures which you can see here on Snapfish. Here is a description of all of the pics:

Day 1: Leaning Tower of Pisa
photo #s 2010, 2011, 2012:
view from the plane as we were landing in Pisa.
#2013 Sheena and Carlee at the entrance of the city walls.
#2015- 2020 various pics of Tower and Church
#2021 Baptistry
#2022- 2048 Various views of the Church inside and out.
#2049- 2077 Views of and from the Leaning Tower
#2078 -2084 pictures in front of leaning tower
#2088-2090 Church at Nighttime

Day 2: Florence
#2091-2117 pictures taken from the top of a hill overlooking Florence.
#2118-2121 start of our walking tour.
#2122-2130 Florence's Church
Afternoon - Thanksgiving Dinner at a winery located in the Tuscan countryside.
#2131-2134 Enjoying the walk up to the winery and restraunt.
#2137-2141 At dinner
#2142-2151 pics of the winery surroundings (which we could see from our dinner table as well.)
#2153-2155 playing outside after dinner
#2159-2163 tour of the winery, the grapes pictured are going to be made into Holy Water for the Church.

Day 3: San Gimignano and Siena
San Gimignano = #2164-2171
11 century Medeival town.
#2166 Medeival Church
#2170 few of the 14 tours still remaining from 11/12th century.
Siena = #2172-2207
#2173, 2174 Oldest bank in the world, established 1472 (I think, 1470 something anyways.)
#2177 2178 Refurbished cieling of the medeival time open air market place.
#2181 Tallest tower in Tuscany, 3rd tallest in Italy.
#2182-2186 Views of Siena's Church.
#2187-2189 Views of/from the square.
#2194-2200 Dinner
#2207 Siena fountain  ¶ 3:47 AM 2 Comments