we interrupt the vacation blog......

...........to chat about some great summer weekends!
Last weekend the sun came out and work was done on the kids' old elementary school playground. Thanks to many involved, the school had won a Pepsi Refresh grant. It was fun to help put together the new equipment. I worked on the big web. It was also great to see a lot of the teachers that taught my kids at the school.

working on the web

Later that day, I went to a retirement party for one of my former charge nurses at the childbirth center at Northwest Hospital. Susie's family held a great celebration for her at their house on Camano Island. It was a beautiful day, and I saw many nurses that I had not seen in almost 15 years!!

Then this weekend, the sun was out again. Friday night was our annual Seafair parade here in our town. Krista and her kids joined Kelsey and I along the parade route. It is such fun sharing parades with the joy of young kids.

at the parade

Saturday, the Kennedy's had a family afternoon gathering for Ryan's 4th and Kathryn's 2nd birthdays. Great food, yummy cake....and fun family time!

the boys

my grandma, aunt, niece and daughter

Then later that day, I had a full van to drive downtown to run in the Seafair's Torchlight Run. We did the 5K, and some of it is along the parade route. It was a new route this year, which ended up being quite hilly. (last year, I did not run it due to my stupid foot). Great things: I had borrowed Kerri's parking pass, so we had great parking; there was nice grassy shaded area to wait/gather; my kids being with me; some of the parade participants were staging in our area-inluding the Husky marching band and cheerleaders; Ciara as my running buddy!! Besides it being hot and hilly-I was very happy with my time. Not my PR-but not really out to get bests anymore-I just want to be out! Ok, I ran a 28:13 and finished 16/188 in the female 40-49 division. :)

Husky band in the shadows, under the Space Needle

My foot is better, but still "talks" to me. I'm trying to be nice to it, by icing, and varying my shoes. And now, I apparently have some ankle thing on my other foot. So, I guess I just deal with aches...and try not to make it worse.

Today the sun has hidden behind a good, wet marine layer of clouds. So, it's a shopping day!!

Rome: Day 2

Day 2 in Rome was our Colosseum day. It was sunny and going to be in the 80's. We had pre-purchaced our entry passes at home, and we hoped to get there before the cruise ship groups started coming in. Well, we still had to deal with some cruise crowds, but by buying our passes ahead of time, we were able to bypass a lot of other people. I LOVE the Colosseum, or Amphitheatrum Flavium. I am not really sure why, but I do. It is an amazing structure not to mention the history that comes along with it. It was built between 70-80 AD. What was a little weird at this visit, is that they were setting up for some event that night. So, among the ancient walls there was a modern stage with lights and speakers!

With the Colosseum pass you get entry into the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.
We headed over to Palatine next, after getting some ice cold "still" water and Coke Zero. Also there was a stop at the Arch of Constantine to get pictures. Palatine Hill is where we got the word "palace." This site is where many emperors chose to live. Also, Roman mythology indicates the western side of the Palatine Hill as the site of the dwelling of Romulus, and the cave where Romulus and Remus were supposed to have been raised by the she-wolf was on the western slope of the hill. We also toured the House of Augustus.For most of history, the home of Rome's very first emperor and Julius Caesar's grandnephew, Octavian Augustus, lay undiscovered. That changed in 1961 when Palatine excavations revealed a fragment of painted plaster. Further digging unearthed a house. But not just any house: the palace that Octavian lived in for 40 years, both before and after he became emperor

On to the Forum: The Forum was the center of the ancient city, a place to see and to be seen, to catch up on the latest news and gossip, do some shopping, business and even to be entertained. Nowadays all we see are ruins, mostly due to the plundering which took place in the Middle Ages as the great monuments were ravaged and had their marble and other elements stripped off them for the building of the Vatican and other Papal palaces and churches.
The Forum started life as a marshy area, a meeting place for the early inhabitants of the surrounding hills. By the 5th century BC it had evolved into Rome's city-centre, a place for political assemblies, riots, demonstrations, trials, gladiatorial shows and various public festivities. The marshy ground had been drained, the Cloaca Maxima had been created and one could see lofty patrician houses amidst the hustle and bustle of a market filled with food stalls, various imported and local goods and even cattle in the area closer to the river. This location with the flowers in the picture below is supposedly where Julius Caesar was burned after his death. 

The lunch that day was strictly okay. It was too close to all the touristy areas. After lunch we walked up the stairs of Vittorio Emanuele II Monument. On these stairs is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with an eternal flame and two armed guards. Victor Emmanuel II was the first king of a unified Italy. (I finally remember this after Kelsey kept quizzing me on him!)

We walked back to our apartment and had dinner at the same restaurant as the night before. We were going to try another restaurant in the neighborhood, but it was closed on a Sunday night. I tried their ravioli. Yep, it was good.

Leaving for Europe. Rome Day 1.

I think I will break my blogging about the vacation into separate entries.
Travel day:
We left for the airport on a Thursday afternoon. Kelsey was mosquito bitten and sore from cross country camp. Michael was also mosquito bitten, not so sore, but had come down with a sore throat. So we added Airborne, extra ibuprofen, some vitamin C and echinacea to his carry-on bag. Pat and I were good to go! I was happy to see that the Condor plane we were flying on had a Snoopy and Woodstock painted on the side. Our flight departed on time about 6:30pm. It was a 10.5 hour flight. None of us got a lot of sleep that night, even with our cute Linus and Snoopy pillows. We landed in Frankfurt at 1pm their time (so, with a 9 hour difference, that was 4am our body's time). The flight to Rome was only a couple hours, we were there by 5pm or so. We got in one wrong line, but eventually got our bags, got out to the train platform, took that train to the main station in Rome-Termini. They are doing construction on the metro (subways) in Rome, and supposedly were shutting down on the weekends by 8pm. Pat knew this but didn't really tell us until after we "sprinted" through the station--up and down what seemed like a ton of stairs--with our bags in tow. We made it in time to catch the metro to our destination, Flaminio. We later found out that they had extended the time to 9pm. At Flaminio we needed to take the rete tranviaria (streetcar/tram). In Rome, it seemed that most of the public transportation was fairly crowded-and Italians just go where they want to go, when they want to go. It's an adjustment for us more polite Seattleites. This tram was 10 minutes or so. Then we had a 15-20 minute walk to get to the apartment. This part was shortened on future trips, b/c we did not have our luggage, and we found the best stop to hop on and off.

We made it! It was 8:30pm Friday evening Rome time, 11:30am on Friday morning Seattle time. We had been up a good 27 hours or so, with whatever sleep we had on the plane. Dinner was by-passed and we all crashed!

Day 1 in Rome-Saturday.
With a good amount of sleep Pat, Michael and I went to the local grocery store to buy some drinks, and pastries. Kelsey had a headache, so she was resting. Michael still had his sore throat, but IBP was helping.
We had no plans that day other than wandering. So, off we went. The bridge by the apartment is Ponte Milvio, or the bridge of love. There are areas where lovers leave a lock and then toss the key into the river. We had a weekly pass for the public transportation-so we could take whatever we needed to get around town. We took the tram back to Flaminio, which is at Piazza del Popolo. The rest of the day we walked. Our stops along the way: the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, our first of many gelato stops, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona where the Fountain of the Four Rivers is located. Then we walked back to our apartment along the Tiber River. For dinner we decided to go to a local restaurant. We were starving at 6pm, but they don't open until 8pm. We went to a nearby bar for drinks and appetizers to pass the time. And then walked along the Tiber again, to see the Olympic Stadium where a local concert was getting ready. The restaurant was great-outdoor seating and good Italian food. Pat had pasta carbonara, and the kids and I had pizza. Then back to the apartment for the night.

Ok, there is my first vacation post. Stay tuned for more!

we are back

I don't have the time to blog about our trip quite yet. But, I loved this vacation. It was exhausting, but wonderful. And, I am happy to say that I would go spend 24/7 with these three people again in a heart beat. It's hard to be back to reality. Even harder because apparently we missed the 4-5 summer days that Seattle has had this year.

I also think I am going to follow in my sister's steps and go private.

With going private I will post the link to our vacation pictures here: http://gallery.me.com/oz_korryn
I took over 800! they are all labeled.