Picture Collages (for those who don't have Facebook ;0)

Exploring the streets of Santa Maria.

Celebrating Thanksgivig by having our Italian neighbors over!

Grabbing some lunch after going to Santa Maria's HUGE market.

Our neighbors and Madelyn's new friend!!

Our Santa Maria Home

We have been in Italy just over two months now and in our new home almost a month.  We have finally unpacked all of the boxes and rooms are coming together.  Before I take you on a tour of our home, let me give you a little background of the beautiful city we live in, Citta di Santa Maria Capua Vetere.  

"Capua Vetere" means "Old (or ancient) Capua," and is a city built by the Romans.  It's current population is approximately 34,000 people and is home to the historical amphitheater where Spartacus once fought.  This amazing piece of history is just a short walk from our house, craziness.

Ruins of the amphitheater.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

Also located in this town is the Arco di Adriano. 

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

The arch was built in the 2nd century in honor of the 14th Emporer of Rome, Hadrian.  Arco di Adriano is located on the Via Appia, an ancient Roman road connecting Rome to Brindisi (and runs through the city center of Santa Maria).  There's a yummy gelateria on Via Appia we enjoyed with a friend recently.

Now that you know a little bit about where we live, let me share with you our villa.  Please, come on in!

After looking at numerous homes with three different realtors, we found "the one!"  We fell in love with not only this home but the beautiful town it is in.  Here is a picture of one of the streets we frequently walk while enjoying one of the numerous shops or cafés.  This is in the city center of Santa Maria.

Ok, back to the house.  When you first walk in, you enter the main level which includes our dining area, living room, kitchen and one if the banos.

Immediately to the right...

The always interesting bano...

The cucina...

Living room...

Dining area from kitchen...

View of patio from cucina, there's a nice little yard we plan to enjoy once it decides to warm up...

And that pretty much wraps up the main level.  Let's head downstairs, shall we?

Here is our other (and warmer for the time being) living room.  The door to the right is David's gym and then behind the pocket door is another bano, laundry room and door to the garage.

If you turn around from this point you will see Madelyn's play area...

That's it for downstairs, now we will head to the second floor, aka the bedroom level.

Master bedroom with bare walls...

Madelyn's bedroom...

Mads' bano...

Wardrobe/Office and you guessed it, another bano (too many banos to clean!)...

And last but not least, we head up to the third level, aka "guest suite."

Guest room...very bare at the moment but will be nice and cozy for our first guests soon!!

So, that's it folks!  That's our home.  We really love it here and are blessed to have wonderful neighbors both American and Italian.  We've got plenty of room and welcome guests anytime so start planning a visit!!  

Tomorrow I'll blog about our new-to-us Italian car we got today!

Hugs and love from Italy!

Farewell USS Milius

Friday was David's last day with the USS Milius!  The wardroom gave him a proper send off by "bonging him off" the ship (they form two lines and salute him as he walks through).  David also received an  end of tour Commendation Award which is a pretty big deal!  Of course this comes as no surprise to any if us because he's awesome :0). 

Disneyland!

We were able to make it to Disneyland before leaving San Diego last Friday!  It was crazy hot but not terribly busy which was nice.  We went with our good friends the Albrechts.  All in all, it was a fantastic day, we went on a few rides, collated a few games, ate lots of yummy food and ended the night with the Fantasmic show and fireworks behind the castle!  Here are some photos from our day at Disney :0)

Del Mar Fair Time Again!

We actually made it over to the Del Mar Fair tonight!  (If we didn't go tonight, we wouldn't have made it there before we move because our schedules are so packed!). We are sure glad we made the 45 minute drive to get there because Mads totally loved the petting zoo and livestock and mommy and daddy totally loved the fried Klondike and fried Twinkie dessert :0).  The trip to the fair wore little miss Mads right out, in fact she is snoozing right now on our way home while I write this blog entry.  Here are some pictures from our evening, enjoy!

Rousseau!

We had the pleasure of spending our yesterday with one of our good friends David (aka Rousseau).  He and my David have been great friends since waaaay back in the day.  He currently lives in Tennessee with his wife, Jess.  We were excited to hear he was coming for a quick visit (they figured out they haven't seen each other since we visited them in Germany back in 2007).  David took him to see the base and Coronado then they headed back to the house and we grilled out and talked the night away.  It was such a great visit and we sure can't wait to see their beautiful baby boy twins enter this world sometime next month!!

Madelyn - 21 months

Here are a few photos of our little love bug growing up way too fast.  She currently loves books, macaroni and cheese, dancing, the Backyardigans, anything technology related and is very curious to discover new things and places - she definitely keeps us on our toes!!