I have no time!

Sorry for the lack of blog entries in the last couple of months. As I am sure with most of you, the holiday season gets very busy. In order for me to get an entry done, I need a good few hours to do it. I haven't had the free time in the last month. Hopefully, this week I will. I have lots of great stuff to tell everyone, so please be patient.
Hope you had a very Merry Christmas and your New Year will be as fabulous as we hope ours will be.
God Bless you all.
Leslie

Zu Deutschland, zu Österreich und zur Rückseite Wieder

Does anyone know what that says? Well, since I had to use Babel Fish (great translation website) to write it, I guess I can let you know. It simply means "To Germany, Austria and Back Again".

We recently returned from our trip to Bavaria and the greater Salzburg area. It was a fabulous time.

We started off on Sunday, September 21, with an overnight stop in Modena to break up the long drive. No, we did not buy any vinegar. But, we did get to see a small town Medieval festival. Everyone was dressed in period costumes, with music, crafts and food from that time. It was an unexpected treat to stumble upon while there. The Ferrari factory is not too far away, but we did not make it over there. I couldn't fit one in the back of the car, so I figured we'll come back and pick one up another time..... HA!

Monday, we drove up to Austria to a small town just south of Salzburg where we stayed while in that area. The pension was beautiful, and super clean, and the staff (family) were more than accommodating. The highlight of that evening was dining at a Chinese restaurant. Just what we drove to Austria to do! Not really our first choice, but since all other restaurants within walking distance of our hotel were closed on Mondays, we ate there.

Tuesday, we hopped on the train and went to Munich for Oktoberfest. It was "family day" and supposedly one of the less crowded days at the festival. If that were true, I would hate to be there on a busy day.

We had lunch in the Hofbrau "tent" with about a thousand of our closest friends. These structures are unbelievable! I will post a picture of it at the end. We found a place at one of the tables, and had real German fare and a liter of beer. Even Tom drank one! He figures, when in Rome...I mean Munich... There was a band and after every song, everyone sang a toasting song. We "prost"ed with everyone at our table. It was quite fun and everyone was in a festive mood. After lunch, we walked around the rest of the fairgrounds. We rode some rides, played some games, and ate some treats. After our wallets were empty, we headed for home. We had a great time, but I don't know if I would go again. But, we can check off one more thing in our 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.

Wednesday, we took a bus tour to the salt mines near Berchtesgaden. We have been there before, but Anabelle was only 6 months old. We thought it would be fun for the girls to do again.

The bus dropped us off right across the street from Mirabell gardens in downtown Salzburg. A lot of the scenes from the "Do, Re, Mi" song in The Sound of Music were filmed there. The girls are big fans of the movie, so they enjoyed singing and acting things out.

Thursday, we drove out into Bavaria to the town of Oberammergau. My intention was to buy a nativity set from there. They are well known for their wood carvings. But.....I was not willing to pay 200-300 Euro PER FIGURE for it. Now, the set I was looking at was one of the larger ones, but I didn't want a tiny set. The town is very cute, and well worth a stroll around, and I did go into a Christmas shop and bought a nutcracker and smoker to add to my collection. So, Leslie is now a happy girl.

On our way home, we stopped in Ettal, where there is a beautiful monastery. We walked around there for a while, then bought some wine and beer that they produce. Gotta support the brothers!

Friday, we drove over to Chiemsee, and took a ferry over to an island where King Ludwig II built, or was in the process of building, the palace, Herrenchiemsee. He was making a replica of Verseille, but didn't finish it because he ran out of money. How does a king run out of money!!!! Anyway, we took a tour of the palace and got to see some of the unfinished part. It was very interesting. The grounds of course were beautiful, and we had good weather, so we did a lot of walking around.

That evening we went to The Sound of Salzburg dinner show. We ate mediocre banquet food and saw a corny show, but the girls enjoyed it, so it was worth it. The singers were very talented, so I can't completely trash it, but my suggestion is to avoid it if you are ever in Salzburg.

Saturday, we went to Schloss Hellbrunn, right outside of downtown Salzburg. It is a palace built by a Prince Archbishop back in the early 1600's. The main attraction of this palace is the trick water fountains. The prince got is kicks from getting his guests wet as they walked through the gardens. He even had a table outdoors that squirted water out of the seats and table and got his guests soaked. Of course his chair did not come with a water feature. It was a chilly and damp morning, so the girls were not able to get wet, so that was a bummer for them.

To redeem the day, we walked over to the palace zoo. While there, the sun decided to come out, so the rest of the day was gorgeous.

We walked the rest of the grounds and saw the gazebo from none other than......The Sound of Music. We took the obligatory pictures in front of it and found a wonderful playground where the kids frolicked for a while. You got to hand it to the Germans/Austrians, they make some beautiful parks and playgrounds.

Sunday, we went up to the fortress in Salzburg. We got to see some gorgeous views of the city with the snow capped Alps in the background.

We ate lunch at a wurst stand, walked around the town, and watched some street performers. Some of them were really awesome. That afternoon, Anabelle and I went back to the hotel to start packing, and Victoria and Tom took a gondola to the top of the Untersburg Mountain, which was very close to where we were staying. Leslie doesn't care for heights all that much, so I was glad to pass on that one.

Monday we headed back to Italy. We stopped in Vicenza where there is an Army base. We stayed at the Lodge on base and ate some American comfort food (fast food).

We were back home by Tuesday evening, and I have been working semi-hard since then to get everything washed and/or put away.

That area of the world is one of our favorites. You could probably tell since we have been to either Germany and/or Austria 5 times in our collective 3 years in Europe. We will probably go back again. There is still so much to see and do. Hope you enjoyed my recap of our trip. Sorry it was so long.

Con molto affetto, mit vieler Neigung,

The Moore Family

Our Labor Day Weekend

Well, we had your average Labor Day weekend. We spent a lot of time at the beach and playing around in the water. The only difference was, we were on a little island in the Mediterranean Sea. We went with two other families that live on our "compound", to the small resort island of Ponza. It is right off the coast of where we live, just north of Ischia and Capri. Not well known to the American tourists, but very popular with Italians. It is very similar to La Maddalena, where we did our last Italian tour. We took a ferry over on Saturday morning, got settled in our apartment and went down a PLETHORA of steep stairs to the "beach". I use that term loosely, because there was no sand to be found, everyone was laying on the rock. You will get the idea from the pictures. The area was called piscine naturali, natural pools, because there were several spots in the cove that dipped down and looked like swimming pools. One in particular was surrounded by rock. That is the one where I spent all my time floating around. The water was very salty, so you were able to stay afloat without much effort. There were also spots on the rocks around the water where you could jump in, some higher than others. It was what I consider wimpy cliff diving. There were sea urchins to be careful about as well as a few jellyfish. Tom actually got a good sting from one of the jellies. Just a little souvenir from the natives.

On Sunday, we went on a boat ride around Ponza and another small island, Palmarola. We stopped in several places on got to jump in the water. The rock formations were quite interesting and different from each other. The water was so blue and clear. It was amazing.

We made our way home on Monday afternoon and got ready for the week. We all had a great time.

As far as our day to day life, we are pretty boring. Victoria started school on the 25th of August. She seems to be doing well. She is even tolerating the commute down to Naples. We are trying to encourage her to use that hour productively. She is required to read 25 books this year. With as much time as she has and as much as she enjoys reading, that shouldn't be a problem. She is also able to get some of her homework done on the ride home. I think she is going to knock our socks off this year. It will be a nice change from the challenges we had last year.

Anabelle starts back at the Italian school on the 12th of September. Thanks to the closing of the American school here in Gaeta, we get funding to pay her tuition as well as an allowance for an Italian tutor. Sooo, I am hoping that she will be able to ramble on in Italian before we know it. Maybe she will give her mom and dad a lesson or two.

Tom's job has not changed a bit in the last month. We are still holding our breath to see what will become of the clinic. The hospital in Naples was nice enough to grant Tom's leave request for the end of September. We are off to Germany and Oktoberfest. We are staying outside of Salzburg and are going to travel around Bavaria from there. We just love Germany. We were there before, but didn't get to see everything. We will go back to a couple of places we really enjoyed. I think the girls will have fun too.

So, that's all for now. I will have a new entry when we return the beginning of October.

Ciao Tutti!!!

Tom, Lello and Aaron on the ferry to Ponza.

Leslie, Anabelle and Julia at the Piscine Naturali.

See? No sand, just rock.

The view from our apartment. The natural pools are to the right of the boats.

Faye, Victoria, Tom and Anabelle on the tourboat.

Tom and the girls, and Madison and Anabelle swimming off the side of the boat.

Pretty water, huh?

Some of the scenery from the boat.

Madison, Anabelle, Garrett, and Victoria enjoying some of the views.

Dog Days of Summer

I am sure everyone is wondering where in the world is a new post?

Well, unfortunately, we haven't done much that is newsworthy.

The girls have been swimming and playing with neighbors and I have been trying to stay as cool as possible. The weather has finally gotten to the "stinking hot" time. Air conditioning is not a norm here in Italy. We do have it in our house, the landlord just installed it for us last month. We normally don't use it during the day, but we turn our units on in our bedrooms at night. I can't imagine being without now.

Tom's job is at a standstill. Let me fill everyone in on what's going on here. The powers that be have decided to downsize the base here in Gaeta. So, the small base that we have (one large building) is going to close and move down to the pier where the flag ship for 6th Fleet is. No one understands why. We live in paradise, but someone decided that having everything down in Naples is a better idea. If anyone doesn't know, Naples is a corrupt nasty city. I am sure everyone has seen the trash issues they have been having. That is just one thing. There are a plethora of other issues. Anyway, there was not room for the clinic at the pier. They are having to move trailers in for some of the departments as it is. The naval hospital in Naples has negotiated with one of the private clinics here in town to let us lease a space from which to see patients. There is a bunch of red tape that needs to be sorted out before Tom can move the clinic over there. It is much smaller than the space he is in now, so for the last 2 months, they have been getting rid of everything they don't need. That job is now finished, so he is doing a lot of thumb twiddling. Our population is relatively healthy and add on the fact that it is not cold/flu season and that people are off on vacation, Tom is definitely not overworked at the moment. Most people would say, "Aw, poor baby. I really feel for you." But, Tom actually has a work ethic and doesn't like to not be productive. We shall see how this all works out. We are as unsure as everybody else. That includes the people who are supposed to be making the decisions.

I am including a few more pictures of the girls' trip back to the states. Hope you enjoy, and hopefully, something exciting will happen in the next little while for us to tell everyone.

Happy Birthday Pop-Pop!!!! Tom's dad had a birthday while he was here last month. I made him a "Birthday Pie" since that is what he prefers. Of course the girls helped blow out the candles.

We dog-sat our friend's dog, Missy Lou, while they went back to the states. She is very sweet and easy going and was a joy to have. I am begging them to go out of town again so we can watch her. Here she is with Anabelle taking a little rest.

Anabelle is serving tea to our cousin Joe on my mother's porch. She is such a good hostess!!!

This is Victoria, Anabelle, my mother, Marlene with our cousin Edie during her and her son Joe's visit to my parent's house.

Just a day at the beach with Aunt Stacy and cousin James. I just don't understand how Victoria can stand all that sand all over her!!!!

My mom took the girls to the aquarium in Charleston with my sister, Stacy and my nephew James. You can tell who is the animal lover in the family.

Another picture of Victoria and Anabelle at the beach by Jim and Dixie's house. They are with our friend Kelly's daughter, Sophia.

Uncle Jim and Granddaddy took the girls out in the kayak on Lake Marion where Jim and Stacy have a house.




Here are some pictures of the girls with my mom and nephew at my friend Amy's boyfriend Peter's farm. Peter is on the 4-wheeler with the kids. They had an awesome time!!





This is something only a Granddaddy would let you do!




The Sassy Molassy's posing in their new dresses. Boy, are we in trouble.