Some more Italy pictures...

Here are a few more Italy pictures. I get a lot of questions about traveling with the kids, so I thought I would write a little bit about that. First of all, I have to admit that we are extraordinarily lucky with Kate. We drag her all over the world,and she is amazing. We have always brought her along on all our travels since she was a tiny baby, and she has always done so well. She sleeps everywhere, does not suffer from repressive jet lag, and is generally just so happy and agreeable to go anywhere and do anything. She loves to people watch and is so easily entertained. We couldn't ask for a better travel companion. We are quickly learning that our two children are very different personalities. Michael is much more high-maintenance and requires a bit more planning and patience, but we are determined to make it work. This is how he spent much of the time in Bologna:



Since Danny was in Bologna for work, the kids and I flew solo to meet him there. The air hostess remarked how brave I was, traveling alone with two small children. I replied that more likely, I was pretty dumb. The flight itself was a breeze however, especially after the comedy of errors I had getting to the airport. I had Michael in the stroller, my suitcase, and Kate. The plan was to take a bus to the train station, and then take the train to Gatwick. This plan would have worked perfectly if I had taken the bus in the correct direction. I rode the bus nearly into central London before I realized I was going the wrong way. After I realized my dumb mistake, I hopped off the bus and hailed a taxi to take me to the train station. This set me back a good 45 minutes. When I arrived at the airport, I checked in at the BA desk and learned that I had 20 minutes to make it to my gate. The BA desk attendant was not very optimistic, and actually started giving me the third degree about WHY exactly I was so late. (And for the record, I wasn't *that* late. There was only one desk open and I was behind the world's slowest family).

Anyway, I made my flight through the miracle of a 30 minute flight delay.

Kate's first Gelato experience. "Hurry up and take the picture Mom!"




Kate loved all the letters on the floor of the Vatican museum and was so proud she could ID them all.


Eating pizza in front of some Roman ruins.




This was the street our apartment was on in Rome.


Running up the Spanish steps. When we got to the top, she told me that she need to take a break. When I asked her if she was ready to get going, she told me she needed to sit and think about something. I asked her what she was thinking about, she said "I need to think about Daddy".




Kate, in front of the Trevi fountain.






Anyway, when we travel we always get an apartment. This way the kids can go down to sleep in a dark quiet room, and Danny and I can hang out and drink wine after the kids are (hopefully) asleep. Like I said earlier, Kate is so easy and just goes to sleep wherever. Michael seems to really miss his crib and likes to scream and let everyone know it. Luckily, Kate also sleeps through everything so that while we are trying to soothe Michael and stop his screaming, she is snoozing away right next to him.
But having an apartment is a definite necessity. It also affords us the ability to eat breakfast in the hotel room, or at least just have some fruit and milk for Kate. En-suite hotel rooms a la Embassy Suites are also great, but those types of hotels are not easily available in Europe.
We are pretty lazy tourists, which you kind of have to be when you're traveling with 2 small children. We're not going to be able to see and do everything we might want to, but that's OK. We're happy just to wander around, see what we can manage, eat & drink lots of cheese & wine. Packing light is also necessary. We aim to fit all our things for the four of us in one suitcase for weekend trips. It is so much easier to get around with just one suitcase. Kate carries her own backpack with sticker books and lots of healthy snacks. We hope that when Kate is older, she might be able to remember some of our adventures with the aid of photographs. Regardless, they will both have some cool baby books. :)