Our Italy vacation, Venice

Kevin and I took an adult-only vacation during May. It was the most relaxing and wonderful ten days we have had. We did miss the kids and had a few mopey days, but overall, it was great to be together again and enjoy each other, time alone, and quiet afternoons.

We were fortunate to have both sets of grandparents watch the kids. Grandma and Grandpa Capozzoli took the first half and Gaga and Papa Seybert took the second half. The boys loved being with the grandparents and had their own mini-vacation away from Mommy and Daddy. Time to break out of the rules and act like crazy boys. Both grandmothers lost weight....so for you young families....I highly suggest this type of new diet!

To make it easy to view our pictures, I am going to break it up into cities and then sites within each city. Check back every so often because I will try to add a new post each day. So to kick it off, here is our first stop, Venice.

Enjoy Italy.....as much as we did!

Kevin on the water taxi as we are motoring to the city. We stayed on Venice Lido, which is the beach part of Venice. Venice is made up of several islands that you can get to by water taxi.

Some views of the city from the boat.

One of many beautiful bridges in Venice. You will see several in our photos.

Our first site was St. Mark's Square. It is an enclosed square that is filled with pigeons. We loved walking in them, looking at other people surrounded by them, and just admiring the beauty of the buildings.

Kevin at the entrance to St. Mark's Square.

Kevin in St. Mark's Square.....twenty years after the first time he was here!

Me with the pigeons.

Welcome Abigail Louise Von Gunten!

My older brother, Tye, and his wife, Kelly, had their little girl on May 28, 2007. Abigail (Abby) weighed 5 lbs 8 oz and was 19 inches. Mommy says that she has been putting the weight on since coming home and now weighs 5 lbs 12 oz....a good eater! Here are some sweet photos of my new, sweet niece. Paul will be so lucky now....two cousins close to his age! We look forward to many family vacations and memories to be made.

Sweet Abby

A little smile...just the cutest!

Big boy Paulie!

The day has come.....Paulie can now hold his own bottle! We are working on getting him to hold it more and more by himself....it is taking some time. But the shots of him with the bottle is just too cute.....a bit big for him....but too cute!

What a proud child!

Ranger Ball, 2007

Friday, May 11th was the Ranger Ball. This was the second ball that Kevin and I have been able to attend since being at 6th Ranger Training Battalion. We had a nice time and actually enjoyed ourselves this time. We sat with our friends, Mike Whitney and Laura Owens. Funny thing, on the seating chart Laura was noted as Mrs. Whitney! Ha! We had a funny laugh at that. Here are some photos of us.

Kevin and I at the cocktail hour.

Mike and Laura

Kevin and I at the dinner.

Mother's Day videos

I have uploaded the Mother's Day Tea videos from William's preschool. If you would like to view them, scroll down to the bottom of the blog.

A special Mother's Day

Yesterday William's preschool had a Mother's Day Tea. On the way to school, William kept telling me about his Mother's Day card that he had made and that he had a special "prize" for me. Prize is his way of saying surprise. It was wonderful hearing him tell me about his card....that he had glued on butterflies and flowers and small balls. Sometimes he called the small balls polka dots. So at 10Am I went back to his school for Mother's Day Tea. His class sang us a Mother's Day song. William really did not want to sing....he just stood there with the other children. Today when watching the video, he said that he did not sing cause he was nervous.....aaaahhh....too cute! See the video page below for the Mother's Day Song (it will come in a few days...uploading takes some time). After our song, we all had some nice snacks and were given our Mother's Day presents. Here are some pictures.

This is William's classroom and his classmates. The children were all so happy to see the Mommies arrive. William even showed us the table of food and said "Here we made this food for you on Mother's Day." Then he showed us the food with his hand....it looks like the Vanna White hand as she is showing the letters on Wheel of Fortune. Too cute is all I have to say.

Prior to the song, William got nervous and did not want to sing. He went and hid behind this panel. I was able to have him go stand with his other classmates for the song. This was taken before their song.

Here is William's special prize for me. He made me a beautiful bag with his own painting.

A photo of Mommy wearing her special bag.

Here is a close-up of my bag. The flower are William's hands and the grass are from his fingers. When he gave it to me he said, "I finger painted this for you." What a love!

William and his dead engine

I found an old video of William on the camera when I was cleaning it up. William has gone through a phase, and sometimes is still in it, where he pretends to be a car. He often talks about needing gas to fill him up so that he can run and run and run. It is cute because he even goes and finds some gas and then says "I am all gassed up and ready to go." On this video he talks about how his engine is dead! Too funny. Enjoy the video. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog and you will see the video. It is the top one.