OK, I feel like I’ve officially completed the cruise, because tonight I finished and ordered our vacation book through blurb.com. My goal was to complete it and get it here before we go to Colorado for Christmas. I used the blurb BookSmart templates for the book inside, but did work some digi-scrapping magic to create the cover. Imagine this as wrapped around the outside of the book:
What I love about scrapbooking is that you get to enjoy the moment as it happens, then you get to relive the moment when you scrapbook it, and then you get to share the moment and relive it again every time to you share the scrapbook. That’s a lot of enjoyment out of one memory!

An Italy update: Today we went up to Portland to get yet another document legalized by the consulate. This time he had to witness my signature on a form we needed for Patrick and Brandon’s visa applications. That is now sent off, along with a signed letter stating that I will leave the country after my assignment is over. We apparently are not allowed to fall in love with the country and stay!

December 16 is the day… our Immigration rep in Italy will meet with the local government on our work permit. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Everything hinges on the work permit. Once we have that we are pretty much home free as I understand it… we can apply for the work visa, go on our house-hunting trip, put the deposit down on Brandon’s school.

That is not very far away! Between Thanksgiving and getting ready for our Colorado trip for the holidays, it will come quickly.

I’m back after two weeks working in Italy! It was a great trip, even though I worked pretty much the whole time, sprained my ankle and backed the rental car into a pole (ok, it was a LOW pole, I couldn’t see it). I spent Saturday at Lake Como (1 hour from Milan) and Sunday in Bergamo (30 minutes from Milan).

I visited two different schools for Brandon and just loved the International School located in Monza. It’s a nice small school, and was a warm, friendly, happy place. That means we’ll be living somewhere around Monza, which is a bit northeast of Milan.

We woke up already docked in Castaway Cay, Bahamas (Disney’s private island) and got ready for a day at the beach! We were off the ship right after breakfast to a short walk to the family beach. We had some great views of the Flying Dutchman, the ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Wow, was it crowded at the beach! We went all the way down to the end to a quieter part where we could get an umbrella.

It was definitely a “Disney” place – it was themed, clean, and beautiful. If only Disney could make the other port stops as clean! The beach was very nice, with fine white sand, lots of umbrellas and chairs, floats to rent. We rented a float because Brandon enjoyed it so much in Aruba. Lunch was at “Cookie’s BBQ.”

We spent the day in the water, floating around with Brandon kicking us on the water taxi. Playing in the sand, I made a Mickey head shape and Brandon made a lake by digging in the sand. He made the shape of a Mickey head too, very cute. Brandon played in the sand and I sat in one of the short “water” chairs and looked at shells, discovering that there were tiny hermit crabs in some of the shells. At that point, Brandon’s lake became a “crab aquarium” with playground, wave pool and rain shelter. Some folks we had met on the cruise found us and we sat in the water and talked while Brandon played with their kids.

Too long apparently, because I noticed at line of sunburn on my legs late in the day, as it was time to go back. Yikes. Very bad sunburn! Last day of the cruise, lots of days in the sun, and we get a sunburn. A little reminder of our sunny beaches as we headed back home the next day…

Here it is, almost two months after the cruise, and I haven’t even finished the port stops yet! I don’t know if anyone is still reading, but this is helping me to get journaling down for the trip book I’m making. I hope to finish the book before the holidays, so I keep plugging away…

Ahhh, Aruba. Back in the Caribbean again. So far, this was our favorite port stop. We haven’t been to the Caribbean since we went to Barbados in 1993 shortly after we were married! It was an early rising day for our excursion, we needed to meet at 8:15am. This excursion was the “Sea & See,” only our second official excursion on the cruise. We started out with the Seaworld Explorer – a submersible boat where we sat under water and went out to a shipwreck. The wreck was of the Antilla, a German merchant trader, that was sunk by her crew in 1942 when Germany attacked Holland and Aruba (a Dutch colony) then wanted to seize the boat. It is almost entirely on the sea floor, and close enough to the surface that it has become a reef with lots of coral and fishes. We all really enjoyed the trip! It looks like a popular place for snorkelers and scuba divers, as we came up we saw the first load of snorkelers around (we were glad we were the first boat of the day).

From there, we drove around the island to several different sights. The California lighthouse on the Northern tip of the island, named for the shipwrecked California ship of the northern coast. Unfortunately, we couldn’t climb up it. Then on to the Casibari rock formations in the center of the island and the Natural Bridge on the east coast. It was interesting to see the island. Aruba is very arid, it only gets 15-18 inches per year, so there is much cactus, few trees (only divi divi trees and the palms along the hotels), and lots of lizards. We enjoyed seeing the scenery and the houses, very colorful. Only 140,000 people live on the island, and it is 19 miles long and 6.6 miles at it’s widest – so tiny!! From our last stop, the Natural Bridge (which actually collapsed in 2005), we drove back to the ship.

A quick stop on the ship to drop off my good camera, grab some towels, have a quick lunch, then off to the beach. We caught a taxi to Palm Beach, the same beach we had boarded the SeaWorld Explorer at, because it had nice cabanas and food/drink if we wanted it. We played at the beach for several hours. Brandon got braver and went it deeper, because there were essentially no waves (just the wakes from boats that came in occasionally). He finally rode the “sea turtle” (Daddy) with bribery and went out deeper. We stayed in the water or laid on a sunbed once in a while. Later a lady gave us a floating mat (they were leaving for the day) and we enjoyed floating around. Brandon was a water taxi and kicked me around a lot, and then he laid on it and I kicked him out deeper.

About 5pm we got out of the water and walked along the beach to get dried off before catching a taxi back to the ship. Brandon was falling asleep on the short drive back. Something about being in the sun and water all day does make you tired! It was an enjoyable day in a new port stop. Aruba is definitely worth a look for a future visit.

I love to read! I usually have a book in progress, often fantasy, but I love all kinds of fiction. I frequent our fabulous library and rarely buy books because I read them so fast.

I was trying to figure out what I was going to do while in Italy. An e-book reader? Kind of expensive and logistical issues with purchasing and downloading in Europe. Purchase from an American bookstore? There are several in Milan, but purchasing English books, in Euros no less, is another expensive option. Purchase a bunch to take with me? Maybe, just have to decide what, and that is hard!

Right now, I am starting a collection of books to box up and take with us, so that we have a variety of books on hand. SO… for all of you book lovers and readers out there… if you have books that you don’t mind parting with, we will take them with us! (Please no books that you would like back, that will be too hard to keep track of.) All genres are welcome, we won’t be picky, Patrick will enjoy them too!

I’ve already started a collection from my Mom and Lillian, we brought back a bag from Arizona. If you have any to ship let us know and I can pay for postage or we’ll figure out how to get them if there are any visits coming up.

Help keep the Sloma family reading! Donate a book to the collection TODAY!

(This is an approved advertisement from the “Sloma Italy Reading Materials” Committee.)