SeaBee Ball

J and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary at the SeaBee Ball.  To be honest, it wouldn't have been my first choice of ways to spend the evening, but Jason was required to go and it ended up being a lot of fun.  

I borrowed a dress from a friend and I got my makeup done by another friend.  The eye make-up was a little heavier than I'm used to, but Jason kept reassuring me that I didn't look like I had gone "goth".  

We carpooled in our mini-van with the Hutchinsons and McManus'.  The ladies decided to strike a pose.  Here I am with Sarah and Cindy.  We also got to sit at their table, too!  It made for a great evening with lots of chatting and laughing.  

Thirteen adventurous years with this handsome man.  I never ever would have thought I'd be a Navy wife.  I especially never dreamed we'd spend time living in Italy.  When I stop and think about my life and our marriage, it's testimony building for me to realize how much the Lord knows me and what I need.  I had no idea how perfect of a match Jason was for me until we'd been married a few years.  He is strong where I am weak and he makes me feel calm.  My family and I have always described me as someone who struggles with change and adapting to new things.  As I sit and type this, I realize, that's not true anymore!  Yes, I still struggle with worrying too much and stressing over the uncontrollable, but I have come a long way.  I know that's because Heavenly Father knows what I need and has helped me learn to stretch and "bloom where I'm planted", as my mom puts it.  

I am forever grateful for the choice I made thirteen years ago.  

Kalleen!

Come back Kalleen!  We were so very, very lucky to have Kalleen, Renee (her mom), and Melissa (her sister in law) come for a week long visit.  It was so fabulous and sooo very needed and timely.  I could feel myself slipping into the post-partum blues and a visit from one of my favorite people was exactly what me and the family needed.  We tried our best to show them some of the sites here in Sicily while they were here.  

One day was spent in Siracusa and Ortigia.  Siracusa has an amazing historical site with ruins from as early as 450 B.C.  This Greek theater is the most breathtaking part.  I've been a few times now, and I'm always blown away at how much is still intact.  

That same day we made our way over to Ortigia.  It's a small little island right next to Siracusa.  Every town in Sicily or probably Italy, for that matter, has a city center.  This one was beautiful!  The church and surrounding buildings are gorgeous.  

Jason took the week off to either join us on our day trips or stay home and watch Benny and baby.  

Kalleen got some great pictures of Benny while she was here.  

More of the Greek Theater

I hadn't met Melissa before she came, but we fell in love with her!  So sweet and so fun!  Not to mention beautiful!  She was missing her baby that she left at home with Dad, so she became Benny's buddy.  They played and played and napped together on the car rides.

This is one of the streets we walked down in Ortygia.  This is a typical street in many of the little towns.  Tiny, right?  Lots of italians will drive their little cars down a road like this.  Minivan?  Not so much.  

Love this shot of Benny boy.  

We made our way to Caltigirone on another morning.  Still one of my favorite places.  I loved sharing it with friends!

We introduced them to Arancinis (pronounced AR-AN-CHEE-NEE).  It's a fried rice ball with meat and sauce in the middle.  We found our new favorite arancini spot in Taormina later in the week, though.  

My birthday was the week before they came, so sweet Kalleen made me an amazing cake.  I hadn't been sung to yet, so it was fun.....and delicious! 

Later in the week Jason stayed home while the girls went to Catania to visit the shops and see Piazzo Duomo (city center).  

This is what the produce part of the market looks like.  The Catania market opens every day and closes around 12 or 1:00 pm.  It has produce, meat, fish, purses, shoes, clothes.....and much more.  This is making me want to go again....I've only been a couple of times.  

One of the churches at Piazza Duomo.  The red banners were in preparation for the festival starting in a few days.  Each town has a patron saint and they are celebrated each year through a town festival that lasts about a week.  Catania's saint is Saint Agatha.  

More shopping

We, of course, had to take them to Taormina.  It was gorgeous.  The weather was fabulous and I loved seeing it again through them.  It'll never get old.  

I remember thinking around this time how grateful I am that Kalleen and crew made the trip.  What a blessing.  

Kalleen also got a great shot of Mount Etna erupting.  This was a pretty clear day, but you can see the little bit of smoke coming out.  She'll (people call it a "she") erupt for a few days at a time like that.  Kinda cool.  Kinda scary, too.  

I was so sad to see them go!  We were planning their next trip during the last few days of their visit.

We are anxious for more visitors!  Especially now that we know we aren't coming home this summer.  It's been heartbreaking for all of us, but it's just too darn expensive.  Many tears have been shed at the Ray home.  Hopefully we can fill the summer break up with fun trips and sights.

Lucy's Happs

Our Lucy has been a very busy girl this year.  Fifth grade school work has proven to be a bit more intense than previous years.  But, along with homework and studying, she has been quite the extra-curricular phenom.  

She was on the front page of the weekly Naval Air Station Sigonella newspaper!  She's been running in the monthly base races.  Her latest was a 5K.  She's running with her friend, Camilla.  

Swim, swim, and more swim!  That's what Lucy's been doing since we first got here.  She tried out for the Sigonella Swordfish swim team just a week after we got here.  The rest of the swimmers had been in the water all summer, so she had some catching up to do, but she made us proud.  She practiced after school three times a week. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make it to very many meets because of the new baby, but hopefully next year we'll see more.  The team travels to Belgium, Germany, Lisbon, and Northern Italy.  She competed in two here at Sigonella, one at Aviano, and one in Naples.  

Many of the meets are held on Sunday, so that was a bit of a struggle for a little bit.  Lucy handled that very well.  Of course, she was disappointed, but I was so proud of her and the way she explained her beliefs to some of her friends.  

Lucy also ran for Student Body Vice President and won!  Here's one of her Instagrams from when she was campaigning.  Silly girl.  

She had to make signs and give a speech at an assembly.  It was so fun listening to her plan and practice what she would say.  She also made pins to pass out.  

I was less than five minutes late for the assembly and missed it!  I was sooo sad.  The advisor had her give it again so I could see her at the podium.  

She has had a lot of fun being involved with everything and helping with the planning of different events.  She has always been an organizer and natural leader.  So proud of her.  

Side note:  She babysat Benny and Graham for a couple hours last night for the first time.  She did great!  It was a success!

Pompeii, Italy

Lucy had a swim meet up in Naples last month, so we decided to load up the fam and make a trip of it!  It was a quick jaunt, so we didn’t do a whole lot of sight seeing, but, we did go see Pompeii. Pretty awesome, I must say.  Let’s be real…..I had heard of Pompeii before going, but wasn’t 100% sure what it was and what happened there.  So, just in case you are like I was, here’s a brief description about Pompeii (taken mostly from Wikipedia with a few tidbits from yours truly). 

The city of Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples in the Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villages in the surrounding area, were mostly destroyed and buried under 13 to 20 feet of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  (That’s a really long time ago!)

Its population was probably approximately 20,000, with a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium and a port.  (We saw the amphitheater and what I think was the gymnasium). 

The eruption was cataclysmic for the town. Evidence for the destruction originally came from a surviving letter by Pliny the Younger, who saw the eruption from a distance and described the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder, an admiral of the Roman fleet, who tried to rescue citizens. The site was lost for about 1500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been well preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and moisture. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids between the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died.

Cool, right?  Actually, kinda scary, but fascinating, too.  It makes me a little more nervous about the fact that I live just 20 miles from Mount Etna…..yikes.  I’ve heard Herculaneum is even more amazing, so we’ll have to give that a try next time. 

Next time we go we'll get a tour guide.  We didn't have a whole day to spend there and it was a cold and rainy afternoon, but I still think we saw some pretty cool stuff!

Who needs a tour guide? Benny decided he was in charge of the map.  

Next time we'll do a little more research before heading to different sites.  This one was not too stroller friendly.  Check out the stony walk ways.  Bumpy ride for baby....he didn't seem to mind too much, though.  

The kids had a great time exploring and got a little inventive, too.  Graham got a rousing game of "Balance Some Mud On a Stick" going.  

 This is the outside of the beautiful amphitheater.  It's ginormous!  There's my cute family trying to find the entrance.  

I loved watching them play.  There was a lot of "don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back" going on here.  

We weren't sure what all the different places served as.  There were lots of little streets and places that looked like they could have been stores or gathering spots.  Again...next time we'll probably pay for a tour guide.  Love Benny's face in this one.  

Benny started to get tired.  He may or may not have whined.....a lot near the end.  

Hooray for our first big trip!  Come see us and we may just take you there.  

Word.

Mediocre.  Lazy.  Weak.  These are my words for the first few days of 2014.  I keep reading people's "words" on Facebook and Instagram.  They choose a word that describes how what they want 2014 to look like.  "Improvement" or  "Happy" or  "Simplify".  You get the jist.  I'm a few months ahead of these people, though.  I've had my words for a while now.  Today I just keep feeling like I should sit down and write some of the things that I have on my mind.  Maybe then I can move past them and seek ways to get out of the slump I seem to keep falling into.

I know I'm not postpartum depressioning.  I may be postpartum drooping or slouching.  We'll call it that.  But, regardless of what name I give it, it doesn't make it seem less pronounced or make me write it off as nothing.  

I'll start with mediocre.  I understand that I am not dispensable.  My family legitimately needs me.  And not just for meals and clean clothes.  I talk to my kids, I read to them occasionally, I hug and kiss them.  But, as I go through the tasks that fill my day, I just feel like I come up short.  I talk to other moms and recently I read posts on others blogs or on Facebook about how people are "giving up" blogging or Facebook because they feel they need to spend more time with the people they love.  To be perfectly honest.....some of the times when I feel most productive is when I finish a few posts on my blog.  I feel like I'm doing something of worth for my kids to have later in life.  So quickly I allow myself to wonder, "Well, what are they doing with their kids, that I'm not, that would lead them to feel this way about Facebook or blogging."  

I've also been thinking quite a bit lately about the kind of person I want to emulate.  I have a dear friend, Alexis, who immediately comes to mind.  She is humble, she is kind, she is funny, she is genuine, and she has a strong testimony of the gospel.  Just being in her presence made my day brighter and I ALWAYS left her feeling better about my life and myself.  On this same list are a few other people I know that radiate goodness and just shine.  What do they spend their day doing?  Only a couple of them are on Facebook and they rarely, if ever post anything at all.    None of them are on Instagram.  Now, does this mean that I think social media is evil and that I am evil because I join in on the fun?  No, it doesn't.  But it leads me back to the same question....what are they doing, that I'm not?  Which also leads me to my next word....LAZY which could really just be / with WEAK.  So here it goes....lazy/weak.

Ultimately, I do know some of the things that those people are doing that I'm not.  They are much better at having the Spirit in their lives.  They are regular with their prayers, they are reading their scriptures consistently.  But surely that's not all they are doing.  I get that I need to step it up a notch in the spiritual areas of my life.  I'm lazy.  Am I angry with God?  No.  Do I feel frustrated with life, so I'm not reading my scriptures and praying?  Nope...just lazy.  

I'm trying to lose the last fifteen pounds that I still have on my bod since giving birth to Sullivan.  So...naturally I need to make better choices in the food department.  I start my day feeling good and motivated.  By 1:00, I am sneaking Hershey Kisses (I don't even really like Hershey Kisses) and finishing half a box of Triscuits (I do really like Triscuits, especially the Fire Roasted Tomato ones).  

You may have seen a pattern in a couple of my rants.  Facebook and Instagram.  Some may think, "Why doesn't she just get off of them and then she would be closer to emulating those people she admires."  I'll tell you why....weak.  I am too weak and/or lazy to figure out a different way to communicate to my branch or my kids school.  I would miss out on information I need.  But, more importantly,  I would miss out on connecting to my family and friends regularly.  It helps me to not feel so far away.  So then, the obvious answer would be to limit it, but there it is again....too weak.   It's my "go-to" when I'm bored or feeding the baby.    

I'm gonna add one more word to my list:  Selfish.  It's not the kind of "in your face" selfishness that you might be thinking.  It's more of a "I REALLY want my own time" kind of selfish.  Or maybe I start to resent my kids because I want to be able to take a nap anytime I want or go out to eat.  Or I'm selfish with my time because I don't spend it playing games with them or watching them at the park.  Sometimes I think that I'm too selfish to be a really good mom.  I'm about the right amount of selfish to be an okay mom or a mediocre mom.  Sorry kids.