Relief from the heat!

I'm a little slow getting this posted - but I'm a little busy. What can I say? With exception only the last 2 days temperatures have been close to or above 40 degrees C everyday, with humidity 80% and even much higher. In late May I bought a good sized blow up pool for 24E. I thought that was a bit priced for a blow up pool but knew we needed one and thought it would be worth it. I'm not sure what happened; whether it had a whole when we got it or it got one the first time it was used, but it didn't last. So about ten days ago we bought a pool. A "real" pool! One big enough to swim in! It didn't get set up until the last weekend of June and that was an experience in itself. Once it was set up and filled we had to do the chemicals. That was another experience. Instructions in Italian and amounts by weight - and we didn't have a scale. Then we had to wait three days for the chlorine levels down to an appropriate amount. LOL I guess measuring with an espresso cup isn't quite the same as a scale. (note: we now have a scale.)

We finally got to try out the pool the evening of Canada Day. Unfortunately Vika was worn out from the day's festivities and didn't make the photo opp. However, now we enjoy our pool daily! It really is fantastic and I can't think of an easier way to beat the heat!

Canada Day

I had been a little concerned that we weren't going to find any other Canadians to celebrate Canada Day with. It's not that there aren't other Canadians around - there are quite a few stationed here with NATO - but they're all military and we hadn't met a single one of them. I did some research and found out that there was indeed a celebration going to take place - but it was for the Canadian military families here and I would have to be invited by someone. *gulp* I thought that was it for our celebration. It would be the first year that I could remember not celebrating Canada Day with fellow Canadians. And then I got a phone call from one of the Canadians, whom I had never met, inviting us to attend as her guest! (THANKS CORRINNA!) Unfortunately Boeing does not have Canada Day on their calendar of holidays so Brian had to work. I went off with the kids in all our Canada garb - red and white clothes, Canada tattoos, and even a small flag attached to Vika's stroller.
The event was taking place at "Villa Maple Leaf". It's a villa in a Parco (gated neighbourhood) that belongs to the Canadian community. It's kind of like their community centre. It has a huge kitchen and dining are, a craft room, reading room, playroom, game room and a room for the teens. It really is a great facility! The yard has a huge covered patio and a very large lawn (a rarity in Naples).
There was a BBQ and more food than we could possible eat. (Isn't that always the case with a potluck!). There was a water balloon toss and some other games for the kids. Kyle absolutely LOVED hanging out with all the boys that were there. The big boys (as in teens) were so great in taking him along in all their games. I think they even honed his hide and seek skills to an all new level. He now understands the term decoy!
Vika was having a horrible day with her teething and I cannot say how grateful I was that there were so many people there so willing to play pass the baby. She sure charmed her way, even with the tears, into a lot of hearts that day.
It was great to be around such a great group of people. Everyone was donned in their red and white, was very laid back and friendly. And almost everyone had a beer!
The most ironic event of the day wasn'te ven realized until we were leaving. We had met another couple, Jason and Karin from Ottawa who were visiting their friends and came with them to the celebration. It was pure luck that someone mentioned that they were from Winnipeg, Transcona actually. That's where much of my family is from. Then upon a little more discussion we found out that Jason had dated one of my cousins, gone to school with another and another of my cousins had been his volleyball coach. What a small world!

It really was a great Canada Day for us and we were really reminded just how friendly Canadians can be!

Blogspot glitches

Sorry for the errors at the end of my 4th of July post and the double slide show. I have no idea how the final edit did not get posted and I am unable to edit anything now. I will update it as soon as I can.

What a Fourth!

What a day! We woke up to find Kyle with an eye infection. I had to call my friend/translator so we could get to the Dr asap, which we did. He had picked up conjunctivitis somehow (ugh!). He hadn't even been around anyone for 3 days prior. Anyway I was all worried because we were scheduled to celebrate the 4th with a group of families at Carney Park (the US Naval recreation site in Naples). I couldn't imagine going with pink eye but told Brian that was probably the way it was going to be. However, the Dr gave us some powerful drops to put in Kyle's eyes and said once he had the first dose he would no longer be contagious. So we raced home from the Dr. administered the drops and headed out to a sporting goods store that I've been trying to get to for a week. They're having a huge sale and I SHOPPED! (Won't give anymore details - boring and long! lol But the Italian sale season has begun!) Then we managed to get a second does of the eye drops in (I was SO paranoid about sharing those germs despite what the doctor had said.) and packed our gear - sun shelter, umbrella, food drinks, sunscreen etc etc. Oh - and antibacterial wipes and 2 containers of antibacterial hand gel. Half and hour late we headed out the door. We got to the park at about 3:45. I was so surprised it wasn't at all busy. It was an old fashioned 4th celebration - think small town county fair - hot dog eating, a few rides, food booths, bands, etc. We met our friends and spread our blankets on the grassy fields and proceeded to have a fantastic time! The kids were all great! Vika particularly enjoyed crawling and walking (still assisted) on the grass - not easy to find in Naples! Kyle absolutely ran himself silly playing with all his friends - no fewer than 9 or 10 were there. Four families all took our kids on the rides together and it was great! Except that the safety inspectors kept shutting down the rides. Mostly they were doing this to ensure age/height restriction were enforced. Kyle was devastated when he was already loaded on the bumper cars with Brian and they had everyone get off and closed the ride for a while. Kyle was too short to go on it. Of course we all enjoyed typical fair food - and even with an international flare; lumpia, Hawaiian sweet and sour steak and of course, funnel cakes (who'd have thought they be in Italy! lol) There were fireworks at 9:45. (I didn't take pictures even though I had my tripod because I knew that it being so late I needed to put my energy into the kids. But I wanted to take pics!) Then the nightmare began. We knew, because it was very busy by this time, that there was no rush going to the car. Kyle was happy playing with his friends and Vika was asleep in her stroller. We headed to the car at 11 pm. And then we sat. We didn't even get into the car until almost midnight. And we sat. Carney Park is a super facility but it is the middle of a volcanic crater and there is only one road in and out. Apparently (but heard this may have been a rumour) there was an accident on that one road. So we sat some more. Thank God, and I truly was thanking God, by this time both kids were asleep in the car. Neapolitans are not known for driving savvy or being at all courteous behind the wheel. Thus Brian had to fight to keep our spot in line even though no one was going anywhere, there was less than a paint job between cars as we inched - or rather "millimetered" forward - even though in over an hour we had not even moved a full car length. And we sat some more. We felt horrible for the Italian security officer who was directing traffic. Several carloads of Italian were yelling at her telling her to move the cars in front of them. Just to give you a little more insight - there were thousands of people in the parking lot with us - many with health conditions (diabetes, bad backs etc) and all the pregnant women and of course the kids that just couldn't deal with anything any more. And the weather report for midnight (which it was now well past) was 25.5 degrees Celsius (that's about 79 F) and the humidity was at 86% and the breeze that had made the heat of the day bearable was now nonexistent. We were sweating standing still - and the option was to start the car and have AC and add more exhaust fumes to the still, heavy air in the crater. So we sat - and sweat - until we put the AC on. At 1:10am traffic finally started to move...slowly. We live only a 15 minute drive so once we crawled through the first kilometer it was a breeze to get home and we were there by 1:35. We were exhausted - and then had to wake Kyle for more eye drops!
After hearing from our friends this morning obviously no one was happy with the situation. One family was taking the shuttle back to the Naval Support Site where they live - about a 20-25 minute drive. They got in line for the shuttle - with they're 3 yr old son- at 10:15. They finally reached the Support Site at 2 am. I'm not sure how much of that was waiting in line for a shuttle to get to them.
Although the end of the night was very trying, overall we had a fantastic Fourth of July. If you're American, or celebrate the Fourth of July we hope you did too!

Carney Park (Zoom in on the blue "A")


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