Trick or Treat!

We had a fun night of trick or treating with friends tonight and our usual pot of chili/cornbread. One thing I love about living in military housing is that everyone sits outside and visits during trick or treating, but this year it was windy and cold!! The festival was also going on, so it wasn't the best night for trick or treating but we had a good time. I'm about to attempt kitchen clean up but here are a few pics for the grandma's

..Val being her obvious ballerina (had to put a sweater on though.. too cold) and Ellie being the bee that Val was last year. The bee costume was handed down to us from my Aunt Janel! (thanks! as you can see.. it got two years of use!) :) ... although Ellie was *screaming* when she put it on for the first 10 minutes or so... but we bribed her with a sucker.

The girls with Kylan (Buzz Lightyear!) I let the girls sponge paint/finger paint plain orange gift bags last week.. hence the 'smears'

Can't forget baby Westin and his insanely gorgeous mother, Lovie!Ellie ran down the street for awhile before finally giving into the wagon

getting the goods from our neighbor and friend Blake!

Pumpkin Carving!

Thank you for all the well wishes on baby #3! We are very excited that Derrick will actually be around for one of them. Val is already drawing pictures for "her baby" and insists that it's a baby brother, but she wants a girl. I don't quite think she understands the word brother. Her little friend just got a baby brother so of course, that is all the rage. We shall see! I don't think we are going to find out the sex!

This past weekend we carved pumpkins. Notice they are both in overalls. They also both wore green dresses and brown boots to church on Sunday. One of them gets dressed first and then the other always wants to wear the same thing. It's pretty funny.

We are looking forward to this coming weekend for trick-or-treating and the annual Fall Festival here on base. It's a large base with carnival rides, food booths, a craft tent, and inflatables! Derrick and I are both working at a booth for awhile on Saturday for our job/organization so it's going to be busy around here until next week!

Happy Halloween!

pardon the blurry pics below, I didn't feel like getting out the tripod. you get the idea

Ellie's: (goofy face)

Val's: "Pumpkin kitty cat" It's hard to see but the eye cut outs were stuck on to make ears!

Party of Five

... we will soon be!

The 3rd little (and last) little Powell will be arriving sometime around 7.7ish.09!

Graveyard in Motta

Jen and I went to the market last Wed in Motta and then walked across the street through the beautiful graveyard. We saw several older women, dressed in black, coming to graves with fresh bouquets of flowers. Almost every single grave in the entire area had a beautiful bouquet on it, only a day or two old. Families are buried together, graves from the very early 1900's to very recent. Here are a few pics.

Sat morning Motta walk

Hi loved ones!

We hope you are all enjoying a nice fall weekend! We are taking it easy this weekend, making the most of family time after a hectic and stressful week. This schedule we are on isn't working but we don't have much room to play with it, unfortunately. School, ballet, pwoc, etc. is all on Tues/Thurs and there is only one time, and one option on this base so you can't just choose another day! We just need to figure out a better strategy; for now we are lying on the couch like potatoes the next morning(s). :)

This morning we walked around Motta, the closest small town up on the hill from here. It's about a 20 minute drive. The town itself is very gritty and littered with trash. It is definitely not the cutest town but has a great little pastry shop that we like to buy treats from. The girls and I had cannoli's while Derrick tried some sort of pastries with meat/rice. I will miss those fresh bakery goodies! We ran some errands and bbq'd this evening. I think tomorrow we are going to call it a "stay in your sweats and watch tv/hang out" day & play hookie. We all need that once and awhile! mental health day, right?

Here are some photos from this morning of the girls in Motta.

You've been Tagged

Wow. I've been "tagged" 2x this week! I'm behind. April tagged me first to name 6 random things about myself, and Missy tagged me next to name 7 plus tag others. I'm going to follow both in one post.. so get ready. You may have to sit down for this.

1. I am double jointed, I suppose. I can move just the tips of my fingers and lock my knuckles. It freaks my husband out, love that.

2. I am a total girly girl. Some wouldn't know that since I live with a manly man these days. However I must drink coffee out of my pink coffee mug every day and love my pink heart key chain, and pink polka dot scarf tied onto my purse.

3. My secret dream is to be in a show on Broadway. I don't have the voice, the stage presence, or the location but it's the random dream you never really chase.

4. I absolutely love to cook. I spend time every day reading recipes, cookbooks, or food blogs. I rarely make the same recipe twice in a 4 month period unless we can't wait to eat it again! This did not used to be so. When we got married I probably made 3-4 things, no joke. I guess that is what living in a country with no take out does to ya!

5. Since moving here, I've become a pottery collector. I buy something every time I go to the market and have plans to buy more before we leave. It's the best souvenir from Italy, IMO.

6. I like kid cereals. Derrick eats Fiber One or something gross, but I still like my Lucky Charms or currently, PB Captain Crunch!
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7. I love big storms. They fascinate me and I have been known to stand outside during tornado warnings to look for tornados. I would totally be out there with my camera.

8. I know how to sew but hate doing it. There are atleast 6-7 things sitting on my sewing machine that need to be fixed.

9. After only spending 9 days in person with my future husband, I packed up my stuff and moved across the country from Indiana to Texas to live with him. We met while visiting April on Spring Break (for those who haven't known me very long) and just talked on the phone for hours, one weekend visit, and 2 months later I was down there with no looking back! It's been almost 5 years so I think that was a good decision, although I'm sure my parents will tell you they thought I was insane. They met him the day I left in the uhaul!

10. My favorite city in the world is Chicago. Even after traveling to several in Europe. I would give my left arm for a piece of deep dish Chicago pizza right now. mmmmm

11. Speaking of travels, in the last 2 years I have been all over Sicily, Naples, Sorrento, Rome, Venice, Sienna, Cinque Terre, Austria, Garmisch, Munich, Barcelona, Nice, Merseilles. I feel like there's more. We still really want to see Ireland/Scotland and Paris but it's going to depend on when our orders show up.

12. In Derrick's words I drink, "cream with a little bit of coffee in it." every morning before I'm functional.

13. Every time we go out to eat in Sicily I have bruschetta as my antipasti. I judge restaurants on how good theirs is (can't be soggy, you know..) :)

I tag:
Anyone who reads this who wants to. :) Kids are up now! gotta go!

Zafferana Oktoberfest

Sunday we drove up Mt. Etna through many towns, winding our way nearly to the top to the small town of Zafferana. Every year in October they have a festival on Sunday's, each week featuring a different theme. This week's was honey! Honey is a popular local souvenir along with the usual wine and olive oil. Our friends, the Cunningham's and the Waller's went with us and we had a really nice time. It was extremely crowded so traffic was a pain, and we did almost run out of gas, but we ended up making it safe and sound. I had some sort of wrap with veggies and lamb or pork? and it was to die for. We also got to have corn on the cob, which was a little different from back home. It's literally just set, unhusked, on the grill with no butter,etc. and a little salt. Jen said it tasted like popcorn.. so true! At any rate Val was thrilled. ;)

I don't know if you can see the sign or not, but it says Kentucky Derby. I thought that was pretty funny, in Sicily!!

Walking out we let the kids ride one little kiddie ride, a train on a track. Val had her usual serious face while on the ride and Ellie was dancing and waving her arms around. It is so amusing to see their differences in every aspect of life!!

We also caught a Native American rock group singing on the sidewalk~ they were pretty good!

I know I'm not in any, but I'm always holding the camera. I think Jen has a shot of all 4 of us, i'll have to post that later. Ciao!

baby love

Look at this cutie.. our friends Ryan and Lovie had their baby boy Westin a couple weeks ago and I took some photos of him the other day. Isn't he as cute as a button??

Derrick's last deployment- Djibouti, Africa

Here are a random assortment of photos from Derrick's recent deployment. I thought you'd like to see a little bit of what he does! You will see that most of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys are sporting a mustache. They do this on deployments but I am happy to report that bad boy was shaved off before he came home. ;)