Saturday, December 31, 2011

HAPPY 2012 !!


Monday, December 26, 2011

Scalextric a.k.a Polistyl ...

Who's around my age knows what I am talking about.... (Thanks to Barbara!). And also 2 pics from Piazza Navona, on top of the historical "merry go round":










Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Santa First

Santa pays his first (of many) visit...




Friday, December 16, 2011

Rudolph






Sunday, November 27, 2011

Xmas Tree!


This is the very first time he actually "interacts" with Xmas. So far he was clueless about what is Xmas Tree, Santaclaus etc. Now he KNOWS.


Wednesday, November 09, 2011

DNA!

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Bognor Regis - Butlins












Few days with Tia and Jack

Friday, October 28, 2011

Robot Head





A professional reputation down to the drain.... what a parent has to do to entertain his/her kid...


Monday, October 17, 2011

FRANK!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Car Dealer


....would you ever buy a used car from a guy with this look on his face?





Sunday, October 02, 2011

Wild Ride

Geek show...hem...Romics. HE wasn't so thrilled by Startroopers and friends. R2D2 was his size, so probably more interesting for Sean.




I wish I had skull and bones t-shirt as well....




Friday, September 30, 2011

Come on me Bro!


"Next in line please !" .....



Monday, September 19, 2011

Finally he's using his bike!

Yesterday he saw another kid passing by our gate and he took his bybicle and he was on it for almost 1 hour. First time ever.



Thursday, September 08, 2011

School Bus Day!





From now on, our commute will be different...


Monday, September 05, 2011

New School - First day










He was totally fine. He really needs to be with other kids.
He is so proud of his backpack....
And check the uniform!



Friday, September 02, 2011

I Hate American Airlines.

Rome-Chicago, was ok. 10 hours, Sean behaved.
But when we've tried to get on Chicago-Omaha flight, Sean was probably too tired and he had the first fit (of many).
The good thing was that EVERYBODY at O'Hare Airport let us jump each possible line...a kid screaming, yelling and kicking is not something you wanna have around especially when meticulous controls are inn act at INS custom lines, Security checks, etc.

So we were able to jump and go fairly quick. Bad thing was that he was UNBEARABLE.

The stress he add-up and that transmits to us is too much, I understand now that probably he is not entirely ready for a long flight.

In addition to this first bad episode, once we were able to "negotiate" with him some time before sitting on what we thought at the time as our last flight, after the plane took off..half way through his route...we had to come back because of this on the way to Omaha:


So...flight was cancelled and we had to stay one night in the outrageously expensive Hilton at O’Hare airport.
They even charge 17 bucks for internet connection!
American airlines told us that our options were: either wait for the very same flight but 24 hours later, or trying the "Stand By" painful card.

Anyway...the next day, early in the morning, we'd decided to try the "stand by" card.

6:30am we went back to the airport and luckily Dee and Sean were able to take the 8:20 flight to ...but not me :(.

Full of hope, but lacking of luck..I've been transferred stand by afterstand by until the infamous 24hours later flight.

While I'd spent 13 hours at O’Hare...
So..what do you do if you have to WAIT that long in a close space?

I've started walking around, eating like a pig junk food, reaching also the other terminals.
Well...apparently TSA (http://www.tsa.gov/) doesn't like that behaviour...walk is BAD...walk is DANGEROUS..so I've been stopped TWICE and body-searched for ...I don't exactly know...probably terrorists are spotted because they WALK?!



On the way back....ha!

Omaha-Chicago went ok. Smooth as water. But... while waiting to be boarded on Chicago-Rome, we've noticed that one of the engines was serviced. They've boarded everybody anyway, and while waiting for
departure we've been informed that some mechanical problems (leaking)
was occurring and 20 minutes were necessary to fix the issue...then 1 hour...then 2 hours...then.."Sorry guys, everybody out we are going to ask for a different plane IF there are any"





another 2 hours and the plane arrived, and happy as a bunch of clams we
took off.

after 6 hours, some poor guy decided that his hart had enough.
Hart attack and a doctor on the plane called the flight off.
We had to land in Dublin (Ireland), the guy had to be hospitalized immediately.

..Well...apparently there is a Federal Aviation's rule that after so many hours on duty, an airplane crew had to STOP FLYING no matter what.
So the captain called it a day and ...."see you tomorrow at 8 am".

NO WAY!

2 and half hours later we were able to reroute our tickets and our hopes to Lufthansa Dublin-Frankfurt-Rome.

Departure was ok...Dublin Airport is nothing special.

Do you have an idea how big is Frankfurt Airport?


Here a map:


Well...we had 1 hour for:

  • Step down the plane (5 minutes)
  • take the shuttle to the docking station at gate B15 (5 minute)
  • Rise outside Terminal B (15 minutes walking fast)
  • PASS CUSTOM (5 minutes)
  • RE ENTER TERMINAL A TROUGH SECURITY CHECKING AGAIN (10 minutes)
  • step up and reaching ON TIME gate A40....

Frankfurt Airport's terminals are...long...VERY long. And we had 20 minutes to walk 1/4 back terminal B...elevators etc..and ALL THE WAY TILL ALMOST THE END OF TERMINAL A.

Oh..of course...WE DIDN'T HAVE THE TICKETS in ours hands! They told us in Dublin that "you have to ask for your boarding passes in Frankfurt, we cannot hand them to you now"....

So I blasted away from Dee and Sean trying to run as fast as I could with 1 backpack on my shoulders and a red trolley. I barely made it to the gate, got the tickets but Sean once again wasn't really "cooperative". we had to drag him on the plane and we barely made it (we were the last ones stepping on the plane with Sean yelling like this:


but LOUDER...

I had to carry him on the plane like this:

because he was kicking and punching so hard I couldn't hold him differently!


We eventually made it to Rome (Thank you Barbara for picking us up at the airport)....after ONLY 30 hours from our departure....


Some numbers:

19 - times we had to show our passports

6 - times we had to go trough security (shoes off etc..)

9 - planes we had to take

14 - boarding passes I'd collected (counting Stand Bys)

1600 - miles we drove (Around Grand Island and round trip to South Dakota)

Things we saw:


The infamous WALL DRUG store: http://walldrug.com/default.aspx





CARHENGE...Stonehenge made with...cars: http://www.carhenge.com/

Pics will follow soon...






Friday, August 12, 2011

Last day at School


..ever. He is going to go the the new school with the "grown ups" in september.

We are going to miss our daily commute with him. :-(


Thursday, August 11, 2011

Hair cut


Figaro figaro fiiiiigaaarooo....

It takes 4 people to hold him down to a barber's chair...


Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Ping-Pong


The balls went everywhere.


Monday, July 25, 2011

Lemon tree, Rules, Bat-Box


Some Rules. Sean lately decided not to follow what the teachers told him to do. And even at home...things got out of control (so to speak). So we had to write down some basic rules togheter:

1) Do not talk about fight club....
2) ....and so on.... :-)






Easy Rider. With supervision...




Bax-Box. Hopefully within 1 year or 2 we should have a bat colonyunder our roof. Those guys will take care of mosquitos...





A new lemon tree for Sean.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Sean The Great