Out and about...

Hey there! Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend :) Ours was pretty eventful, although it was cut short due to Brian having duty on Monday. His command was supposed to have a four day weekend, but his was cut short. But hey, three days off are better than two, so who are we to complain?


Anyway, the weekend started out with Brian playing poker with some of his buddies from work, and bringing home the 2nd place prize! ($30... whoo hoo!) He's been playing quite a bit with some of our neighbors, but he usually loses all his chips early and finishes the night observing. Oh yeah, they also played Rockband like a bunch of children afterwards.


Friday morning, I went shopping with some ladies at a local market in a town called Scordia. I must say, it's my favorite market so far! We had some Italian pastries for breakfast (specifically a Sicilian gelato sandwich, Gelato-brioche... yum-O!!), and bought some fresh produce. The markets can get pretty busy, and intimidating, but this one was fairly spacious, which made it easier to get around. Afterwards, Brian and I spent the rest of the day relaxing, or least trying to :)


Saturday morning, we took a trip to Taormina. For those of you who don't know, it's a little tourist town, with a huge Greek Theatre and beautiful beaches. This was actually our first time up there, so we kind of just drove around. We somehow ended up all the way at the top of a hill overlooking the town, with beautiful views of the coast and the volcano, Mt. Etna. We didn't get to see the big amphitheatre, but we did find a castle and a cathedral with a small plaza and cafe where we stopped for lunch. The view from the top was great and we had a really good time. We figured there'll be plenty of time to go back there to see everything that we missed.


We spent Saturday evening over at the other housing community with some of Brian's co-workers and their families. I don't know why, but Rockband always seems to end up being the life of the party. Actually, I love it, but I won't admit to anyone ;) After such a long day though, I was exhausted. Sunday, we had a barbeque at Brian's boss' house out in town. The weather was great, and Bella got herself a little tan. It's pretty nice right now, but in the summers, we hear it gets pretty hot - Africa hot!!

Altogether, it was an awesome weekend! Too bad we didn't get to enjoy all four days, but we definitely made the most of it. Here are a few pictures from our trip, including some of Bella eating spaghetti. I'm so glad she loves pasta since we have two and a half years left in Sicily! As you can tell from the last picture, she had herself a good old time too :)