http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml The life of Skeen: blog Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:20:10 -0600 http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/690c390c8ea74ae162da77321dcd8bf2_49398cfa.writeback Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:20:10 -0600 Well, we made it back from visiting family over in the Puget Sound area. Whew... We had a quick visit with our cousins Georgia and baby Isabella, Grandma Carla and Grampa Jim and Grandpa Ruben and Grandma Donna. We even were able to visit quickly with our Great-Grandma Mila and some of our other aunts , uncles and cousins who were there from Texas! Skeen loved playing in the sand at the beach and the guitar with Georgia, going to the zoo and playing with Grandma Carla's books, toys, chair and fly-swatters! He ate lots of Grandpa Ruben's cherries and loved feeding the gold fish and helping with the landscaping. Check out all the latest pictures of us having fun in the summer 2008 photo album. Wow! http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/e4cc352a98411097803e4fae390620fa_4839ac9d.writeback Sun, 25 May 2008 13:14:53 -0500 We have had a nice spring so far. Many of our friends in the area have little baby animals, chicks and ducks and a pony that we have been able to play with . These past several weeks we had visits from Gramma Kay and then Grandpa John. We had a great time with both of them. Skeen is very talkative and we are amazed how he is not only saying lots of new words but combining phrases and communicating to us. He is always grabbing our hand and saying "show me" when he wants us to see something. He also like to play the "I see " game while we are driving or looking out the window. He really likes to play "I see a horse" or "cow" or he will even tell us how he sees all of our different dogs. "I see keillor... I see Olson... I see Braeburn.... : Quite the chatterbox. Tonight our friends hope to have a pig roast . We are looking forward to that it should be quite the experience. http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/1ae958d24c7b5b0ed79a36961a9d1d1e_47e87160.writeback Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:28:32 -0500 alright so on our last wednesday, after being cooped up in the italian hospital and then our apartment,(we did really enjoy the orchard as we made fresh orange juice each day and enjoyed cooking great pastas and eating wonderful cheese and great olive bread. They also had a wonderful warm bed that we enjoy for nap times) and then having 1 and half day to sight see we drove back up to catania and spent a day there before our flight back to Rome the next morning. We toured the Castel Ursino which was very incredible and there was a painting exhibit of numerous religious scenes. We also toured around the area a little more as we hadn't our last time there. We went back to the "bar" or cafe that claudia had shown us and picked up some more canolis and pasta. We had a double room this time which was quieter but not as large and decorated more retro than baroque. The next morning we drove back to the airport and got on a quick flight to rome. We were met at the airport by a taxi driver that the B& B had arranged and he took us to our accommodation. The place we stayed was on the outskirts of the city more of the suburds closest to Vatacin city. It was a large stucco house with lots of different angles that protruded and a gated area. It seemed to be a ritzy area with large houses, big fences and gates. Across the way was the tennis club. It was a very nice room but location wise was pretty awkward. The taxi was very expensive but may be in rome they all are. It was about 45euroes one way for th 20 min. ride to the airport. The nearest bus stop was also about 4 blocks or a 10 minute walk. We enjoy walking but when you are walking all over the city the last thing you want to do it have to walk another 10 minutes to your room. There also wasn't a kitchen or many places near by except near the bus stop to get food. We took the bus into the Vatacan square and St. Pedros Basilica . It was very impressive, one can see how much power the church has for all that art to be created. The ceilings has frescos designed by Michealangelo. there was also this incredible twisted arch. I think it was over someones tomb, I put the picture up. strolled some more around the square and Skeen enjoyed chasing the pigeons near the fountain. We walked down towards the main river near that side and checked out a castel saint Angelo near the river, fiume tevere. The next day we took the bus back again and strolled over and followed the map to see what sites we would be able to get to. We checked out the Piazza navona area. There were many artists selling paintings around the fountains and also musicains playing music. It was a lovely day. We picked up a stomboli at a little place and munched on it. We made our way to the Pantheon and then over towards the buzz aroun the piazza venezia and the capitoline hill and the ancient roman forum. We could see in the distance the coliseum down the road but we were past lunch time and our timing was way off and Skeen was pushing afternoon nap time. So reluctantly, we headed back to our bus stop. We stop along the way and picked up our most expensive and disappointing take away sandwiches near the Vatacin to take back with us. Then near the bus stop near our hotel we found a place we great take away. http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/bc6742e7003d7afe19b0205c20292fbc_47e528d1.writeback Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:42:09 -0500 Alright now for the abbreviated continuation of our italy saga. Once we arrived to Noto , we found out our luggage arrived in catania. Since we flew discounted airline they would not ship our luggage so the next morning we drove back up to the airport (1 1/2 hr to catania to get the luggage. Skeen had his running nose getting worse but we hoped the sleeping during the drive would help. One the round trip we stopped through Siracusa, a great baroque city and stopped on the old town Ortigia. It was pretty windy and that section is really beautiful. the old peninsula and we walked around about 1 hr. It was pretty qiuet since we were there the lunch hour when everything was closed. Saw the old Apollo greek theatre ruin. I think it is like 6 BC anyways very old. also the Athena fountain, a spring with an old legend. that part of Sircusa was some of my favorite buildings and streets , narrow curvy stone streets. There is also an old castel at the tip that I wanted to see but found out later you can only tour through a boat trip excursion. Skeen wasn't looking to hot so we cut the day short and headed back to the orchard apartment and tried to get skeen to rest . He wanted to go out and play with the frisky cats. The next morning Skeen didn't seem much better but wanted to play outside. We bundled him up and took him on a walk in the orchard to see the miniture ponies the owners had. He was pretty mad still and didn't get happy seeing them. I didn't feel that he was looking any better and when he wasn't happy after a nights rest, his breathing was also getting raspy. we asked our landlady about a doctor to check him out. She made some calls and the only place we could go was the emergency at the hospital. To make a long story short we went to the hospital and they checked him out listened to his lugs and immediately started him on O2 treatments, then X rayed his lugs. Our land lady was great and interpreted the best she could for us as no one at the hospital spoke english. HE had bronchial pneumonia and they wanted us to stay there. I was allowed to sleep over but kurt had to stay at the apartment. So the next 4 days I stayed with skeen in the hospital room. The other kids had diarrehia so the doctors didn't want him our around the hospital and in the play area. Skeen hated it and yelled alot for a walk and wanted to play with kids. Kurt bought a bag of balloons and so we tried to play with those in the room with our him getting to mad. Skeen was getting better but the hospital system is bare bones . They don't cater to you like they do here . I was starting to get sick since it was shared bathrooms and no soap. We were able to get them to let us go back to the apartment and continue treatments there. So after arriving at the ospetele on wed we were able to go home sat. We borrowed a oxygen inhaler from a neighbor and got drugs at the farmacia and continure treatment at the apartment for 2 more days. It was nicer there so we could at least cook and skeen wasn't stuck in the hospital room . Tuesday we were able to get our and toured in the morning noto and ancient noto ruins the old city that was destroyed after an earthquake in the 16th century. Wed we went back to sircusa and saw the ortigia area again and went to the greek ruins and saw the ear of dionysis caves and greek coliseum from the era of Heron the II. Very cool old stuff. http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/d112c972996ededb2ebfd3d9ece5e6f6_47d0c874.writeback Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:45:40 -0600 I am continuing our tails of the Sicily saga. After our first night without luggage in Catania, we decided the next day to wait a day to see if it would show up. Claudia was great and called and talked to the airlines our first morning while we enjoyed cappuccinos, fresh red orange juice , warm bread and pastries. The airline wasn't even able to determine where our bags were but also since we flew our last leg of our flight with a discount airline they would not send our luggage to us as we had planned to pick up our rental car and drive to Noto in Southern Sicily. We decided to stay an extra night with Claudia and the next day go to Noto regardless. Skeen was also starting to get a cold and I wanted him to get rest from jet lag. Clauia called our car rental for us too and found our at thrifty had no record of the rental which I booked through our airline milage plan! Also, the rate the web quoted didn't include the mandatory car insurance. I had called both our insurance at home and our credit card company and both had said they would cover us abroad but the car rental said they had some memo stating that credit card companies wouldn't cover Itaty, Of course I hadn't brought anything for our State Farm insurance so we would shelled out an extra 200. After we though twe had everything settled. Claudia had a call and she had new arrivals for our room! She had forgotten it had been booked and wouldn't have space for us ! She quickely called around and found a B& B about 10 minutes away . So with our map we headed down the road to the next bed. Our next hostess didn't speak English but we all did our best to interpret and read our phrase book. We spend most all of the day in our room since Skeen had his cold by now and we didn't want to do much. We went our and picked up some great pasta at the bar Claudia had pointed out to us the first night. Pesto penne and also a great eggplant and tomato pasta! The rest of the day was rather bland. The next morning we took the bus over to the airport to check on our luggage and no luck. We figured it had been taken in Rome since the airline didn't even have a note about it yet. So we picked up the car. We had hoped for a fiat and we got a ford fiesta!!! So we drove down to Noto about 1 1/2 hours. We arrive into town about 1pm and learned the hard way about italian lunches everything was closed and we couldn't find a pay phone to call the orchard owners so we could find the room at the farmhouse we were renting. Finally, I was able to get some girls closing up at a coffee shop to show us where a phone was and there happen to be a woman on the phone who spoke some english and could show me how the phone worked. I wasn't use to internation area codes and was dailing wrong. Finally we were able to get aholf of janne our land lady and she lead us to her house and citrus orchard !!! http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/f9b339aa275bb3005042bb52fb9fba6d_47cc559b.writeback Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:46:35 -0600 Our trip to Italy was quite the adventure. Although, not what we had planned. After a long flight stopping in Frankfurt, via Rome we finaly made it to Catania on Sicily. We arrived in the evening and to our surprise our luggage was no where to be found. After filing a claim with the airline we were meet by the owner of our B&B, Claudia. She is around our age and we figured we liked here right away with her funky retro glasses. Her car had broken down that morning and she was on her moped but had a friend drive us back to the B& B. The B& B is in an old marquets house that has been converted in to apartments. The city is all old barquot architecture as an earthquake in the 1600's destroyed the old city and everything was rebuilt. It is all a dark stone from the stones around Mt Etna the live volcano on the island. The entry into the artment building is behind these huge old wooded doors visable from the street that open into the courtyard. All the streets are very narrow with only the doors visible and no way tio tell the amazing homes behind. As were were exhausted, she walked us into the city plaza a few blocks away and showed us a nice "bar", or cafe where we were able to get some take away paninis and these great deep fried rice, cheese balls. We took everythind back to our room. The room was very cool barquote bed with old wooden closet, double door balcony that looked our to the street below. It being a saturaday night, those italians are quite loud in the city and they were out till the wee hours . People eat late there around 10pm wich is our bed time! http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/baef423bb79f48ccf8fa796cfa56e77e_479cb086.writeback Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:25:42 -0600 The holidays went by fast! grandpa John visited for about 2 weeks and skeen had great fun playing with his new decoys and all the new toys. We had a great time visiting the Colorado Monument and going to the hotspring in Ouray with Gramps. He is sure a fireball now! Running and climbing everywhere. We will have to get him a helmet and harness pretty soon and get him out on some rocks! He eats everything now, a new favorite being grapefruit! Mommy and dad can't sneak treats without him noticing and asking for a cookie or chocolate! We are getting ready for our next adventure in a few weeks going to Italy! We will be on Sicily for about 2 weeks, we are all pretty excited and trying to quickly learn a few phrases. Skeen has down "Si" already!Wish us good luck on the flight over. We will sure need it! http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/afafe2786372ce33c71ecba93392f6ba_479caebe.writeback Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:18:06 -0600 We are not very good at this blogging thing.... Well, we are al least trying to write in Skeen's baby book .. We also are almost done with our holiday cards. ... We made cookies last weekend . We made some of our Grandma and grandpa Dittmanns mints, some of Grandma ma O's chocolate yummy goodness and also some of grandma Albertas ranger cookies. Unfortuneately , we made them too early and noe they are almost done. Daddy and our friend Ira made a wrought iron tree for our holiday season. Ira is a blacksmith and showed daddy how to twist iron and made our tree. Skeen likes it and says cool! http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/8ab7048a4fb56bcc5b3f6432682b6b23_474c8716.writeback Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:07:34 -0600 We had a great thanksgiving with a bunch of our friends. Skeen ate a huge amount and he was still eating while he was half a sleep. He loved the sweet potatoes. He now has 4 teeth! All of his front teeth. Every day he is picking and saying new things. We really have to watch what we say now! He has started to learn his colors and plays often with his colored ring stacker. He points out the blue and red ones. http://skeen.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/612930570762c9daea153da146f1a802_4741f964.writeback Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:00:20 -0600 Kurt took Skeen in last week for a weight check. He has been a runt so far at the 5% for his age and size. We had a great surprize in that he has grown 2 1/2 inches since his last checkup in October. Wow! We are proud that he is now in the 40% for his height. He is still at a lean weight but hey anyone who watches how he runs around all day would not be surprized!