Well, I know we've been doing a really bad job at keeping the blog spot up, but to make up for it we put tons of pictures in this post, so hopefully you will forgive us. Well, we're all pretty much completely moved into the house, and we're now getting settled in enough that we're going to be updating the blog spot alot more now. The pics on this post are of dad's visit to Milan and mom and dad's special date day visit to Procida. There all really pretty pics. Here they are:



This is at the beach of Procida, very pretty.





















There's superbo modello padre!!

























Isn't that beautiful??
























There are lot's of small streets over here, they're really pretty, our road that we walk to school on everyday is a really tiny cool road, except now the italians are widening it. My parents are very happy about it, I'm really sad about it though, but then again, I'm not the one driving!! The other road is still small though, my young women president (she's an american) scraped up her mini van on that road. It was terrible!! All the girls heard the screech on the car and we all froze, it wasn't cool!! Now she won't drive on my road any more!!













Molto bello!!





















These are on the front of one of the churches, pretty huh?


























The beautiful view at Procida.


They're extremely pretty, next time I'm going with mom and dad!!




My cute parents!

Now here's bella modella!!


more beautiful photos!!

some square or other, I have no idea what the name is!! (haha)

Italia!!

This is absolutely gorgous!!

This is... oh, I forgot the name, it's in Milan and it's really pretty, that's the important thing right?? lol

Pretty flowers!!







And, before we say goodbye, to end we have another super modello padre picture!! Ciaou!!

McCollaum fam

Hello everyone!! Sorry we haven't published in so long, we've been really busy. but here's some more pics of our house anyway. Paul is so cute!!

Our New House

Hey Everyone! Check out the great view of the Med from our new house!!! Isn't it great! This is our favorite thing about our place, it has a very grandious view of the bay below us. We were previously trying to get a location that was more in the touristy old region with lots of history around us but in the heart of the city of Pozzuoli near Pete's work. That house was within walking distance of all the schools and many markets and shops for me. When the other "tile house" (that you may have seen in previous posts) fell through, we opted for our current house which has all the same features, but is not in the heart of the city. Instead we are located in a quieter area of Pozzuoli, called Monte Rucellio. (I'm still not sure that I'm spelling everything correctly.) Here is a look at the area from a little further off. Our house is at the top of the "mountain" on the street, Coste di Cuma. It's in a nice middle class italian neighborhood. We live in a villa which is actually one large building, split into a duplex. Our neighbor is a man from Equidor who is in the US Navy and we share the yard on his side of the house. It is mostly surrounded by black asphault and a large gate to come in and out of. The side of the house with the view is open (no fence) but has a large drop-off down to the next terraced level of homes. Our 2nd level is the same as the neighbors ground level, etc. So we have a nice view of lots of rooftops below us, clear down to the sea. You can see the pictures here that have been taken from our second level balcony. Here I am enjoying the view from our little window in the grande master bedroom! Hee Hee! :)

Another great thing that I'm really happy about is that I was able to pick a few colors for the walls. The construction in Italy is almost completely built with cinderblock and plastered, then whitewashed. The landlady was re-painting, so I gave the painter some colors to add to the house which does soo much more for the beauty of the place I think! Here is a picture of the kids in the girls yellow room. It is the brightest room in the house with two different sets of balcony doors on the north and west sides. The kids are enjoying a new bunkbed set that we bought from a cool second-hand italian furniture store.

In total, the house has 4 bedrooms on the second floor: one for Pete and I, one for the two girls, one for the two boys and one for Jessie and her dog. We all share the one bathroom on that floor and we also have a nice bonus which is unusual for Italian homes...a closet. It is large and in the hallway centrally located and is really really appreciated since it is the only one in the house!

On the first floor we have a large front room, kitchen, bathroom and what is probably meant to be a dining room which we will use as the office/guest room. My washer is in the main floor bathroom and the dryer is on the balcony off of the kitchen (a few steps across the hallway).

Then we have a full unfinished basement which is bare cement cinderblock walls and dirt floors. There is a lot of storage space down here which we are filling up with all the junk that doesn't fit in the house! The garage is what comes out onto the ground level, so it is kind of like a walk-out basement with the view from the garage and the front door on the opposite side of the house and one level up.

In our garden we have one lemon tree, a fig tree, and a clemontine tree to eat from. There are also lots of other flowering plants and I hope to plant lots of yummy fresh herbs to cook with! This picture is of our yard, with our neighbors house in the background. Our own house is in bad need of a re-plastering re-painting job which the landlady is supposed to finish before next October. I'll have to get more pictures of the outside at a later time.

Hope you enjoyed the semi-virtual tour. Of course, these pictures were taken with the navy temp furniture in it, and now the entire house is filled with boxes everywhere! AAugh! Anyone want to come help me unpack?

After a hard day's work of unpacking we like to enjoy a fresh Italian meter pizza. Actually this is a half meter pizza, but divided into quarters with the chef's special assortment of whatever he wants to put on it is what we always tell him to do. Believe it or not, these pizzas bake in about 5 minutes in their cool brick ovens and always get an extra drizzle of olive oil on top just to make sure that nothing is too dry! It is always delicious! Come on over and we'll treat you to pizza that never tasted this good in America!! It's great!

This is Peter

My school is crazy! No one will leave me alone. They won't leave me alone because I am an American. When I walk down the hall every one who sees me calls there friends over. I am the only one who can't be missed because I have blond hair. I stick out like a sore thumb. I have so many friends here, the only problem is that I can't talk to them. My class has 8 boys and 14 girls total. 14!

It's like a trap waiting to be sprung.

Garbage! Aaaugh!

Denise here reporting on the biggest problem plaguing our area right now. Many of you may have already heard reports on the terrible garbage problems in Italy. The worst of it is right here in Napoli. These pictures were taken several weeks ago when we thought that the garbage piles had reached an all time high. We were wrong. I don't have recent pictures, but at this point there are many streets that are now literally impassable because of all the garbage.

Almost every day protestors block the roads in different major traffic areas to protest the garbage problem. Most of them are protesting the fact that 3 major land fills that had previously been shut down are now going to be re-opened. People in those areas don't want this to happen, because they are demanding new and better ways of getting rid of the garbage since the land fills are constantly full and garbage ends up sitting on the street all the time. Poor garbage planning and the fact that the garbage industry is owned by the Cumora (Mafia here) has kept Naples littered with garbage for years now and the Italian people are sick of the problem especially since they are taxed for the removal of trash which never gets removed. It's a little difficult for a newcomer to understand all the particulars of the politics here, but it sure is a mess. The rumors around here from the locals is that the Cumora obviously just pockets the garbage money instead of constructing adequet facilities for removal. When things do get bad they usually hire another company (also owned by the Cumora) to do reports on all the toxic and environmental problems the garbage is causing. Of course, this still hasn't solved the problem, just lines the Cumora's pockets with more money to do these reports. This persons uneducated opinion on the matter--Naples would be such a beautiful city without all this mess! I hope they get it cleaned up sometime in the near future!

One garbage adventure for me was the other day a friend and I were trying to get to the Post office to pay the fees for the kids school insurance. We rounded a corner to find the roads blocked off. The protestors had seized a city bus, unloaded all the people and parked it across the intersection to block traffic. They looked very angry and shouted for us to turn around, so I promptly backed up the one way ramp until I could turn around. We then had to find our way around the clogged traffic to the Post Office in the next city over, Pozzuoli. Once we got there we stood in line for over 2 hours. All the local parents who needed to pay for their kids' school fees before the next day were in line there. We found out while waiting that the other main Post Office in Arco Felice had been set on fire by the protestors also, forcing all the parents left to wait at this one in Pozzuoli.



Garbage is not picked up at your house here in Italy like it is in the states. You simply take it to your local dumpster on a nearby street location. Can you find the dumpsters in these pictures? If not it is because they are covered in garbage! Needless to say, this garbage problem really stinks! Google Garbage in Naples, Italy if you are interested in learning any more. It is making international news. The army has been called out to help the garbage trucks get through and the EU is now threatening to take Italy to court and force a solution. Just thought you might find my local pictures and perspective interesting!

Nicole's Thoughts on Italian School!

Hi Everybody! Sorry we haven't been posting on the blog but we are going to do it now. I am going to talk about school. My school is fun but it is kind of annoying only to me but it is verry fun. Peter has a teacher that speaks English. I have a teacher that speaks only a little English. All the girls in the class love me. School is kind of boring because I can't understand very much, but it's fun once you can stand up. I made a friend. Her name is Diana but you pronounce it like Deanna in Italian. Me and her play a little game together. I say, "Como ce diche that?" In english it means, "how do you say?" and I point at the thing that I want to know in Italian. Then she tells me the word in Italian. Some times she says, "In Englese?" and I say glass or what ever I asked her. Sometimes the other girls like to ask me what things are in English too. Diana has a dad that speaks English so she knows a lot of English. But the other girls don't speak any English. Almost every time I take a snack to school all the kids want some of it. It's fun going to school. I like school a lot. It's very fun at school. I'll write again soon.

Love, Nicole

ps-The picture is in our new house just as we are leaving for our first day of school!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi guys!! How is every one? We've had a great holiday season this year. Christmas was great! We had a mad shopping experience in local markets and shopping centers here until finally all the family's christmas shopping was done. Since we were unable to be in a house before the holidays, the outgoing general of the army here found us room in the distinguished visitors quarters for Christmas! Instead of being crammed into the two bedroom Navy inn, three days before Christmas we moved into another two bedroom dig, but one much much nicer! The living room of our new place was bigger then the entire area of the old one! We felt really lucky! It was practically the General's last command before leaving to his new station. He had just heard in passing that we had 5 children and were still stuck in the TLA for Christmas and commented that he just couldn't let that happen. We all helped set up our tree and hang ordaments on the day before Christmas eve.

There's cutie Peter

There's cutie Nicole.

Here's cutie Rachel and below is cutie Paul.

This was pauls third christmas, and he hung his own three ordaments himself (almost). He's so cute!!

We all had a great time. We didn't have any Christmas music to listen to, so we serenaded ourselves with all the carols we knew, and just about 10th time of singing "Here comes Santa Clause" we heard a rapp at the door. Lo and behold it really was Santa Clause! He was immediately invited in and we all had a turn on Santa's lap.

Then Dad took him back to the train station where he told us he was riding the Polar Express home. By the time it was Christmas eve, almost all the presents were wrapped, but Paul found the joy of unwrapping gifts before he was supposed to. Luckily he only got into a few presents and no surprises were spoiled. One Christmas eve Jessica, Peter and Nicole took forever to get to sleep. They were to entertained by the fantastic show of fire works that the Italians were giving and the bell calls to midnight mass from all the churches nearby. In the morning we all woke up to find that Santa had really come. We all got to work digging into our stockings and seeing what Santa brought us all. It was a fantastic Christmas!
This year was the coolest New Year ever! I really like the Italian's way of doing things. New Years eve here is almost as popular as christmas, if not more (maybe). We spent New Year's eve at our new friends house. We played lots of games, ate lots of yummy food, and had a great time together. By the time it was midnight every one was still awake except Paul! We went up on the roof to watch the fire works. When it turned midnight it was so amazing! Everywhere you turned you could see fire works! Even the neighbors had fire works. And these fireworks were nothing like the ones we have in the states. They are like the one's your town lights off on the fourth of July. Our pictures don't do the scene justice. It was so much cooler in real life. I'd never seen anything like it, ever! Just imagine almost every one setting off fire works like it was the fourth of July. Wow! That was the greatest New Years eve. We're so grateful to be here in italy. This new year will be a very exciting one for us, and we are so excited!