Big News!

Claire is going to be a big sister!

Honig Baby #2 is expected to make his or her appearance in the end of July. We are all very excited.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls.... The Circus is in Town!

Last week we took Claire to see Moira Orfei, which is an Italian circus that tours the country and is in our area for about two months. Because of Claire's interest in animals and because she did so well at the Elmo show in the fall, I really though it'd be a great idea to take her to the circus.

She loved it!

It was a great show and lasted over two hours and amazingly, Claire really paid full attention through all but a few minutes here and there. It was a great show with lots of different types of acts that were all very interesting.

Claire, of course, loved the animals. They had a funny segment with two horses, a very large one (maybe Clydesdale?) and a Shetland Pony. They had lions and tigers, which she adored. There were elephants who did great tricks, including kicking a large "soccer ball" through a goal! At intermission, their was a camel that you could have your picture taken with and there was even a hippo!

During one of the "set change" segments, a bunch of the clowns brought out gigantic balloons (probably six feet in diameter, no joke) and threw them out on the audience which all took turns bouncing them along (think beach balls at a graduation). At one point I was able to lift Claire up and she touched one of the balloons, which was so exciting for her!

Claire's favorite parts were probably the tigers, the balloons, the hippo, the "jumping" (the trampoline segments), and the "swinging" (the trapeze artists). She is still talking about it now, even a week later.

We will definitely have to make this a yearly tradition.

Andy's New Sport: Rugby

A few months ago, Andy joined the rugby team here and he's been enjoying learning the game and working out with them. A couple of weeks ago they had their first game which ended in a tie. The weather was pretty crummy and Claire was a bit miserable, but Andy had a great time and was even awarded "Man of the Match" (like MVP).


You can see Andy in these pictures... he is number five.

Happy New Year!!

It's been too long since I updated the blog... I guess I'm a bad blogger, but I will resolve to be better!

Andy, Claire and I spent the New Year at home. We got home from our Pisa trip early in the evening on New Year's Eve. We had dinner, put Claire to bed and waited for the fireworks to begin. We couldn't see the professional display that was set off over the Bay of Naples, but boy did we see fireworks!

Italians are crazy for their fireworks and around us, it seemed that every tenth house was setting off their own decent sized display. There were fireworks in all directions as far as we could see. The went all through the evening, with a few going off here and there. By eleven there were more and the crescendo was certainly at midnight for about a half an hour. We went to bed around one and we could still see some and hear some as we drifted off to sleep.

We had a great view from our roof and our next door neighbors were up there too, lighting off a few of their own. One of their items was a 2010 sign that had large sparklers attached to it. They set it on the wall that our houses share and as soon as they lit it, it fell over onto our deck. They laughed and said, "Scusi!!" and we laughed as it struck us as very Italian.


Fortunately all the houses here are made of cement and tile, so there was no damage, but we did have some funny evidence the next morning!!

Pisa and Cinque Terre

Just before New Year's, Andy and I decided to take a mini road trip to Pisa and Cinque Terra. So, we packed Claire in the car, crossed our fingers that she wouldn't complain too much, and off we went. It was approximately a 5 hour drive and we arrived at Camp Darby (a small base just outside of Pisa) at around 4pm. We checked into the hotel and then hopped in the car to go see Pisa.


Pisa itself, is a pretty small city, but we wanted to see the leaning tower, of course. We arrived just before sunset, so we didn't have great light for the pictures, but we got some cute ones.

Claire is beginning to like jumping, and while she doesn't make it off the ground yet, she enjoys trying. In several of these pictures, she is trying to jump, oblivious, of course to the monument behind her.

In Pisa, we had an early dinner at an Italian restaurant that was clearly open early for the tourists and then headed back to the hotel.

The next day was a bit rainy, but we headed to Cinque Terre which is a series of five small towns nestled among the cliffs of the coast. Each town is darling and built into the side of the cliffs.


Walking paths connect each of the town and I think for a long time, that was the only way to travel among them. Now of course, there is also a train and a series of roads.





We walked the path between the 1st two towns and then took the train to visit the fourth town. We didn't really have time to visit all of them, but we had a great time. Claire, thankfully, napped in the stroller and even though the weather could have been better, it was a great day. I think we owe a lot of her good mood to her pink polar bear which she is becoming increasingly attached to.


On our way back, we stopped in Rome to have lunch with some friends from the states that were visiting their family in Rome. It was so good to see some familiar faces and to catch up a little.


This is a picture of us in a park in Rome that overlooks the city. We had just finished lunch with our friends.