Italy pictures

These are some of the favorite pictures from Rome. We spent three days in Rome and saw everything as quickly as we could. But even with our grueling touristic pace, we felt like we could have spent 10 days there and not seen everything we wanted to.

Truthfully, our trip could not have been better. We stayed at a marvelous bed and breakfast inside Rome's city wall. The guy who ran the B&B spoke something like 5 languages fluently. When we acted impressed he simply said, "What kind of a host would I be if I could not visit with all of my guests?"

And, of course, Griffin was a prince in Rome. LOTS of little Italian women (and men) made kissy faces at him as we walked by. One cute little lady we sat next to on the metro even gave him a saint medalion thing (I know there is an actual term for these but I can't think of it.)

Anyway, it was a fantastic city and an amazing end to our Europe excursion! Landon's favorite thing to say as we walked around was, "Can you just imagine this when it was in it's heyday!?" He said it so often that I started to recognize when he was even thinking of saying it.

Truthfully, now that we've been home for a while I've blogged less and taken way fewer pictures. I feel somehow a little less interesting in Denver, but I'll still try to keep the posts coming, you'll just have to forgive me if I'm slightly boring.

Prodigal Sleep

Since we've been back from Europe, Griffin has not once slept through the night. I know, I know, this could be considered my just desserts after all of the bragging I did about his early sleeping patterns. This could also be the price I pay for neglecting to give him a consistent environment for nearly one-third of his life thus far. Whatever your theory, this situation has been taxing, to say the least. There have been many nights where I've rocked a silent pattern of self-pity in the rocking chair as I tried to put Griffin back to bed, and many days where I've complained a not-so-silent whine of indignance to my family.

You may recall the biblical story of the prodigal son and the accompanying parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. (I realize that this seems like a tangent, but trust me, I'm bringing it full circle) At the end of each of these parables the owner/parent/shepard of the lost coin/son/sheep call all of their friends to celebrate the restoration of something that once was lost.

And so today, my dear friends, I ask you to celebrate with me the return of my lost sleep. Last night Griffin slept for eight full hours in a row! Sweet, indulgent, eight hours. When he woke up at 5:30 this morning I could have clicked my heels. Hoorah for Griffin!! And Hoorah for me!!

Oh and yes, I still need to post pictures from our Italy trip, I'll do that soon.

Recommitted

Ok, folks! I've been back for nearly a month now and sadly haven't posted one darn thing. I've got pictures of our trip to Italy still to post, plus a little international quizlet for you all, but for now I'll start with a sumary of the last month.

First point of interest: jetlag is a monster. Griffin is still recovering from it...which of course means that Landon and I are still recovering as well. Poor baby doesn't know which way is up.

We got back into Denver on August 8th and spent a week here letting Griffin readjust to his home environment, before we confused him yet again with another plane trip, this time to Arizona. Griffin loved hanging out with my family, especially his Grandpa Griffin...I think that was because my dad kept feeding him cookies on the sly, plus he let Girffin play with his cowboy hat. I guess that's what Grandpas are for, right?

Then we came back to Denver for a few more days, just in time for Griffin to be really confused when we took off for Utah to visit with Landon's family. We had a great time getting to see Griffin interact with all of his cousins, and hosting a Greek party for Landon's family: gyros all around!!

Now if you're considering calling me a cruel mother for dragging my poor kid all over the place and neglecting to give him a consistent environment, trust me, I'm with you all the way. When we purchased these plane tickets it seemed like a great idea to visit family after we got back to the U.S. The logic being, of course, that we hadn't seen them in several months and Griffin was bound to grow up during that time. Would it not also be cruel to the grandparents to withhold their grandson from them? At least, these were our thoughts when we purchased the tickets.

Not that I'm having any regrets about visiting family. We really had a fabulous time. But perhaps it would have been a little wiser to space our travel out a bit. As it is, I'm sure that Griffin assumes that any day now we're going to pack up and move again. Hopefully, he'll get into a more consistent rhythm now that we are finally back in Denver for good. We've decided that we are not doing any traveling until Christmas time. So if you want to see us, you'll have to mosey on over our way because this rolling stone is kaput and ready to start gathering a little moss...but not too much moss, that might cramp my style.