Rome

Carlye and I got to escape to Rome for a weekend in the fall. Our neighbors and friends were nice enough to watch Alex for the weekend. We left early Friday morning from Rotterdam and came home Monday afternoon.

On Friday we visited the Vatican City -



It was actually still quite warm so the mist from the fountain felt good and we figured since every blog usually centers around Alex needed one picture with at least his name in it.

We had signed up for a guided tour but the guide did not show up on time and then we called and we ended up getting a tour just by ourselves. Here is some of the artwork in the Vatican museum. We also got to see the Sistine Chapel but were not allowed to take pictures. It is not because of the flash but evidently as part of the restoration - Kodak sponsored quite a bit of it and they own the rights to any pictures.

After our tour we made our way inside St. Peter's Basicalica -an ancient law is still in effect in Rome in that the Basilica is the tallest building in Rome and nothing is to be built any taller.

Each of the previous popes have a shrine inside the basilica dedicated to them. Of course Carlye found the one with the big kitties.

The inside of the church is amazing - we were told that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside the dome.

We also went on a walking tour on Saturday evening and saw quite a few other items in Rome including quite a few fountains.

There are also a few Roman Arches left standing which commerate their leaders and the wars that they were able to win to expand the Roman Empire. The one on the left is in the Roman Forum while the one on the right is outside the Coliseum.

We also did an audio tour through the Roman Forum which houses alot of the old buildings - it is right across the street from the Coliseum.

The Coliseum is massive and quite impressive considering how long ago it was built.

You can walk around the inside and see down into the floor where the gladitors and their opponents were released to fight each other.

Anyway we had a great weekend and we were glad we got to visit Rome while we were over here.

Dolphinerium

Back in the fall we spent a day with Marco, Adrianna and Noah at the Dolphinerium (the Dutch Sea World). Alex and Noah had a really good time looking at all the animals and in general running around the park.

Alex and Noah got a good view of the seals -



especially the big one



In the park there were plenty of boats, slides, and playgrounds to play on. Noah and Alex seemed to like the boat type playgrounds as you can see them taking turns looking out for pirates and hiding in the corner of the ship -

Alex and Noah took their turns petting the rays -

Alex got a kick out of that -

We also saw a pretty incredible dolphin show (unfortunately the pictures did not come out too well in there as it was dark) but they did have some pretty cool underground areas where you could see the dolphins swimming -

Marco, Noah, Alex and Ryan made their way across the stones in the water without much of an incident -

Of course it helped having Ryan corral them so they did not try it on their own

At the end of the day Alex got to enjoy a couple of his favorites things - eating a popsicle (he calls it ice) and watching a show with some pirates -