Buon Natale

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Josh and I will be spending Christmas in Germany. I haven't been there yet and hopefully we will get a little bit of snowboarding in. To my family back home, know that you will be on my mind the whole time. Hopefully next year we will all be able to spend it together.

I think 2010 is going to bring a lot of things. God has blessed me so much this year. I have made amazing friends here in Italy. I am so very excited for the Nelsons to have their baby girl!! My sister-in-law is getting married in June. Not to mention I hope to come home a couple of times to see my family that I miss so much!! Hopefully we will have a few people come to visit us this next year.

I hope that everyone remembers to stop and thank God for all that we have this holiday season.

Merry Christmas from the Heisners

Giving Thanks, and gearing up for Christmas

Hello Everyone!! Just thought I would give you a little update on how the last week has gone! Thanksgiving feast was a great success. I think we had about 21 people. A BIG thanks to everyone who helped make it a wonderful night.  Here are some pictures..

In other news we have all our Christmas decorations up. I wish we could put some lights outside..but sadly we dont have anywhere to plug them in! The mountains have been covered up with fog for a few weeks, but I finally got a glimpse of them yesterday. Man are they pretty. Looked like there was a lot more snow, I'm still waiting for my snowboarding lesson.  

As I was leaving the Landers yesterday my car starting acting funny. After shutting off a few times on the busiest road in town I finally made it home. I asked our Landlord if they could call their friend who is an auto mechanic and he came over this morning to take a look at it. As it turns out I was very lucky that my car engine didn't catch on fire. Some wires were exposed and had been melting on the engine. I'm very thankful that we caught it in time, he is supposed to have it fixed by tonight.

Other than that everything is going well. I am signed up for the rotator to head home on the 21st of January while Josh is gone to Spain for a few weeks.  Start praying that everything goes as smooth as it did last time. Thats all for now! It's beginning to look like Christmas.  This is my favorite month!!! Hope everyone is enjoying it!!! Love and miss you all!!

P.S. Here is our wedding photo (taken by Jessica Hollis : ) ) I framed it myself and I love how it turned out.... just wanted to show it off : )

Just a little update

I haven't wrote a blog in a few weeks so its time.  Not a whole lot is happening here in Italia. Its gotten cold, but still warmer than Southern IL. I don't think I will have a problem dealing with the winters here. 

I have been planning Thanksgiving....we are hosting it this year. I'm looking forward to spending the day with my friends that have became my Air Force Family. I'm a little nervous to cook the turkey but Grams is on standby if I have any questions.  Should be a full house. I will take pictures!

We went up to the mountain a few weekends ago. It was Buddys first experience with the snow that we know of. I think he loved it. I'm still waiting for the opportunity to go and try out my ski legs. Hopefully over Thanksgiving break we will be able to go.  

My job is going good. Leyla is a sweetheart. Josh and I went to her 1st birthday party. Isn't she a doll?!

I can't believe that the Holiday season is here! This time of year always flies by. Hard to imagine that I will be 22! In case I don't write until after Thanksgiving, I hope everyone has a fantastic day! And to my fam in the Ville, I'll be thinking about you!

-Hol

Just checking in...

It's hard to imagine that I will be missing my first Halloween/Mardi Gras ( for all my Italia friends this is a festival in my hometown). After 21 years, it feels weird to not be thinking about the parade and all the family coming in. But I suppose its time to grow up. Josh and I carved our own pumpkins last weekend, which we have been told are very impressive to the Italians. Pics to follow post.  Last Sunday we went to a pumpkin festival in Venzone with our friends Nick and Tiffany.  It was a packed and traffic was not fun. I wish we would have went earlier because by the time we parked the car it was almost dark outside.  It was a cool town though thats for sure.  

In other news I have a small job three days a week. Im watching a one year old baby girl who is living with her grandparents while her mother is deployed. I have only worked two days so far but I enjoy it and I feel busier not to mention the extra money is nice!!

This weekend we have the bazaar going on at base. Vendors from all over the world will be here selling their products. Josh is on a mission to purchase something neat. 

We will see how that goes over. I think thats about it as far as news with us.  Hoping everyone is doing well....and to all my Pinckneyville folk have a great Mardi Gras! Miss you all very much!!!

-Holly 

Zucca Festival

Back to Italia

After a very long day, I made it home on Monday evening. I had a good flight and had no problems getting a seat on the rotator.  I had a fantastic visit with my family and friends, two weeks wasn't enough!!  I'm trying to get back into the swing of things...I'm having a rough time getting adjusted to the time difference. This morning I was up from 2-6:30...then slept until 11. So that means that I won't sleep again tonight! Maybe I should resort to some Nyquil or something.  

The weather has changed to fall since I was home in the states.  Everything is still pretty green though.  We have already had our heat on, these cement walls do not hold in heat very well at all.  This weekend starts the Halloween festivites. There is a Trunk or Treat for the kids as well as a Haunted Spook walk on Sat.  I'm going to try to drag Josh to it.  He has to work on Saturday, which stinks because we were planning on going to a pumpkin festival a few towns away.  We might try to go on Sunday.  We have three huge pumpkins to carve as well.  I asked Luisa (our landlord ) if Italians celebrated the holiday and she said they started about 5 years ago! I haven't seen any pumpkins or decorations in our neighborhood though. 

Well I think thats all for now, hope everyone is doing well!! Miss you all back home already and I enjoyed spending time with ya'll SO MUCH!!!

-Holly

Home Sweet Home

I think most of you know this already but I made a surprise visit home last Sunday. It was so much fun I keep telling people that I want to surprise them every time. Its so nice to be home, although not much has changed since I have been gone. It honestly feels like I just left. I got to spend some time with our nephew who was still in the hospital when we left for Italy. He is going on six months now, and its crazy to see how fast they grow. I went to St. Louis to spend two nights with my cousins. I took Sadie to the Magic House and I think I had more fun than she did. I'm already dreading leaving, but I miss all my Italia peeps. I think me and my sister are heading out shopping hear in a little bit. Probably going to do some major damage. Hope all is well with everyone. I will write again soon!

A little news

I wasn't allowed to post this picture until everyone had been notified.  But this happened while we were in Rome. 

It was so awesome to be apart of this special day for Aaron and Hillary. She of course said yes! Wish I could take credit for taking the picture, but Josh stole the camera from me and stuck me with the video camera.  Oh well. It was an awesome day! Congrats again!!

A little update on a Thursday afternoon!

Hope this post finds everyone well.  Josh and I are doing great, we just ended a great visit with my sister in law Hillary and her boyfriend Aaron.  We finally got to see Rome, and it was an experience of a lifetime. Just to be able to think back that some of this architecture was made before B.C/A.D. just blew my mind.  We also traveled to Verona which is a beautiful city about 2 1/2 hours away from us.  Josh claims its his favorite place so far.  Hillary and Aaron went to Milan and then we all four went to Venice on Thursday.  We took a water taxi over to Murano to see the famous glass blowing.  It was cool to see although I expected them to make more eye catching items.  Even though it was neat to learn about the history behind it.  

As far as anything new with me, I have been volunteering at the base Radiology dept.  Its nice to be around my profession.  Its kind of slow as far as patients but on the other hand I dont really have much else to keep me busy.  Josh is gearing up for a long week of 12 hour shifts hopefully this week goes by fast.  I have been having fun watching him play flag football a couple nights aweek.  He claims he is never sore, but Im picking up different vibes!! :)  

The weather has been cooling off ever so slowly, I'm actually excited about fall/winter.  Im ready to give this snowboarding thing a go....we will see how long that lasts.

Thats about all for right now.  Miss you all!

Here are a few pictures from the past week.

It's been awhile....

These are long overdue...but here are some of my favorites from when my family came to visit. We had an action packed 12 days. We went to Salzburg-Austria, Croatia, Venice, Florence, Pisa, and also had time to visit the local area a bit.

Venice

Croatia

Salzburg, Austria

There are many more but I know most have seen them on myspace/facebook so I will spare you. Life in Italia is going good, we are ready for it to cool off so we can give our A/C a break. Josh's sister arrives in a little over a week, so we are gearing up for a trip to Roma. Looking forward to that!! Josh has been on day shift for the last 3 or 4 weeks and I have been loving it, although that has meant that it is actually necessary to cook dinner. But all in all I'm loving Italy and cant believe it has been four months already!! Im going to miss summer and those days of laying by the pool with Tiff, but Im also looking forward to seeing those Alps covered in snow.

Hope all is well with everyone! I will post again soon!!

As promised...pictures from Sardinia.

You will see from these pictures that Sardinia looks like paradise. I really hope Josh and I can make it back down to the island for a vacation before we leave Italy. Im sure Josh will be back because the military goes there often for training. I know he had a good time!

In other news my family gets here in two weeks. Can you tell Im excited?!?! They have no idea how tired they are going to be because I have packed a lot of things to do in a short 12 days. I just hope the weather will be better than it has been the past week. Josh and I are dog/house sitting at our friends Nick and Tiffany. Its been nice to be able to turn the A/C on as much as we want. Hopefully our shipment of furniture will be here soon, it has been a stressful situation. Thats about all that is happening on this side of the world. Hope all is well with everyone. Missing everyone in the U.S.A!!!

A wonderful Sunday

I have so many neat pictures from yesterday but Iwill try to post my favorites. We started out on a drive up to the mountains but ended making lots of stops. First was Polcenigo, then Casttelo de Caneva and ending up at the mountain peaks in the clouds. We had such a great day, and had some really good food to top it off. Hope you enjoy the pictures, they really dont do much justice.

Josh wrote on the wall of this castle last year, he suprised me by taking me to see it in person. It was really weird because I had just asked "hey what was the place that you wrote our initials at?" and he responded with "Some castle, in Austria". It took me a minute to find it on the wall, he is a trickster.

This was by far the coolest feeling, not to mention some fresh air!

Just a note

I know its been awhile since I have updated. Josh has been gone most of the month so I haven't been doing much traveling. He is supposed to get home tomorrow so I am looking forward to that. My first experience of being totally independent went very well if I do say so myself. Thank goodness I have my dog or I wouldn't know what to do. We went to the Pet Fair on base today so I thought I would take a few pictures. Thats all I have for now, hopefully Josh took some nice pictures from Sardinia and I will post them. Hope all is well with everyone.

I finally got the video to upload!

Buddy Heisner

Most of you know by now that we have "adopted" an 8 month lab named Buddy. So far he has been amazing. He knows the command sit pretty well and Josh and I are starting to work on others. He stays pretty close to you when he is not on the leash which is a relief to me since we live on a pretty busy road. We got him on Saturday and we took him straight to Lake Barcis to see how he would do with water. He wasnt a real big fan of it the first day. And we attempted to give him a bath on Sunday and he REALLY didnt like that. But yesterday since Josh had the day off we went to a Beach that is about 45 min away (Lignano) and Buddy took to it like a natural. Im glad I dont have a labrador that hates the water : ) He loves Kodi and Kaci and its so nice to have big dogs for him to play with. Well thats all for now, I will keep you all updated on how things are going with him. Enjoy the pictures and the video.

First trip to Venice

Josh and I took the train down to Venice on Saturday. It only cost $20 for the both of us roundtrip. It was nice, I can tell I am going to like traveling by train. Except for when people beg for money and you don't know what they are saying....I know my family is going to love Venice. Warning* It does stink, the rumors are true. Its a mixture of a fishy/trash smell. It comes and it goes, but its worth it. We didn't purchase anything, Im going to start collecting mask as well as glass. We ate dinner on the Grand Canale. I had a margaretia pizza ( a.k.a cheese) and Josh had ravioli's with mushrooms. We asked how much a gondola ride cost and the guy said 100 euro. So we are going to wait until we have someone else to split it with us. But that is something we are defenitly going to do before we leave Italy.

And of course here are my favorite pictures

A little update, as well as some pictures

Well I have survived for over two weeks : ) My car made it, we were able to pick it up on Wed. So that has made life a heck of a lot easier. Josh's work schedule has been easier to deal with so all in all this week hasn't been bad. I think this weekend we might make a trip down to Venice. If so rest assured I will post pictures : )

Here are a few I have taken of places close to us....

View on the way to base

Wedding dresses in Pordenone

A U.S. $ sign, no clue why its there

There are some tiny streets around here

Thats all for now! More to come

xoxo