Practice does not make perfect

Soaking wet girls, drying off on the hot cement

Explorers don't smile, do they?

Maybe the reason he's such a bad driver is the hat is over his eyes?

At least in No's case, we've been to Legoland several times now and he seems to get worse at driving the little cars every time we go.   We went with friends, and I got to hang out with the little kids.  Despite the boiling heat, we had a great time running around like crazies.

Mental Math Bee

Here is Zak, being all brilliant at figuring out math problems in his head.  There were many of the problems I couldn't keep up with (not too surprising, my math skills are non-exixtent), but he had the answer as soon as the question finished!  He reminds me a little of Darren, what with the non-smiling because this is SERIOUS STUFF.

And here:

Is the boy, outside the back door of the gym, because when they tell you the audience has to remain quiet, you realize that your four-year-old's idea of being quiet is to only make his car sound effects loud enough for the surrounding county to hear.  He poked his head in whenever Zak was up, and I gave thanks that it was good weather.

Zak made it to the fifth round; there were only 3 kids who beat him, out of 300 in 3rd grade at his school.  Obviously, I take credit for his brilliance.

15

Venezia

Ben's normal view of us
St Mark's Square

Courtyard of the Doge's palace

Paul Newman?

Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

On the Rialto

Museums, Parthenon

Give it a ponder

Roman Money

The vault they keep the money in

What you can't see is the crazy homeless
guy screaming at us.  Big cities are so
much fun!

another fountain

Zak can tell you why we took this photo
inside the Parthenon

Also, this one

Outside the Parthenon

Il Collesseo

Trying to share two iPod tours didn't work out so well

The stairs to our apartment.  We were on the second
floor, which means we got to climb three flights
of stairs to get up.  

Our taxi ride from the airport into Rome took us past the Coloseum, where we saw the finish line for the Rome Marathon.  It was pretty neat to walk down the block and be able to see the ruins from there.

Palatine Hill and Forum Romanum

We successfully navigated the Metro during rush hour.
Yay, us!

Have I mentioned how beautiful and green everything was?

Who wouldn't love getting flowers from
this cutie?

Olive grove on the Palatine hill.  

At the Roman Forum, listening to the audio tour and loving
the sunshine

One marvelous thing about the Palatine hill and Roman Forum is that there are lots of trails to follow (or No to run on), beautiful gardens and cool ruins.  Even the huts where (maybe) Remus and Romulus were raised.  Did you know our word palace comes from the schmancy homes on Palatine Hill?