The doggy who does lunch.....

Cooler weather in Hong Kong and a free Saturday today waiting for Dad to get back from Thailand...

I took the kids and Jasper on a country walk. We drove up to one of the peak areas (Parkview) then walked down the hill past the Tai Tam reservoirs towards the South side of the Island.

The scenery was great- it was all downhill and there were some beautiful masonry bridges- built back in 1907 to walk across. There were even doggy toilets en route (only in HK!!)

We had a great walk, just over an hour then arrived in Stanley for some lunch by the harbour- blue skies , glistening water- simply superb.

When we chose a restaurant the waiter rushed out with a water bowl for Jasper and I had packed him a chewy bone treat. Jasper thought he was just the ants pants being the doggy who does lunch :)

Happy 9th birthday Riley!!

OK, so the upside of having a Mum who scrapbooks is that every facet of your life ends up a photo-op and equally the down side of having a Mum who scrapbooks is that every moment of your life ends up a photo-op!!! LOL

Please indulge me, but I thought it would be supercute to do a scrapbook page of Riley "living" his actual 9th birthday !

We had already given gifts and had a birthday party back in November before school broke up but on the real day we couldn't let it slip by without celebrating.

After weeks of pizza and pasta dinners we decided that Hard Rock Cafe was THE place to celebrate. Ice cream sundaes replaced traditional cake. So sit back and enjoy Riley's birthday pics :)

Ice cream sundaes and hard rock videos- just Riley's speed
Our big boy turns 9!

Ready to rock dinner!
The Trevi fountain and Riley
Riley at the Pantheon
Piazza Navona
Gelato on Pont St Angelo across from Castel St Angelo

Riley inside the Vatican Museum
Riley with his other "Mummy"

Inside St Peters Basilica
Coming down from the dome of St Peters

The down side of a magical snowy day in Florence....

So the down side of a magical snowy day in Florence is that Florence doesn’t really get heavy snow often and therefore doesn’t necessarily have the procedures in place to deal with lots of the white stuff!

We dragged our bags through the snow to the train station which thankfully wasn’t far and arrived inside to find hundreds of people milling around. The information boards were covered with “cancelled” signs and it seemed not many trains were getting in or out of Florence. We had a booking on a 10.10 train to Rome and within a few minutes it was added to the list of cancellations. I went to find some information whilst Mark waited on the platform with the kids and luggage.

I found the information counters and a queue that had some 200 + people….I am not quite sure of how many people because the queue snaked around inside the building then out the doors , around the block and finished somewhere near Rome!

When I returned to update Mark that I would join the queue there was a small info booth just setting up on the main platform area so I waited my turn and asked that lady what we should do. She looked at our tickets and replied it was no trouble to just go to platform 12 take that train to the local Florence network from which we could get a train to Rome. After about 20 minutes of standing on platform 12 without the train doors opening and other travelers joining us then leaving again and a never ending stream of helpful Italian instructions I made my way back to the helpful lady to ask again what was happening. This time she said in a very hurried manner we should go to platform 11 now, now. We rushed as much as family of 6 weighed down by full suitcases can and then asked the man on the platform who agreed we should get on. I asked about seating and he said “sit anywhere, sit anywhere”. So we did. Turns out, In true Italian fashion, we left on an earlier train (8.45 am) which left rather late (9.50am) ahead of our scheduled departure time (10.10 am) , went direct through to Rome and arrived about 45 minutes later than our initial scheduled arrival time! Go figure! Talk about C.H.A.O.S…

In any case we arrived safely in Rome for our remaining 4 days.

The following day we had booked a semi-private Vatican tour which was truly amazing. We had been to the Vatican twice before and had not seen most of what we were shown on this tour. Our guide , Peter, was an archeologist, educated in Rome and he had quite some years before worked for the Vatican escorting foreign dignitaries through St Peters so he was an absolute wealth of information, and even better he loved having the kids along and made it so interesting for them. We started in St Peters, then went down into the crypts before climbing up into the dome for views all over Rome. We then headed back down into the Vatican Museum. We even got to see the Egyptian collection which we all enjoyed.

We made another stop at the Trevi Fountain to throw coins in with the hope of one day returning to Rome. We also celebrated Riley's birthday(more on that to follow).

We finally arrived back in HK early morning on the 23^rd December with plenty of time to throw ourselves into the frenzy of last minute Christmas preparations.

Another short train ride finds us in Florence.....

Before lunch time !

We check into our hotel and then walk into town and start exploring at the area around the Duomo. Florence is so compact that in the following day and a half we feel we have explored fairly well and even spent the morning exploring the Uffizi museum and a special Caravaggio exhibit. The former home of the Medici’s makes a splendid museum. There was also a Christmas market in the piazza in front of Santa Croce for us to explore where they made fresh cooked hot dough rolls which were coated in cinnamon and Liam got a pot of hot nutella to dip it in as well, yumm!

In the afternoon we took a horse-drawn carriage ride through the old cobble-stone streets of the ancient city centre.

Madison, Callum and I decide to climb the 568 steps into the Dome of the Duomo and are rewarded with wonderful views over the terracotta roof-scape of Florence as we watch the sun set on our second day in Florence.

There was a fabulous rustic little restaurant a few doors from our hotel which served a great dinner and we ended up eating there two nights running. The snow covered outdoor tables were in the courtyard garden of that restaurant.

The second morning we decide to take backstreets into town and walk through a very extensive market selling leather-wares and all manner of Florentine handicrafts. We found a fabulous kitchenware shop where I bought some lovely coffee pots for real Italian espresso and also a shop where Callum got his first watch (he starts High School next year so it was about time ha ha ). I found a great shop which sold their own factory made leather hand bags and bought ….well, shall we just say… a few!

The snow had started to fall as we reached the market and over the course of the day it got heavier and heavier and heavier until there was a full foot of fresh powdery snow- heaviest snowfall in 25 years in Florence.

It was bitterly cold , well below zero as we explored the city. The plan had been to head across Ponte Vecchio and up the hill to the lookout but as we crossed the river Arno we realized the visibility was very poor so we headed back into town instead. The kids had a blast frolicking (read that as.. rolling around) in the snow. I took mountains more photos as we watched the light fade on a magical Florentine day. Everything pretty much closed up early as even the locals were excited by the snowfall. One of the churches near the city centre (San Lorenzo) had a wonderful little cherub projected on the façade which completely captivated me. The steps of that same church which the day before had been boring old steps were transformed into a great slope for the boys to tumble down now that they were under a foot of snow. (I gave you before and after photos here so you can get the idea! don't ask me which one of my crazy boys was tumbling down the steps in that photo- all three had a great time)

We finished the day back at the hotel trying to get some of their clothes dry and repacking the suitcases to accommodate our new purchases.

Tomorrow we will find out the "down-side" of the magical Florence snow day!