Saturday, October 4th – Today

Mike was off to the boat show for work and I took the kids to board the huge “pirate ship” AKA “the Neptune” that is right in front of us. It was okay until my son somehow managed to run, trip, and fall and get his arm wedged into a wood grate. At the same time his head and ear hit the ground and he let out his classic fire engine cry. I thought his ear was ripped off by the way he was screaming. Luckily it was just a really bad scrape and bruise. We iced it down and went back to the boat. That took about 20 minutes from beginning to end. CHECK! We saw the Neptune.

We did school lessons and nap time after that. Mike came back and we took the kids to the “jumpy house”. The “jumpy house” is a fenced off area with huge inflatable slides. It is $6 for 30 minutes. We decided to do it and have done it every night since. Funny the things you notice as a parent that you didn’t before, jumpy houses and carousels seemed to be everywhere we look these days, I don’t remember that before! Afterwards we found a great little tiki bar on the water. An old boat was docked up to the bar and there were tables, umbrellas, etc. We saddled in and decided to have an adult beverage. Well, as soon as we sat down they brought out 2 bowls of potato chips, a bowl of peanuts, 4 ham sandwiches, and 4 salami sandwiches! What the??? Okay. It was free. Now that’s how you do it, Dave Chapelle style. That’s what we call it when we manage to score free or low-priced items on our adventures. Free food, oh yeah! So after Mike’s Mojito and my Sangria we both opted for margaritas. We headed back to make dinner and then again preceded to crash.

Sunday, October 5th

The following day we decided to go to the aquarium. This place was absolutely awesome! Our local Virginia Marine Science Museum needs to step it up a bit. Are you kidding me?!?! This place was worth the money and we were into it just as much as the short people were. They had everything from touch tanks and exotic fish to dolphins, manatees, and penguins! The kids had lunch and crashed after that. We visited our local hang out, the jumpy house again, and then finished with dinner and bed. Are you noticing a theme with the end of the day or what?!?!?

Monday, October 6th

Mike was back to the show and on his return, we ventured out and played at the Porto Antico, checking out the parks and the boats. We had dinner at our little tiki joint – had to keep our streak alive (where our kids were totally jamming out to the techno-jazz they were playing and the stars of Genova) and then visited the jumpy house place….again!

We are heading out tomorrow for Trieste, Italy and it will be yet another long train ride. Packing up tonight and getting up around 4am to get on a 6am train.

Stay tuned for Genova to Milano to Venezie to Trieste…or so we hope!!! Who knows what might happen!!!

And stay tuned for more great pics of Mikel’s boat at Porto Antico…if we ever get bandwidth back!!!