In the house

So we finally moved into our house last week, and of course it didnt go smoothly. Tuesday we got all of our stuff, surprisingly nothing major broken from the move, I think the only casualty was a picture frame. The only bummer is that alot of our small appliances, lamps, and various other electrical items wont work because of the difference in voltages. So we went and bought new lamps at Ikea but thats about it. The Housing office provides us with voltage compliant major appliances and transformers so we can plug a few American appliances into. The next day we got our oven, washer/dryer, and fridge. The hot water heater, dryer, and oven are all gas ran appliances so we had to get our tank filled with gas before they worked. Once we finally got gas the dryer, and oven worked, but no hot water. This is where it started sucking after about 4 days of technicians and plumbers going back and forth on what the problem was we finally got hot water in the house. Thats 4 days of cold showers... it sucked.

We still have a few lingering boxes to unpack. Probably wont be able to get phone service, or internet until September because the Italians take the month of August off for vacation.

Paighton has been taking swim lessons, she's now in level 2. Soccer will be starting soon. Thats about all i got for now... More to come.

Thats about all I got for now

Updates.. Sorry its been a while.

Good news. Ok so we had our inspection on the house today, and everything went good. We will sign the lease on the 4th, and after that we can move in whenever we want. Hopefully we can get our stuff moved in before the Italians take their vacations in August.

Back to Square One

So we received bad news yesterday about the house we have waited over a month for. The safety inspection was supposed to be yesterday but our realtor received a call saying that it was blocked from being rented and gave no reason why. We were angry because we've waited so long and if it was blocked we should have been told a month ago. We went to the office this morning to find out why and the landlord was also there. He was waiting to talk to the director to find the reason why as well. So we left for awhile to give them time to figure everything out and when we went back they gave us a few comment sheets from previous tenants stating that the landlord was terrible among other serious problems. The neighbors dogs bark always and the house has been broken into several times and nothing gets fixed and the landlord doesn't take care of the property and there's a mold problem...

So we decided those reasons were good enough to keep looking. Unfortunately the other house,(which we also loved) that we saw on the first tour was no longer available. We had an appointment with our realtor today. She showed us two houses. The first was a duplex which was kind of small, but nice. And the second was a little older but huge and pretty awesome. It had a lot of things that the first house we tried to get, didn't have, but we were hoping for. And our realtor knows the previous tenant and called her and let Sean speak with her to ask her any questions we had. She had nothing but good things to say so we are going to try again. We are hoping that they will fit us in a little quicker considering we have been here for 6 weeks and the only thing we are waiting on is a house. 

Heres some pics of our prospective abode..

evicted!

Updates! Apparently due to a clerical error on behalf of the wonderful Navy Lodge in Naples Italy, we are now having to find a hotel out in town because our room was reserved for 26 days vice 60 days alloted for Temporary Lodging. So now we are going to be staying in a hotel out about 30 minutes away from my work, and the Support Site where Paighton goes to school. Oh yea we still don't have a car to get around. Amidst everything else we have to this week we have to fit in moving hotels. Originally we were supposed to be attending an Intercultural Relations class this week to help us adjust and familiarize with the Italians, but now we will be switching hotels, and trying to purchase a "Naples beater" (car). Tomorrow we will be signing a pre contract on the house we want, that pretty much just means that the landlord agrees to not lease the house out to another family and fix any discrepancies noted in the inspection by Navy Housing. Even after the pre contract we still don't expect to be able to move until late June early July.

We wont get our Honda until the 17th, but we should at least have our other car later this week, im anxious to get out and start driving, Allison on the other hand doesnt feel the same about driving here. Thats about all I have for now. I will post some pics of our place this weekend.
Ciao


ps June Bug secretly likes Louie...

stolen goods..

So we've been in this hotel room for about a week now. I had a few pricey Express shirts in a plastic bag waiting to be turned into dry cleaning, and low and behold the day I go to turn them in they are now where to be found in the room. Can't really say if the room service ladies pilfered them or accidentally threw them out, but im out 2 sweet shirts ($100). Im pissed......

Were still here on base in temporary lodging... We were able to take a look at the base housing today, it wasn't bad. I'm still kind of sold on living out in town. Paighton started going back to school Wednesday, she seem to like it a lot. Today was "Host Nation" day where she learns a little bit about Italy. I checked into my command, but haven't started working. They usually give a month to let us get acclimated before throwing us on a watch bill. Hopefully within the next couple days we'll be able to start taking tours of houses for rent. We've seen my sponsors house and its pretty rad. We are all slowly adjusting and still excited about being here, but most of all we miss our June Bug... Maybe we'll take some pics and post them soon. Ciao!






Pig this pizza I ate in honor of you....It was named "Diavolo" (devil in Italian).





Paighton likes pizza....Especially when its the real deal.


Just in case any of you were wondering authentic Italian pizza can't be touched... mmmmm Mozzarella di Bufalo

we made it.

we arrived in naples some time this morning. my sense of time is really off. the car was taken to the shipping place early thursday morning. we got to the airport around noon in order to return the rental and take care of the dog. we got on our first plane a little late due to some delays with previous planes. and then our delays seemed to sort of snowball...our first plane from norfolk, va to washington dc couldnt take off due to thunderstorms. we made it to washington dulles airport with about 20 minutes to get to our next flight. we then booked it to the next gate to be rushed on board only to sit on the packed plane for nearly two hours because of the weather in new york. the flight from dc to munich was 7 1/2 hours...plus the two hours of sitting on the runway. we arrived in germany about 845am and had to get boarding passes for the next flight that was supposed to leave at 920. we made it as they were calling for us over the intercom. the flight to naples was about an hour long. we arrived and found our way to the baggage claim and waited. and waited. and waited until there were three stray bags...none of which were ours. we had a total of seven which includes june bug. who did make it safe and sound. so our sponsor met us at the exit and we gave the airline the info for our bags. we checked sean in at the base. and then to the support site to get checked into our temporary place. they didnt have a pet friendly room available so our sponsor took june bug to stay with him until we get a pet friendly place to stay. tomorrow we will go out and do some exploring. ill be sure to post pictures...

Goings on..

Yesterday we were in Eaton visiting the Rivers'. Grandpa Frank is his usual self, still hooked on the tea, biscuits and gravy, and his daily strolls through Eaton. We also had dinner with Aunt Jaimie and Great Grandma Riley. Today were headed up to Dayton to visit Fud and remedy my unfinished chest piece and maybe start something small that will be finished by the time we leave.

Not much has happened so far today. We did go to see earth last night. It was pretty awesome. Tonight we are headed to the Southgate house to see Lucero. Im looking forward to it. Its finally warmed up too. 

Happy Earth Day

Its earth day! We are hoping to go see the movie earth at newport today. Its still kinda chilly here with only a high of about sixty today. It should be eighty by Friday. I can't wait til it warms up so we can get outside...

in ohio...

We've pretty much just been hangin out and relaxing. We took Paighton to Parkys Farm with Jen Breuer and the girls. Me and Allison are planning on going to see Lucero at the Southgate house. I'll throw in a few pics of Parkys Farm.

Were in Ohio and ready to party..

Last Day in Florida...

I'm sitting at the Honda dealership waiting to get a new antenna (our radio sucks), when we should be on the road to Ohio. Booo! Long drive ahead of us and I hate driving late, 5 Hour Energy will be in full effect.

2 weeks left

We have about 2 weeks left in Jacksonville. My last day on the ship is tomorrow, and it just so happens that they leave for deployment the same day. I'm glad to be done with that place it was a good 4 years of being super stressed out all the time. The movers came and took all of our stuff this week, so were pretty much living in an empty house for about 8 more days. We had a little foul up with our travel arrangements, the military travel agency booked us on an airline that doesn't allow pets on trans-atlantic flights, so we had to re book with another airline.

It begins.

This is our way of keeping our friends and family in the loop of our Italian adventure. We will try to keep it up to date with tales and pictures of our awesome and not so awesome adventures in Naples.