Confetti, Friends, and Jobs!

It has been a busy, busy few weeks in the Reynolds' household!  (I probably misused the possessive apostrophe there...and if I didn't...it was pure luck!!)  Anyway, Taylor's squadron (among many others on base) just went through an inspection.  Which pretty much means they all work crazy hours and walk on pins and needles for 10 days while the inspectors are digging and judging.  Fun times on base!  For Taylor this meant working 3-midnight all week and working the weekends.  For me this means nights on my own and a Saturday trip to Venice for Carnivale with the girls, of course!

I posted a few pics previously from the Carnivale, and I'll have more later, I'm currently babysitting at a friend's house and don't have access to my pics.  But honestly at this point I'm doing well to have the blog posted!  Anyway.  Three girlfriends and I headed down to Venice to experience the event of Carnivale.  It is pretty much Venice's Mardi Gras.  It goes on the few weekends before Ash Wednesday and it is full of costumes, parades, confetti, celebrations, balls, and all kinds of other fabulous things :)

We took the train down to Venice and started wandering the streets in route to San Marco's Square.  We took our sweet time and had a nice lunch at a cafe outside.  We decided we needed our faces painted, of course so we found face painters we all approved of.  We each got our faces painted and took lots of pictures to document the event :)  We stopped at a few bars along the way for drinks and wine and the best part of all we found bags of confetti for sale for 1 euro!  So we each bought a few bags of "magic" and proceeded to toss it over anyone and everyone who looked like they may (or may not) appreciate being showered with confetti.  We all agreed it just made every moment more magical and could totally get used to walking through glittery confetti...we were feeling a little Disney princess-ish.

But moving on...about 5 hours after arriving in Venice we finally arrived at San Marco's Square to see a big concert going on and tons of people!  We wandered for awhile longer, at this point full of confetti from my hair to my underwear...literally.  We decided it was time for dinner.  This did not prove to be an easy task.  We went into one restaurant who took us upstairs for a table then told us it would be a 2 minute wait.  Ten minutes later they told us 2 minutes again.  At this point we are all standing in a mess of our own confetti and glitter that had scattered on the floor and were feeling a bit like the ugly step children in the restaurant.  We decided we didn't have to take it and we'd find another restaurant.  The next restaurant brought us right in and sat us.  We sat for about fifteen minutes to finally have the server come over and tell us it would be 23 euro for a liter of house red wine.  That's RIDICULOUS in Italy!  We told him we would not pay those crazy prices and we would find another restaurant.  He then proceeded to be angry and rude to us and told us to clean our table (our trail of confetti followed us to this restaurant as well) or he would charge us.  And while we're in the middle of angrily cleaning our table he took the napkin out of our hands.  So we just stood up and left.  So we found a third restaurant that took us in and even served us, but the food was pretty bad and the wine was even worse.  That's what we get for eating so close to San Marco's Square...such rookies...it's like we were tourists or something!

After dinner we attempted a few more bar/cafe's but got turned away multiple times.  We're thinking it was a combination of our face paint and our confetti drenched clothing...it became rather humorous after the third time it happened!  We wandered for awhile longer and finally decided it was time to head back to the train station to go back home.

Sadly, there was one MAJOR detail we were misinformed about...the trains stopped running at midnight and the last train to Sacile was at 1130.  Everyone told us the trains ran all night during Carnivale.  Shame on us for not doing our research and BIG shame on us for having to call our husbands to pick us up at 230am (in the middle of their inspection when they had worked all day Saturday and had to go back in on Sunday!)  So Greg and Taylor, the wonderful, loving husbands they are, jumped in the car and drove down to Venice and picked us up at the bus station at 230am.  We had quite a bit of company at the station, apparently we weren't the only ones who missed the train memo.  So we finally arrived back home at 4am.  What a day!  On a side note...I think Taylor and I are finally even for one particular evening in college when I was called to pick up him and Thomas.  It took a few years...but things always even out :)

After changing into pajamas that night it looked like I had my own Carnivale celebration in my bathroom!  It is now two weeks later and I still have a car and a bathroom full of confetti!  I know, you're probably thinking two weeks later, really?  I know people, I know.  Don't judge me.  But I have good reason for having a dirty house still...it's because I have started a new job!  I don't think I've mentioned that on here yet, but I applied for and was chosen for the School Age Coordinator position at our Youth Center.  My boss was moving and I applied for her position.  So I moved from a counselor to a supervisory coordinator position.  The job is a GS position which means it is within the government civil service organization.  There are many benefits that go along with getting in the system...so that is a big bonus.  It is also a salaried job with benefits, paid leave, holidays, and all those wonderful luxuries I have yet to experience in a job.  So pretty much I'm announcing that I'm officially a grown up :)  Or something like that.

So far the job has been great, I have just completed Week 3 and was able to get my office organized and set up and I'm getting a handle on the day to day tasks and we have a few major projects/events coming up that we're in the process of planning.  So great things happening, but along with great things comes long hours!  But that's okay and to be expected for awhile!  Adjustments are being made in all assets of life, including my home life.  I'm not quite used to the lack of time I have to keep the home in order.  My kitchen looks like a college guy's kitchen, and my bedroom isn't much better.  I took my laundry to the laundromat last weekend and had to put the seats down in my SUV to fit all my laundry in the back.  Three commercial loads and two regular loads later I washed through three weeks of laundry!  Phew!  Taylor is helping out with household stuff, but during the week neither of us have the time...so it is what it is!

Anyway, there you have it, my past few weeks in a nutshell!  Hope you all are doing just as well!!

Ciao, ciao!!

Carnivale 2011

We spent Saturday in Venice for the Carnivale celebrations...so much fun!!  Here's a quick picture preview.  I'll update later :)