Italy - Day One

If you have read my posts about our quick trip to the northeast, you might just be thinking this is becoming a travel blog.

Honestly, I wish it could be because I LOVE to travel!

If I had unlimited funds and time, I would love to travel as much as possible.

But since I can't, I am finally going to take some time to write about our time in Italy.

Especially since my last post about Italy was back in April...

Our first day in Italy wasn't even a full day, so I am not sure if I can really count it as day one, but I am going to anyway.

We landed in Rome around 3pm local time. Since we didn't check any bags, we didn't have to wait around for our luggage once we got off the plane. 

We had to take a train into Rome from the airport. There are actually a few less expensive options to get from the airport into Rome, but we knew we didn't have a lot of daylight hours left on this day. And after a nine hour flight (and a nine hour time difference), we were ready to get outside and enjoy some of Italy!

Once we made it into Rome, we took a taxi to our AirBnB.

One thing I would highly suggest if you are going to take an international trip...be sure to add the international plan to at least one of your phones! We needed to call our AirBnB hosts at each location, and being able to check in with our kids gave me a bit of peace of mind as we were traveling so far away from home!

Anyway, once we got all checked in, our gracious host told us to head toward Campo de' Fiori and look for the Forno to find some really great Italian pizza!

Fresh flowers for sale at Campo de' Fiori

After we finished eating our pizza, we walked along and across the Tiber River.

If my health app on my phone is accurate, we walked just under 3 miles on this day and got just a small taste of how beautiful Italy is!

Like I said, we didn't have a lot of time on our first day in Italy, but it was definitely enough to document it with a few photos!

Stay tuned for more from our Italy trip!

Shoot, Share, and Don't Stress

My friends over at Compassion have started doing monthly webinars again which I am so excited about! These monthly webinars help each one of us be more effective advocates for Compassion.

The crazy thing is, they actually asked me to be on a panel with my friend Sam for this month's webinar, Get Social Media Savvy.

Who is Sam?

Sam is the social media manager at Compassion. His team handles all of the Compassion blog posts and all the social media channels for Compassion. I can't even imagine how crazy busy his team is on an every day basis!

Just so you know, I am not a social media expert. I just want to use my voice and the tools that are available to help spread the message of Compassion.

The webinar should be available very soon if you are interested in watching it.

In the meantime, I thought I would recap my three points in how you can use social media to advocate for Compassion.

Shoot - take pictures!

What should you take pictures of? A sponsor selfie, letter writing, attending the Compassion Experience, hosting a Compassion Sunday, volunteering at a Compassion event, any photos that have to do with your involvement with Compassion.

The biggie photo? If you have had the chance to travel and meet your Compassion sponsored child, I sure hope you have photos from that experience!

Since there are people in your sphere of influence who might still be skeptical of Compassion, a photo of you with your sponsored child speaks volumes!!

Now that you have some photos, what should you do with them?

Share - post them on your favorite social media channel!

With each photo that you share, write something from your heart about that photo and/or experience.

Sponsor selfie - why do you sponsor a Compassion child?

Letter writing - maybe share something from a recent letter from your sponsored child

Compassion Experience - share the impact this experience had on you and your family

Compassion Sunday - share why you advocate for other Compassion children

Volunteering - share something meaningful from your experience

Meeting your Compassion sponsored child - if you have had this opportunity, I am sure you can share volumes about this experience!

What else can you share?

Compassion has great content on all of their social media channels. When you see something they have posted that resonates with you, add a few of your own thoughts and share!

You can also mention Compassion and use hashtags in your posts. Compassion might just respond to your post to encourage you!

So what is the last point?

Don't Stress

I am going to say it again...I am not an expert!

Don't worry about knowing all the social media rules and guidelines.

Share from your heart!

Keep a balance - if you post regularly on social media, make sure it is not all about Compassion. 

Don't be discouraged - not all of your Compassion posts will bring Compassion sponsors. Be faithful in sharing. God already knows who will be sponsoring Compassion children and He will bring them about in His timing!

Still have questions? Comment below and I will try to answer them or find someone who can answer them for us!

Quick Trip to the Northeast - Day Five

Today's eventual destination for me: home!

But first, we had a few places to visit before Matthew took me to the airport.

First stop: The Springfield Armory National Historic Site

This is one place Matthew was really looking forward to visiting! This is where George Washington gave authority for rifles and muskets to be manufactured to be used starting with the Revolutionary War. The actual armory closed in 1968. Currently, the historic site houses an amazing collection of historic military firearms.

There is no entrance fee for this site, so if you happen to be in the Springfield, Massachusetts area with a major history buff, be sure to put this place on your list of places to visit!

Next up, the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut

We did go on the tour of the house, but we were not able to take pictures inside the house. Very interesting to hear more about Mark Twain's life on our tour and see the inside of this amazing home. Definitely worth the tour price!

Practically right next door is the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe

One thing we learned while reading up on her life, her husband also attended Bowdoin College in Maine! If we had more time, I would have liked to go on this tour also, but it was getting close to the time I needed to get to the airport.

Overall, this was an incredible trip! So happy to have had this time to spend with my son, exploring part of our country together.

He has now been to 44 states and I have been to 39. 

We may need to start a new map charting all of our other country travels soon!

If you haven't read the other days of our trip, you can read day one here, day two here, day three here, and day four here.

Where have you traveled lately?

Quick Trip to the Northeast - Day Four

Today's starting point: Portland, Maine

Today's destination: Springfield, Massachusetts

First stop, Starbucks in Maine...with no luck finding a Been There mug. We stopped at a couple of Starbucks in Maine, but were told that the mugs there sell out as soon as they get them in stock. I have looked for them online, but crazy people are selling them for $25 to $60...what! I don't need one of the mugs THAT badly!

Anyway, back to the trip and some of today's stops along the way.

Normally, the quick route from Portland, Maine to Springfield, Massachusetts would be about 3 hours and 11 minutes. But Matthew needed to get to Vermont to check that state off of his list of states visited. So we took the scenic route from Portland, Maine over towards Brattleboro, Vermont. This route would take us more like 4 hours with no stopping. But Matthew found a few things for us to explore today.

First up, Franklin Pierce's grave site in Old North Cemetery, Concord, New Hampshire:

This grave site was a little easier to find than Joshua Chamberlain's. But you can see that both men were graduates of Bowdoin College.

I was enjoying being the passenger on the drive today!

Next stop, trying to find Rudyard Kipling's home...

We knew this one would be a long shot, especially since the home is not open to the public. Apparently, the home in Vermont is where Kipling wrote 'The Jungle Book' and a couple other books. At least we can say we were on Kipling Road in Vermont.

We never saw a Starbucks while we were in Vermont, so no luck on the 'Been There' mugs in this state either.

And just like that, we were back in Massachusetts...

We both found somewhere to stop by before heading to the hotel for the night.

The Dr. Suess National Memorial Sculpture Garden is a free area to explore in Springfield, Massachusetts. This is definitely a must see spot!

This next stop is probably ever LEGO-loving boy's dream spot!

If you are ever in or near Enfield, Connecticut, be sure to swing by the outside of LEGO USA Headquarters to see these giant LEGO bricks! Not really anything else to see here, but definitely a photo worthy stop!

Since there are no In 'n Out Burgers on the east coast, we settled on Five Guys for dinner. Still prefer In 'n Out Burgers, but I loved the cherry milkshake at Five Guys, yum!

And just like that, we were at the end of day four...

The last sunset on the east coast from this trip...

Missed the posts from the first three days? You can read about day one here, day two here, and day three here.

Stay tuned for one more post from this trip!

Quick Trip to the Northeast - Day Three

The main things on the agenda for today: short hike in Acadia National Park and drive back down to Portland, Maine.

Initially, Matthew was wanting to do the Beehive Loop. But he wasn't feeling 100% (darn allergies!), so the park ranger suggested the Great Head Trail. This trail starts out across Sand Beach (I know, original name, right!), then up the side of a hill and around the perimeter of a small peninsula. The views were amazing!

At one point, there was a group of kids on a park ranger walk, so I asked if one of them could take a picture of me with Matthew.

Driving through the park in early June, all I could think about was how amazingly beautiful this must be in the fall with all the autumn colors! I really need to think about planning another trip out here in the future!

Since it was getting close to lunch time, and we were both starving by this point, we decided to get a quick drive thru lunch and start our drive down to Portland.

Before we got to Portland, we stopped in Brunswick and drove by Bowdoin College. Joshua Chamberlain (colonel of the 20th Maine, class of 1852) and Calvin Stowe (Harriet Beecher Stowe's husband, class of 1824) are just two famous students who attended this college. 

During our Civil War reenacting days, we started out with the 20th Maine. So Matthew did a quick bit of research and found that Joshua Chamberlain was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery which is close to Bowdoin College. Since it had just been Memorial Day, all the little United States flags made it a little bit easier to search for his grave site. After a bit of walking around, we found it:

If you go to the cemetery, you will find the grave site over on the far right, close to the fence.

Once we left the cemetery, we just had to go to Freeport to see the L.L. Bean flagship store! This place has multiple buildings and a huge boot outside one of the buildings:

We stopped into the Starbucks across the street to see if they had any of the Maine Been There mugs and we didn't have any luck. The guy behind the counter said they sell out of them as soon as they get a shipment of them. Since we had one more night in Maine, I was hopeful that we would find a Maine mug.

We still had one more full day together and more driving to do the next day.

Stay tuned to see what we ended up finding next!

Did you miss day one and day two of the trip? You can read about day one here, and day two here.