Catch Up!

Hello!


So sorry to have taken so long to blog but a lot has happened which continues to take a lot of our time....This post might be all over the place to catch you up with whats going on with the Hatchetts in Italy but I will try my best to keep it organized.'


Albert: He is doing a really good job in his position at command section.  Every time I go up there someone is bragging to me about him.  I am really proud of him and I know this position as Section Commander is really teaching him how to be a leader. (A huge blessing from the Lord  to get such a great opportunity). He also has an opportunity to go up to the group level for a couple weeks which is a big honor for such a new Lieutenant to be asked to do.

Jenny: I GOT A JOB!!! Praising and thanking God.  My job title is Training and Curriculum Specialist at the Youth Center on base.  This is such great opportunity!   The job is going to be very challenging and there is a ton of work to do but I am excited about learning how to do this role to help the staff, kids, and youth center as a whole. Thank you to all of you who had prayed for this to happen, God had His hands all over it. Now I am praying that I can be the light of Jesus there and be the best that I can be for His glory!

Travel: We are planning on traveling to a military resort in Germany for the long weekend. We are so excited to be in the mountains and maybe even get to go skiing.


I am adding pictures of Many things: More pics of Us at the Adriatic Coast-we brought flat Bella with us (a project we are helping with), Church Bon Fire, Albert in the Commander's Cup Challenge- Different obstacles were set up during the five mile challenge run. This was a lot of fun to watch, and Albert doing his first re-enlist ceremony for one of the enlisted ladies in his office.

Fire tower at the Bon Fire...We had so much fun getting to know the Aviano Baptist Family-sweet family

Our pianist at Church. Great Guy!

The people that participated in the Cup Challenge in Albert's Squad

The cake I made for this special occasion 

Our Happy Pumpkin

Hope you guys enjoy this post!

With Love,

The Hatchetts

Boxes! Boxes! Boxes!

Well,  I am behind a week, but I better late than never :0).   As the title states, there are boxes everywhere in the Hatchett house.  Our household shipment came in last Tuesday and ever since then it has been a whirlwind.  We feel so very blessed to have all our belongings here and to be able to set up house finally. Unfortunately, the bad news is that most of our appliances will not work here in Italy.  The voltage here is 220 Volts, 50 Hz and most all of our appliances can  only handle at max 110 Volts, 60 Hz.   If we were to plug them in, they would blow up! So we have decided to look on the positive, we will have a lot of new appliances when we get back to the states.  Last weekend we went to the beach (Adriatic Sea).  It was so much fun; the only down fall was Albert got food poisoning from the seafood dish he had, but it was so neat to be there.  They had tons of shells on the coastline (not something you typically see in Destin where we usually vacation).  We went to IKEA this past weekend to get some more furniture for storage...there isn't a lot of storage in Italian homes-very very small closets if any. If you know anything about IKEA furniture you know that it all has to assembled together, piece by piece.  This has been an adventure in itself because the drill we brought over burned up from the high voltage.  We bought a new one yesterday and seem to be back in business.  The weather here has been mostly cloudy with off and on rain. I guess this is normal weather for northern Italy's winter :0(. I have decorated the house with as many fall decorations as I have but as far as the outside feeling/looking like fall no such luck. I am little bit sad about this because I love everything about fall.

Albert has a new job working closely with his squadron commander.  He really seems to like it and is learning a ton!  I am still volunteering at the passport/soggiorno office as much as I can to keep busy but have had to cut back to spend time getting the house set up. I start level one Italian language classes at the local off base library today.  I am excited to see how it goes :))! We hope you all have a great week and hope to have another post for you by the end of the week!

With Love,
The Hatchetts

Pictures from our adventures over the past couple weeks:

The beautiful Chapel right on the beach

These rocks lined the beach and artist come and carve them. 

Very yummy dessert at the coffee shop we stopped in.

A side note: the coffee shop on base serves Starbucks coffe :)

A little Batty!!

Well this week was definitely full of its own adventures....Some of you know I have been praying intently for a job opportunity. This week there was a job fair on base and I was able to meet with the assistant of NAF  and the assistant director for the CDC and they seemed very hopeful for me to be employed with one of them :0). Now I am just waiting on the Lord to show me what door he has planned for me.

Another exciting thing that happened was I was able to volunteer at the Fall Bazaar here on base. Vendors came from all over to bring their goodies...there was furniture from Belgium, Handicrafts from Holland (very popular), wines/cheeses, candies, dishes/pottery from Italy, etc. We had a lot of fun walking around and seeing all of the different booths.  Albert spoiled me and got me a couple of goodies.  I have always wanted a piece of Cameo jewelry and there was an Italian family business that sold them at the bazaar. Albert got me an antique looking ring :)) so sweet! We also bought a bread making bowl from the Holland vendors, a great piece for decorating.

                                                    My lovely Cameo! Sorry for the blurry pic.

We went on a date night to a place called Bobe's...It was a tex-mex/burger place.  It was ok but it is not as good as Chewy's back home.

                                                     Enjoying his Cappuccino!  

On Saturday we helped the church we are attending at the church work day. It was a lot of fun getting to know a few of the members as well as the pastor and his wife (very sweet couple).  We served in the nursery this morning.  I think Albert had more fun watching Veggie Tales than the kids :0).  For lunch we were invited to a yummy restaurant called Casa Bianca. The dessert was the best, cheesecake!

                                                      Albert working at the church.

Our final adventure of the week happened this evening.  We were standing in the kitchen and four bats flew into our bedroom window!! It was so scary!! But we closed the door and turned off the lights and three of them flew out the window.  The last one would not fly out for anything. I had to eventually swat him (I am sad that he is a little injured) and shew him out the window. Needless to say thirty minutes later we were bat free but worked up. I had no idea that bats would fly in to be near the light ?? I also have a theory that the floor cleaner we used attracted them because it smelled of citrus and that was the whole reason we had the windows open in the first place to air out the room! Either way we learned a hard lesson tonight, Italian bats WILL fly into your second story window if they are open at night. 

That's it for this week....

Love the Hatchetts.

The Beginning:)

Howdy and Welcome! This is the first post on the adventures of the Hatchett's. I am super excited to be able to share our life with all of you and hope this will be a blessing. Living in Italy is very different than back home but it has been a lot of fun learning how to live here. The language barrier is sometimes frustrating (ex: I wanted to mail a letter at the local post office to the UK and I was charged at 2.40 Euro, I now think I got in the line that was mailing letters for first class but again you have to learn as you go here). We have made it a goal to learn as much of the language as possible. Italian is a really fun language because it is spoken with such enthusiasm. Our house is a four bedroom apartment with two bath. The floors are all hardwood or tile-very common in Italy. It is located a block away from the square in Aviano. We have a view of the mountains on one side and the square on the other. We found a sweet little Baptist church right here in Aviano that we hope to really get plugged into. Albert is really enjoying learning how to do his job in the AF in Force Support. I am currently volunteering at the passport and soggiorno(long term visa all dependents have to get to live here) office. We were finally able to get AFN (American Channels) this week, this helps make life feel a little more normal. Our internet will hopefully be hooked up this week sometime (a favorite life motto in Italy "Why do today what you can do tomorrow"-everything is done in tomorrows time:0) ). Although that motto can get frustrating at times, I have learned to appreciate the Italians' way of life. Everyday, dinner is a time for family and friends to get together and spend time with one another. Dinner can last up to four hours sometimes-usually four or five course meal with lots of visiting in the mix. I love the way that they greet each other on the street as if they hadn't seen each other in weeks but in reality its probably only been a day. They also don't have a business is everything attitude, shops are open at odd hours and closed days in a row with a daily nap time from 12:00-3:00. With all that said, we still have a lot more to learn about the culture and way of life here. We are taking one day at a time and thankful for the experience and blessings God has in store for us.