Getting out the door with three small children isn’t a diminutive task. Just a trip to the grocery store generally requires a preemptive potty trip, locating of shoes and socks (perhaps coats), rounding up of snacks and water bottles, assistance to one or more in buckling their seat belt and then, lately, making sure that we have the appropriate traveling tunes (the Frozen soundtrack … or that much less desirable “Awesome” song from the Lego movie) ready to go. Our weekend outings require even more planning, and a trip up the side of the largest active volcano in Europe meant that we had to pack clothes for a 20 degree drop in temperature. Needless to say, we got a late start. However, our timing worked out perfectly. We made it up to the top of the mountain, after several stops for pictures along the way, spent an hour or so exploring one of the Silvestri craters (last active in the mid 1980s) and then headed back down the side of the mountain to Nicolosi for lunch. Afterwords we drove home and just as we tucked the boys in bed for nap time dark clouds rolled over the mountain and eventually brought thunderstorms to the area.
