Mondonico

I love pictures of people whole hardily (i thought the word was heartedly, but apparently word check red lines me!) cracking up.  We are on a much needed break, the Wilhelms invited us up to their place in Brianza.  This is the house that Francesca's great grandfather built.  He made his money in the wool industry.  It's now used by her family for weekends and summer stays because sort of in the boonies, but close enough to get some fresh air every once in a while. Trivia:  It's so lovely out here, that, well  remember Mick Hucknall of Simply Red?  He's got a winery somewhere in these parts.

Pietro, King of the Mountain.

Sophia rides her bike along the garden path.

Hunting for bugs is a favorite past time here.

Mom and Dad enjoy the view (my dad is such not an A's fan, but yet give him a free hat and that guy will be plugging ads around the world).

Max is gets on with his favorite past time, bbq'ing.  PS notice the scaffolding behind him, the Salas (Fra's parents, are having to fix the excterior of the house because a woodpecker has ruined it.  I thought they just pecked in trees, but apparently their beaks are strong enough to break stone).   It's illegal to shoot the pests, but people do anyways because otherwise it is nearly impossible to get rid of them and the early morning noise is a real nuisance.

This is the view looking at the town of Mondonico.

I want a house with a cool tower too!

After living in the burbs of Milan for so long, I've almost forgotten what a real forest looks like.

Cute little road and plus I like the simple perspective.

playdate with the wihelms (what? again!?)

the wilhelms invited us over to play and have dinner (max had to work tho).

we made masks

pre-carnivale dress-up
and finally i have a picture of alessandro (i try not to use the flash with him so usually the pics come out blurry...this time the flash accidentally went of, so i actually got a pic, hooray! doesnt he look like a mini francesca!?)

pietro house

from the time she woke up this morning sophia has been shouting ' pietro house, pietro house.' she even sang a song in the car about 'pietro house.' the kids are getting so good playing with each other, especially since pietro is soooo good about sharing is toys with sophia! and of course we ate loads and loads again. fra and paolo made brasato, which is like a pot roast cooked in veggies and wine and eaten with polenta. OMG it was sooo good. and there was also an artichoke torta and some fresh olives (soaked in parlsey, garlic and peperoncino), gorgonzola, then fresh fruit and pastry cream, i made a chocolate cake and there was an apple cake too. i must weigh a ton now! i cant go back to their house until after the class reunion or else i will be as big as a house! max and i are like 2 old people, we just cheered a glass of alkaseltzer...plop plop fizz fizzzzzzz!

The Eve of Christmas Eve

Went to the Whilhelms. The kids decorated cookies and a ginger bread house. They had lots of fun making a mess together!

...so of course after getting messy together, they also had to get clean together too! And PapaPaolo was ready to bust a move and dry some hair.

Casa Wilhelm

at the end of the night, we found the kids jumping on the futon together...

Pietro's Birthday

Today was Sophia's friend Pietro's birthday party, he is turns 2 too. We went early to Fra and Paolo's house to help set up the party. Unfortunately Sophia decided not to sleep, so by the time all the kids started coming over she was tired and grumpy and tantrum-y. But she had a good time anyways and ate LOTS of focaccia!!!!! Then we went to Nanni and Francesca's house to have hamburgers and hot dogs...they live just a couple of hundred meters away, on the 7th floor. Of course the elevator was BROKEN!! but we had fun and ate lots of junk food and the boys play WII...who wants to be that Max will complain about his elbow hurting tomorrow on the drive down to Tuscany.

Making Pietro's presents

This is Sophia's first week of 'summer vacation'. We pulled her out of the preschool because friday we are leaving to a wedding in Siena, after that she will remain in Tuscany with her grans and stay at the sea. We made bday presents for her friend Pietro. Which was good because we didnt want to start the vacation time off with just Dora and the Backyardigans. Sophia was such a good girl. She drew and painted the whole time. I can see she gets her creative genes from the her mommy's side of the family. But her attention span is much better than mine!!! I had to take breaks and do other things, she just kept going and going. Eventually we made a special little present...I hope Pietro likes it. He has a lot of clothes and toys already and so I wanted to do something different. The picture came out much better in my head, but since I havent painted in such a long time I was struggling with using the paints (in fact I had started off in oils and just abandoned the project because the whole thing looked like a war with paints instead of the night sky...oh well). It was a long day because then after we went to Vulcano to shop for a dress for Lilliana's wedding (and shoes and makeup and everything else) and then we came home. Sent Sophia to bed and watched the beginning of Project Runway (3rd season) while I made some jewelery to go with the dress and a necklace and bracelet for Simona's bday. Crazy! Tomorrow will be another full day because we need to get stuff done for my permesso di soggiorno (the green card here...yes we are still working on it!!!) and last minute stuff for the wedding.