Grape Stomping

Hey there!  Let me start by apologizing for being away so long...I am not dead and nothing is wrong.  With several people--family, friends, and perfect strangers included--contacting me each day to check on my well being, I thought it might be important to start with a little, "everything's ok" message.  But I appreciate the concern and the support.  It's so nice to feel the love.  I have just literally been bogged down with life at the beginning of this school year!  Yikes!  What a fickle bitch I am.  At the end of the school year last year, I was begging summer to hurry up and come and then at the end of summer, I was begging her to hurry up and end.  Now all I want is just a few more days!  Come back, summer.  Just hang around for a few more days!  Please?

So, like I was implying, we've been REALLY busy here at Via Fontanelle during my unintended break from the blog. Life in Italy with four brats kids in four different schools is hectic, never dull, but always fun (hahaha, I hope you can detect the sarcasm).  So I've got a lot of catching up to do over the next couple of blog posts, but I wanted to post today about something amazing that we got to do in Italy over the weekend.  When we moved here, I made this little Italy must-do list that I keep in my head of random things that I wanted to do during our time living here in Italy.  It includes things like:

*Ride in a gondola in Venice

*See the chess match in Marostic

*Pick grapes and mash them I Love Lucy style with our feet

I've done all of these now, by the way, because this weekend we went grape stomping!  What an awesome experience it was for us!  The kids LOVED it.  And Francesca and her wonderful friends and family at the Salvan Urbano Vinicola were super to invite us to give it a try.  The kids actually got to pick the grapes from the vine, dump them in the giant mashing tub and jump in with their feet to stomp them.  There was wine and local food for sampling, live music, and lots of fun.  It was a great way to spend a weekend enjoying what our local area has to offer us here in Italy! But I cannot even begin to describe just how sticky it was....

(Let me apologize for all the pictures now)

 (Tory and her boyfriend, Drake--they've been dating forever in teenage years.  This is the smile that I always get from them)

(Delilah's future husband)

The man up there pouring the wine carved his name into the stone back in 1993...

Sure would love your vote!