Wordless Wednesday

Rainbows…

So happy to be raising a group of rainbow spotters who get just as excited as I do to see one...

Just Being

This was one of those fabulous Italian weekends where the weather is perfect and where you makes plans weeks in advance and then everything falls through due to some unplanned event.  It sound terrible, right?

It wasn't. As much as I would have liked to hang out in Florence with our wonderful friends traveling to Italy from America, our family just really NEEDED a break from LIFE.  Thankfully, the weather cooperated and we were able to spend some time outside before the weather turns nasty for winter. (It really, really does rain almost every day from October through May) The kids played outside, we took a Sunday afternoon drive (that really happened on Saturday), we washed a ton of clothes and hung them on the clothesline and on the clothes racks, and I shared wine and conversation with a new friend in one of my favorite tiny villages here in Italy. Living here in Europe is such an amazing opportunity, but it can be hard to just take a week off to let normal life happen. You feel as if you always have to go go go and see the sites and visit the places before moving back home to America.  The clock is always ticking--except for us, it's not our biological clock it's our travel clock! It felt nice to just "BE" this weekend....

Here are some "random life" shots from this weekend.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

I took this looking out my bedroom window this morning.  This part of Italy is very foggy--something that I didn't know before I moved here.  I can't help buy think of Heathcliff walking across the moors from Wuthering Heights. 

Our Italian Toll Booth Pees Money

It just so happens that our daily life here in Italy usually involves several trips each day through the toll booth. At least two trips are made each day, sometimes more, depending on the measure of hectic-ness in our day. Four trips each way are not uncommon in a day... I often find myself collecting coins in increments of 80 cents Euro since this is the cost of a trip back and forth from my house to the toll booth nearest to post.

No, I do not have a Telepass...and Yes, having one would make life so much easier.  No excuses....

Anyhow, my children are all use to the trip through the toll booth. And all of them know the cost of the trip. It's the job of the passenger to hold the toll booth ticket until we exit and to riffle through the change in search of the 80 cents Euro. 

Jackson has become increasingly interested in this whole process since at school,  he is learning about making change.  Keep in mind, the money we use over here looks vastly different than the money he is learning about at school but fortunately, his teacher has introduced the concept of American money versus Euro, so he's at least familiar with them both. 

Last week, we were on our way home from picking up the oldest brat from cross country practice on post. We were exiting the Autostrada and had stopped at the toll plaza in our town to pay our 80 cents toll. I inserted my ticket and had dropped my usual 80 cents into the cup and was pleasantly surprised when instead of simply rasing the arm to let me, I was rewarded with a €2 coin dropping into the change return. I excitedly told the kids that we had actually made money on this trip and explained to them what had happened. Jackson immediately asked if it was American money and I told him that no, it was European money. Delilah, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for this ride piped up with, "No, he's not! Jackson's not peeing money!!" 

Get it?

European money...

Ur a Peein' money!

I cracked up!

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A Picture Book by Trey

It consistently drives me crazy that my children fight and don't want to spend every waking moment cuddled in the embrace of one or all of their siblings, but since I'm an only child, I'm told by my friends with siblings that I'm totally wacked to think that behavior would ever be normal,  I can dream, right?  And then every now and again they actually act like they don't want to kill each other. Here's proof:

Trey wrote this book about his adventures playing outside and catching lizards with his sister one day after school a couple of weeks ago.  He's been begging me to share it on the blog, so here it goes:

The captions are the words that he wrote for his picture book.

Delilah and Trey's Lizard Hunt

With Sparkle the Lizard 

We are going on a lizard hunt

We look for lizards

Then we find one

We name it Sparkle (Mom's Note: Delilah names everything Sparkle)

We have to let Sparkle go

Sparkle has to go home

Bye bye Sparkle

Credits

*Mom for the pictures

*Delilah for being a great lizard hunter

*Sparkle for being calm while we took pictures

*Me, Trey for everything else

He came up with the story on his own and then printed it himself. 

And then he read it to her...

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And Summer Turns to Fall...

One of the many things I love about living in Northern Italy is that Mother Nature provides us with the opportunity to experience all four distinct and wonderful seasons here. As summer slowly shifts into fall, I'm reminded of all the things that make fall my favorite season: College Football, Back to School, cooler nights with still-warm days, Halloween, breezy days and falling leaves, chunky sweaters....

Just to name a few. 

I love fall. And fall in Northern Italy is equally easy to love. The vines are full of grapes just waiting to be picked, town sagras are in full swing, and my neighborhood farmers are busy harvesting. I love it all. 

Except the flies.

 If you grew up in a farming community, then you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about, but if you didn't or haven't ever lived in one, let me explain.

When the farmers start to harvest their fields, the flies arrive in throngs to feast on the dead foliage.  It's really quite gross...and don't even get me started on what happens when they lay the fertilizer here...because they use "natural" fertilizer here, and that's just gross.

The first year we lived here, I was convinced that the fly infestation was the result of my missing neighbor's decaying body--it wasn't by the way, at least I don't *think* it was, since he's still missing. But after talking to my other neighbors, we've come to the realization that the flies are just part of the landscape around here, at least in the fall...

We've asked almost every Italian we know how they combat the flies, and they all say the same thing...keep your windows shut.  Don't go outside, because they come inside when you open the doors.

Somehow, I don't think "Fly Infestation" is an excused absence from school, so we'll be going with the suggestion of another one of our Italian friends: The Fly Stick!

I stuck it in the corner of our window down by the bottom of the screen ON THE INSIDE OF THE WINDOW and this is how many we caught in just ONE day.

WARNING:  This is GROSS!!  Be prepared!!

I know, right?!?! GROSS!! I'm seriously considering keeping it as a centerpiece on the kitchen table--as   a warning to the other flies!

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