How many of you woke up this morning and thought, “Oh bummer, the long weekend’s over! No more Thanksgiving for a year!” Some of you trudged back to work or study, others watched our spouses trudge off and turned around to quiet houses without cozy adult companionship.
Well, Lena has a message for you if you’re down. Her new word… er, phrase gave me warm fuzzies this morning as the week began without our Elliott/Daddy at home.
In other news, how many of you are doing some Cyber Monday shopping today? Last year I took advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday in the States to get some amazing deals on yarn for my Etsy shop and to buy cloth diapers at a great price from here. This year in Italy… hmm, no online purchases yet, but I’m very tempted by all the cute baby clothes and darling wooden toys at serious markdowns on Totsy.
Anything tempting you? Or do you avoid that craziness?
what is actually happening in my life vs. what I wish was happening in my life
Well, I was thinking of sharing some fun photos from our time back in the States. (See above right photo.) However, at 7:40 this morning (5 minutes after I woke up) the door bell rang and there was a work crew on the front step. What?! So early.
It’s okay, though. Early can be good. I knew they were coming to do an assessment today because we have an issue with our faulty chimney leaking smoke into our house. After the assessment we planned to decide on huge chimney repairs vs. getting a wood stove installed in the fireplace instead. Suddenly, a few minutes after they arrived, I heard a hammer hitting the wall and chunks of plaster hitting the floor. “Stop! What are you doing?!” Well, so much for an assessment. The chimney will be fixed this week!
Well, maybe not this week. But in “a few days.”
My house is a total disaster, with dust everywhere, a man pounding on the chimney, and huge chunks of plaster falling to the floor. (See above left photo.) My baby, meanwhile, is trying to sleep in the other room. I think she actually is sleeping, but that’s only because I have the White Noise Lite app on my iPhone turned up so loud that at first she couldn’t sleep at all.
Oh living in Italy! I really love it, but it’s definitely hard with the language/communication barrier sometimes. I only wish I spoke fluent Italian and could be trusted to do all the communicating on my own. But instead every conversation has to go through an interpreter, often over the phone… and when you’re cell phone doesn’t get good reception in your house, that adds to the complications!
Anyway. Here’s a fun video of Siena and Lena to end today’s post. (I keep calling Siena “Luna” because that’s my sister’s cat’s name.) You can see one of Lena’s greatest interests every time I take a video of her… oh vanity, you start so young!
What kind of phone do you have? Lena and her Uncle Jonathan tell you which is best:
Happy news: my first guest post ever is on The Book of Love blog! I am thrilled to be a part of Alison’s beautiful Story/Book series and to be talking about one of Lena’s favorite children’s books. Our friend Leslie Roe took the beautiful photos for us for it and I just love them. (Now I see why people hire a photographer to follow them around every now and then! Have you ever done that? Maybe someday….)
Lastly, don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a pair of fingerless gloves. I’ll announce the winner at 3pm EST tomorrow, September 28!
Our second morning on the Amalfi Coast dawned so crisp, clear, and beautiful that we almost didn’t mind our daughter rousing us at 7am. Just look at the view from our apartment! (If you’d ever like to stay there yourself, here’s the listing.)
Elliott took this video of the scene as well as his two lovely ladies:
We couldn’t wait to see the town so we set off on a short walk to shop for some fruit. Lena enjoyed a fresh apricot (she’ll eat five a day) on the steps of the church in the middle of town.
Later that morning we all walked back down to the beach below our apartment for surf and sunshine:
The individual lidos are demarcated by the different colored umbrellas. If you choose to go to a lido, you will pay between 3-5 euro for a day’s use of an umbrella and a couple of lounge chairs. As always, we chose to pay nothing and laid our towels down wherever we could find space.
Check it out, Lena is actually looking at the camera and smiling!
Twice! Sorta.
Finally, after Lena’s afternoon nap, we hopped into our car and drove about 20 minutes up into the hills to visit the magnificent town of Ravello. To my surprise, Ravello was my favorite of all the Amalfi Coast towns we visited, although it’s far from the coast. The beauty of the mellowed-by-time buildings, the peace in the many blooming gardens, the spectacular views down green hills to the coastline, the clinks of cutlery on crystal in the piazza-side cafes, the bursts of color from pottery shops, and the overall understated charm of the whole town completely drew me in.
Lena is wearing an outfit I wore when I was a baby. Jess is, as usual, wearing an outfit I wish I could wear today. (We’re definitely enjoying each other’s clothes as long as she’s visiting!)
The magnificent Villa Rufolo, which I imagine Mark Ruffalo lives in between filming movies.
Old vineyard just outside the center of town.
Quiet garden where a father and son were painting together.
A cinquecento (or “500,” named for its 500 cc engine), the quintessential Italian car.
I took the video below of Lena climbing steps in Ravello. I love how she grunts after each step. Such an effort for little legs!
We returned to the town of Amalfi and almost had a heart attack when fireworks started exploding right outside our window. Later we learned they were to celebrate the festival of Our Lady of the Snows. Italians, who love all festivals and any excuse to shoot off fireworks, were commemorating a legend from 4th century Rome in which snow fell in August. A parade of boats streamed from town to town along the coast and each town obliging shot off fireworks late into the night.
Elliott and I put Lena to bed and left Jess in charge, and then dressed up a little and headed into town on a date! We’d both been craving a meal of fine seafood, and Elliott had researched for an hour earlier that day to determine an appropriate restaurant. He settled upon Ristorante Marina Grande, an establishment that prides itself upon upholding sustainable fishing practices and serving locally caught seafood and locally grown food. It was a perfect choice.
I love their bread bags instead of baskets… and the beautiful drawing of the town of Amalfi on the front of their menus. We could find our apartment in the drawing!
Elliott perused a wine menu that was almost as big as he was. To begin, we chose the tasting of seven appetizers, which included seven vastly different types of seafood. For a main course I chose the homemade rosemary gnocchi with prawns and oranges (there were a lot of flavors goin’ on in that one… almost too much for a pregnant woman to handle) and Elliott chose a dish bursting with seafood: linguine twisted around shrimp, calamari, and several kinds of shellfish.
That was our last day on the Amalfi Coast, at least on this trip. We must come back! We drove down the coast the next day and enjoyed our first stay at an agriturismo that night. Tomorrow I’ll have some photos of Lena with pigs and horses and kittens (oh my!).
Jessica reminded me about this video that I took on our family vacation. She wants me to post it so that she has a pick-me-up while studying for the NCLEX (nursing exam) this week. Wish her luck… she takes it on Friday!
In the meantime, goofy fun with the Garbers, with lots of giggles from Lena. This is probably my favorite Lena video ever. :-)
