Getting there

I finally have all the pics from our trip to Italy on my computer. I will begin the story at the beginning-the flights. We flew from Pittsburgh to Philly (1+ hours) and then from Philly to Milan (8 hours). It's never an enjoyable experience, but it does end :)

Here we are in Pittsburgh waiting to check our luggage - 4 + a carseat :)



Here's Teo smiling...on the 1st flight!


You never know how interesting the bottoms of your shoes are until you've run out of every other possible thing to do!

Santa was in Philly trying to cheer up everyone getting ready for long international flights.

And here's Maria, our experienced overseas traveler, on her way to Italy for the 4th time. She's all smiles! And Chiara seems to have stolen my seat while I got up to stretch. If you look closely, you will notice the poor guy who put up with us all that time. He wore his earphones a lot :)

Cati's 5th birthday in Italy!

I wanted to start posting pictures from our trip to Italy. When I looked at them this afternoon, I realized that I only have ones starting from January 1st. So, while I wait to get the earlier ones copied on my computer, I'll just have to start posting from here. So, we'll start with Cati's 5th birthday on Jan. 1st. She had a really wonderful day, especially since New Year's Day is a great day of celebration anyway. It really started the night before by watching fireworks from the Arcara's house at midnight. The next day, Nonna made a wonderful lunch and afterwards we had cake! It was from a pastry shop over there. It had small pastries along the border of the top of the cake. The icing was very light like pastry filling, and it had a layer of chocolate pastry filling between the two layers of cake. It was soooooooooooooooo good!!!





Then Cati open gifts and spent the rest of the day playing with her zii (uncles and aunt).

We're back!!

We're back from Italy!! Well, we actually got back a week ago. We had a wonderful trip, and we were sad to leave. Hopefully, we won't have to wait 3 and a half years before we go again (but, we just found out today that Maria will need 2 rounds of braces, so ....................).

We did so much during our trip, that it would take much more time than I have to tell it all. I'll try to start posting pictures soon to tell the story. I haven't even looked at the pictures from the trip!

We had Christmas #2 this weekend with all the gifts from our American family and friends. My living room is still a mess of boxes and toys. I'm trying to be patient with it until I get time to clean it.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. We loved all of the Christmas cards that we received! It was great to hear from so many people.

A Real Snow

It's been snowing all day, and now the kids are outside playing. We have about 2"-3" (5-7cm) on the ground, I think. We've been home all day. They are not good about plowing the roads on our neighborhood! So, we didn't go the Mass this morning. Cati's religious ed teacher call earlier to say that her class is cancelled this afternoon. So, we happily enjoying a day at home :)

We're very busy now getting ready for our trip to Italy. We leave in 9 days!!! So, this week, we're finishing up Maria's school work. I'm trying to get Christmas presents ready to mail to family and friends. On Friday, we're having 2 other homeschooling families over for a little party to celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas (Dec 6th) and the Immaculate Conception (Dec 8th). We'll be doing a couple of art projects and making gingerbread houses. It should be a lot of fun! But, that means today is my last day to do other stuff. Tomorrow, Maria will have swim & gym at the Y, and we will have to go to the store and clean the house. On Saturday, we're going to a birthday party of one of Cati's friends. And, next week will be dedicated to packing!

Buon Compleanno, Nonno!!

Buon Compleanno, Nonno!! A presto!!

We will see you all in 18 days!

(Chiara wanted to be in the picture, too, but she was napping)

Cati's swimming lessons

A few weeks ago, Cati started having swimming lessons on Monday mornings after Mass, instead of Thursdays. Her new teacher lets Maria swim during her lessons. Cati is doing so well in her new class! She's jumping in the pool. She's really close to swimming, if she would just kick. Instead, she kind of runs along the bottom of the pool while doing her strokes. It's pretty funny, but it's a great improvement!!

First Snow!

We had our first accumulating snow last night. It was less than an inch, but it still counts, especially for the kids. They had fun playing this morning. It's not too cold (only the low 30s...around 0 degrees C), so they wanted to stay out a long time. I finally had to call them in, so that Maria could start her school work.

Toda,y the girls will have their last classes at St. Vincent's until February. It will be nice for me to have our Friday afternoons free, but the girls will miss their classes. They love going there on Fridays!

Our weekend will be spent doing lots of cleaning for our Thanksgiving visitors!! We have a few projects we're working on, too...and that our contractor, Mike, is taking care of :) It's a surprise, though, so that's all I'm saying.