Uncle Daniele

Our second and last trip to the beach. Uncle Daniele has been helping me A LOT with the boys. Thank you zio Daniele!!!! Aaron and Jordan miss dad like crazy (who has already gone home). But having a fun uncle helps a lot.

I love this smile.


Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Visiting lots of friends

This is my favorite picture of the boys with uncle Daniele.

I'm in the frenzied count-down of going home and trying to see and visit everyone I want to. We took a trip to San Luca, a huge cathedral way up on a hill, with our friends Roberto and Giuliana. Good to see them before we go.
Playing at the park.
The girl in pink is Anna. I used to babysit her before I had Aaron. She was a doll then and she still is now. She has a little sister Livia and little brother Giacomo. Cuties all of them.

Trip to Prato

I went this last Monday and Tuesday to visit one of my favorite families, the Furia family. I initially met them on my mission and have kept in contact since. I got the royal "mamma italiana" treatment- meaning spoiled rotten.
Their youngest daughter's name is Letizia. Aaron and Leti were friends from the second they re-met. As you can see, hand in hand. Aaron has never done this with any other kid in his life (walk around the park hand-in-hand for more than 2.1 seconds- Aaron's attention span).
I love this faithful family. They have always been so nice to me!

Jordan would NOT take a nap for me, but he did fall asleep in Letizia's arms. Magic. Thanks for the visit and good food and friendship!

Bathroom issues and the beach

So yesterday we were out and about for a really long time. We stopped to get a pizza on our way home. Aaron really had to go, and of course there was no public bathroom. So Paolo took him outside to find a bush. It's nice to have boys in that sense. Aaron came back delighted and told me that he had pee'd a river of pee. Very proud.

As we were coming home and walking around the corner to go inside, he suddenly pulled down his pants and pee'd on our wall right in front of our front door! When he was done he exclaimed "mission complete"! We then had a talk about when it's ok to pee outside or not.
When we came home today from visiting family, it was really late in the afternoon and the boys were exhausted. So I proposed that we cuddle on my bed. They immediately jumped under the covers and started to cuddle each other. One of those cute, rare moments that you'll never forget.
This is our first trip to the beach! They boys had the time of their life.

Aaron wanted to make a "sand angel" like you would in the snow- except in the sand.
Jumped right in.
These guys had so much fun even though the water was cold. They played about 45 minutes in the water before complaining that they were cold.

Here we are visiting Ferrara. I love this little town. The boys had fun seeing the huge castle in the middle of down town. To be honest though, they asked the whole time we were here to be able to go to the beach. Shouldn't have told them about what was coming next. :)

Our first week

We went to the baseball field to go see some friends and the boys had fun playing, and chasing the baseball.

We also got to see some friends. This is Roberto and Giulianna. Roberto is great with the kids.
Eating gelato together. How I love Italian ice cream!
Every time we passed by this cone (at least 6 times) Aaron would try and lick. Disgusting I know!

This is our trip to Italia in Miniatura (a theme park here). There is Italy in miniature with models of all the famous monuments and places.
On the train that takes you around the park.

On the boat ride in little Venezia.

Trip to Italy

We made it to Bologna Italy... after a long trip. It ended up taking a little over 24 hours to get here but we made it! There were lots of disasters and lots of blessings along the way. We had a hard time checking in at Salt Lake. Delta was not able to find Jordans ticket and we were at check in about 45 mins. We were worried we would miss the plane. We did made it though, only to find out that all 3 tickets were far away from each other. The plane was full and they were not able to change the tickets for us. Begging and nice passengers traded with us so that we could sit together.

Then at Atlanta all 3 seats were far apart again (I asked to change seats on a once again completely full flight). The flight was delayed almost 2 hours and right when I asked to change seats a family of 3 gave up their tickets (thank heavens for tender mercies). So the overnight flight was all together too. We barely missed our connection in Amsterdam. The plane was pulling away as we came running up breathelessly. After a 6 hour wait there we finally made it to Bologna.
Notice the scab on Jordan's forehead. We got in about 10:30 p.m. The kids were in bed by midnight. At 2:30 Jordan woke up and wouldn't go back to his new crib. So I brought him to sleep with me. At 5:30 a.m. I woke up to horrible bonk and realized that Jordan had fallen out of bed and landed with his head on the hard marble. He cried for quite a while. When I took him into the bathroom he looked like he had a huge gash on his head. I thought for sure that he had split his head open and I would have to take him to the ER for stitches. Fortunately it was just a nasty abrasion. Probably will have a good scar anyway.
First real Italian gelato That we ate together. Too bad the picture is out of focus, but it was priceless anyway.
These kids are definitely suffering the time change. Aaron has a hard time waking up in the morning, and my is he awnry! This was Jordan trying to help us wake him up at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. This child has never slept past about 8 a.m. in his life. He usually wakes up at 6 a.m. at home.