Today we were supposed to go on a super long road trip over to some places that I wanted to show Lucy in Umbria but after the previous day's adventures we groaned within ourselves at the prospect of having to drive probably more than 8 hours total to see all these places. The kids are pretty miserable in the car, especially in the car that me and Lucy were in because we didn't have the DVD player to distract them from their woes. Plus, the only thing Clementine wants to do in the car is suck on a bottle and after about a half hour she fills up her diaper and it starts to leak all over her carseat, which started to smell a lot like urine. Somehow I was not as disgusted at that as Lucy, but it ended up being totally uncomfortable for her and so she and Violette were usually crying the whole way in the car. So, the nice photographers we met our first day in Venice were kind enough to invite us to their home for lunch on Sunday, which we couldn't make, but we called them early that morning and said that we would be able to make it for lunch today, if it wouldn't be too hard to put together. They said it would work out, so we headed out to where they lived which was just a half hour away(thank heaven) and spent time with the families. The photographer's names were Danielle and Marco and we went to Marco's family's house and met his two daughters, wife and both sets of parents as well as an aunt and an uncle. They all live in the same apartment complex. Danielle's daughters are named Stella(Star) and Perla(Pearl). Perla was about 8 years old and she was the most darling little thing I have ever seen! She was about as big as a beanpole and had a super fashionable hairdo that was short on one side and slanted all the way down to a bob on the other side of her head. They picked us up on their motor scooters(called motorini in Italy) and led us to where the center of town is for a little tour before Lunch. It was maybe the hottest day of our entire trip and we were about to die of heat exhaustion, though we fought through the kids crying and almost melting and enjoyed their little town on Pistoia. We met a bunch of people and talked to many mothers about kid stuff and they all marveled at our little crew. I told one lady about how she needs to let her baby just cry himself to sleep or she'll be forever sleeping in his bed until he's 8, so she's going to try.
Finally we walked a mile back to our car and drove to their house. This area is where we passed by on our way to Lucca the other day and saw all the topiary trees all lined up perfectly outside the train windows. This was the town that produces all those trees. They told us that they use so many chemicals and pesticides that a lot of people have cancer in their area. Sad. Anyway, as we drove to their house we saw some really amazing topiaries that looked like tree trunks with wire frames/cages of animals like horses and even dinosaurs stuck to the top and then some sort of vining plant growing out of the top, covering the cages so they looked like manicured trees. I was so impressed by those. I want some in my garden someday! Well, we ended up at their apartment building and were greeted by their entire extended family plus Danielle and were treated to a traditional Italian meal of spaghetti and red sauce, meat, vegetables, fruit, and gelato for dessert. My kids ate so much food, especially Bea who ate 3 bowls of pasta with red sauce. They were overjoyed that our kids loved their food. Then the kids left to play while the adults had some wonderful conversation without having to worry about the kids. Aaaahhh. That was a rare moment. I truly enjoyed sitting around the table conversing with these lovely people. They were such good hearted and down to earth people and they had so many interesting things to say. It's so fun to be around people who have so much to say because I feel like in our family no one has much to say, which would inhibit these long family discussions post mealtime. Then, we told them we had to be back and they were disappointed that we couldn't stay for dinner. haha. We headed back to the town center to take our family photo and spent about an hour trying to get everyone to look at the camera. We got a few shots, but once again, Clementine isn't smiling which is crazy since she's just about always smiling otherwise. The shots came out pretty good and we're going to use it for our Christmas card this year. I'm so glad we got the photo taken care of AND while we were in Italy. I was sure we would have to use some snap shot with shaded faces. Here are the three best ones. After that we drove home, bought 10 pounds of the best gelato I think I have ever had at a place called Carabe in Florence and ate it at home with Lucy until we sprouted tails and turned into pigs. Oink oink.
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