Day 2: The Devil and the Garden of Eden

Grape vines on multiple trellis'

The next morning Henry and Bea woke me up at 4 and I really didn’t go back to sleep so at about 6am I woke up and stepped outside to check out the terraced backyard and found the most spectacular garden I have ever been in. 

The left view from our apartment

The right side view from our apartment

 The family that built the house on the entire hillside and through many years, have constructed from the bottom up, an almost completely vertical garden up the mountain behind their home. 

Figs weren't quite ripe yet.  Blast!

I began looking around and with every step, discovered a grapefruit tree, then a pomegranate tree, fig tree, plum tree, kiwi tree, blackberries around every corner, grapevines growing up trellis after trellis, diverse citrus trees, herb bushes, plus perennials like tomatoes, squash, basil growing all over the place, and on the base of just about every grapevine there were pumpkins and winter squash vines growing up the stems.  The place was a paradise for me. 

View from the garden

Half way up the garden, a large piazza was dug out and an outdoor entertaining area created complete with a brick oven for cooking pizza, an extra large table for about 20 people, oil lamps to light the place up and the whole place was entirely covered by a giant trellis covered in grapevines that were dripping with grapes dangling above our heads. It was a vision.  Then at the top of the developed area was a hutch with rabbits and a chicken coop with fresh eggs inside. 

Pomegranate. Looks like the forbidden fruit doesn't it?

After I took photos of everything I returned to my outdoor terrace to read my Book of Mormon and then I saw a pudgy old man come out.  He turned on the water and stood for a few minutes watering just his grapefruit tree.  He finally turned to see me and I began talking to him.  I asked if I could take a photo of him watering his garden but said he didn’t want to because he hadn’t put his teeth in.  He finished his work down below and I asked him if I could come with him to help with any garden chores.  

Not only veggies in this garden.  Flowers were everywhere

 He asked me how old I was and then told me he just turned 79 years old.  Bear in mind, he didn’t have any teeth during this whole conversation.  Then he began to tell me that he has passion for what he does and that he loves his garden.  He also mentioned to me that he loves women…many women and that he still has the passion for women, every day.  Hmmmm.  We collected the fresh eggs and he gave me some fruit.  We sat to rest for a second and then he leaned over to me and whispered in my ear some strange subtle sexual references that I didn’t fully understand, however the gesture he made made it quite clear what he was trying to do. 

These little plumbs were ripe and delicious

I politely said, I didn’t understand and he laughed and said that it was better for me that I didn’t understand what he was trying to say.  Then he asked me how I liked the bed I was sleeping in.  haha.  This man would not give up.  I ignored his question and then asked if we could have a pizza party on his piazza.  He laughed and said he would talk to his wife. 

The Devil

The offering of the fruit

 We descended and we parted ways.  I think if it had been anyone else but an 80 year old Italian man without teeth I would have been offended, but I don’t expect any better from any Italian man.  Haha. 

My first breakfast here in Italy. 

Anyway, I sat and ate my delicious breakfast of Buffalo yogurt and garden fresh fruit and spent an extra hour taking in the beauty of that garden in front of me.  The kids woke up and immediately running up all the dangerous paths, picking all the plums, grapes and blackberries.  

Lucy in the garden

 Henry and his new buddies came back into our kitchen and used their newly picked fruit to make juice.  They squished all their fruit with forks and spoons, mixed it with sugar and made about a tablespoon of disgusting syrup.  They froze it and made one disgusting popsicle.

We finally left and went down to the beach for the rest of the day.  Before we got to the beach we found the farmer’s market and bought some wild strawberries that were about as big as my pinky fingernail that had incredible flavor, cheese, and other fruit to take with us to the beach.  The beach was relaxing except that you were supposed to rent a beach chair for 10 Euros per day if you wanted to be comfortable.  We got kicked off quite a few times but it was just too expensive! 

We ended up setting our towels up on the beach and we had a delicious picnic lunch.  Henry and his buddies dug in the rocky shore and made a small hot tub for the baby with giant boulders, the babies took naps, I swam out to the buoys three times with Laurel, Justin and Lucy each.  During one of my swims, Clementine wandered off up the steps and was found wandering around the parking lot.  Ai yai yai.  Luckily she didn’t get killed or kidnapped. 

After we were done swimming, we headed over to eat gelato at one of the most delicious places I have ever eaten at.  I had dark chocolate and yogurt.  My favorites.  The kids got the usual fruit flavors.  Bea fell asleep on the bench outside of the store, still clutching her cone.  Since we had 8 kids amongst us we were a pretty big spectacle.  People were either adoring them because they were acting cute or hating them because they were really annoying throwing tantrums.  It’s hard to not notice my four kids with bright blond or red hair running around all over the place.  We quickly ran to the store for some dinner and breakfast food, made it home quickly to cook pasta with pesto and put our screaming and cranky kids to bed!  

At the market looking at strange fish

Lucy getting jabbed in the head by a swordfish.  Vivi is worried

First time in the water.  Yay!

The happiest girls in the world

Joy

Big Buck right before he hopped away

Working on the farm makes me feel joy.  I spent some time observing my chickens, checking on the tomatoes and squash out in our field, eating raspberries, picking mint and lavender for my kitchen and cleaning chicken poop off of the concrete.  Sound fabulous? I even saw a giant buck in my yard with very large velvety antlers.  It was spectacular!

Gorgeous view from the bottom of our driveway

Uncle Will helping Henry with the money and teaching Henry about business

Henry getting his first quarter from Grandpa

Henry's post.  He got quite a workout trying to get people to stop and buy lemonade

Today we made a lemonade stand and Henry, with the help of uncle Will and Papi, made about 25 dollars.  Our lemonade was really good and people usually paid us at least a dollar to three dollars even though we were only charging 25 cents.  It was awesome.

Giving my girls a bath.  They haven't had one in over a week.  Gross!

Lucy Came Home!

The Family

Then my sister, Lucy, came home from her mission!!! We all went out to dinner together with both my mom's side and dad's side of the family and the evening was predictably very quiet with almost no conversation across the table.  Good thing my kids were there to liven things up a bit.  Henry even pulled out some money to pay for his own dessert since no one wanted it.  He ended up getting it for free, of course, but he feels really good about his earnings for the day.

Summer Bliss

The days of summer fly by as I entertain at least twice to four times per week, take care of my kids, take them to swimming, tennis, soccer, playdates and work on the farm.  I am also hosting an Italian girl, Marianna, who is trying to learn English and is a great help in many but also much like having another child around that needs help with just about everything.  She is darling though and my kids love her.  My sister Lucy is coming home from her mission in Japan in one week. HURRAY! And we are leaving for Italy in less than three weeks with all the kids and Lucy for one month(pang of fear mixed with joy.  Is that possible?)

Anyway, here is my summer in pictures so far...

Our Friend Eric Orton from NYC came for a reading of his play, "The State of the Union" and it was absolutely wonderful.  We played music, ate good food, hung out, reminisced, and hoped he and his amazing family would move in next door to us someday.  Please oh please!

We were finally able to entertain Justin's colleagues, who had invited us over multiple times.  Justin Landfair and Angie Song(who is totally preggers, Yea!) Bev Guo, Tim and Sarah Judkins with their darling boy, Luke. 

We ate watermelon Salad:watermelon wedge, goat cheese, arugula, jicama, red onion, tomatoes, cucumber and lemon juice/olive oil/mint dressing(this picture is before I put on the mint).  This is my favorite new salad. Yum!

Justin holding one of our favorite chickens, cowboy

My mom, "Nana B" or "Num-any" as Clementine calls her comes often, this time she came to watch the kids play tennis at their lesson.  Henry is doing awesome!

Trip to Connecticut and NYC! We are at Mystic Seaport, which is an old whaling village restored and still functioning as a tourist attraction.  They're restoring old ships here and do recreations of how things were back then.  The children's museum inside was really cute.  Here I am with Burnell and Violette.  She had a fever that day, poor thing

How much to I love this photo? Justin holding the hands of his darling little daughters and wearing Clementine's owl backpack.  He's left "cool" in the dust:)

Inside a chapel where we listened to an old school sermon and Bea did ballet to the old shapenote music. 

These two could really be twins.  The green matching outfits were unintentional.  Clementine and Eli sharing a bonding moment.  Adorable

Once again...I love this man:)

Ramming speed! drum, drum, drum, drum(recreation of Ben Hur)

We love Gammie so much.  Clementine loved snuggling her sweet grandma after a long day

Self proclaimed gourmet chef Teri Tingey preparing bruschetta(bru-sket-ta) for the family party

Teri and Ilene(Teri's sister-in-law) with my two little ones relaxing on the grass together

Shelly, Erica, Stacey and Alex Tingey at the Tingey Family party after my cousin, Lindsay's wedding

My dad was obsessed with our pond.  He bought us 6 fish and a salamander to put in it.  They're loving their new habitat!

My kids with the Wann Cousins: Taryn, Aiden and Tristan(holding Vivi).  These kids are seriously the PERFECT combination of ages and get along extremely well.  We're glad they're here:)

One advantage of having an Italian at your house is that you get more Italians at your house.  This guy, Hermano, is cooking some delicious pasta that my children devoured.  I still need that recipe!  Thank you!

Marianna with Kai, the puffiest and biggest headed dog I've ever met

My mom's poor dog Oliver was about a 100th of the size of this dog and he was really afraid.  haha!

Our ultra marathoning neighbor and his enormous dog.  This dog was insanely large and had an inordinate amount of fur. 

Congratulations Lindsay! Nick is a doll and we love him!

We went to Justin's graduation dinner at SLCC, which is a pretty fancy venue.  He's officially not graduated until the 31st of July, which is the day we leave for Italy.  His fellowship director said, "Justin is leaving on a trip to Italy this summer after graduation, or slightly before I hear".  haha.  Yes. After 10 long years, I think he can ditch his last day of training. 

My dad and step mom spent almost two weeks at my house.  My dad had reconstructive surgery on his nose and here he is after they took the bandages off.  What do you think? He's actually on high doses of medication here and so we totally took advantage of his compromised judgement and took this hilarious shot.  He always makes me laugh my brains out! lol. 

Of course every meal we eat is gourmet! This one is a Jalapeno cheddar bagle, toasted with some Havarti cheese on top, prosciutto crudo(raw cured ham) avocados, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh mini basil and flowers, plus olive oil, real salt and my gourmet pepper blend.  I love food!

I hosted a few Birthday parties, one of which this little guy, Lincoln, had a smash cake for his first Birthday and dove right in.  He was adorable! Way better than Clementine who screamed when the frosting touched her fingers!

The kids having fun in their raincoats and umbrellas out in the back yard.  Henry is a pirate and Bea is a lotus flower

We have had many neighbors over including this darling boy, Samuel James(same as my long lost brother) holding one of our baby bantam Silkie chickens.  Look at that adorable face!

We have all sorts of flowers in our yard.  This one was so delicate and beautiful.  Bea crushed it shortly afterward, as usual.  I'm glad I immortalized it with this shot.