We arrived in Pisa airport about midnight and waited around for a taxi for a good 20 minutes. What kind of city doesn't have cars queuing at the airport taxi stand? The cushy taxi took us to our nice hotel where Emmet and I crashed in the king sized bed and Silas and Orrin were asleep in a matter of seconds after jammies and diaper were on in their side by side twins.
In the morning we stuffed ourselves with croissants, yogurt, granola, ham, salami, cheese, fruit, eggs, bacon, toast, milk and coffee.
We discovered that the front tire on the stroller had a thorn in it and was flat so Orrin and Silas went to talk to the hotel manager, an avid biker, about where to get it repaired. We found out that Friday was Liberation Day so every bike shop, gas station, etc was closed. I think this made for an extra crowded weekend in both Pisa and Florence as well. We headed out to the leaning tower to get our required pictures, run around in the sun, and roll in the grass. It was a gorgeous day and the tower and palace were quite pretty. We didn't climb the tower because we had the two boys and our three bags and stroller. Orrin kept commenting how he felt so self sufficient and savvy that here we were with two kids on a four day holiday and we could carry all our luggage with us easily.
We headed to the train station with plenty of time before our train, or so I thought- seems I had forgotten to change times on my watch. So we just missed the 12:30 train and had to wait for the 1:30. No big deal, Silas was snoozing in the stroller, the sun was shining, there was a nice grassy area with a fountain. We relaxed in the shade and took pictures of Emmet. Silas woke up just before we had to board the train so his usual wake up crankiness was diverted by train excitement. He loved the train and spent the hour long trip to Florence munching an apple, pointing out tracks and trains out the window, and marveling that there was a potty on the train.
Once in Florence we hit a gelateria on the way to the apartment. Silas had mint chip, Orrin went for raspberry, I had tiramisu. The apartment was just a block from the Duomo and had a view from the bedroom window. The kitchen was tiny, and the whole place was cluttered with knick knacks but there was plenty of room to play, and spread out. It felt quite homey.
We spent the rest of the day just wondering around getting the lay of the city, admiring the piazzas, the statues in teh cortyard of the Uffizi, complaining about the crowds on PonteVecchio, eating pizza in front of the Pitti Palace. Even Emmet couldn't resist the pizza. (It's better in Rome though.)
Even though we had an apartment I didn't want to cook dinner, but rather enjoy the yummy pasta and meat dishes at the restaurants. This made it one of our more expensive trips, but the food was too good to be making grilled cheese in the apartment. Although the Central Market we found on the last day did have some gorgeous meat, cheese, and bread stands, the grilled cheese probably would have been excellent too.
The first night we had a cheese platter and mixed crostini. The cheese was served with honey and was excellent. The crostini were disappointing- barely ripe tomatoes, one was just a piece of toast with olive oil. But then I had a lovely shrimp and tomato with fresh pasta dish and Orrin had an amazing potato ravioli with roasted wild boar in a wine sauce. Yum! Gelato cone number two for dessert. Chocolate hazelnut and pear for me, strawberry and chocolate for Silas, and raspberry and dark chocolate for Orrin.
The next morning we had breakfast and headed out early to the Academia. I had stupidly not reserved tickets to either major gallery before the trip. But we arrived as soon as it opened and were in to see Michaelangelo's David in 15 minutes. Holy crap! I didn't realize it was so big! It's massive. There were also some unfinished sculptures, called the Prisoners. You got the feeling that the human forms were imprisoned in the stone and Michaelangelo was just helping them to escape. It was actually more amazing and interesting and beautiful to me to see the chisel marks and the sculpture taking shape than to look at the David masterpiece. There was also a very interesting exhibit of musical instruments from the Medici collection. A trumpet guitar and a piano guitar...very unique.
Next we searched out a bike shop to repair the wheel on the stroller. The front tire seemed to be holding air so we just filled it and bought a patch kit in case it deflated later. It ended up only able to hold air for about 36 hours, and by that time we decided we were headed home anyway and we'd just fix it there.
We grabbed some pasta salads at a deli and waited in the queue for the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. We rambled along in the gardens, relaxed in the grass, admired the fountains, ate our lunch in a tunnel of trees. Silas posed with some lion sculptures, pointed out the orange and lemon trees, and ran around a lot. The interior of the palace was ok. Somehow we had bought a ticket that didn't let us in to every area. I think toting two kids and looking bedraggled got us in to see the royal apartments, even though we weren't supposed to. Because you're not allowed to take pictures in most of the galleries we visited, I have to admit they all sort of blended together. Orrin decided on a "cheap but excellent pizza" place for dinner but it didn't open until 7:00, so we grabbed another gelato, peanut butter, strawberry, and chocolate. And headed up the hills on the south side of the city to the Piazza Michaelangelo. Pushing the stroller and carrying Emmet up that hill definitely earned us our ice cream! But the view was amazing.
We stopped at a grocery store adn bought some breakfast items- milk, yogurt, salami, cheese. Then had some great pizza, eggplant and artichoke for me, and spicy sausage for Orrin with a crispy thin crust adn sweet saucy tomato and just a it of super flavorful cheese. And a wonderful bottle of chianti. Note to self: Orrin does not drink half the bottle and you will end up drinking more than you meant to.
On the walk home we stumbled upon a cool little market. I cursed myself for buying cheese and salami at a grocery store, but we did buy some great dried fruit; kiwi, strawberries, pears, melon, figs, dates. And some yummy cannoli, and pistachio/marzipan cookies that I loved but Silas and Orrin didn't.
Sunday we thought we'd try the same trick of getting out early and go to the Uffizi without reservation. Even 15 minutes before it opened the line was huge so we decided to skip it. Instead we went to the Bargello sculpture museum, which has Donatello's bronze David sculpture- being restored....Oh well. It was actually quite fun going to museums with Silas and getting him to describe what he sees, or look for babies in sculptures, or musical instruments, or whatever. There wasn't lots of uninterrupted time for reading in depth descriptions and histories, but that's ok. The building itself of this museum was a former prison and quite interesting on it's own.
We strolled through the street market, I was tempted by gorgeous shoes but restrained by enormous feet. Instead I bought some ceramic and wood salad servers, and a handbag for a friend who had asked me to bring her one. We stopped to buy bread for Monday's breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, sat and had coffee. Silas fell asleep before our lunch and slept through Santa Maria Novella Church, and the subsequent ice cream stop. So we stopped again for chips/french fries/papas frit and milk for him.
Our tickets to the Pitti Palace were also good for another garden, so we tried going there, but it was only for one day so they wouldn't let us in. Instead we headed up to Fort Belvedere for another view of Florence, and a small art exhibit. There was another entrance to the gardens, and Orrin was able to sneak us in there where they don't look at your tickets as carefully. This garden was really lovely- shadier with more flowers than Boboli. We didn't have a lot of time there, but it was really nice. Especially the dragon canal and the tunnel of wisteria.
We were a bit un-adventerous and went to the same restaurant for dinner that night. Hey- we were able to eat outside, it was delicious, family friendly, cheap...don't mess with success. We didn't order the same thing at least. We had zucchini risotto with a smoked cheese that made it taste like the zucchini had been grilled, and a lovely pear stuffed ravioli with cheese sauce, Orrin had to have a pizza- artichoke, mushroom, olive, and ham. Silas colored and ate next to nothing. So we ordered a bread, cheese and fruit plate in the end so he'd have a little something in his tummy. Turned out he was just really tired and fell asleep on the walk home.
Our last morning was Monday. We finished up all our breakfast food blueberries, yogurt, hard boiled egg, bread, cheese, jam, salami. Then packed up all our bags. Because it was still early we left the bags there and headed to the Duomo museum nearby. This was my favorite museum we visited. It seemed to have the best variety of works and detailed and interesting descriptions. Donatello's bronze of Mary Magdalane was very strange- Silas immediately called it scary and said that she was a witch. But they also had a really joyful choir box carved in marble of children playing instruments, stone reliefs that were never used on the outside of the Duomo depicting the 30 occupations that are mentioned in the Bible, information about how Brunelleschi built the dome and tools and ideas he essentially had to re-invent from Roman times. There was a version of a Pieta by Michelangelo- one he intended for his own tomb, but a flaw in the marble broke Jesus's arm so he abandoned it.
We decided not to go up into the dome since we'd be lugging two heavy children up 300 some stairs. It would have been interesting to see the architecture up close, but maybe some other time... From the bottom it was beautiful enough, the dome and the paintings make it seem lighter than air.
It struck me as really interesting how there are many things in Florence still unfinished, the facade of San Lorenzo for example, because patrons died, artists were pulled away on other projects, changing fashions, etc. It seems like it must have been so expensive and so much wok and so beautiful, and yet like today when things are seen as old or unfashionable they are torn away and changed.
In the Medici chapel- also half covered in scaffolding thanks to a block of marble that fell off the ceiling last year- there are still empty naves for sculptures that were never commissioned. Still what we could see of the main chapel was incredible. The mosaic and inlay work of the colored marble and stones is absolutely incredible. A single table or dish would be beautiful. An entire room is absolutely breathtaking.
Of course the highlights for Silas we the old fashioned elevator in the apartment building, the drinking fountain outside the Duomo, the train, bus, and airplane rides, the ice cream, and being with Mom, Dad, and Emmet for four solid days.

Roma

We had an excellent time in Rome. In summary; the weather was brilliant, the art was gorgeous, the food was scrumptious.

But in detail:

The trip didn't start out so well, as our flight was delayed by over an hour due to the gale force winds that have been buffeting Ireland for the past week or so. (This was the cause of the tragedy of two fishing boats being last last week, and seven fishermen with them.) And then once we were on the flight Silas wouldn't sleep, stuck his finger so far up my nose as to make it bleed, and got us in trouble with the flight attendants for standing in the aisle when the seat belt sign was on! He was fairly well behaved though, especially considering the seven year old girl who threw up across the aisle from us. At least I didn't have to contend with vomit.

We arrived safely at around midnight, got on the bus to the city center and promptly fell asleep, only to wake up as the bus was pulling into the stop. Excellent Orrin navigated us straight to the hotel, which was good since my contacts were so dry that I could barely see. The hotel had huge wooden doors and a buzzer then Orrin had to climb up four flights of stairs while Silas and I took the antiquated lift that had an inner wooden door and an outer wrought iron door.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel which consisted of coffee, cereal, and assorted sweet rolls. Silas ate an adult sized bowl of corn flakes and milk. We headed out to explore Rome for the day. We saw Trevi Fountain, which is a huge tourist area. You are supposed to throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to ensure a return trip to Rome in the future. We did not do this, although we do hope to go back some day.

We then stopped by the Pantheon. This may have been my favorite sight in Rome. It is obviously ancient and sacred, but it also feels very austere and elegant, at least compared to the the things we would see in the Vatican. It wasn't swarming with tourists this Friday morning either so that may have added to the appeal. The dome itself is so huge it feels almost magical. I didn't know this, but the dome gets thinner as it rises and the composition of the concrete gets lighter as well, so by the time you get to the center, or top, it is all pumice stone. Genius, huh?

We continued our hike across the city, through the mopeds and the extremely bumpy or non-existent sidewalks. Can you tell we were traveling with a stroller? Luckily Silas likes the cobblestone bumpiness. My sister once said that everyone in Rome rides two mopeds at the same time. I think she may be right.

We crossed the Tiber river and waited in line for the metal detectors to go into St. Peter's Basilica. The vast ornate church was overwhelming. And although it was filled with beautiful things, I can't say I really enjoyed the experience very much. It was too much, with too many people, too dark, too noisy (there was a man vacuuming some carved column near the ceiling), and not at all sacred feeling.

We wrote a quick postcard to Orrin's Grandmother and mailed it with a stamp from the Vatican. She is the only Catholic whose address I know that something from the Vatican might actually mean something. Next we went to the Vatican museum which houses a beautiful collection of Roman sculpture and most famously the Sistine Chapel. After the huge St. Peter's, the chapel seemed small, and was packed, nearly shoulder to shoulder. I can't imagine if we had gone in the summer during "tourist season". The paintings were very vibrant and absolutely stunning. The blue background to all the paintings really does make you feel as though the ceiling were opening and the figures were populating the sky.

After the Vatican Museum we grabbed our first taste of Roman pizza. This kind was on a thick foccocia type crust. I had an artichoke and mushroom concoction and Orrin had roasted sweet peppers. We each had a huge slice which was heated in an oven and then folded in half to make a cheesy gooey delicious sandwich. We sat in a square and ate while Silas chased pigeons. His discarded crust drew quite a crowd, including a seagull.

We continued on our journey to the other must-see Roman site, the Colosseum and Roman ruins. We didn't really have enough time to get the audio guide for the Colosseum, so we just wandered around as Silas stomped in the puddles, and we tried to imagine gladiators, emperors and vestal virgins. It was huge though, and amazing that all the modern stadiums are pretty much the same design.

The rest of the ruins we saw were pretty ruined so it was difficult to imagine what was what. There were many other impressive monuments and piazza's that we wandered through on our way back to the hotel. We grabbed Silas deluxe handmade train sweater as the evening was getting a little cooler.

Dinner was at a fun little place called Hosteria Romana that had a fantastic antipasti buffet, including zucchini "noodles" tossed with seafood, sliced caramelized onions that had crispy breaded coating, big balls of fresh mozzarella, and sweet soft artichokes swimming in butter. Orrin had a chick pea and white bean soup and I had a small dish of spinach and ricotta ravioli. We were so stuffed after the meal that we didn't even have gelato for dessert.

Afterwards we walked up to the Spanish steps, which are a pair of staircases in front of the Spanish embassy. There is a small piazza and fountain at the bottom and a towering white embassy at the top. We took pictures, but it was dark and, like many that we took, they don't really capture grandeur of the place.

The next day we went to a couple churches near the hotel. My favorite was Santa Maria del Vittoria. It was very ornate, but the church itself was small and felt intimate. And there were only one or two other people there so it felt kind of like a secret jewel, although I know it's fairly famous for Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa.

We next went to the National Roman Museum, which has a huge collection of ancient roman sculpture as well as an extensive collection of coins. It was interesting that the males busts and sculptures were noteworthy for their accomplishments in battles and the female busts and sculptures were noteworthy for their hairstyles. The coin position was actually also very interesting, although I was getting fairly worn out by this time. They went into very interesting detail both to discuss how the coins were made and distributed, and also how the empire worked to maintain the value of the coins. I thought it was especially interesting that the roman coins were actually being used as the preferred monetary unit outside the empire. Prior to an area being conquered by force it was conquered by capital.

Our final stops were for pizza and gelato. This time we opted for a nice crispy thin crust. Orrin picked a delicious combination that was covered in thin slices of salami and topped with roasted eggplant and chunks of mozzarella and brie cheese. Even Silas enjoyed it. Lastly was a stop at the most famous gelateria in Rome, Giolitti's. Although there is a kind of odd, order-and-pay-at-the-till-then-take-your-receipt-to the-ice-cream-counter policy that left us a little embarrassed and the lone guy behind the counter had a hard time keeping up with the mob waiting for ice cream, it was worth it. Orrin had a dark sweet cherry cone that was perfect and I had a scoop of kiwi and a scoop of pear that were the perfect contrast of sweet and tart and could not have had a truer fruit flavor. Perfection in a cone!

We sped towards the bus station and went back to the airport to catch our flight back on Saturday night. I did buy a bottle of balsamic vinegar as my sole edible souvenir. Silas took a nice long nap on the plane and Orrin and I tried to complete a sudoku.

Because we are living in Ireland we have to register with the local police, who stamp our passport to say that we're on record and have a valid work permit. This is good for a year and had expired on the 18th. I had been calling for a couple weeks to get an appointment with the passport stamping officer, but couldn't get a hold of him. They had never looked at this stamp on any of our 6 or 8 other trips, so I wasn't too worried about it. But as luck would have it, this time the passport officer in Shannon looked for it. He didn't give us too hard of a time, just asked us what the date was and what date did we think was stamped, before letting us go. I guess we'll have to get that taken care of before we go to London in a couple weeks.

We had traffic from the rugby game in Limerick to contend with on the way back to Clonmel, as well as freezing wind and rain that greeted us back on the emerald isle. Still, it is nice to be back home, far from the buzz of mopeds!

Stiamo andando a Roma!!

Last week I bought tickets to go to London, because Aunt Emily's family made it sound so fun and told us about all the wonderful things they had discovered for Silas to do. After I bought the tickets Ryan Air announced they were having a two for one sale on tickets. Fortunately, the sale was retroactive for a day or so so I was able to use the London tickets to get two free tickets anywhere Ryan Air flies.

The only destinations with tickets still available at times that we could fly were Edinburgh and Rome. And although we want to see Edinburgh, the hole that Lindy left is just a little too raw at the moment....

So Rome it is. For pizza and gelato. And maybe a few hunks of marble and smears of oil if we get a chance.

And since it will be a few days before I can post again (unlike by usually prolific posts), I'll leave you with a picture of our musical prodigy, just moments before he smashed his fingers.

Venice (at long last)

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. No good excuses really. But here's a summary of the Venice trip and pictures. I was hoping to just link to Midwesterners blog, but they seem to have outlasted me in resisting the guilt trip from our mother (yes, she's posting!) about posting pictures of the trip.

Our flight out of Shannon was delayed by nearly 2 hours. So we took turns wrangling Silas in the departures area and reading the guide book. Thoughtfully we had packed snacks for everyone which ended up turning into dinner with the addition of some much needed caffeine in the form of coffee. The flight was uneventful although a nice German couple with a boy about Silas's age sat in front of us so we chatted with them and the kids played peek-a-boo with each other and passed their toys back and forth between the seats. It definitely made the flight go by more quickly. We arrived in Treviso and bought bus tickets from the airport to Venice without too much difficulty. Silas finally fell asleep on the bus.

When we arrived in Venice we were supposed to take the No. 1 water bus to the La Salute stop near the apartment where we would call Rachel and Trey and they would give us directions to the apartment, or meet us at the stop. A couple things conspired against this plan however. The No. 1 bus/boat had stopped running by this time of night and Trey's cell phone did not work in the apartment and then ran out of minutes. So a slight change of plans left us taking another bus to a stop we though was near the La Salute stop and walking. It was about 1 in the morning and the streets of Venice are pretty much all dark, narrow, alleys. It was a little scary at the time. But we were totally safe. Luckily we packed light and Silas was exhausted and sleeping instead of exhausted and screaming. Trey was waiting for us at the bus stop and we walked maybe 2 "blocks" to the apartment.

Rachel and Ellis were already asleep but Rachel woke up and we visited with them a little bit before wrestling Silas back to sleep. We had planned on him just sleeping in bed with us, which we might not be able to do so much in the future. He seems to think in bed with Mom and Dad is synonymous with both nursing and playing around. So I'd be nursing him, he'd be closing his eyes and I'd think, he's almost asleep. Then his little blonde head would pop up and he'd giggle and say "diggle diggle!" Maddening. Cute, but maddening.

The last night we wised up a bit and put him of the floor on some couch cushions. He still woke up about three times in the night but he'd fall asleep a bit easier and stay asleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time without nursing.

Saturday Trey went out to get coffee and pastries for breakfast and then we headed to the Rialto Bridge for the market. On the way we stopped for some panini sandwiches which were quite good. Although there was a little embarrassing encounter when we tried to sit at the tables outside with our sandwiches. Although we had all read that there is a different price for eating in and take-away, none of us remembered this until the woman came out and said, "Different price to stay!"

The market was the highlight of the trip in my opinion. The stalls were overflowing with mushrooms, grapes, tomatoes of all varieties, olives, bright orange clementines mingles with leaves, fresh herbs, artichokes, eggplants, and on and on. It was gorgeous. Then there was the fish market. We didn't even know what a lot of the creatures were or if we did, we didn't know how best to prepare them. There were live shrimp of all shapes and sized, crabs, scallops still in the shell, monkfish, squid, octopus, even a swordfish head! We had to keep telling ourselves that we would only be there three days, and not to buy more than we could eat in that time. It was pretty difficult! We stopped in at a little butchers shop, but after waiting for 20 minutes and being passed up several times we decided to abandon the endeavor. We did see these little salamis shaped like pigs, and I got this great photo of Trey looking like a pig in sh*t contemplating the various charcuterie.

We headed back to the apartment to stash out purchases in the fridge and then made for San Marco. We had a couple big slices of pizza on the way and stopped in several stationary and glass shops. San Marco is big square that features the Basilica of St. Mark and the Doge's Palace. There is also the Correr Museum, a bell tower, and rows and rows of shops. We wandered around the Basilica and marveled and the gorgeous mosaics and inlays in the floor and the walls.
Afterwards we headed back to the apartment was we were all getting pretty tired of carrying the babies and walking.

We were unsuccessful in finding a grocery store that was ever open, although Trey did manage to get some essential pasta and Parmesan before the shop owner shoved him out. And Orrin and I procured some olive oil, nice white wine, an a bottle of Prosecco. So our meal for the evening consisted of the following: The most delicious shrimp I have ever eaten. And that is really saying something because they were naked- no lemon or butter or cream. Trey sauteed the zucchini in a little olive oil and poached the fish with some white wine and fennel. He cooked some pasta with a few mushrooms, leeks, and olive oil, which we tossed together with a little cheese. Everything was delicious! For dessert we had some chocolate truffles and the Prosecco, while we played cribbage. We had actually gone 24 hours in Italy with no gelato, something we would have to remedy the next day!

Sunday we walked back to San Marco to catch a boat out to Murano Island. This is the home of the Venetian glass studios so we had hoped to see some demonstrations of glass blowing. We only saw one place with a furnace lit and they had a sign that read "The work is finished." Translations can be so funny. So we were a little disappointed in that, especially since we had waited nearly an hour for the boat. It comes ever 20 minutes, but we missed 2 of the because there were loads of people trying to cram on to the tiny boat and the impatient conductors seemed to like to pull away ASAP regardless. But the island was very peaceful and pretty. We had a nice lunch by the canal and Silas chased pigeons around and tried to jump in the water.

Again, by the time we returned from the island we were pretty pooped so we all planned to head back to the apartment for an early dinner. The boat journey revitalized Orrin and I so we headed to the Frari church while our companions went home to grab a nap. The church was very dark but had some beautiful paintings, sculptures, and carvings. My favorite was Bellini's Madonna and child. It was so vibrant and gorgeous, and really nice to see a masterpiece like that in a church instead of in a museum.

That evening's dinner was a little more scattered, thanks to the lack of a grocer. Still we had a nice meal of pasta and mushrooms with cheese, radichio and apples salad, and broad beans with tomatoes. It didn't really matter what we had for dinner though because dessert was, as was aptly described in the guide book. " a dense brick of chocolate hazelnut gelato dropped into a cup of whipped cream." Needless to say it was fantastic, although it probably would have been better if we had not been so impatient to eat it and would have left the ice cream to soften a little before chiseling away at it.

Monday we packed up our luggage and took the boat to the train station to check our luggage, since we had to be out of the apartment at 10 and our flight didn't leave until 9 we didn't want to be hauling the bags everywhere. After that was settled we toured the Doge's Palace which had magnificent ceilings and, if I remember correctly, the longest canvas painting in the world. There was a competition for who would be commissioned to make the painting and they had all the competitors submissions displayed as well. It was kind of fun to pick your favorite out of ten or so paintings that were all of the subject, just different interpretations. The arches in the back of the pigeons pictures are of the Doge's palace. Silas didn't actually touch a rat with wings, but he did get some poop on his pants.

There were really interesting descriptions in English about each rooms function in the government, the works of the various artists, and how each Doge left his mark on the palace, but Silas didn't exactly allow for leisurely reading. I did learn a few things about Venetian history though.

We raced though the Correr museum, which had even more in depth descriptions about Venetian history. It was very warm though and Silas was really sick of the stroller and being indoors entirely. So I can't say I remember too much of the museum at all.

We walked with Rachel and Trey to the bus stop and bid them farewell since they had an earlier flight back to Germany. We than walked up to Venice's park and Silas ran around in the leaves and played on the playground. We meandered back through a couple neighborhoods we hadn't passed through before and stopped and had a snack of roasted chestnuts. Neither Orrin nor I had ever tried them but we all enjoyed them. Even Silas seemed to like them. So we'll have to try those again at the German Christmas markets in a few weeks.

We had a bit of a hard time finding the train station since we were navigating on foot instead of the bus, but we eventually found it. We both had another round of pizza and gelato and gawked at the touristy area by the rail station that we had missed before. As we waited for the bus we just sat in the park and watched the people and the boats zip up and down the canal. Silas ran around and got good and tired- although the same little boy was on the flight home so he didn't sleep much on the flight. But we had a great trip. It was really fun to meet family somewhere for the weekend and get to sight-see a gorgeous city and visit and cuddle our adorable nephew.

(apparently they were playing rock, paper, scissors. Orrin was slow to catch on that Ellis always picks rock.)

Venice Teaser

We're back from Venice. I'm pretty well exhausted from late night traveling by car, plane, bus, boat and foot. No trains, sadly. That and having a head full of snot. Or more specifically half a head full of snot. I feel like I must know what it is like to have had a stroke and have one side of your face feel so different than the other. One itchy eye, one puffy sinus, one clogged nostril.

Venice itself was beautiful in its sinking decaying glory. And I will post a more in-depth review of that tomorrow maybe once I get the laundry done, and get this burned bean smell out of the house. 1 pot beans+ not enough water+1 hour on the phone with your mom=disgusting odor. I can't even blame this one on Silas who has been asleep for the last three hours recovering from his rollicking good time on the plane last night with the little German 14 month old that sat in front of us.