{Dublin, Ireland} 12 Nov 2010

Today we walked from our hotel to Lower Grafton St. to catch the bus for our Day Tour of Wicklow.

Sights on the way...........


Christ Church Cathedral

Trinity College

Wicklow Gap

Glendalough Monastic Settlement

Avoca--Irelands' oldest handweaving company

Another beautiful day in Ireland...it only rained on our walk back to the hotel....we got soaked!

Enjoy :)

Ciao!

{Dublin, Ireland} 13 Nov 2010

We spent Sat. walking around Dublin sightseeing.....a beautiful day, until 3pm, when it started raining. Thankfully we were done and heading back to the hotel when it started raining.



We ate breakfast here (a traditional 'full Irish breakfast').



Dublin Castle

Sights from our walk around Dublin.....

Molly Malone

The Ha'Penny Bridge

O'Connell Monument

Kieran with James Joyce

Parnell Monument

Dublin's oldest pub

Garden of Remembrance

St. Ann's

National Museum

St. Patrick's Cathedral--we were unable to go inside because of a graduation ceremony :(

We left Dublin on Sunday morning--getting up at 3;30am to catch a 6:30am flight back to Milan. The flight and landing was MUCH better--very smooth. Sleeping at night in Dublin is difficult--We don't think the city sleeps...it was VERY noisy from 10pm-4am!

Not sure where our next adventure will take us.........

Enjoy :)

Ciao!

{New additions}

Mark & the kids missed the kitties we had in CO (Heidi and her family adopted them and are taking very good care of them)....so we decided to get 2 new kitties for our family. They are pure-bred Maine Coons. The breeder named them...I tried to change their names, but didn't win that battle! The black and white one is Reason Man (we'll call him Reason) and the black smoke one is Rude Box (we'll call him Rude). The breeder is really into bands/music and all their cats/kittens have similar names. We pick them up early next week, when we get back from our trip to Ireland.

Reason is 4 mos. old---he was born in July.


Rude is 6 mos. old---he was born in May.

They are already best of friends--according to the breeder.

Enjoy!
Ciao :)

{It's still raining} 2 Nov 2010

View of our backyard at 8am this morning....I also saw pictures of downtown Vicenza...sad to see so much water in our beautiful city. I hope the clean-up (when it happens) can restore it to its former beauty!

Hoping the rain stops soon.

Ciao!

{Rain, Rain, Go Away} 1 Nov 2010

Our creek has turned into a river and almost about to flood over the bank! We've had rain since Sat. night and it's not suppose to stop raining until Wed. The schools had an early release due to the rain/flooding in the area. We might even have a RAIN day tomorrow--the kids are keeping their fingers crossed!

Pictures from the backyard:

This is a picture looking into the backyard from one of the terraces.

We are use to snow & wind---but not rain!

Ciao :)

{Halloween 2010}

Mark carving Mark's pumpkin---Dinner with Igor

I'm carving Kieran's pumpkin--Little Darlings

The kids pumpkins--Dinner with Igor & Little Darlings

The kids had some of their friends over for a Halloween Party yesterday (Sat, 30 Oct). We decorated on Fri. night, instead of going trick-o-treating in Villaggio (American Housing). I thought it would be too crowded & crazy. Kieran was disappointed at first, but after we started decorating, she forgot all about it :)

I made some Scrumptious Skeletons

and Forked Eyeballs

part of the tavern decorated for the party

Mark and his friends

I also made Bones & Fingers

and Swamp Creatures, Pizza Mummies & Severed Toes

Here are Kieran & her friends

Everyone had a great time and gobbled up all the treats :)

Enjoy.

Ciao!

{Ceramic Shopping in Nove} 26 Oct 2010

Hello again. My mom & I went on another trip--this time to Nove where they have lots of ceramic shops. The shops ship their ceramics to Williams-Sonoma, Tiffany & Co., Lenox, Nordstrom to name a few. I might just have to buy new dishes before we leave in a few years. I bought a ceramic tile that had downtown Vicenza painted on it and a huge salad bowl.

This was the first shope we went to....

This was another shop we stopped at.....

On our way to lunch we had a little bit of time, so the tour guide took us to this meat & cheese shop.

This is the place where we had lunch. A typical Italian meal---first, a thick spaghetti noodle with duck sauce, next, risotto with mushrooms, then, pork, french fries & peas..to drink-wine & water, bread and coffee for after....VERY filling! Good thing Mark & I went out cycling for 1.5 hrs. that afternoon :)

Finally---SNOW on the mountains :) We had an entire weekend of rain. So much that we thought the creek in our backyard was going to go over the bank. When the weather cleared, we were able to see snow on the mountains.

Enjoy :)

Ciao!