Carnevale--Fano!!

February, 2010--I am now up-to-date with our life here in Belforte! We spent Thanksgiving in the states and even though we were there just a short 3 weeks we were able to visit with almost everyone. We should do what daddy always did when he went to Florida. Tell everyone that here we are and if they want to visit they have to come to us!! That wouldn't really work though since some of our family lives in California and others in Nevada and others in Utah!! Don't imagine they'd come visit us in San Diego!

We had a nice Christmas here with our son. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner and a wonderful day. I didn't cry even once!!

We went to Fermignano for New Year's Eve with a few friends. Funny thing about Italy. People go to eat before the party and then the party starts at midnight! We didn't know that so we went around 9:00! We hung around until we found a place to eat. We had bowls of lentils and sausage. Believe it or not, I ate lentils and enjoyed them! At midnight, we left the restaurant and decided that we were too old to party that late so we left little Larry with our friends and came home. Larry got home at 5:30 in the morning!!

Last Sunday we went to Fano for carnevale. Fano is about an hour and a half from here and is on the coast. We were so lucky because after the parade and the fireworks it started to rain! We ate dinner and then came home.

Here are some pics.




He's such a little clown!




























Here we have the big bee...............























The medium size bee..............





















And, the baby bee!!





















Everyone thinks they're a clown!



















We even had Pippi Longstocking!
















This guy was just creepy!

















Old and not so happy hippies.
















Even the dogs had on costumes!




















The floats were pretty big and typically gaudy!



Here was the first float--a giant joker.





















My favorite show (NOT)--the Smurfs and Smurfville :(


























Fruit of the Loom?????




















A little bit of sunshine (except for the guy in jail)!























The Italian Safari



















Boobs.....






















Don't know how this guy became part of the parade, but there you have it!





















And more boobs.....
























Theoretically, the people on the floats are supposed to throw candy at the spectators. I say, theroetically, because there didn't seem to be a lot of candy throwing. Here is the traditional method for catching and a new innovation!




























Thanks for always being interested in what goes on over here! Buon Anno

Festa Time

Summer 2009 (Part 3)--The last weekend in July is the Palio dei Conti Oliva in Piandimeleto (the next town over). This is a medievel festa like others we have attended, but on a much smaller scale.


Here are a few shots.



























When it was time to eat Larry and I went to two different food booths as did our friend, Ada. I was having a hard time finding them so I called Ada's cell phone. When I asked where she was she told me she was sitting at a table in front of a certain booth. I thought that was funny as I was also standing near that booth. I turned around and she was sitting about3 feet from where I was standing! I was laughing so hard that the people thought I was nuts!


Later, I heard someone say in English. "You should thank your sister for making a nice chair for you to sit on." I turned around and it was my friend Lauren, who was holding her son Giacomo on her big belly that was nuturing his soon-to-be baby sister, Livia! We were standing by them when the fireworks went off. He was spellbound! Those are his parents that you can just barely see.










































This pretty much brings me up to date with my blogs. Well, not really caught up, but now I can write the blog for carnevale! Ciao

Dogs, Cats, Horses, Chickens, Finches and Garden sitting!

Summer 2009 (Part 2)--After we got back from London it was our friend's turn for a holiday. Lynda wanted to go visit her parents in northern England and asked us to "sit" everything. What an adventure. She has 5 dogs, 9 cats, 2 horses, several chickens, and a couple of finches. She also had a huge garden.

While Larry was getting food and water for the horses I would start with feeding the cats. They were not content to wait for the dishes to be filled, but tried to get to them while I was trying to get the food in them! In addition to the 5 adults there were 4 new born kittens upstairs!



























Larry would get the grain from the barrels and then carry the buckets up to the horses. He also filled two buckets with water. Luckily, he only needed to muck the stalls a few times!


























One day when we arrived this little mutt had gotten out of his collar and wasn't too happy when Larry tried to put it back on.




















Trying to get in the pen with 3 dogs trying to get to the food.



















Happily eating.





















March had his food all to himself.























There were a pair of finches and a nest with eggs in it. Lynda has had incredible luck with the breeding of these birds.






















The chickens were as eager for their food as the cats and dogs. They finally started laying eggs the last day we were their care givers!




















The garden was down below. At first we would fill up the buckets and carry the water to each plant. There were at least 40 tomato plants, 8 zucchini plants, 6 eggplants, potatoes, onions, and garlic.




















Larry was able to hook up a hose to one of the tanks. That made the watering go a lot faster!



















We took care of everything for a week going up twice a day. It was actually a lot of fun and helped me to realize that I never want to have that many animals!

Ciao

London!!

Summer 2009--How embarrassing is this? It is now February 2010 and I am just writing a blog for last summer! I could give you a million excuses, but that's all they would be--excuses.


Last summer we headed to London for the first time. Our friends Frank and Judy were here visiting and they wanted to see London. Off we went on Ryan Air. I could tell you that whole fiasco, but if you've ever flown by Ryan you can probably guess. If you haven't, you probably wouldn't believe me!


One of the first things we did was to pass by Big Ben. It really doesn't look that big in the photo. Frank & Judy are in the forefront.





















We then headed to Buckingham Palace where we hoped to watch the changing of the guard. According to our brochure we should have missed it, but we able to see some of it. It was a lot more elaborate than I was expecting! I should have realized that this would be a big production since it has to do with royalty and all of that!













































We did a lot of wandering around. Not really interessted in paying big bucks to go inside Cathedrals and museums.








This is a view of the London Eye. It is said to be the biggest ferris wheel in Europe!



















This is the Queen's Horse Guard. The horse and rider just stood there without movement the entire time we watched!

We saw several of these around London. Since our friend, Bronwyn, was watching the house, Miss Kitty, and the garden I took a picture in honor of her being an Australian!

























Guess what kind of food we ate the first night? You've got it--Italian! The food was pretty good, but the owner was terribly obnoxious! He hung around our table and talked in a very annoying Italian accent! He was from Italy, but the accent when he spoke English seemed a little over the top!


















We walked around Camden Town and saw the most interesting sights and people! It is a really cool place to visit. Larry saw these girls and asked if he could take their picture. He sort of told them he wouldn't post it on the Internet, but I'm thinking they thought we'd post it on a bad site. I'm hoping they won't mind that I posted it here on my blog!





















We were very lucky to be able to meet up with my niece, Mariah, who is living in London. We met at a tube station and then walked to this pub. Here we are toasting with a glass of cider. I look like I just saw a ghost, but it's just my normal deer-in-the-headlight look!



















These photos are of Princess Di's garden at Kensington Palace.



















And this is the Tower Bridge in London. Not to be confused with the London Bridge in Lake Havasu, California!!
















We were only in London for 3 days so we didn't take a lot of photos. It was an enjoyable trip. Surprisingly, we heard a lot of Italian and spoke with several people in Italian.

Ciao for now.