We're home!! We made it. We were sad to leave our wonderful vacation and our great Italian family. They were so hospitibale and took such good care of us. We felt so spoiled. We left early Tuesday morning and flew and flew! The flights all went very well and the kids loved them. We arrived at 9pm which was actually 5 in the morning for our bodies! We had a great reunion with Bob, Canada , Bushy and Ricky. It is so nice to be a complete family again.

Well, laundry is done, I got groceries and we are ready to jump back into school and activities tomorrow....welcome back to reality!!!

Last day

Today is our last day in Italy! We leave at 7am Tuesday morning. It has been a great visit. We learned so much and saw so many new and interesting things and we had such a great time with Raffaella and her family. They are so kind and hospitable!! We will miss them. But we finally get to go home and be reunited with Daddy and Canada, Bushy and Ricky too. And of course all our other friends and family. We also get to be reunited with the reality of life. Like school and chores and a schedule...hmmm, I'm not so excited about all that.

Shane loved our day in the country. He got to run up and down the dirt road and jump off everything in sight without a museum or church lady yelling at him!
The road was lined with olive trees, and walnuts, almonds peaches, figs and of course grapes. I kind of felt like I was back in the Bible!

more pix from the town of Bure

Just my size

A day in the country

This was Shane's worst memory of the day. This was the cellar room where they store the wine barrels for about three years. You can just imagine the fermented smell we endured !!!
But, he survived and is now a stronger young man!







We peaked in the old church just to see what it looked like, and, to our surprise, got to watch an Italian wedding!

We went with Marco to a huge, old, fancy opera theater in Milan, had lunch (pizza), then we all took the subway and the train to Marco's house in Nevara. It was fun to see a different style Italian home and meet hi Brother and Sister. we hung out there for a while then he took us to the train station. We took the train back to Milan, then to Verona and arrived home at about 10pm.



Saying goodbye to Marco at the train station

Today we took a drive with Raffaellas parents out to the country in the mountains. We went on a guided tour of and old villa that currently has vineyards and produces much wine for Italy. It was very interesting. We would have even learned more if it had been in English!!

I don't think they have the parallel parking otion on the Italian drivers test!
These are the trays they use to store the grapes for four months while they 'do their thing'

Beautiful Florence
On the way home from Florence (hannah's camera has more to this story, I'll try to get it)
This was on our rest day back in Verona
yeah!!! we met Marco in Milan. Marco was an exchange student in sac with Raffaella.
Marcos house in Nevara (outside Milano) and his little brother Alessandro