Vacation in Tuscany

Chris and I were lucky enough to spend a fabulous week in Tuscany with my family. It was a family reunion of sorts. My parents organized trip as a wonderful Christmas present and a way to spend time with their three kids: globe-trotting Mike & Hanna, study abroad students Pat & Amy and boring old Jodi & Chris.

I'm posting just a few of the many pics from the week here. Mike and Hanna were much more timely and thorough travel bloggers. If you want to see lots more photos (including some snazzy ones of me), head over to 80 Liters and work your way through the week.

Let's start by saying this was home for the week:

Romitorio di Serelle was an amazingly restored villa set on a hilltop in the middle of a vineyard in the heart of Chianti country. If you can handle driving serpentine mountain roads, I'd highly recommend it. Al fresco meals on the terrace, great rooms, spectacular views, pool, bocce court, 2 friendly cats and great wireless which enabled us to Skype with the girls every night.

(The girls stayed behind this time with Aunt Kathy and Grandma & Grandpa...thank you, thank you, thank you!)

We did quite a bit of sight seeing: small villages like Castellina in Chiante & Radda, the medieval town of San Giminiano, Florence, Sienna. Favorite memories for me are climbing the Duomo in Florence, the Sienna cathedral and gelato everywhere.

On top of the Duomo






"Little car" is the girls' favorite pic from the trip


Zebra cathedral in Siena


Gelato in San G



Chris finds his favorite Euro candy in a market


Amazing art

We also did a lot of relaxing. We slept in almost everyday (have we not slept past 7:30 since 2007?!?!), ate well, had some fierce bocce competition, went through a lot of wine and enjoyed the time together.

Taking a break from the stress of backpacking

Lunch




My twin and one of the 3 best friends that anyone ever had

Thanks Mom and Dad!

See you soon Tuscany!

And Happy Birthday Daddy!

We just kept the birthday train rolling and celebrated our favorite April Fool. Daddy's weekend of birthday fun included a pizza party on Friday night.

Elmo jammies from Kelly and a cheese grater from Shannon (Daddy makes some mean pasta with parmesan cheese)


To show Kelly that Daddy was not 2 like her, we put all of his candles on!

On Saturday we went to our first Phillies game of the season and surprised Daddy with his name on the scoreboard and a ballpark serenade.

And on Sunday we made our debut trip to the Adventure Aquarium to see the hippos. Because Daddy loves hippos.

Didn't get to see them swim because they were eating breakfast


BYOH


Shark tunnel was super cool


Kelly pet a stingray

Happy Birthday Chris! We love you!

Happy 2nd Birthday Kelly!

When you celebrate for a month, you have like 2 months to blog about it, right? (That's what I'm telling myself...)

Kelly had a great birthday. She was so into it this year. She was most excited about balloons and "cupcakes" which is Kelly's term for any and all dessert. We had lots of "cupcakes..."

The official cake


Cookie cake to celebrate on the big day itself; sadness that the candle blew out on its own


School cupcakes


Yum. Chris brilliantly suggested peanut butter frosting is skin tone...
so Caillou was chocolate-PB perfection.

Kelly had fun opening her own presents (much to Shannon's dismay!) but I think she liked testing them out even more.

Shoes and accessories! Kelly's favorites!


Outfitted for this Phillies season

And of course.... babies, babies, babies!

Thank you family and friends for making it a fun birthday!

Shannon's First Dance Recital

The recital did not disappoint. Just watch:

I think I've watched it about 30 times now and still laugh out loud. It just never gets old.

When you put Shannon and Natalie together, they totally feed off of each other. Let's just say that they were ready to be stars on recital day.

Charlie's Angels

Self-initiated pageant entrance. Kid you not, they were Miss America waving to the crowd.


Shannon and Natalie crept from the group line to center stage by the time the song was over.

Kelly spent most of the performance trying to escape to the other side of the gym.
Thank God for Aunt Kathy.

Quirky

Sorry for lack of pictures... I "lost" the battery charger for the camera awhile back but Chris "found" it today. Umm, 6 inches from the outlet it is normally kept in. Proof I am losing it.

So, in lieu of adorable photos, let me tell me about the weirdos.

My favorite Kelly quirk these days is that she insists on putting on a fresh pair of socks before nap and before bed. (But she's falling asleep on her own like a champ again, so guess who gets a fresh pair of socks before nap and before bed everytime?) Keeping with the foot theme, she's also in love with her "pippers" (aka slippers) and there is a whole practiced exchange about not wearing them to school, church, Target, library, etc that we go through on a daily basis.

Shannon is going through a phase of not liking foods mixed together. She'll eat a tortilla, black beans and cheddar on their own, but give her a quesadilla and she refuses it with her signature "what on earth are you thinking? stare. She's very into being big enough to take classes; case in point, as we drove by a bowling alley today and we were explaining/asking her if she'd like to go some time, she replied, "I think I want to take bowling lessons."

Ballet BFFs

What's better than your very first ballet class?

Your very first ballet class with your BFF.

Shannon and Natalie are taking a ballet/tap class at the Y this session and it is definitely a weekly highlight (for the girls and the mommies & daddies).

There's a rumor that they might even have an official recital. And if there is, I promise video. Until then, there will just be lots and lots of photos.