Pre-School Picture Day

Recently, Claire had her first school picture day. Of course I had to get her all dolled up!

Girls' day out at the winery

For ages, my friend Sarah and I had been trying to plan a tour and tasting at a local winery. There are a ton around here and all over Italy, of course, but we'd been having a really difficult time getting in touch with one and setting up a tour.

Finally, we were able to connect with a darling little winery and vineyard in the Bacoli/Monte di Procida area. We had a lovely time and had some delicious wine. So far, it was one of my favorite experiences here!

Seven Months Old!

I know this post is really late, but February 28th marked seven months for Eloise.

The thing about doing these photo shoots for the second baby, however, is that the first is always trying to get in on the action. I only ever get a few shots done before Miss Claire barges in! Ha!

Eloise is crawling!

During the month of February, Eloise got closer and closer to being able to crawl, and finally, in the beginning of March, she started crawling! She's having a much better time now that she can get around a bit. Her immobility was frustrating her, but it's a new game for mom now as I have to start baby-proofing!
Eloise is also developing quite the social life. She gets to hang out with Liam, Sadie's little brother, quite a lot. Even though he's several months older than she is, she is totally entertained by him and he by her. They have a great time playing together!

Recently, all four kids (Claire, Eloise, Sadie and Liam) got to play together... they had a great time and there was shockingly little chaos, so it was good for mommy too!

The tiny town up on the hill... citta di bagnoregio

After spending the night in the little agriturismo, we woke up, had a lovely breakfast of home made baked goods and went on our way. We stopped at the Custodi Winery just outside of Orvieto. Our friends had gone there a few months before and highly recommended it.


We got a tour of the cantina and did a tasting of their wines and olive oil. YUM! We bought a case of their white wine the Orvieto Classico, and a few bottles of their yummy olive oil.

We then continued on to a small nearby town about twenty minutes away called Citta di Bagnoregio. This little town is on top of one of the hills and is only accessible by a foot bridge. We parked our car at the base of the bridge in the nearby town, and walked across the bridge to the little town.


Once we got into the town, we wandered around some of the cute little streets. It was only about a ten minute walk from one end of the town to the other, but there were a lot of cute streets to explore.
In the little streets, there were a number of very sweet tiles anchored into the walls depicting Mary and Jesus. I'm not ordinarily drawn to these types of things, which are all over Italy, but I found these to be especially endearing.

Once we walked across the town, the path wound down around the side of the hill a little ways until we came to a tunnel that we read about in our guidebook. The tunnel used to be used by the town's residents to transport goods. It was a very odd and somewhat spooky place to explore. Andy thought I was crazy for wanting to go inside!

But, he did eventually follow me!

After the walk through the tunnel, we found a little place to have a bit of bruscetta, which is one of the regional specialties. We ate in a tiny little, carved out, cave of a restaurant, where they had an ancient donkey powered olive oil press, and cooked the bruscetta next to an open fire in the fire place. It was very cool!

Our long weekend in Umbria

We decided to spend some of our President's Day weekend touring Umbria, a region just north of Rome. We'd heard great thing about the area, particulalry the town of Orvieto. The region also has fantastic wineries and, like much of Italy, has a number of agriturismos (sort of like a bed and breakfast on a farm), which we'd been looking forward to checking out.

Umbria is considered a "hilly" part of Italy with towns sometimes located on the tops of rocky hills that jut up from the lower lands, so the edges of the town go right up to the of the hill. Orvieto is situated on one of these hills. The scenery is dramatic and the buildings and streets in town are beautiful.
Orvieto is also known for it's cathedral with it's magnificent facade. We had a lot of fun taking pictures in front of this lovely building.
The region is also known for bruscetta. Normally bruscetta is made up of toast with chopped tomatos and garlic, but in this town, you could find platters of bruscetta with a variety of toppings. We simply had to taste the local specialty in a couple of places and it was delicious!


After touring Orvieto, we headed to an agriturismo that was about ten minutes away. The farm had a great view of Orvieto up on the hill and it gave you a great sense of the landscape of the area.
In this picture, the town of Orvieto sits on top of hill behind Andy and Eloise. Eloise and Claire had fun playing in the grounds of the agriturismo.



Later, we put the girls to bed in our upstairs room and went downstairs for a lovely meal, complete with freshly baked bread and other tasty treats from the farm and the nearby region. We thought the food was good and a we were again impressed by the variety of Italian food as we travel to different regions of the country.