roma! day 1.

we left for italy on tues, june 8th and arrived in to rome at 7:45am after an 8.5 hr flight. we then had to figure out how to get to the hotel (we took a shuttle). we had a small charming place called residenzia cellini which was in an area near temini (the train station) around the corner from the repubblica piazza. check it out: http://www.residenzacellini.it


the outdoor patio that was off our floor. the floor had about 5 or 6 rooms of which we had 3. we were on the 5th floor.

once we settled in, we decided to go out and explore rome by foot. so we wandered around and found the spanish steps, the presidential palace and the trevi fountain. and then, we were exhausted and decided we needed a quick nap before dinner.

at the spanish steps, dad was consulting the trusty map when a local asked him what he was looking for... skeptical me wanted to know what the heck he wanted. turns out he just wanted to be nice and help! he talked to us for probably 15-20 mins and was so friendly and just cute. he ended up recommended the restaurant we went to dinner at - not far from where we were staying. he said to ask for the prix fixe meal and to ask for a tour of the kitchen. he said to say franco sent us. so we did! and dinner was delicious and the tour of the kitchen was pretty cool too... boy, it was hot in there. i know understand what it means: if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen! so i got out of the kitchen but not before a few pics were taken!


our first family shot in italy.


view from the spanish steps


the spanish steps


when i first saw people drinking the water from the fountain, i thought 'ewwww, that's so disgusting!!' but it turns out that they are all spring fed, super fresh water fountains and thus, the water is not only potable, it is delicious... and cold! so here is dad refilling the water bottle at the fountain in the spanish steps piazza.


our adorable friendly italian guy, franco, who recommended al grappo del oro.


at the trevi fountain... take two: mom didn't realize you had to toss over your left shoulder with your right hand.


making our wishes....


me and the parents.


and me and dad. mom gave me two coins to toss b/c the saying goes toss 1 to come back to italy and 2 to get married and 3 to get divorced and 4 for something else (can't remember what). so mom gave me two coins. do i really need the fountains help?! umm, sure! guess we'll find out if works at some point in time!!


climbing up a bunch of stairs. the presidential palace is in the upper left.


dad studies the map while carl talks to the officer in italian. we were all exhausted and trying to find our hotel!


at dinner. it was delicious!


we got a nice serenade too.


all of us in the tiny hot kitchen with the chefs. not a great picture, but i had to include b/c i felt very holly and scott like when we were in there checking it out and posing for a pic.


and i thought of devs when i washed my hands in the bathroom!


check out all the fresh fish! i stuck my finger in the mouth of one and made a goofy face. call it too much vino by this point!!

do division.

street festival #2! it's called do division. division is a street in wicker park and it is chock full of bars/restaurants and shops. some of you may recall i went bar hopping there over cinco de drunko. well, we headed back and went to johan's (of derby fame) apartment which is literally right above the festival. he had a bunch of people over and bbq'd. yum! it was a pretty rainy and thunder stormy and just overall yucky day so instead of really being at the festival, we spent more time hanging out at johan's place. later in the evening, we ran over to the condo our new friend nicole was hanging out at on division... it started pouring on us. you should have seen us stuck up as close to the buildings as we could for what little overhang there was! we got soaked. after there, we headed for a nightcap at a bar. can't remember the name of it as i had never been there before and it seemed like we/i were the oldest by at least 10 years. in other words, it made me feel really old to be in there.


i love this picture! maybe it's the matching jean jackets :)


tina, me and kyle at johans


hanging out on the deck.


some random youngun' jumped in on our picture. and yes, we are all wearing jean jackets! and no it was not planned!

italia! introduction.

foreword: i thought i'd just set forth my plan for blogging this trip... i think i'll do it day by day... unless not much happened (yeah, right) in which case, i will combine a day or two. i promise tons of pictures... and at the end (or if you want em now, i can email them to you) i'll post a link to all of them (if you want to see them that is!).

the players: i need to give a brief overview of the travelers so you won't be confused. and if you are no worries, it took me forever to understand the relationship between my mom and carl. here goes. my family: jeff, the dad. mary, the mom. andrew, the brother (younger). me (clearly). carl, the cousin (sort of). and tonnee, carl's wife.

carl and tonnee live in muncie, in (my parents' hometown). carl is slightly older than my parent's but only by a year or two. he's not really technically a cousin. ok, here goes: carl's dad was my grandpa's uncle. hunh? ok, another way: my grandpa's dad's name (MY great grandpa) was antonio pieroni. carl's dad was joe pieroni. antonio was joe's older brother by 20 years!

side note: they had 7ish kids... and two named faust. faust the first died when he was a toddler (i think) and they must've really liked that name b/c several years later came along faust the second. and since joe got married later in life and had carl later in life, carl is more my parents' age than his own generation (my grandpa's cousin! my grandpa was born in 1912! carl was born in the late 40s!). the kids in my grandpa's generation all spoke italian. therefore, carl spoke italian (which came in VERY) handy!! tonnee is carl's second wife and they've been married about 5 years. they were both great! i should probably mention that i'd probably met them before at my gpa's funeral and maybe another occasion, but basically i met them for the first this trip.

family history: more family history you say?! well yes. i'd never been to italy before and neither had tonnee (pronounced like tahnee from scripps). my parents had, but it'd been since i was a 3 year old and my brother was less than a year. get this: when they went, my dad went there for a week conference in milan. then they spent 2 more wks traveling italy and europe. they handed (or ditched) us kids off to my dad's parents in maine and said, thanks! we'll be back! eventually they came back and as the story goes, my brother had no idea who mom was!

my brother has been to italy before and he was there the summer of 01 when he went for 6 wks all over europe. carl had been back to italy (he was born in the US but both his parents had immigrated not long before he was born) but he hadn't been since 1973!

the pieroni side of the family is originally from a very small town in northern italy (tuscany region) called san pietro in campo. when i say small, it's like 4 streets maybe and that's now! it's closest larger town is barga and most italians will say they have never heard of that. so expanding it's north of lucca which many italians will have heard of. and barring that... it's about 90 min drive from pisa. more family history to come when i get to our days in barga.

*sorry this was going to be chock full of pictures and all about rome, but alas, my introduction got kind of long and thus i'll start a new post to begin the trip. i'm sort of using this as my way to remember the trip too so sorry if these posts get unbearably long!*

celebrating baby girl larkin!

baby girl larking is coming fairly (but hopefully not too) soon! and so a celebration was definitely in order. on a lovely (yet maybe a bit rainy) sunday (june 6th) afternoon, we gathered at christine's place and ate tasty food, drank some mimosas, opened presents and played a couple of games.

the lovely spread:


the games:


using p and d's full names, we had to rearrange the letters to create baby girl's new first and middle name.


d picked the winner, but not before carefull mulling over all the options.


then we played: guess the belly size. ummm, none of us knew... and i was way off. oops!

the food:


pretty and yummy cake! we also had fresh fruit and egg dish as well as many other things and cupcakes! everything was so good!

some gifts!


we got a BIG laugh over this one... some of us (me included) had no idea what it was... i can't remember what elaine thought it was but i do know we were dying laughing!


awwwww, lambie. we'd seen this when we were on our shopping excursion so i just ran back to pb kids and bought it later not even thinking d would have put it on her registry... but she had... and so her friend lena got her the same thing... whoops.


how cute is this pattern and burp cloth (i think that's what it is)!? there were way too many cute artisticky things in the present. i was super jealous. i want that pattern for something too!! :)


we got a gift too... there was a lottery ticket (i still need to check my numbers! i may be a millionaire and not even know it!) and some lip gloss and some other goodies too.

the friends!




i can't remember the baby's name, but she was super duper cute!


sandwiched between the two preggos. i love that they are due 3 days apart! remember the fetus set up blog?! yep, i can see it now....lil baby boy o'donnell and baby girl larkin k-i-s-s-i-n-g...first comes love, then comes marriage!! (you may sing that song now...it's stuck in my head)


unfortunately a couple of the ladies had already left, but this is most of us... all there to celebrate lil d and baby girl larkin!!

the house.

thought i'd give all you guys an update on my parents' renovations. it was supposed to be done by the time we left for italy which of course didn't happen - not the reno company's fault tho... mom (via me) kept changing our minds on various things. so now it will probably be august by the time they move back in or maybe september, but they are making some great progress!


this is the stairway... i grew up with wood paneling over that dreadful wallpaper that had been apparently hiding underneath. the stairs also used to have carpet... they will now be wood. and maybe a runner. or maybe not.


the new museum area for my dad's ball jar collection... this sits between the kitchen and dining room and family room. it's in the new space that was built.


don't worry... if you were thinking dad wouldn't have enough shelves, well he won't, but there are a lot more museum shelves in this area!


this i had no idea where it was: turns out this is the built in area that is in the family room and the tv is going to be on the wall above this.


this is the new kitchen. it's a fairly different layout and this is now a kitchen bar instead of just a pass thru. the fridge will be on the left where there used to be a window (it still looks like a window from the outside)


my former bedroom sans the closet and split in half: half for dad's new office (those are file cabinets you are looking at to the right and a desk to the left) and the other half for the new laundry room.


the new hallway. it cuts thru my old room and goes to the new bedroom that will be the guest room (with new bathroom! why the heck didn't they do this when i lived there?! i always shared with my mom. we had a boys and a girls bathroom.


the new bedroom


this is the originally hallway viewed from the top of the stairs. my dad is quite handy around the house and over the years had done some of his own shelving. it has now been upgraded for built ins. and in the middle of the picture is a new wall... where a door to moms/my bathroom used to be!


my brother's old room which has been mom's office. now mom is doing a bunch of built ins. yes, if it sounds like built ins are everywhere it's bc they are! and there aren't even pictures of some of the others!

gone fishin' twice...

i've been having lots of fun during the day playing with my little friends, graham, nelson, and elliott, and their mom, my friend marlene. we make play dates to take her boys to the park and this time we tried something new... fishing! they live in a suburb called park ridge and it has all kinds of great parks, playgrounds and even a nature center. the nature center has fishing poles you can borrow (for free!) and so we decided to try fishing. why not?! marlene and i both thought the boys would have about oh, 5 mins of fun... but both the bigger boys loved it! we wouldn't let them have hooks (good grief... someone would have lost an eye or something!), but they still somehow managed to 'catch fish'. they were way too cute. and really good at learning how to cast and reel in the line! it was their first time fishing.


marlene and the boys


graham was saying 'cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese'! maybe saying isn't the correct verbiage. he was screaming 'cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!!!!!'


baby elliott turned 1 in june! please note where his hand is!


gone fishin. i'm such a superb fisherman... esp with no hook!


elliott really really wanting to go swimming. marlene really really really did not want a wet little boy!


how cute are these two?!!?


elliott's learning to walk... this is his frankenstein pose!


in the nature center... love this one... graham is microscoping and marlene is so getting mad at nelson for something!

we all had so much fun, we decided we'd have to do it again. so we did. i think about 2 weeks later. this time, the fishing wasn't so novel and while the boys were super excited to fish, it only lasted for a little bit this time before they got bored. but even elliott got in on the action the second time - he could grip that big pole and he had fun dragging it around and trying to fish like the big boys. luckily next to the nature center/fishing spot is a super duper playground... so we headed there for some more fun!


how cute is this kid?!


about to jump!


and jummmmmmmping!


nelson decided he wanted to try and take pics... gosh, why is it guys always seem to take pics of girls' boobs?! guess they start early... this kiddo is 2.5!


i made him take a self portrait with me!


wow! watch graham do the monkey bars! he's so good!!!



and now lil brother wants to try it to!! these boys have no fear!


and now, they both are on them! ahhh, remember those monkey bar days?!