piper part two.

on sunday leslie, jamie, and i headed back over to the little loft to play with the little baby and see her parents. nikolai, christine, ryan, wendy (his gf) and elaine also came over to meet piper. we all walked over to the northern for some dinner and i got to push the baby carriage... i was a little afraid of the bumps and cracks in the road - i didn't wanna hurt the baby! and cars. crossing streets was a little nervous... cars and baby strollers... best to avoid those pesky cars!


all leslie. and absolutely delicious!!!


christine (like all of us but les) was a little nervous to hold her...


but auntie christine did a great job holding 4 day old piper


lots of love for baby girl!


just look at her. she belongs to devs! oh my gosh!!


check out those eyes! and that position her neck is in... is that comfortable?!


mommy, daddy, and baby at the northern. baby's first bar trip.


all of us (minus me) enjoying some good food and great company


awwwwwwwww!!

we also got to go play with piper on monday evening and enjoy a lovely dinner at jerry's outside on division and then we went back to the loft to eat the cake since it had gotten too late the night before. it was delicious and such a nice evening with friends.

and then on tues morn, i was guest-less and a little sad that les, jamie and hudson were gone although i'll fully admit that otis was rather thrilled to find he had his house back sans doggie. trish just made her plane ressies and booked up my spare bedroom for a weekend in august... now, who's next?!

lil baby girl larkin is here!!!

it's been busy around these parts! i spent almost a week in houston with my parents and then leslie and jamie and hudson came and stayed with me for a long weekend to not only break up their trip, but to visit the very newly born piper alice larkin! we got to visit devon, patrick and lil baby girl on saturday afternoon!


here's our devs with 3 day old piper... how tiny is she?! and how great does devs look?! uh-may-zing.


check out how big my hand looks next to baby! i think it's partly proportion...


auntie, baby, mommy


auntie leslie and baby piper


'what the heck do i with her and how do i old it?' -jamie.


daddy and baby!


she's so cute!


sweetness! she slept the whole time so we didn't get any open eye pictures... but we did the next day! just wait to see the beautiful eyes this little girl has!


look at these itty bitty tiny feet!

i mentioned that leslie and jamie and hudson were all staying with me. you may or may not be wondering how otis and hudson got along. wellllll, at first otis ran and hid under the barcalounger. and then he slowly and shyly came out. and then he spent most of his time on my bed. and then...


we kept trying to introduce them...
'what is this thing?! - otis
'what is it?!' - hudson


'wanna play?! hunh?! hunh?!' hudson
'you scare me. hissssssssssssss' - otis


'geeeeeeet outta here!!!' - otis.
"ok! ok! maybe i'll find someone who wants to play at wiggley field instead' -hudson.

i can now...

post blogs from:

*my living room...
*my bedroom...
*within 150 ft supposedly...
*hopefully on my balcony...
*from my white porcelain seat...
*perhaps even my neighbor's white porcelain seat (thank you jamie for pointing that out)...

all because leslie was so awesome and figured out how to make my stupid airport express wireless router work here in chicago!!!!!! and it only took me 2.5 years to get wireless here...

stay tuned b/c i have about a thousand posts to do... including... ta daaaaah....lil baby girl piper larkin!!!!!

we're headed to florence!

we spent about a day and a half in florence and so i'll just combine them in to a singular post. by the time we got to florence, i was awful tired. we checked in to our hotel and i immediately disliked it. the ladies who ran the katti house were very nice, but we had to walk down the street to another building which was weird. then we walked in our room and there was a small double bed...for me and my brother. ewww. gross. so they decided they could put in a roll away for one of us. but there was a weird smell in there too. and my lungs/asthma were reacting negatively. but we were there, and thus not changing hotels.

that afternoon, we had tickets to the uffizi (thankfully, bc otherwise the line to get in is ridiculous!!!). and i'll be totally honest... i saw what i was supposed to see and that's great but i really don't love renaissance art. and i was dang tired. so i was thrilled when mom said she didn't care all that much and so we read about and saw the famous paintings while dad and carl and tonee spent more time listening to the guided tour.


you aren't allowed to take pics in the uffizi, but this is there 2nd floor cafe where we waited for the others to be done. we were thirsty and just ordered some drinks. after mom ordered, i looked at the menu and discovered her coke was 4 euros which is like 5+ bucks! so we had to just laugh at that point and how ridiculously expensive her coke is. so we took a picture of mom and her super expensive coke.


waiting for dad to finish his guided tour.


a view thru the balcony architecture.


on a bridge. andrew, me and carl.


mom and me and the ponte veccheccio behind us. cute story: when my dad graduated high school, his parents sent him on a european vacation. florence was a stop and he bought a little garnet ring in the shape of a flower for his h.s. sweetheart (aka my mom) who was just a junior. in the 80s, my mom had a cleaning lady who stole a bunch of jewelry from our house. the husband found some of it, but alas, the garnet ring was never found. dad saw a similar ring in a window on the bridge and bought it for her! and it's bigger than the first one he brought back 40 some years ago. awwww, isn't that sweet?!


a view of florence.


the duomo


mom and me




haha, dad consulting the map/guidebook!


the second day we were there, we went to the academie where the david is in the morning (again no pics allowed!). then we walked around and saw the pitti palace and some other things. unfortunately it was sunday and so no one in the artisan area was working and a lot of shops were closed. but we found some delicious gelato at a place in the guidebook called grom.


mom and dad both swore they got dressed on their own and didn't know they were going to match. surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.


i saw this sign above a store. i have no idea what it means, but i really liked the word!!!

and then, later in the afternoon, we headed to the train station to get back to the rome area. our trip had come to its conclusion and we were going to spend the night at a hotel near the airport since our flight was early in the morning.

i'll admit that florence was my least favorite of the places we visited and i felt the most touristy. i'm not sure if it was just because i was so tired and kind of ready to just get home since i knew the end was near or if it was just less interesting to me. i've asked other people who've been to italy what they think and it's a mixed bag. some felt it was their favorite city and others felt the same way i did about it.

but, it was a FABULOUS trip and i am so glad i had the opportunity to go!!! now that i'm home, i am dreaming of going back...

and more barga!

we spent several days here in the barga area. and today, we visited raymond and joan at their house. they spend a few weeks every year in barga in a house the raymond's father built in the 50s. it is a duplex that on the other side an aunt lived and that is where carl had stayed for awhile in 73 and probably some other years as well. after exploring both homes (the aunt had passed away and left it to her 7 or 8 nieces/nephews inc carl), we headed to a tiny mountaintop village that raymond and joan knew of.


there are literally like two buildings here and they are built in to the mountain.


a fresh water fountain straight from the stream.


i scaled the wall. just because.


dad overlooking the wall i was standing on.


the church. part man-made, part cave!


the inside of the church.


another building built into the side of the mountain.


joan, mom and andrew stopped and look at the birds. this is on the trail to a restaurant that is up there on the mountain.


at the mountaintop restaurant. it was a gorgeous view!


i really liked this tree... i thought it was so cool looking.


carl and raymond on the path back to the car after a great lunch.



after lunch, we headed back down to san pietro in campo to stop and see the church. it had been completely redone about 5 years ago and this is a picture of the school area and the priest's living quarters above. when my grandpa was a little boy, he was going blind. he had guacoma and his mom took him and his older brother to italy when my grandpa was about 5 to see if a doctor could help him since the doctors in america could not. my grandpa lived with his mom in the old farm house where lauro now lives and since there was not enough room, his brother who was 8, lived with the priest who was his uncle in the priest's quarters. the church is a 2 min walk from the old farm house. this would have been around 1917.

isn't lauro the cutest!!? this is just to the side of the church.


carl talking with lauro and nilo.


as they were chatting, i decided to play on the playground!


this was close to our hotel and a delicious gelato place. i liked the strawberry/lemon combo. there was the cutest lady working there!


this is a beautiful home in barga.


a pretty bridge in town


gate to the old part of barga


at dinner, we were joined by carl's other cousin, sergio, and his wife (gosh, can't remember her name!) that he had visited while we were in slovenia. they did not really speak english so i didn't really get to know them at all. raymond and joan joined us as well. they are all related to carl's mom's side of the family - so not related to me. we ate at the l'altana and this is a picture of their house wine. it was one of the best dinners i ate in italy! YUM!!! and the vino was so good. the reason the label is missing from the bottle on the left is because everyone wanted one for a souvenir. i became the label peeler. i've got my label and plan on framing it. it's got a nice drawing of the duomo and old town barga. it was a very long 4 hour-ish dinner and i was exhausted by the end. but carl's cousins were very nice and i had a great time!