Viva Italia (Part 2) Kids

Mom, can we see Jesus? This question has been asked so many times since our first trip to Strasbourg, France, several months ago. As we are such heathens and the kids have had limited exposure to the church, they are both a little obsessed with Jesus right now. So, when in Rome (ha ha) we just had to check out a few churches. Imagine our surprise when we found a black Jesus in the small catholic church in Casale, Monferratto. They were both so impressed and slightly terrified at the same time. This photo below has been labeled 'Mom still feeling guilty'. See, what happened the night before was apparently Jack fell out of bed. I say this 'ho hummingly' because this is not an unusual occurrence for our son. He is not the most graceful of children carrying around those huge boats we call his feet. So, he falls out of bed, whimpers, I run in, pick him up, put him right back to bed and he goes right back to sleep. End of story, UNTIL the following morning when we noticed a small (?) bump on his eye.............................so, as Daddy had a golf game scheduled that morning, I did the best I could do in easing the pain. I took him for breakfast to the local gelateria. The pain melted away. What a trooper!

Beach Babies, Beach Babies, sing me a song..............................as we were only an hour from the beach, we decided to drive to the Italian Riviera for a few days of splash filled fun. This was Jacks first time in the ocean and he just loved it. The surf kicked up quite a bit and he got swallowed up several times by huge waves but surprise, surprise - he just kept going back for more! To be truthful, Ron and I have never been beach bums. We took the kids there because we knew they would like it. I have to tell you for those of you dreaming of how nice this would be to go on vacation - in my humble opinion, it was not all that. It was what we gently called 'seaside hell' - a bunch of gorgeous little towns along the coast, very close to Nice/Monte Carlo and just destroyed with touristy stores and touristy hotels (with atrocious service). The rich tourists with fancy cars paraded all over the place may like that scene, but we were only to happy to drive back over the mountain to the wine country where the people were real and the food was sumptuous.

All in all, we find ourselves do things that the kids will enjoy but have decided to stick to what we truly love and the reality is that the kids will enjoy it too. They have already had so many unbelievable experiences at this stage of their young lives so we are done feeling like we need to expose them to the world. The have the travel bug!

Signing off for today,

WiseMona