Week 20

On Sunday we went to our summer place in Fregene for the first time this year. It was no beach weather, but we tidied up a little and picked some lemons from the lemon tree. Daniele was at his friend's house and one of Sofia's riding friends had slept over at our house, so she came with us. We had lunch out in the garden, just in time before it started raining. The weather forecast was very accurate, it had said rain from two o'clock and when it was two o'clock the first rain drops started falling!
Mmm, these lemons are lovely and smell so good!

Week 19

I realize that I haven't been going to playgrounds too much with Carlotta. We spend most afternoons at our riding lessons and when we don't do that we meet our friends whose children are in Sofia's and Daniele's age and we meet for a coffee or go shopping or something the bigger children like to do. On Friday I took Sofia to a birthday party to a Mc Donald's thats inside a park, so I stopped there for a while with Carlotta and then we had dinner at Mc Donald's. She hoped to see someone of her school friends there. There weren't any, but I think she enjoyed herself a little bit anyway.

Week 18

This week's photo shows Sofia and the pony she has been going to competitions lately. After Armando's marathon, the week-end 5-6 of May it was our turn to partecipate in a two day's show jumping competition. It went quite fine, the first day no errors and the second day one knock down. The first day it was warm and sunny and the second day it kept on raining a little bit all day long. We had a good time anyway!

Week 17 Trip to Nice

Lots of things have happened in April. Easter, Daniele's birthday, the horse fair Roma Cavalli, a friend's first communion and the last week-end of April we went to Nice where my husband ran the half marathon. It was a nice week-end, only the trip to and from Nice was a bit tiring as we went by car and it's about 700 km from Rome. We left on Thursday night because my husband preferred to drive without the children quarrelling all the time. He drove almost all night and stopped to sleep a bit a few times and in the morning we arrived to the Cote d'Azur. We had booked an apartment in Cagnes sur Mer, about 12 km from Nice. We could chek in only in the afternoon, so we went to the centre of Cagnes to have breakfast and then headed off to St. Paul de Vence, a beautiful little village up on a hill where lots of artists have come to paint. It's full of art galleries and it's very pictoresque. The photo of the week is from St. Paul de Vence.

Then we went to the beach of Cagnes, but it was so windy, so you couldn't swim and the water was very cold too.

In the afternoon we went to Nice to get the bag with the marathon number and then we bought some bread, macarons and other pastries from one of the boulangeries in Cagnes. They have such good bread and pastries in France and there are bakery shops everywhere.

Despite the windy day Daniele, Sofia and Carlotta took a swim in the pool on the roof of our residence.
Next day we visited Cannes and Antibes and went to meet Armando's old class mate who lives near Nice. He was very happy with his life in Nice and he lived in residence inside a huge park. Today the weather was nice and the water so calm that it would have been nice to take a bath in the sea, but we hadn't brought our swim suits and towels. The children got to swim in Armando's friend's pool anyway.

Next morning the weather had changed completely and it was grey and rainy. It was the marathon day and we all went to Nice. Luckily enought it wasn't as bad as the weather forecast had foreseen and it soon stopped raining. Armando managed to run his marathon and was very satisfied.

The we went to our apartment to eat lunch and in the afternoon back to visit Nice. It's a beautiful town! We walked along Promenade des Anglais, went to the main shopping area, walked up to the Castle park where you had a beautiful view over Nice and in the evening we went out to eat in a nice Bistrot with Armando's friend and his wife.

Next day was a travelling day. It was raining in Nice. We drove through Monaco and wanted to go to the aquarium in Genova, but all the parking lots were full and in the end it got so late so it wasn't worth to park far from the aquarium and get there by bus anymore, so we continued and went to see the leaning tower of Pisa instead on our way to Rome.

Week 16

On week 16 it had been raining a lot when we went for our riding lesson and the riding field was too wet and soft, so the whole big group went out for a ride in the pinewood. It's nice to be able to go directly into the wood without crossing any big roads and it was very relaxing to have this kind of lesson for a change.

Horse fair in Rome - Roma Cavalli

On week 15 there was a horse fair in Rome that we had been waiting for very eagerly. There is show jumping and all kinds of events and you can buy lots of horse things and get good bargains. This year we didn't like the organization thought, because if you wanted to see the show jumping events you couldn't leave your seat to go to see other things, because there were so much people that you couldn't get back and get a seat anymore if you left it. And this year there weren't so much things to buy either as last year. Well, anyway we spent two days there and saw exciting competitions and also got to buy something we had needed and something we hadn't needed, but liked to get :)

Easter lay-out

Here's an easter lay-out that shows some photos from our Easter. The children had 6 days off from school for Easter and besides the home work that they always get for every holiday, they had time to relax and do lots of things. We went horse riding of course. Carlotta had her first sleep-over at her friend's house. They were three little girls and she was so excited about it and would have liked to stay there more than just one night!
Daniele's birthday was on Easter Sunday this year. Armando's mother came for lunch and the weather was really nice so we could eat our lasagne, lamb steak out, easter eggs and birthday cake out in the garden. Daniele got his table tennis table which we managed to assemble in the morning. After lunch we invited some friends to inaugurate it. Next day we had a barbeque in our garden together with friends. It was windy and quite cold in the morning, but at lunch time the weather was nice and we could stay out in the garden all day eating, drinking and playing ping pong in good company. A very nice day!

Week 14

Week 14 and Daniele 14 years! This year Daniele's birthday was on Easter day. His only wish was a table tennis table to have in the garden, so he got it and my choice for this week's photo is Daniele inaugurating his new ping pong table together with his sisters.