First swims of the year

The first swim of the year is always something to document. This year I took my first swim in the sea on the 17th of May. Me and Sofia went to the beach of Torvaianica with our friends.

We had a nice coffee and a chat at the beach cafè.

Carlotta was at the theatre with her friend that day, so the next day when I had finished working I suggested to her that we go to Ostia to have a swim at the beach and maybe an ice cream afterwards. She liked the idea. 
I like going to the beach when it's not too crowded and not too hot and the best moment is when the sun starts going down and people go home and the light is so beautiful.

Then we drove to the centre of Ostia where there is a frozen yogurt shop. Yummy! You serve yourself and choose the toppings and pay by weight.

I love the golden hour!

 Driving back home.

Spring barbeques

Although our week-ends are quite hectic with Sofia's show jumping competitions and Armando's marathons, this spring I have managed to organize two last minute barbeques in our garden. They are always great fun. Everyone brings something to eat, so it doesn't get too stressing for anyone.

The first barbeque was on the 12th of April after the Easter holidays. That time it was with our Italian friends. Some of them knew each others, others didn't, but it turned out to be a very happy bunch of people and we got many good laughs.

The second barbeque was on the 1st of May and it was with our Swedish-Finnish friends and their families and also some of Armando's marathon friends. The more the merrier! Again a lovely day out in the garden. This time we had fava beans and pecorino cheese, which you traditionally eat in Rome on the 1st of May, strawberries and some very tasty cakes. Our teenagers seemed to get on well together, although they hadn't met for a long time.

A summer update

I'm very much behind with my posts here. What have we been up to? Well, lots of small things. Schools have finished and now for the second week all three children are at home. Well, Daniele is almost never at home. He has had a very active life since he started his summer holiday. He has a group of friends and they organize something everyday. They go to the beach, to the pool, they have barbeque parties, go out in the evenings and so on. Just now he is at a camping site in Tuscany with other 6 friends. Lucky him. This is where we left them playing football in the sea when we had taken him there.

My work has kept me at home in the mornings, so if Sofia and Carlotta don't get invited to friends, they are here at home, too. They sleep late in the morning and mostly watch TV. After quite some time we managed to get our outdoor pool assembled and filled with water. The outdoor pool is quite complicated, actually. You can't use the water from the well, as it gets brown and it wasn't easy to find a place to connect the water hose inside our house. Then the water leaked on the floor. Fortunately we got that fixed. Then you have to measure the PH and the chlorine content in the water and correct it when needed. Anyway now the pool is there and Sofia and Carlotta has spent some time there. Yesterday they made a brownie cake after a recipe found on the internet. Of course Carlotta got summer home work from school, too, but she is not so eager to do them. For me it would be more important that she would read some books and maybe write down her summer memories, which she already has started to do.

In the afternoon I turn off the computer and we go to the horse stables and come home quite late in the evening. After dinner we often go out for an ice cream. This week the evenings have been a bit rainy, so we have stayed at home.

I have decided not to let the summer float away without doing anything. So as soon as I will have time, we will go to the beach, to some pool, go out for an evening swim and other nice things. I have been more lazy exercizing than last summer, so I will try to start jogging again more regularly. There are also a thousand projects to do here at home and if I finish at least a few of them, I will be very happy.

Summer is finally here, so let's enjoy it!

Weekend in Dusseldorf

Last weekend we went to another marathon trip, this time to Dusseldorf in Germany. We left on Friday and came back to Rome on Sunday evening. Daniele decided to stay at home this time, so it was me, my husband and the girls.

Dusseldorf is a very nice city, small enough to walk every where, but very lively with lots of people, pubs and shops. You get there very easily from the airport in only 15 minutes by the S-bahn. There's an old part and a long promenade along the Rhine river with restaurants, cafés and pubs. When you continue along the Rhine you get to the TV-tower and then to the harbour with its modern interesting buildings designed by the architect Gehry and other famous architects. Some old parts of the harbour have been conserved alongside the modern hotels and restaurants.  

The weather was very good the first day and we noticed we had brought too much warm clothes. You could sit outside without a jacket also in the evening. We had dinner at one of the restaurants on the river promenade. They were all full of people in the evening and outside the oldes pub in the town there were so many beer drinkers so you could hardly pass through.
The next day there was slight rain, but fortunately it didn't rain hard. All together the weather was really good and you could walk around without getting your feet wet.

On Sunday Armando ran the marathon and when he had taken a shower in the hotel, we went to the airport quite early to be on the safe side. We had a Mc Donalds meal there before flying back to Rome in the evening.

Our Easter holidays

The Easter holidays gave us all a very well needed break. I had been working a lot and enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to wake up to take Carlotta to school early in the morning. Unfortunately, however, there isn't a school holiday here in Italy without homework. Well, trying not to stress about that too much, we relaxed quite a bit anyway. The holidays started with lovely spring weather and we spent some nice time with the horses.

On Thursday we had an Easter show jumping competition at the riding school. All three of us girls partecipated and got an Easter egg each. Sofia and her friends painted the horses for the competition.

On Friday the lovely weather continued and me and my friend organized a last minute picnic on the riding school fields after our riding lesson. Sofia and her friend rode two small riding school ponies on the field.

On Saturday the whole family drove towards the Adriatic coast to a small village called Russi near Ravenna where Armando was going to run a marathon. The weather got grayer and more rainy, but fortunately it didn't rain all the time. On our way there we stopped in a little town called Faenza. Armando wanted to see the place where he had arrived when he ran the 100 km Passatore run.

We visited Ravenna with its Byzantine churches and beautiful mosaics. There's really a lot to see there. The city belongs to the World Heritage List of UNESCO. After having walked around Ravenna we went to see the church Sant'Apollinare in Classe outside Ravenna. In the evening we had a good dinner at the hotel. Armando went to church and I sat at the hotel restaurant chatting with my children quite a long time before going to bed. That's something we seldome do at home when everyone is busy and tired.

Piazza del Popolo in Ravenna

Dante Alighieri lived his last years in Ravenna and was buried there

Mosaic in Basilica Sant'Apollinare in Classe

We spent Easter Sunday in the amusement park Mirabilandia which was the main attraction here for the younger part of our family. It was too cold for any water attractions and lots of them were still closed, but we spent quite a few hours there anyway. After Mirabilandia there still was some time to go to Ravenna where some of the museums had free entrance for Easter.

Easter Monday was the marathon day. Armando started early in the morning. Carlotta ran the children's run in Russi. She was fast and was among the first 10 of her age class. Then me and the girls went for the 3 km walk-run outside Russi. Daniele stayed in the hotel, because he had to do some homework. On our way back home we stopped in the beautiful medieval village, Brisighella where we had lunch in the piazza before starting our long way back to Rome. We had to wait quite a long time, but it actually said in the menu that it wasn't a place for busy people. We talked with a nice couple at the neighboring table, got some colours to draw on the paper tablecloth and listened to the music that was played on the piazza. There was a pleasant atmosphere and it was nice to sit there in the sun. Even nicer when our food finally arrived. It was worth the wait. Fresh and warm piadina-bread, tasty Parma ham, soft and creamy squacquerone cheese and lasagna.
While Ravenna and its surroundings is very flat and the scenery is quite boring, this part has beautiful hills and there was a stunning view from the tower of Brisighella.

Collage from Tokyo

Here's a collage of some of my photo memories from Tokyo where we went in February.