Mother's Day and first time at the beach

This was what welcomed me when I got up quite late this morning. Sofia and Carlotta had made a lovely card for me with photos and my breakfast was served with coffee and cakes that we had made the day before. Sofia made oreo cup cakes and Carlotta chocolate-coconut balls. So yummy!

Sofia suggested that we go to Fregene where we have a summer place. We go there very little, which really is a pity. As we always go to Finland in summer, we have rented it during the summer months. Last year we found a family who wanted it for the whole summer and they are coming back this year again. So from June to the end of August we can't go there. This Sunday the weather was a bit cloudy, but quite warm, so we started packing some food in the bags and called our friends to ask if they wanted to join us. So in the end it was me, Carlotta, Sofia and my friend Marzia with her daughter Alice. Armando didn't want to join us and Daniele had organized his Sunday with his friends, so off we went, us girls to celebrate mother's day in Fregene.

It was already lunch time when we got there and we were hungry, so we cooked some pasta and made sallad and my friend had brought ome grilled chicken and wine. Everything tastes so good out in the little garden.

Then we spent some time at the beach. We hadn't brought our swimming suites, but it actually would have been warm enough to put them on now.

We had a coffee at the nice beach café.

Then we went back to the apartment to have dessert. I had made a cheese cake with straw berries for Mother's Day.

I found the recipe in the internet, but this is my adapted recipe and it was really delicious.

Month in photos - April

Spring is really here and April has been full of new flowers and green grass here in Rome. It has also been a month with lots of work for me.
One Saturday there was a photo walk in Eur with a photo group that I found in Facebook. Eur is a district in Rome where there's an artificial lake. We went to take photos of the blooming cherry trees by the artificial lake of Eur.
Sofia and Icoon partecipated in an international show jumping competition in Arezzo in Toscana.
Also Carlotta had a competition in Rome. It went very well.
On the 8th of April Daniele officially became an adult. He turned 18! He celebrated his birthday in London with a few friends. When he came back we made a strawberry cake and celebrated at home.
We had a nice lunch out in our garden with our friends one Sunday.
Carlotta went on a school trip to the Cilento region. She had a good time there.
And on the last weekend of April it was Carlotta 's confirmation. There is a very nice restaurant at our barn and we had the party there afterwards.

Weekend in Ovindoli

In March the weekend before Easter we went to Ovindoli to the mountains about 2 hours from Rome. I had booked two nights in Hotel Millepini near the centre of Ovindoli. I wanted to go skiing at least once this winter and see some snow before spring.

Daniele didn't come with us this time, because he had already been in Austria for a week with his friend. Armando doesn't want to ski anymore and Daniele doesn't enjoy our company so much in the slopes. He thinks we are too slow and don't want to ski in the most difficult slopes, at least me and Carlotta.

Anyway, we had two nice days in Ovindoli with lovely weather, good food at the hotel and enough slopes for one weekend. The snow was good up in the slopes, but quite wet when we skied down the last meters. Ovindoli isn't such a big ski center, so probably in one week you would get a bit bored skiing always in the same slopes, but for one weekend it was fine. This is a fast scrapbook layout of our weekend. Maybe I'll post more photos later.

Month in photos - March

March was a very nice month and we saw both spring flowers and snow.
In March me and the girls spent 3 days in Montefalco in Umbria where Sofia and Icoon partecipated in a show jumping competition. We stayed in a nice apartment in the beautiful Umbrian countryside.

Our apricot tree was flowering.
My dear friend from Finland was here in Rome and we met in Ostia where we chatted over cappuccinos and walked around. So nice we managed to see each other!
We went on a mini ski holiday to Ovindoli in Abruzzo for a weekend. It was me, my husband and the girls. Daniele had already been on a ski holiday in Austria. It was really nice and after that spring was more than welcome.
We had a relaxing Easter break. Went to Ostia to do some shopping and had an ice cream, celebrated our Easter at home with lots of good food and chocolate and on Easter Monday we had a barbeque party in the garden with our friends. The morning was a bit rainy so we sat on our porch, but then the sun came out.
I will link this post in http://monaspicturesque.blogspot.it/ where I also got the photo template and in http://pienilintu.blogspot.it/.

Last day in Honolulu

This was our last day. We had the flight to Los Angeles in the evening. We didn't have to leave the apartment before 12, so we could take it easy. Carlotta wanted to take a swim in the pool at the 23rd floor.

Last souvenir and food shopping in Abc and then we went to the Waimanalo beach one last time to enjoy a few hours in the waves, sunbathing and playing "bocce" with some strange kind of nuts. There was a cold shower and changing room, so we could take most of the sand off and change before driving to the airport.

 

We had a long journey ahead of us. We flew back over Dallas. Because of the different time zones we left on the 14th of December and arrived to Rome on the 16th.

Hawaii - Day 5

Today was the marathon day. As it can get hot here also in December the marathon started very early, at 5 a.m. while we were still sleeping. We woke up in order to be at the arrival after 8 o'clock in case Armando would be very fast. We waited and waited and watched people running, but saw no Armando. We started to get worried in the end and tried to call him, but didn't manage to reach him. In the end we went to the place were we had agreed to meet after the marathon and there he was, happy to have run his marathon. He had arrived at about 9, but we just didn't see him.

We went to our favourite breakfast place to have a well deserved breakfast.

Then we started driving out from town. Not so easy. The marathoners were still running and roads were closed and there are not many roads leading to Honolulu. So we sat in the car a long time before finally getting to the beach in Kailua.

It was a nice beach, but Waimanalo was still our favourite. There were lots of people because it was Sunday. It was a bit cloudy from time to time and on our way back to Honolulu it rained a lot.

In the evening we went to a restaurant called Ihop to eat a Loco Moco (rice topped with a hamburger patty and a fried egg) and the younger part of the family had hamburgers.