Mama Mia!

It is nice to have a birthday; it means you have survived another year on the planet and beaten the odds. Well, Big C had a good one this year. I think she reached the point where you stay the same age each year, maybe not. [Editor's Note: Absolutely not. I am happy to be 37 and won't stop counting for a long time yet.] Anyway we all went into Tropea for the day. We usually don't have weekdays off but we worked extra the previous week in exchange for a few days off around her birthday. This was worth it, but the work was hard. Not like mentally challenging, like chain gang, cool hand Luke hard. Sifting and moving 4 yards of limestone gravel and spreading it all over using my wheelbarrow. My good old carryola. Anyway, off to Tropea we went.

The weather cooperated and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We ate pizza and gelato, chilled out on the beach, checked out some old cathedrals and snuck glances at the Al Pacino's in their track suits adorned with gold chains. It was super fun.

Since we are not close to any gift stores we decided to make presents this time. Isaiah made a wooden bookmark that said I Love My Mom on it. Diego made a mosaic drawing on a card that had nice things to say about mom. I made a small statuette of a woman from a piece of old olive tree from Nonna's farm. Olive wood is insanely hard; had I known this before I started, it would have been made from pine.

The guests have arrived and are all German... maybe an Austrian family too. Lots of kids running around as if they had never been outside in their lives, or had just gained entrance to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. We all eat together in a large restaurant in the evenings around 7. However we sit at a side table in a smaller alcove while the guests all jumble around a long table, Viking style. We sort of feel like the Patrick Swayzee's (God rest his soul) of Dirty Dancing.

We have taken to the work here and have something new to do almost every day. Cadence especially likes helping in the restaurant. The staff here are really cool. The carpenters are just like any where else: trash talkers and beer swillers. The kitchen work is good, and Stefana the chef is great. Enza does breakfast and we help with orange juice and bread. I got to work with Master Cono the builder on the pergola outside Giovanni's house. After a bit of glaring and mad dogging he said he would like to come to America and work with me there.

Pasqua is coming up this weekend and it will be very busy with guests, many Italian. Also there is all sorts of traditional food served at this time. Leg of lamb, some other stuff, and these little raisin pies that Cade helped make. Like 1,000 or so. Johnny, (thats what we call Giovanni) has had me working on this old table his uncle made a century ago trying to get it ready for the weekend. I think it will be done by 5 or 6 tomorrow. It took something like 30 days of sanding and one kilo of putty to fix up the top. Hundred year old walnut that was previously a painting in an old church; now it's the top of this old table. I signed it.

That's about it folks.

Lots of love to all our friends and family around the world! A special big love to Grandma Irene. We're thinking of you Grandma!