Memorial Day Weekend Sales!

Found some great Baby Deals at Sears this weekend:

See the Flickr page for more!

Now off to watch Anastasio race his Mountain Bike in Fort Ord & go for a 2 Hour Hike in the Oaks. Baby loves it when I hike long!

Certaldo, Volterra, Pisa, Florence & Fieosole (Tuscany Area)

After Parma, we headed to the Agriturismo, Casa Alle Vacche, in Tuscany for a week. Once settled in, we took day trips to several towns in Tuscany.

One of the closest towns was Certaldo, the oldest town in Tuscany:

We visited Volterra, made popular by the Twilight Books:

Anastasio was intrigued by a Castle we passed a couple of times called Castelo de Olivo:

One day, we headed off to see our last stage of the Giro, stage 4 in Livorno. We only went there to see the race but afterward we headed to Pisa to see the leaning tower:

I really wanted to spend 2 days in Florence but Ana couldn't stand the traffic or air quality so we only made a day trip. I had wanted to visit inside the main Cathedral & the Science Museum which contains the famous statue of the David, but we mostly walked around and did visit 2 other museums:

We ended the night in Florence by having dinner in a nearby town called Fieosole. Ana was in a wondering mood so we just happened apon it and had a wonderful dinner!

 

Parma, Italy

Parma was wonderful. The hotel was really nice and again right on the race course! We were able to catch the finish of the 2nd stage of the Giro D'Italia which was fun to watch. We were there for 2 days/1 night but we walked all around town (it was a pretty small town) and did lots of site seeing, including the town museum, Bapistry and Church. Very beatiful buildings, art and even some ruins!

The main thing about Parma though was that we had the BEST Pizza EVER! I had one with potatoes and sausage and Ana had something with tomatoes and salami. It was all so yummy!

Torino, Italy

Well we finally made it into Italy after a very long travel adventure and the loss of Anastasio's luggage. But we were so happy to finally be there and enjoy some bike racing, good food and lots of sightseeing. What we weren't expecting was for there to be such a HUGE festival happening the same weekend we were there!

It was the Unification of Italy & creation of their Alpini Army 150 year Anniversary Festival. In a town of 1 million people, they were estimating an additional 500,000 people to arrive for the festivities. There were lots of parties, lots of drinking and best of all lots of singing like this group:

It was great to walk town and see so many people enjoying life and randomly bursting into song which would then bring groups of people to a stop and join in!

We had decided to visit Torino to see the fist stage of the Giro D'Italia, which was a team time trial event, and I was lucky enough to book our hotel right on the course! Problem was, the crowds were so HUGE that we never really got to see too much of the race, but we enjoyed it just as well.

Here we are at the 2k to the finish banner:

Here's Anastasio trying to catch the race teams as they fly by:

The partying never stopped. There was a bar outside our hotel window and guys would stay up drinking and singing till 5 in the morning! We couldn't be mad though cuz everyone was so happy! It was even funny at times.

What made up for the all hours singing was the amazing food in Torino. Probably one of the best cities we ate in, there was a restaurant by our hotel that we dinned at both nights there cuz it was that good. Spaghetti carbonara, asparagus risotto, breaded chicken, parmesan risotto, and yummy salmon. We were in heaven!

As mentioned in my previous post, the baby started kicking big time during our flights over. Well he never stopped! He's been kicking pretty hard and Ana has finally had the chance to feel him a few times!

Baby Gifts-Thank You Morgan Family!

Thank you sooooo much to the Morgan Family for their generous and thoughtful gifts to Baby Flores. These were on our door step when we arrived back from Italy. So fun!

Sophie the Giraffe

Thank you again my friends!

Quick Recap on the Italy Trip

It was the most amazing, romantic, hectic, busy and wonderful vacation ever! More details to come, but for now here's some of my favorite pictures from our adventures:

The Baby Flys

Well, we made it to Amsterdam in one piece, now just waiting for our transfer to Italy. There was a some kind of a strike so we've been delayed a few hours, let's hope our rescheduled flight stays on time!

Big news is that it looks like Baby Flores either loves flying or hates flying. He became EXTREMELY active right after take off and his kicks are pretty strong. Anastasio got to feel him kick around a few times cuz he's been so active!

I have to say though, I'm not sure I quite like the way the kicking feels, so far every bout feels like I'm about to be car sick, especially when he kicks my insides rather than towards the outside...not good, let's hope it gets better when he starts moving up a bit.

I had to take Dramamine for the flight since he was so active. It helped with the nausea, though I started feeling sick coming into Amsterdam, but it worked pretty well in the beginning. I feel bad about taking the drug, even though I had permission from my doctor, but I felt that puking on the plane wouldn't be so great for either of us (especially cuz I've done it before and it really sucks!)

I have no idea what our Internet connections will be like in Italy but we should be able to post some pics once we finally take some!

Well, it looks like our rescheduled plane is gonna be on time so I'd better go! Till next time:-)

And We're Off!

Okay everyone, we're headed to Italy!

Don't forget to check out our Baby Flores Flickr Photostream Page where we'll be posting pics of our travels!

(Flickr link also to the left of this post or click here)

See you in a few weeks!
-mm, af & baby f.