The Cinque Terre

Blogger is being horrible right now and won't let me load any more pictures so we will start here. This is the Cinque Terre. A small little piece of the Italian coast made of five little towns. That's what cinque terre means, five towns. It is GORGEOUS and we absolutely loved it. This was the last leg of our trip. Days 12, 13, and 14. We stayed in Vernaza one of the bigger towns which is hilarious because it's just the small hill that you'll see in all the pictures from our little villa. A little cluster of apartments, a tiny church, a train station, several shops and four restaurants.

These pictures start with our little day trip to all of the towns. They are all about a ten minute train ride away from each other and the train coasts right along the beach.

This is Manarola where the rocks along the beach were amazing. We went out on one, ate some yummy nectarines, then made our way down to this incredible rock beach.
My studly husband. You will see a lot of pictures of just him for two reasons: I hate pictures of just me, and we didn't trust anyone with our new camera.
No sand on this beach. It made the most beautiful noise I've ever heard. If you like the sound of the beach at night, the sound of pebbles coming in and out with the waves was unreal.

This picture just makes me laugh. I'm over trying to find only the pictures where I look good. There would only be about five on this blog if that were the case! I swear I was really enjoying myself despite my angry face.
Riomaggiore is where we took our one and only "hike". It was a walk actually and had a perfectly paved path along the mountain to the next town. It was called Via de Amore where lovers are supposed to walk hand in hand and blah blah blah. It sure was beautiful! And at the end there was a guy playing American love songs on his accordian.





We found some friendly Americans to take this picture. We tried to take at least one picture in each place together. In this case, the couple and their daughter were from Washington on a Rick Steves tour. And the wife actually worked for Rick Steve's book company. We lived by the Rick Steves Italy book. It saved us on more than one occasion. I highly recommend it!

Beautiful Riomaggiore.
Now for a tour of our villa! We were supposed to stay in a one room hotel type thing but they overbooked and asked us if we were okay with a three room villa with a balcony over looking the ocean for the same price. Yes please. I loved it. I thought it was so cute and charming and had so much soul. It was old and everything in it was old and that's what I loved about it. John, however, was not a huge fan. He thought it was creepy and smelled funny (moth balls in every closet and drawer) and didn't like how isolated it was. "Someone could come murder us in our sleep and no one would know for days." No matter how creepy or smelly it was, very few people in Vernaza had our view. And that's why I loved it most.
Kitchen
Standing at front door looking left
Standing in living room looking at the stairs to our room
Who gets to make their own pasta and eat it in private on their gorgeous balcony? We did!
Never got sick of pasta.
The view from our balcony at sunset.
This super cool mirror in the back yard. Once again, look at that view. Not me, the ocean.
He got really good at taking pictures of us with his go-go-gadget arms.
View from our bedroom window
Us in bed, the weird homemade head board, and another cool antique mirror.
Monteroso was my favorite town. It was the biggest, had this nice, long sandy beach and had lots of people to look at!
Gorgeous



The main strip in Monterosso where I got treats for Becca, Andrea, Gramz and Gramma Betty.
view from our spot on the beach.
Another view. I could have sworn that the guy in the speedo was Jude Law. He was quite the specimen. And he knew it.
Lovers. This was obviously my favorite day. Just give me sun, the beach, a book and a big water bottle and I'm good for 8 hours. John lasted three.
Italian beach people:)
Back to our town, Vernaza. This is the little marina. We are standing close to the water as we take this pic.
another gorgeous sunset.
See the round tower at the top? Our place is just above that so we had quite the hike 2 or 3 times a day. Which is why I would eat gelato at least twice a day here!
View from just outside our backyard door.
I couldn't get enough of this view. I took this same picture at least 50 times.
If I could have taken this planters home with me, I would have! Loved them. They kept me company when I laid out on the patio.

Our last day in Italy. Back in Rome before we caught an early flight back to our babies. We went to one last basilica, the Pantheon, my favorite pizza place, Trevi Fountain, and dinner.











Our last picture of Italy. And I love it so much. The sun was setting, it was starting to get chilly and we were in our favorite spot. In rome, right next to the Colosseum. What an incredible trip. Thank you honey.

Johnny Boy is S-I-X!!

Happy Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!I love this kids so very, very much! He is sweet and kind and good hearted and obedient (for the most part), he is patient with me when his high maintenance sister has taken all of my time and energy for the day, he is funny and will walk into the room and tell us funny jokes and loves when we laugh and laugh. He loves school and loves to learn. He loves his friends. He loves playing with anyone and never discriminates-boys, girls, old, young, he doesn't care as long as they want to have fun too! He is still very creative and loves drawing. Legos are his latest love and he can do most of them by himself with a few exceptions when he goes to his daddy for help. He doesn't eat much and is sooo skinny like his uncle Ryan used to be with knees that are wider than his thighs. He loves his sister and is always trying to help her learn things or learn how to be big like him. When she is throwing fits, he always reminds her to take deep breaths and smile. I am having so much fun with him lately and LOVE this age. He is my best buddy. Happy Birthday Johnny boy. Your daddy and I love you to the moon and back!

This year Johnny requested Pump It Up for his party which I tried everything from a trampoline to Disney Land to bribe myself out of with no success. He wanted to invite his whole class and his five best friends. He LOVES his class so much, how could I say no?
A little air hockey action. Maddox was the king.
It's so cute how lots didn't know each other but just jumped in and had a blast. they were so cute.
Livy was a wreck, as she always is when there is more than five people around.

Loving life!
This is when the party took a little turn for the worse...apparently, I didn't read the very small print where it says no outside food allowed. No one told me when I reserved or called to confirm. Sooo...they would not let our TEN pizzas in the building AND refused to let us use the paper products that were promised with the package I bought. Needless to say I was mortified and beyond furious.

John was amazing. He kept his cool and took care of the problem while hid in a corner and cried for a few minutes. I had told all the parents to stay because I ordered tons of pizza, had made a huge green salad and had tons of grapes for everyone. Then I had to tell them that we were eating pizza outside with NO plates or napkins then would eat salad and cup cakes inside. Horrible.
But you know what? The kids didn't care at all! They loved it! It was beautiful outside and they didn't skip a beat. And the parents were amazing! They each stopped at the counter to tell the manager and owner how ridiculous they were for making us eat outside AND not letting us have 25 paper plates. I'm still a bit bitter, can you tell?
Gramz Neese ran over to Big Lots and got plates and napkins for us. She's always there to dig me out of the holes I get myself into!
After we enjoyed out pizza on the sidewalk, we went inside to eat cupcakes and open presents...until they told me that we would be charged for every minute we went over our 2 hour time limit and only had 15 minutes left. So we scarfed out cupcakes, one mom had some salad, we sang happy birthday, passed out the goodie bags and half the kids left.
Happy Birthday to Johnnyyyyyyyy!!!
Happy Birthday Sweetie!!

Johnny wanted a Mario Galaxy themed party which of course is not available anywhere in stores so I had to order the invites and cupcake toppers online (and did not take any pictures of:() and I made a banner with Mario pictures all over it. It was so cute. He loved it. But they wouldn't even let me tape it to the wall.


Happy party animals!
After 1/2 the kids left, the girl came in and said, "my manager would like to tell you that you can stay as long as you'd like." I told her tell him that he can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Respectfully of course.
Opened presents at home which was so much fun! That's definitely the best part of inviting tons of kids to your party, you get lots of great presents!! He's good till Christmas! After he opened them I took half into my closet to save for those rainy days when there's nothing to do!


Johnny LOVED his special day which is what matters in the end. I, however, was traumatized and thought it had been completely ruined. In conclusion, I will NEVER set foot in the Pump It Up on Mason EVER again (if you would like to join me in that, I would not be opposed :)) John wrote a wonderful letter to the headquarters and the fools we had to deal with at the franchise and we will send it off today. And I will also never spend that much money on a birthday party because kids are simple and happy with a day at a park and home made cupcakes! Live and learn.