Do you have a stuffy nose just looking at this picture? Not snow, my friends. Cotton. It is everywhere! Needless to say, we're going through allergy medicine like nobody's business. It's getting warm enough that we need to open our windows to get a little breeze, but this stuff is getting all over our apartment.
So the biggest size of milk you can get is a liter. When I go grocery shopping, I buy 12 liters of milk, and it doesn't make us through the week. But I don't think our little fridge could hold any more. Cody's fairly convinced I'm going to completely break the top shelf one of these days. (That KC Masterpiece and Pace are precious imports! Neither salsa or BBQ sauce are to be found here).
Milk also doesn't last nearly as long here. When I buy it, the expiration date is five days later, at most. No fat-free either. This is the best we can get, and it's about 2%.
Cody with our friend Fabio, at Alice's birthday party (Fabio's daughter and Hannah's best friend). We've talked before about the incredible ministry we're able to do at birthday parties! We haven't been to one that has lasted less than 2 1/2 hours. This weekend we have two, and next weekend we have two. Between Hannah and Gavin both, I bet we're invited to about 30 parties a year.
Ah, the Italian soccer game! Here it is called calcio (cal-cho). This is Gavin playing with boys at a birthday party. Soccer is serious here from the earliest age. You can't just sign up at the community center for a beginner's class. You have to join a team. And when I mean a team, I mean one that has adult-competitive play. The idea is that you train under that team from the beginning, and as you grow and progress, you work up that team's competitive levels. So a "team's" club would have 5-45 year olds. There is even trading between teams, of which you don't get a say in. If you're traded (even as an 8-year-old) and decide not to play for the team you're traded to, you have to sit out play for a year before joining another team. It's serious!
Something else to note in this picture is that Gavin is the only one is shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. It was a very pleasant 70 degrees this day, but all the kids still wore pants and long-sleeved shirts. There is a great fear of "cold" here. We try to buck the system, but we've been called by teachers at the kids' schools on more than one occassion for not sending them in warm enough clothes.
Don't these look like sopapillas?!? They are a region-specific food to Emilia-Romagna (the region Bologna is in), and they are yummy! They're actually called crescentini. You put a little spreadable cheese on one side, with some salami or prosciutto, fold it in half and gobble it up. At Alice's birthday party, her grandpa made fresch crescentini, and they were so good. You can't find them anywhere else in Italy, and we actually just discovered them here in Bologna recently.
This was Gavin and I on Mother's Day. Earlier in the week, he asked me out on a date, so we planned it for Sunday afternoon. It was our first date, and he won my heart! He took me out for gelato (he paid!) and then taught me a few soccer moves. It was precious. Gavin is growing up into such a strong, tender-hearted little boy. It was a perfect way to celebrate Mother's Day!
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