April Showers

Now that it's planting season, Gary is on the farm up from sunup to sundown unless it has rained. The rains are very bittersweet. We hate to see any slowed progress on the farm, but it is nice for Gary to get a few days off once in awhile. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Gary was able to get away alot in April.

I was planning a trip to Atlanta for the first week in the month to see the Galbreaths. After Shannon had their oldest child, Carter, I was able to stay with them and help out a good bit because they lived just down the road from us at the time. So, when she found out that she was pregnant with Kelsey, of course we had to keep this "tradition" alive, so I promised to come and stay to help out in whatever way I could. (To my friends in Atlanta that I didn't call when I was there, I am sorry, but it really would have defeated the purpose of giving Shannon a rest if I was off visiting other people the whole time that I was there. Hopefully we can get together next time.) Due to a big rain just before I left, Gary was able to come along.

Now, Shannon has thanked us for coming to help. However, what she may not realize is that we probably cherish this time even more than they do. Not only do we get to spend time with some of our best friends, we also get days of nothing to do but play with these precious children. There are great bonds that can be formed over days of undivided attention that you just can't get in short greetings. I loved it that some of the things that I had done with Carter from a year ago had stuck with him. (For example, I taught him how to call the neighbors dog over, and now he does that whenever I'm around - even if the dog is not.)

We were there for less than 4 days, but we were able to get alot in. We went and worked out, went to two birthday parties, Gary got to play golf with Phillip, Shannon and I went to lunch and got to go and do girly things, the guys all went to a Braves game (Carter's first!), and Phillip (with some encouragement from Gary) got a Wii - we all had fun figuring out how to play it. Probably my favorite thing from the whole trip, though, was just getting to sit and talk. It is something that we did alot when the four of us lived in Winston-Salem and when Gary and I still lived in Atlanta. We have all been friends for a long time and we miss the Galbreaths so much! We're already looking forward to the Galbreaths coming to Greenwood for a visit soon.

The week after we got home, Gary celebrated his 28th birthday. We actually celebrated a few days early by having my parents and brother over for dinner. His big present was Rock Band, and we spent most of the night playing that. As you can see from the pictures, Gary didn't get to enjoy his present much since the rest of us all wanted a turn. He has spent the last several weeks making up for the time lost that night.

On Gary's actual birthday, we went out to my sister's school to watch her in the Senior Play. The play was The Big Bad Wolf and Susanne was a "wolfette". It was a very creative spoof on the story of Little Red Riding Hood and other fairy tales involving wolves. Unfortunately, Gary was working that night and couldn't make it. I also got to see Susanne compete in her last high school dance competition a few days later. It is hard to believe that she leaves for college in just a few months.

Toward the end of the month, Gary and I went to a wine tasting. I forgot to take my camera to the actual party, but got some pictures of us when we got home (with Deacon, of course! This is what happens when you are trying to get a dog to pose for a self-timer on a camera). The proceeds went to Cancer Research. There was a great turnout for such a great cause.

Gary's sister and her family are coming next weekend for their first visit to Greenwood. We are so excited to see them and I'm sure that we will have lots of pictures to post after their stay.

Our Trip to Italy - Day 2

After hitting the snooze button several times, we wake up feeling surprisingly rested. We eat breakfast in the hotel. We enjoyed pastries, toast, and granola. The coffee was very good, but we both agreed that the orange juice and water tasted a little strange (the only items of consumption that have gotten a negative review so far). After breakfast, we check out of the hotel and take our bags to the car so that we can walk around Siena for a few hours.

We plan to head from the parking garage to San Francesco, but on the way we follow a sign leading to a botanical garden. At first, it looks as though this my just be a large goldfish pond in a parking lot, but continuing around a building we find quite an impressive garden with an amazing view of a vineyard, the Siena wall, and the Italian countryside beyond. This little gem, which wasn't in any of our guidebooks, quickly becomes our favorite part of Siena. We forego San Francesco and stay in the gardens until lunchtime.

Gary and Kathryn in the Botanical Gardens

Labeled Iris Unguicuraris

Kathryn walking toward the city wall

View of the garden and the wall beyond

We went back to Il Campo for lunch. We ate prosciutto and provolone pizza at Spizzico. Then, we ate some bacio gelato (chocolate with nuts) from a gelateria also on Il Campo. It was amazing - we decided that we should probably have gelato in each town we visit.

In front of the fountain at Il Campo

Siena city view


Gate leading out of Siena

By 1:15pm, we are on the road again. Thankfully, we are as careful getting out of Siena as we were careless getting in. We made no wrong turns on the way out of the maze, and even - very surprisingly - guessed our way to the road that leads to Firenze. In fact, we made it all the way into Cinque Terre and Riomaggiore with no problems. We did have to stop a couple of times to take pictures of the breathtaking views in La Spezia - a view of the harbor with the snow-capped Apuan Alps in the background.

While in Cinque Terre (5 towns on the Ligurian Sea), we plan to hike the trail along the coast. We are staying in Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five towns. We check into our hotel in Riomaggiore, Locanda del Sole, around 4:00pm. The hotel is in the heart of Riomaggiore. Enrico, the owner/manager helps us carry our bags up the hill to our room. We immediately run down to the train station in hopes of going to Vernazza and hiking to Monterrosso (the most strenuous leg of the 6K hike). We miss the train by 5 minutes, and the next train wasn't coming along for another hour. Not wanting to hike in the dark, we decide to wait and hike the entire trail the next day. We decide to take a train to Vernazza for dinner. In the meantime, we walk down to the Riomaggiore harbor to take in the view of the sea. As it begins to rain, we thank God that His plans for us are so much better than our own. If we had caught our train, we would have been hiking in the windy cold rain. We are enjoying Plan B much more.

View from our room

Streets of Riomaggiore

Steep steps leading down to the harbor


Overlooking the Riomaggiore Harbor looking up the Cinque Terre coastline

Mural at the Riomaggiore Harbor

On the train to Vernazza, we met a couple from Chicago. The man actually sold his first car to Kathryn's uncle back when they were in college at Wheaton together. It really is a small world! We enjoyed walking around Vernazza and taking pictures of the town. Before dinner, we went to Bar Enoteca for a glass of wine, which we enjoyed as we sat on a bench outside overlooking the harbor.

Vernazza

Church at the Vernazza Harbor

View of Monterossa from Vernazza Harbor

Vernazza back alley at night

We have dinner at our third choice of restaurants, Tratoria da Sandro. Because we were there during non-tourist season, many of the locals were away on vacation themselves, and therefore, many restaurants and shops were closed. We were very pleased with choice #3. As had been recommended to us, we tried the anchovies because they are the local specialty. To our surprise, we really liked them. We also had spaghetti - you can't go to Italy and not at least tried the spaghetti! Hands down the best spaghetti either of us had ever had. Swordfish was the main course. Although we knew we were in to gain about 15 pounds on this trip, we decided that it would be worth it.

After dinner, we caught the train back to Riomaggiore and hiked up the hill to our hotel. We went to bed early in anticipation of our long hike planned for the next day.