The Best Four Days of Summer

From Sunday through Thursday of this week, our grandson Gabriel came to visit. We drove up and met Kate, Nate, and Asher and picked up Gabriel. Then it was a week filled with fun and a LOT of splashing! Gabe is so much more confident in the water this year... of course, it helps that he can touch the bottom now in the shallow end of the pool. He fished, played at the park, shopped, read books, watched videos, and swam with anyone who was available every single day! Gabe got a new Spiderman swimsuit from Aunt Gret and Uncle Leon. It makes him swim like a superhero!

The final run of Les Miserables

Ed and I took a break from the heat and power outages to head to the Fabulous Fox on Thursday. The touring company of Les Miserables is ending its 17 yr. tour here this week. The show was amazing. The music was superb, and the staging was pretty eye-popping. I have never seen anything quite this good in my whole life. Fortunately, the show is not actually vanishing. It is going to be re-orchestrated and launched again on Broadway in Nov. 2006 in an all new production. If you EVER have a chance to see it... GO and SEE IT! You will love it.

Stormy St. Louis

The past few days in St. Louis have been legendary weather-wise. We've had record heat. Then we had some whoppingly huge storms roll through on Wednesday night and again on Friday. We got through round 1 relatively unscathed... just a few fallen limbs etc. Then Friday morning brought round 2... yikes! Winds gusted from 50-80 mph and knocked out our power around 10am. We remained without power until 11-ish on Sat. Definitely meant the fridge got cleaned out, and we spent a night with our candles lit. Fortunately it also cooled down by quite a bit.. which is a blessing as some 400,000 area residents are looking at another 3-5 days without power. We are keeping our fingers crossed in St. Charles that the grid holds. Every now and then you can hear the boom of a transformer blowing... and you kind of hold your breath!

It's HOT outside!

Whew, it is STEAMING in the middle of the Midwest! Good time to stay inside and work on your computer. Here is a shot of me in a much cooler place, sipping an Orangina at a little cafe in Nice, France. If you've never had Orangina... it's something Americans are missing out on. It's sort of fizzy, sort of not... orange juice, a bit of grapefruit (I think...) citrus-sort of beverage that is Delicious! It really cools you down!

Haven't posted in about 10 days. Thought I'd list some things I HAVE done this summer... including a few off the previous post.
Obviously, I've traveled this summer. I have also:
1. gone to band concerts down by the river.
2. completed 2 major design projects for outside organizations.
3. seen Al Gore's documentary..."An Inconvenient Truth" - outstanding! Go see it!
4. read 12 novels.
5. went to Sonic in our new convertible. I had a strawberry smoothie... plan to go back for coney dogs on a cooler evening.
6. finished a pair of socks for each of my grandsons.
7. eaten a lot of ice cream.
8. put all of my Italy photos into albums... and burned a highlight DVD.

That's about it for right now..... stay cool everyone! Sip a lemonade or a tall iced tea.

France Celebrates!

What a difference 2 weeks can make... or even 2 hrs. Thanks to Kate's friend Amy (who currently lives in Paris) I can show you what a difference. As you know.. the French are going to play Italy in the World Cup Finals on Sunday. This is HUGE! Ed is rooting for France and I am rooting for Italy (mainly cos' I bought a hat that says "Italia" on it and a soccer jersey for Gabe with Totti's name on the back). Ed is rooting for France because he liked the French better.. nuff said. So here is the Arch de Triumphe with and without celebration.

Things I HAVEN'T done this summer.... yet :-)

So this is a weird post... I got to thinking about all the things I wanted to do this summer... and I have done quite a few. But there are things I haven't done yet that I think I want to... or that others think I should, sooooo here's the list:
This summer I haven't:
1. eaten at Sonic while in the new convertible.
2. seen "Superman" (or the new "Pirates" film.. yet....)
3. finished a single knitting project
4. done any sewing
5. scrapbooked
6. rewritten a single syllabus for fall (but I will eventually..sigh)
7. gone sailing or kayaking


So I guess I'd better get busy... there's not a lot of summer left!!! Next time I'll make a list of what I HAVE been doing!

Kentucky Derby... Italian Style

Okay... Italians are a bit crazy...especially when it comes to competition, as anyone who's been watching the World Cup already knows. So here's the scoop on Siena. A town right out of the Renaissance... but its main feature is the Campo, which is really a gigantic town square. Well, twice a year, on July 2nd and Aug. 16th, what do they do? They race horses around the edges of this plaza. And there's a lot at stake here. Each district is represented by a horse and a rider. They race at breakneck speeds while thousands of people stand in the red brick areas in the middle screaming their heads off! The race is known as the Palio, and the winner of the race wins "bragging rights" for his district of Tuscany for the next year. Actually, the HORSE is the winner... they pronounce the winning horse that comes in, with or without a rider, as the champion. It's pretty insane considering one corner of this amphiheater shaped space has nearly a 90 degree angle turn!
Siena also has a gorgeous cathedral we called the zebra-striped church since it's made of layers of white and black marble. Quite a neat part of Tuscany!
To see the PALIO FILM Click on the words in caps and it will take you to the site sent me by an Italian gal who commented on my post. You can see what the race looks like as of this past July! It's amazing! Her blog is in Italian but if you look about 5 paragraphs down you will see the words REAL PLAYER film and a link. Click there and you will see the race! It's worth a look!

Pompeii to the South, Tuscany to the North

On June 10th, we took a side trip to Pompeii and the Bay of Naples, both of which sit in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, a still active volcano that last erupted in 1944. In AD 79 it buried the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, killing thousands of residents and preserving the ancient cities that were dug up in the 1600's and are still being excavated today. Because of this, we can see an accurate depiction of 1st century Roman life. Pompeii is literally the city where time stood still. The third photo is on our way north toward the city of Florence in Tuscany. The countryside is so beautiful! Everywhere you turn is a vineyard or an olive grove.