Fabri's Birthday!!

Today is Fabri's 28th birthday so make sure to send him an email or card. We're getting to be so grown up! Tomorrow we're having a pool party for him so that should be awesome. There is a concern about rain though... All of our pool parties are rained out!

So this is silly, but I'm ready to talk a little about Thanksgiving. I know it's early, but living in Italy means I to need to plan far in advance. Fabri and I are coming to visit for the second half of October and that means no Thanksgiving at Lady's house a month later. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals ever, so I will be in charge of my first Thanksgiving dinner this year. I've decided to start freaking OWT about it early and I'm writing to get recipes and ideas. I want to arrive to the US in October with a shopping list of everything I'll need (that I can't find here) to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Fabri's family & cousins are very excited about their first Thanksgiving, so I'll have their help. So start thinking about that and gathering your recipes and ideas a little earlier this year. You can post them or email them or save them for me in October! Thank you!

We celebrated our first anniversary last weekend. Our plan was to spend the whole weekend in the Alps at our apartment in Limone. When we arrived we were a bit disappointed to find it almost as hot and humid as in Saluzzo! The whole point of having a mountain retreat is to get a break from the summer heat! I suppose some people would say it's for the skiing... When we went down to the city center, it was full of people, a little too full. We walked around town a bit and decided on the restaurant for dinner, but when we got there, there was a mean, aggressive dog that barked and nipped at Olney. Olney didn't react at all, but we couldn't be there because the other people couldn't control their dog. So we went to another restaurant where we had very good wine, but the food wasn't as good. Then Friday night in the apartment Olney was not happy and kept waking up and barking. He's afraid of the elevator and just was not happy there. The plan was to wake up and go hiking Saturday morning, but Olney had been barking since the early morning (every 15 minutes or so) and we were too tired for that. Also it was another hot & humid day and we had packed for a cooler more comfortable climate. So we decided to head back to Saluzzo that evening.

When we were ready we hiked down to the center stopping to play with Olney in the river along the way. But even the trail was very crowded and it was hard to find a good spot for him to get in & out. When we got to town it was SUPER crowded not just of people, but of aggressive and annoying dogs. Olney got barked and growled at 4 or 5 times. He never really reacted and the owners pulled their dogs away, but it was unpleasant. We think it must have effected him because as we were eating lunch, he started barking & growling at a nice dog sitting next to us. Olney had never done that before. So we changed tables and he was good & fell asleep under the table while we had lunch. But that was the final straw, and we headed back to Saluzzo that afternoon. We went out to one of my favorite restaurants here, La Taverna del'Artista with the pup. We have been there several times and the waiter recognized us and tried to give us a table immediately, but some folks who had been waiting bitched about it and they got the table. It wasn't a big deal, but we're regulars and entitled to special perks! We had a delicious meal with my favorite wine and tried to ignore the heat.

Sunday we relaxed and Sunday night I made us a fancy dinner of porcini mushrooms and fresh pasta. We ate on our china for the first time and had candles and our special bottle of Dom Perignon 1990 which was a wedding gift.

So that was the anniversary weekend. Not what we planned, but very nice. Oh! I forgot the beautiful gift Fabri gave me. He got me a pretty silver cocktail ring. Hey, I found a picture! Isn't it pretty?