Peyton in baby jail.
As I mentioned in the last post, we had some fun house guests for Easter weekend. They arrived Saturday afternoon in Saluzzo. We started with introducing the dogs to each other. As expected, Olney just wanted to play with Marco & Sam the two Pomeranians. They weren't all that interested in playing with Olney and mostly ignored him, so we brought the party upstairs to see the Olner's reaction to having other dogs in his house. First on the leash than off the leash everything went fine. Marco stayed under Kevin & Rebecca's feet and Sam just calmly explored the house. With the dogs getting along, we decided to all stay in Saluzzo (my plan had the dogs not gotten along was to stay in Ruffia at the B&B). With sleeping arrangements set, it was time to start unloading baby Peyton's stuff. I had NO IDEA how much stuff a one year old requires. She had a baby jail and a baby chair and baby food and cute baby clothes and a bunch of toys. They have a HUGE American style car to fit all that stuff and they need every inch of it! I don't know how Europeans do it, there's no way all that stuff would have fit in a regular European car.
Notice giant baby bag Rebecca's carrying.
Saturday night we showered our guests with the Italian experience. We went to a wine bar for an aperitivo in the unique ambiance of a wine cellar. Then we took them to our favorite pizzeria/restaurant for pizzas and steak and more wine of course! Is there anything better?
We kept the dogs at the house, but separated them by putting little Marco & Sam on the balcony. When we let them in Olney was fine until Sam grabbed his stuffed goose. Then Olney jumped on him and barked and growled. There was no biting and no injuries, but after it happened a second time when Sam grabbed Olney's bone Sunday morning, we decided to keep the dogs apart for the weekend.
Sunday was all about Easter lunch. We went to Ruffia around noon with Olney, but left the little ones on the balcony. Apparently Sam really loves balconies. So we met all of Fabri's family at Ruffia for a long, several course, incredibly filling lunch. I gave Kevin & Rebecca a pep talk before lunch trying to explain just how much eating was going to be involved and they should pace themselves. Silly Americans, after every course they were like "whoo, that was a lot of food, I'm glad I made it." And I would have to correct them and say, "that was just the third appetizer, we still have pasta, meat, cheese, fruit & dessert." Welcome to Italy.
I forgot to mention how proud I was of Olney who, though he ended up not loving Sam & Marco in his house, he did seem to love Peyton, especially when Peyton was eating. When she was walking around the house, Olney licked her a lot. Mmmmm baby. But she's used to dogs, though Olney's about 800 times the size of her puppies. When Peyton was eating breakfast Sunday morning, she was nice enough to share with Olney. He ate from her hands and from the floor when she dropped the food. Rebecca wasn't used to such a big dog. Usually the dogs can't reach Peyton's tray while standing normally!
Sunday the weather FINALLY got pretty and Rebecca & Kevin could see our mountains for the first time. They didn't realize how close and beautiful they were. Silly rain clouds. We decided to go on a walk through Saluzzo to show of the prettiness and we were lucky to find a flea market. I love me some Italian flea market, and so did Rebecca because we each bought some stuff. We made the steep hike up the hill to the Saluzzo castle and eventually settled on a bar up at the top of the hill for lunch. Olney was being quite the pest, but we managed to enjoy a nice 2 bottles of wine kind of lunch with panini and salad.
It was really a gorgeous day and Fabri and I were so happy to be able to show off our city. In the afternoon Kevin & Rebecca loaded up the giant SUV and headed to Lucca for their week in a beautiful villa. Fabri and I gave Olney some TLC as he was still stressed out of the little dogs being in his house and everything was back to normal. We will have to plan a trip to Heidelberg to see our new bffs and drink some German beer soon!
