Awesome Weekend

We had a truly spectacular in it's simplicity kind of weekend.  On Friday Fabri got home from work early which was a nice treat, so we started our weekend early with an aperitivo at home.  Then we met Gaetano & Detta and baby Sofia at our favorite Saluzzo restaurant, La Taverna d'Artista.  They have my favorite wine ever (Nebbiolo Roagna Igino - I will give you some if you come visit) and they make good steak (very important) and very yummy pizza.  We got 2 bottles of the nebbiolo, 2 foccacias, 2 orders of steak (for 2 people), 2 orders of french fries, a salad and some grilled vegetables.  It was excellent.  Sofia has gotten bigger and she's started eating baby food.  She was very good and didn't cry.  We gave her a red, white & blue summer dress to wear for the 4th of July and Detta said it was the right size, so I'm happy.

From Around the House

After dinner we walked around Saluzzo and all got gelato.  Now that it's warmed up here we can eat outside, walk around with gelato, and generally enjoy Saluzzo more. 

From Blogger Pictures

Saturday morning we went to the market with Olney and bought a couple things for lunch and some flowers for my new vase.  On Friday I had worked a lot on our balconies cleaning them up, transplanting a couple of plants and watering everything, so they were beautiful and ready to go for Saturday.  When we got home from the market, we had a yummy aperitivo out on the balcony.  We drank a rose wine from the Saluzzo hills and had cheese and meat from Valle d'Aosta which Maria Pia had given us from a trip she took a couple weeks ago.  Then we relaxed and watched a movie on the couch.  It was so nice to just lounge around together.  After the movie I made ravioli of spinach & ricotta with oil and sage sauce.  It was yummy.  After lunch we took a nap (like I said, awesome weekend).  Then we took Olney to run around in the field and then showered and got ready to go out.  We went to Alba with our good friends Anna & Claudio to meet the St. Mary's College folks in town for the Alba Music Festival.  It was great to see people and we're probably going back to see them again this Saturday.

From Olney Puppy

Sunday morning we woke up late because we got home at ~2:30 am from Alba.  Around 11 we went to Savigliano to walk around the flea market they had there.  On our way we spotted a bunch of friends.  First Pach, Edo & Mia were at Gerry's and we stopped and had an aperitivo there with Pach.  Then, we found Miki, Steo, Luca and that whole group of friends (about 10 people in all) and chatted with them.  I'm glad we saw so many friends, because we didn't see anything at the flea market and left with all of our money in our pockets.  Then we went to Ruffia and had lunch with Maria Pia & Antonio and helped them open up the pool in Ruffia.  As we were pulling the cover off and you could see just the littlest bit of water underneath, Olney jumped in the pool!  Then we had to pull the cover off quickly, because there was a dog in the pool!  It was particularly funny because that was the first time Olney had jumped in from the side of the pool; he always goes in and out from the stairs.  So there was some craziness.  Also, a neighbor came with a tractor to create a new vegetable garden where we're going to plant corn and tomatoes and zucchini.  Then we had dinner in Ruffia and came home to attempt to go to bed early.  That didn't work out, and though we were tired, we were happy to have such a wonderful weekend.

From Blogger Pictures