"The Big Reveal"

As most of you already know, I'm pregnant, but I haven't written about it on here yet.  I'm in my 6th month and am due March 8.  The first few months were difficult as I was nauseous pretty much all the time and didn't eat much more than crackers and ginger ale.  But now I'm feeling better, I'm gaining weight as I should and eating normally (though my cookie intake has recently spiked as a result of the holiday season).

From US Visit Nov-Dec 2011

It seems that in these days of social media you have to do some sort of online reveal when you have big news, so this is mine.  It's mostly just the story of my baby shower last month. :)

From US Visit Nov-Dec 2011

When Fabri & I were home for a LOVELY Thanksgiving holiday break, my Mom & Sister threw us a baby shower.  We ate, drank (punch) and made merry.  Even the boys seemed to have a good time.

From US Visit Nov-Dec 2011

Amy and Caitlin got a little practice holding Rebecca's youngest, Logan.

From US Visit Nov-Dec 2011

Our generous friends and relatives brought a lot of gifts! At one point I didn't think we'd be able to get everything back home, but 4 checked bags weighing 50lbs each and 2 carry on's later everything made it back and is tucked away in the baby's room ready to be used in a few months.  I had to applaud Fabri for fitting everything!

From US Visit Nov-Dec 2011

Check out the amazing Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt my cousin Jen made!

Thank you all of you who were able to come and make the party so special and thanks again for all the great baby swag!

Putting the SUN in Sunday

Wine Charms, Made by Me!

Not sure if anyone's interested, but I'm making and selling wine charms.  I've sold two or three sets so far.  I have plans to join the Italian version of Etsy to sell them, but since I'll be out of town for more than two weeks over Thanksgiving, I'm waiting on that.

I'm selling them for 10 euros for a set of 6 and they all come in their own polyester drawstring bag to keep them organized.  If you're in the US, and you really want some, let me know before I leave on November 21 and I'll bring them for you!  And don't be surprised if some of you end up receiving these as Christmas gifts because I spent all my money on charms & beads and don't have enough for presents....

Here are the current designs I have.  Due to the handmade nature of these charms, actual charms may differ slightly from the photos.

Flower Power

Christmas Set

Butterfly Set

Cowboy Boots

Wine Time

Girls' Night Out

Rainbow Set

Glass Medical Set

Semi-precious Stone Set

Pinwheel Set

Music Set

Baby Boy Set

Baby Girl Set

Fun in the Sun

You can find more photos of these charms on my Picasa Web Album:

Wine Charms / Segna Bicchieri for Sale - 10 euro each set of 6

Our 2 whole weeks of Autumn are over!

We've been having some crazy weather here and I think it's going to be a crazy winter. As long as we can get in & out on our flights, I don't care about the snow; I love it! So here's the crazy weather recap.

July and the beginning of August were sort of cool and rainy. 

Then the end of August, all of September and the beginning of October were hot with above average temperatures.  We got some extra pool days in there.  

Now we've been having consecutively colder & colder days (and especially nights) for this second part of October culminating in a very cold (high 45°F) and rainy day yesterday.  Well when it's that cold and raining in Saluzzo, guess what it's doing in the mountains...

It's SNOWING of course!  So now today we're back in the 60s and it's sunny and clear and you can see those suddenly white peaks in the distance.  That makes me excited.  Snow, snow, I love snow!

One last thing of note, there's a new button/link to the right of the page.  For those of you on Twitter, you can follow Fabri to hear his take on our day to day affairs.  Please check it out!

Bad Blog Writer

I admit it, I'm a bad, bad blog writer.  I just haven't been motivated.  Even now I'm starting a post and I don't know what I'm writing about.  Boooo, uninteresting!!

From Lauren & Joey Visit 2011

Well, I should tell you that Lauren & Joey came to visit the first weekend in October.  They were lucky because the weather was amazing.  In fact, the first few weeks of October were the warmest on record.  We took them on a walking tour of Saluzzo stopping to peek into some of the amazing churches and one museum. 

From Lauren & Joey Visit 2011

We took them to our favorite restaurants and of course we had to go to Baladin bar a couple of times.  What's hanging out in Saluzzo without some good microbrew?

From Lauren & Joey Visit 2011

Monday I took them to La Morra in the wine country for a wine tasting, lunch and lots & lots of photo taking.  I was really happy the weather worked out so nicely for us!

From Lauren & Joey Visit 2011

Since then Fabri and I have been enjoying all the fall fairs and food festivals around the province.  We ate gnocchi, bagna caoda and white hen.  Next weekend I am going on the hunt for a pumpkin so we can carve our jack-o-lantern!  Also Baladin is unveiling their new pumpkin spice beer.  We'll have to have a little taste of that AND chestnut beer.  Hooray for fall!

Saluzzo Holiday

Town holidays and fairs in Saluzzo means that our neighborhood turns into a parking lot.  There's a lot of activity which is neat, but there's nowhere to walk the dog!!

Look at the field next door which is usually empty, sometimes is full of cows and this past weekend was packed full of cars!!

Here's Olney watching all the hubbub.  He didn't bark or freak out at all, he just enjoyed watching all the people and the cars go by.  What a good puppy!!

Limone Apartment

View from the balcony in summer

Those of you who know me well, know that I'm not a beach person, I'm a mountain person.  That makes living at the foot of the Alps very convenient.  The Motta's have a small apartment in Limone, a ski resort town about an hour drive from home.  I've always loved visiting Limone, but now I love visiting the apartment too because they completely redid the whole thing!  Fabri, Olney and I went up there for a weekend and for the first time I cooked in the apartment because there's a brand new beautiful kitchen and I took a shower for the first time because before they had this crazy sit down bathtub. 

New open kitchen!

Olney gets comfortable on the couch!

Swimming in the river behind the building

We are renting the apartment out!!  You should just think of it as yet another reason for you to visit!!

The kitchen used to be galley style with a propane tank stove and no oven.  Now there's an electric oven and a normal gas stove.  SO pretty!

It takes Olney a little time to get used to the different noises of the house, but if you give him a rawhide chew, he suddenly doesn't hear anything else.  He loves laying out on the balcony, but can't help barking at any passing motorcyclists.  Oh well, I doubt they can hear him over the roar of the bikes.


We always hike the Roman Road down to town and we bring Olney with us stopping along the way to swim in the river.  That is some cold water, but it didn't bother him at all!  He also always wants to get into a bar that he's been in before, but we only do that when it's empty!  He doesn't understand that point.


Limone's website if you're interested: http://www.limonepiemonte.it/

Bedroom with trees outside

Olney Puppy

We are still completely and utterly obsessed with the Olney puppy.  He had a great time running around Nice this weekend (as did we). 

Fabri is also completely an utterly obsessed with US culture: KFC, Washington Baseball and Dr. Pepper.

Olney loves US culture as well; mostly the KFC...

Weekend in Rome

Fabri keeps complaining that I haven't written a blog post for a while.  Well he's not the boss of me!  But I do like making him happy, so here's a sort of half-@ssed post.

A couple of weekends ago we jumped in my Altea extra large and headed south.  The day was beautiful so we took the more scenic Roman Road (Via Aurelia) along the coast of Tuscany.  We stopped off in a small sea resort town called Albinia for some seafood lunch.  Fabri found us the Laguna Blu restaurant on trip advisor.

We continued on to Rome and Roman traffic.  We took a beautiful, but stressful drive through the city seeing some of the ancient sites.  Then we found our parking garage and met Micah at their beautiful Rome apartment with AIR CONDITIONING.  That was a pleasant surprise. 

Per our Micah & Ann vacation M.O., we did a lot of eating and drinking with a little sightseeing sprinkled in.  We were lucky with the weather and enjoyed delicious food and wonderful company!

Tuscan-style steaks at I Butteri in Rome

 The view from Villa Borghese

Enjoying Grom icecream after our mozzarella tasting at Obika

Looking pretty in Piazza Navona

Bars & restaurants in tents along the Tiber River

We had a delicious dinner at Nonna Betta's in the Jewish quarter.  

Their Jewish style artichoke is yummmmmmmy!

One note on the restaurants mentioned in this post.  I would highly recommend all of them except for Obika.   Obika was neat and would probably be cooler in New York, London or Tokyo.  In Rome however, I'd rather take the train to Naples/Caserta and eat the super fresh mozzarella down there.  There is still nothing like it. 

Back Home

We're back at home, but we had a great time in the US!!  Don't worry, more Italian adventures are planned for soon!!

Eating crabs with old friends at the SMC reunion weekend!

Fabri helping Grandpa fix his door

Dad and I at Capitol City Brewing Company for lunch

Before the Nats game we walked around the Mall

Checking out the Greene Turtle with Vicki

A little quality Bethesda time with Amy

Happy hour with Maddie and the Crows!

3D Imax movie with Mom, Dad & Fabri

Weekend with Laura and Chris