Christmas Celebrations with Friends ~

Kevin and I decided to have a party the day after Christmas we decided this Christmas Night at like 8 p.m. So we sent out a mass invite thru text messages and facebook and we had many responses - We had cranberry raspberry punch with vodka, jack frost martinis, wine and lots of food - bruschetta, cheese's, fudge and cookies ..YUM

Christmas Morning At Our House

Christmas 2009 was a very exciting day ok not really exciting but Kevin and I continued our tradition by watching movies, eating and drinking wine all day ~ We watched A Christmas Story as we do every year and rented  The Hangover which we LOVED, Star Trek, The Ugly Truth and Inglorious Bastards...all great movies....  It didn't snow but we hoped for it!

The stockings are always the first to be opened

Boomer knows there is something good in his stocking

Santa brought us CAFFE CUPS ~ from Crate and Barrel

GARMIN ~ YAY

New Jeans...just what Kevin wanted

Bailey found what was in his stocking ~ his new toy shark

Christmas Eve With The Pastore Family

Christmas in pictures ~ We had a lovely dinner with ham, mashed potato's, baked mac and cheese, green beans with bacon and red velvet cake!  We were blessed to be able to give each other many gift this year despite the hardships of the economy we all have been very fortunate this year. Kennedy said our dinner prayer and We talked about our best Christmas Memories and what we loved most about 2009!

The Vivid Oranje/Andy's Dog Waste Removal Company Christmas Party

We decided that we needed to have a company Christmas Party to celebrate Kevin's first year of business and Danielle and Andy joined in the festivites to celebrate with the success of his wonderul year of business too!!

Sleigh Bells Ring are you listening...

The future Mr and Mrs Hartle

Some Holiday Decorating and Shopping

We spent the holidays shopping and decorating of course...doing a few of our favorite things

Jen and I took a little lunch break to tally our receipts and check our lists of presents acquired for friends and family so far

The best grilled cheese and tomato soup ever ~

Christmas Shopping  LUNCH BREAK

 

Jen and I discovered the Cupcake Camper ~ we just bought a few cupcakes Red Velvet, Chocolate Fudge and a lovely cupcake with a wonderful buttercream frosting

Just got done decorating the tree - this year it was ALL Kevin ~ I was getting all the other decorations out and cleaning

The first snow of the season that really started to accumulate

and Bailey just loves it

My beautiful centerpeice - its real!!

Bailey knows that there is soemthing in his stocking...he is a curious puppy

A Night Out at the Blu Martini

A night out with friends at the Blu Martini reasons to celebrate include Andrea's Birthday, Andrea home and graduated from AIT and getting together with good friends to celebrate the season!!

The Girls At The Blu Martini

Drinks and Dinner At Bonefish before hitting the Blu Matini

Me and my bestie at having fun at the Blu Martini

Loving Spending time Together during  holidays ~ Christmas is are favorite time of year

~Pretty Girls Beth and Andrea Enjoying Some Cocktails ~

Viva Italia Day One

Italy – Day 1


- Drove to Chicago

- Stuck in rush hour traffic

- Made our flight to Frankfurt

- Didn’t sleep well, but that turned out to be ok since we were able to get over our time difference very easily.

- Changed planes in Frankfurt (airport was under much construction and reminded me of something from the cold war).

- Arrived in Turin (where we immediately brushed our teeth! We had left our tooth brushes and deodorant in our checked baggage).

- Met by Gabriella and Andrea Allice who drove us to Gabriella’s house in Nole  where we showered. Our power converter did not work, so I couldn’t flat-iron my hair!

- Went to Levone to the Town Hall, where we met a lady who helped in finding records of relatives born after 1850. There were a lot! This lady apparently has the same trisnonni as Gabriella and Kevin (Great-great-grandparents)!

- Drove to Rivara (I think) to the Bed and Breakfast. Met by a very nice lady who offered us everything she had to eat! Chocolates from Turin (very good dark chocolates), chips, acqua frizzante (San Benedetto) and nuts. The room rate was only 25 Euros!. We dropped our bags and then headed off to dinner.

- Dinner was at ‘La Tradizione,’ a restaurant owned by the godfather of Letizia (daughter of Monica Allice- 3rd cousin of mine). This was an event!

o First Course: Prosciutto with fresh basil – less salty than what we get in America – very fresh tasting.

o Second Course: Rabbit with fresh basil – similar to chicken salad in flavor

o Third Course: Spinach – with a parmagiano cream sauce

o Fourth Course: Wide, flat egg noodles with sausage and cabbage and a yellow creamy sauce. The sausage tasted a lot like German sausage.

o Fifth Course: Beef stracatto (over-done) with polenta.

o Dolce: Tiramisu (unbelievably good!!)

o Wine: Dolcetto, Pinot Nero, Canale (white), 2001 Barolo (all but the Barolo are around 3 – 5 Euros in the market!!)

o Water: Still and Frizzante (Valverde) – all mineral water in bottles

The dinner was great! Letizia and Andrea kept running around the restaurant. There was a guy there who looked like Kevin's Uncle Butch. Alberto, Gabriella’s husband, was our translator. He makes aluminum doors and windows. Luigi, Monica’s husband, kept bringing out more to drink (the Barolo, the after dinner liquor (Pattisso), the cow’s jaw to eat!! It tasted like meat jello!) We left around 11:00 (we started at 8:00) – completely full, but not stuffed – happy for having such a great time.

- Andrea and Maria dropped us off at the B & B, where we finally were able to get a good night’s sleep!