An Italian dinner invitation

Tonight we were invited to have dinner at the home of one of Charlotte's classmates. Graciously, the entire family was invited, but I decided it might be a more enjoyable evening for all those in attendance if Avery stayed home with Morris. These are long days at school for Avery without a nap and he really gets unhappy by about 7pm. When we were originally invited for 8pm!, I thought it might be a late evening. Upon further discussion, our hostess suggested we come at 6pm so the children could eat first while we wait for her husband to return home from work. Apparently, he usually gets home by 9pm but in this case, she will ask if he can be home by 8pm.

We knew we were in for a long night when her husband walked in at 8:40 and we needed to allow him some time to wind down with an apertivo. We had been enjoying the company of our hostess for 2 hours now over Veuve Cliqout Rose and were really in need of something solid to soak up the liquid in our bellies. Charlotte and Olivia were having a blast; they were being served dinner upstairs with the young boy who is Charlotte's classmate. Following dinner, they were able to watch movies, play Wii and table soccer. They were loving it.

We too, truly enjoyed the company of our hostess and her husband who turned out to be extremely charismatic and entertaining. They are both lawyers in their own law firm. He deals with several multi-national companies based in the States, and she is a civil lawyer. Both speak very good English. Their home was interesting in that they bought the apartment downstairs and duplexed it. The original upstairs apartment is traditional and the apartment below was renovated in a completely minimalist style and was exclusively white and black with a few red accents. So while the children hung out upstairs, the adults dined downstairs. We were well attended with two waiters, dressed in white-coats, serving the four of us (this was in addition to the woman in the uniform who was taking care of our children upstairs); our glasses were never empty for more than a minute.

I think it was after 11pm when we excused ourselves, we were all having a good time but I was a little afraid of the early morning scheduled for Saturday, and the penalty we'd pay for keeping the girls out late. As the girls giggled down the street on the way to our car (we could have walked from our place, but who knew?), Charlotte commented that our hosts were "so rich." I asked her why she thought so and she replied "they had three servers and a ton of Wii and video games and movies." This is how wealth is measured by a 12-year old. It was a very fun evening indeed.