An early Thanksgiving

It was nice of Josh to let me sleep in this morning. I think Avery was up at around 7:30am but it was sort of a haze for me. I felt well rested when I rose but then all of sudden, as the blood surged in to my foot, I remembered I was injured.

Josh had fed the kids and they were dressed and all ready to head for the Calder exhibit at the Palazzo delle Esposizione. Given that my foot was still bleeding, I thought better of joining them since I imagine seeing an exhibit would require a fair amount of walking. Nonetheless it was disappointing to spend a Sunday morning home alone.

From their description when they returned home, it wasn't clear whether the Calder sculptures made such an impression on the kids; but the Astroid exhibit at the conclusion of the exhibit certainly did. They even took photos of themselves surrounded by laser rays which they could pull up on the computer and show me.

This afternoon, we had been invited to another American family's home for an early dinner. They have two boys, ages 11 and 7 at RIS -- one is in Olivia's class. When we were considering schools in Rome, this family had served as a reference for RIS and so we had "met" over the phone long before we'd moved to Rome. Avery adores the younger boy, Peter, and he was able to get a real dose of "boy play" by running around the garden with plastic guns, playing with their extensive set of legos, and jumping off the bunk bed onto the large sofa. Is testosterone surging yet at this age??

Being an embassy family, they have access to all kinds of American goods not readily found in Rome's supermarkets. The first example being a large turkey! And, since they will be out of town during Thanksgiving, today was the day to prepare the turkey and we were able to enjoy an early Thanksgiving dinner with them. Josh and I agreed that this was easily the best turkey we'd ever tasted. It was brined (soaked in salt water) overnight, and then cooked on a charcoal grill! The turkey absorbs the water so that it does not dry out when cooked. Crispy on the outside; super soft and savory on the inside. I think Olivia had four helpings!

Given their role here in Rome, they are used to doing a lot of entertaining and clearly had the meal service down to a science. We had a lovely time. And, as our handsome parting gift, we took home an industrial sized jar of Jif peanut butter -- another commissary item. Olivia was thrilled!