Josh's birthday dinner

The preparations for our trip to Egypt are upon us. Today we finally came to terms with the fact that our kids have no appropriate shoes (or at least ones they will agree to wear), and we have no appropriate luggage for a trip with so many stops. So we began the day by tackling these issues. First, we found a kids' shoe store in Prati that sells Teva's. Convenient AND expensive. Are we the only ones in Italy buying American shoes? (Meanwhile, the Italian designs were even more expensive) When it comes to sporty, outdoor, practical shoes there's nothing like the good 'ole USof A. Then after lunch, Josh drove over to a friends house to see about borrowing some suitcases. We needed something bigger than a carry-on, but smaller than the enormous duffle bags we traveled over with. Josh's visit was successful -- he came home with three normal, appropriately-sized suitcases.

After Charlotte's swim practice today, the team had a "meeting." I would call it a banquet but there was no food served. The meeting was to take the team's photo and to give out awards based on last season's results to the most improved, best swim, etc. etc. But Charlotte said that every team member received an award. Charlotte received a gold medal (the nicest quality medal I've seen thus far) that said "Benvenuti Charlotte." Welcome to the team. How nice is that! Better still, on Friday after practice, she had received the promised Aniene warm-up: matching jacket and bottoms in navy with the three yellow Adidas stripes, and "C.C. Aniene" embroidered on the back with the club crest on the front! So. for the Saturday event, she was able to wear her warm-ups along with the rest of the team for pictures.

We are quickly approaching Josh's 46th birthday. Year after year we have the occasion to celebrate his birthday in some fantastic vacation destination. If it's not seeing double rainbows on a boat ride off the coast of the Yucatan, it's on the beach in Costa Rica or Zihuatanejo. But this year, the promise of Egypt and the pyramids (we don't arrive until the day AFTER his birthday) didn't seem to cut it. So, I have organized a schedule of celebratory activities:

1. On the Saturday night before his birthday, we will celebrate alone (meaning without the kids) and I would invite his friend Stefano and his wife to meet us at the restaurant as a surprise.

2. On the Sunday before his birthday, we will drive out to the countryside for a nice Italian Sunday lunch with the kids, so they could sing to him in public.

3. On the Monday before his birthday, we will go get Thai massages at the place we'd discovered in Piazza Fiume

4. On the Tuesday before his birthday, we will take a rest from celebrating his birthday.

5. On Wednesday, his Birthday, we will have prosecco and cake at home, and -- depending on how well organized we are for our trip -- maybe invite a few friends over.

6. On Thursday, the day after his birthday, we will leave for Egypt and hopefully have a fascinating and fabulous vacation.

Tonight was the beginning of the celebratory week I had planned. Unfortunately, the surprise part didn't come off as planned because Stefano was unable to secure a babysitter for the evening. Still, Josh enjoyed not knowing where we were going for dinner -- even though he had to follow Lola's directions and drive there. He also enjoyed the interesting space that was the Japanese sushi restaurant. The restaurant, Doozo, is also an art book store and has exhibition spacel. At 8pm, we were the first to arrive and Josh thought we were in the wrong place. By the time we left at 9:45pm, it was full. As we were getting ready to depart, Josh was browsing the art book selection and found a book about the Pastificio -- the artist's residence run by Flavio Misciatelli (and where Josh had attended the holiday party). So not only did we have great sushi, but Josh also got a handsome parting gift: Pastificio Cerere Andata e Retorno a book of photographs of the works of the 11 artists who live at Pastificio.

We decided to drive to Ponte Milvio to have dessert at Mondi which has the reputation of being the best pasticceria. We'd tried going there once before but it was closed -- which is just the way we found it this evening, closed. Note to self: "Get to Mondi before 10pm!" We returned to the same pasticceria that we'd gone to last time we were at Ponte Milvio trying to go to Mondi. They must do a good business just from the overflow of late-night pastry seekers who missed the cutoff at Mondi.

When we returned home, Morris informed us that there had just been a mild "explosion" moments before, and that half the villa had gone dark. Hmmm...apparently an issue with the circuit breakers. It wouldn't be until the next morning that Josh would discover that one of the switches was installed upside down?