MerBack In Action

MerBack In Action: An Online Journal

Monday, May 27, 2013

Happy Birthday Isaac!! You are 9!!!

Happy Birthday, ISAAC!!

Isaac turned 9 on Saturday!!!  And you know what he said to me?
"That means I will only be with you for 10 more years."
Gee that really put things in perspective...

The day of Isaacs birthday was a great day for all of us.  It started with, the usual, breakfast in bed:
Isaac wanted crepes and fried flowers but all the fry-able flowers were gone so I fried him some peaches...and he didn't like them;)  He also requested what Georgie got...a fruit parfait.  Joey made his name out of legos.  
And Georgie made him her own lego creation that was really cute.  When she brought it into him she said, with a sheepish giggle, "I'm so embarrassed!"  Legos aren't something she does very often and I think she was comparing her creation to what Isaac builds.  But I love that she wanted to make him something that he would appreciate.  


Isaac with his new watch.  

 And the new lazer tag set he got from Dad.  He also received a bigger lego set that he and his Dad built last night.  

We spent the Juliets nap time watching The Hobbit which despite mixed reviews from everyone we know, we really enjoyed.  Joey and Isaac read it together a few months ago so it's something the two fo them have especially been wanting to see.   It was fun to sit and watch a movie together in the middle of the afternoon no matter how many chores we should have been doing.
 For his birthday dinner Isaac wanted to go to New Punjab, an Indian restaurant near
our house that we all LOVE.
 My men...

 Look at that spread of yumminess!! Best Indian food we've ever had 
(minus the Naan...they don't make very good naan:(
A birthday in Italy wouldn't be a birthday without Gelato.  Even if it is 45 degrees outside.  

Happy Birthday dude!

xoxo
Mom

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

For Angela Jones...we hope you choose this one!!


For Angela;)  
Family, please ignore;)

Front of the house/driveway/front deck
Side/back yard.  You can barely see the shed that is back there but its cute.  The lawn hasn't been mowed all spring so it looks a little hairy but you get the idea.  The yard doesn't have any landscaping so it would be easy to take care of.  Just mowing.

This is where you walk in.  To the right (where you can't see is the living room, straight ahead is the dining room and then the kitchen and to the left are 2-3 steps up to the three bedrooms and the  bathroom.
This is the first living room to your right as you walk in.  The furniture is all piled into the middle so you can't see how big it is.  It's a decent size.  Not huge but generous.  You can see the door that leads onto the porch.  There's a door off the dining room that leads to the porch too so in that way the upstairs living areas are all connected.

This is the "dining room" but this is a bad picture.  I think I was taking it of the Italian Murano glass chandelier!  So I didn't get the full room.  It's equally as big as the other living room (who's size you also can't see';)  There's a door to the right of the huge window that leads onto the same front porch.  You could easily fit a dining table and a small sofa in here or a couple of comfy chairs to the side of the table.  Or a homework desk or something for the kids.  
Here's the back half of the kitchen.  I'll be jealous of your countertop space if you get this place!  Though it's narrow-ish there is a lot of countertop space.  There is currently only a small refrigerator but I told him that people would definitely want a tall fridge so maybe he would need to remove a segment of cabinets to fit one in.  He said he could do that.  

6 burner stove and cute little spice racks/shelves.

Cute kitchen tile
THe pretty buffet included in the kitchen, if you want it.  But you could put a fridge here and then have 1 and 1/2 fridges!

Front porch
A bedroom...can't remember which one.
The smaller bedroom.  You could fit bunk beds in here and the right wall is all built in storage.
The storage wall

ONe of the hallway storage cabinets

Inside one of the cabinets.  Lots of organized storage space in this house.  

The upstairs bathroom. Big.  But Italian bathrooms usually are. 

The extra separate shower

The huge downstairs room with the landlord trying to duck out of the picture;)  His name is Rudi.  He's probably in his early 30's.  Really nice guy.
The windows in the huge downstairs room.
The HUGE fireplace.  It's prettier than this picture conveys but it does need a good cleaning.  

This is just a detail above one of the doors.  But there's lots of stuff like this all over the house.   You can tell someone loved it at one time;)


This is the downstairs kitchen but a BAD picture.  Not sure why I photographed this thing instead of the actual countertops!  This drawer unit you would probably want to have moved out before you moved in.  This kitchen is pretty small but you could put an extra fridge in here or freezer or make it a little craft room.   It has a stove in it too so...two ovens.  Can't complain about that;)


This is the downstairs bedroom off of the garage.  You can't see the 3-4 feet of width on the other side of the bed.  It's at least a 15x15 room.  Again, all this stuff could go or stay..all the furniture in there he said could go or stay as the renter wants.
 An extra random storage room on the other side of the small kitchen.  There's already storage shelving in it and a deep freezer.  ON the other side of this is another medium sized bedroom that I didn't photograph for some reason. It had a bunch of old armoires and chests of drawers pushed into the middle so you probably couldn't have seen it anyway.  It has a window in it.
 Downstairs bathroom with large mirror and lots of storage.


Here's the part of the yard directly behind the house.  A little stone walkway is up against the house...you can see it to the right.

Another cute touch...chalkboard in the kitchen;)
Backside of the front door...front entry way.
the front steps to the house with a large landing.




The front walkway with built in globe lights that work!  You can see the hedge there on your left and the giant climbable magnolia tree in straight ahead.
Here's the other side of the hedge with the long straight grassy area.  Your kids would love to play in this yard.  lots of knooks and crannies and, of course, the awesome magnolia tree.  

My friend Daniela's house directly in front of you.

Danielas little girl, Emma;)  She calls me "cashi":)  She is just a bit older than Juliet and has Downs Syndrome.  She is so cute!!

The view of the house from Daniela's yard.

Best of all, it's close to us;)  (And Daniela who is actually cooler than we are;)  You will love her.  The bus ride from Sarone is about 30 minutes both ways and the bus stop is a half of a block down a sidewalk from this house.  You could totally walk there in 2 minutes...less probably!  Talk soon!







Monday, May 20, 2013

Buon Compleanno

Buon Compleanno

isaac & georgie        


 
********7*********!!!!!!!!!9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We thought a big birthday bash would be a good way to kick off our summer and end the first Italian school year.  Isaac and Georgie were excited to do it together (phew!!  less work for me!) and we wanted the kids' Italian friends to know our house was a safe, friendly place to come.  Despite a little sunny rain at the beginning and a virtual down pour right at the end we still had a great time.  It was sunny all in between and our yard this time of year is really lovely.  Here are a few pictures of what the kids enjoyed at their party:
Italians don't do Pinata's so we wanted to show them what those are all about;)  Joey staged some great pinata games for them and they really enjoyed it.
 
Especially the candy!!  "Posso Piu?"
We did a water balloon toss, thanks, again, to Joey for filling up all those balloons;)
And we wrapped the fence in butcher paper so that the kids could do some painting.  The butcher paper was ruined a bit by the initial rain but it held out okay.  
We rented a bouncy castle from the base.  The kids ate Pizza, fruit and veggies, jumped in masses on the trampoline and Isaac and some of his friends took a field trip to the cheese farm behind our house:
Here's a view from the far end of our yard.  You can see how HUGE it is;) and the mountains that we sit in the shadow of...making our winters a bit colder and our summers a bit less swarmy.
Georgie and her friends spent a lot of time out at the chicken coop.
She was imparting her chicken wisdom;)

Georgie received a hammock for her birthday and we put it up immediately.  I love this photo of Juliet and her friend Izzy chilling in it.  They lay in it for at least 30 minutes, just the two of them.  Juliet is never still for that long!  She still plays in it with her baby dolls almost every single day.

All in all it was a really great time despite the rainy hiccups and the end-of-the-party-muddy-mess that ended up in the house.  The kids enjoyed themselves.  Isaac says his friends still talk about it a lot.  Italian parties (at least the ones that we have been to) are more of a glorified play group kind of thing with lots of chips, fatty foods and a birthday cake.
Our half done American style party felt like something special to them, or so it seemed.  Some of Isaacs friends kept saying to him, "Isaac, you're rich!"  No, honey, we're just Americans who thrive on spoiling the heck out of our kids and showing off for each other;)  I think that's more of the truth! That being said, Italian birthday parties are pretty lame.  I like our American style ones much better;)

At the end of the day, at least for me, I think what made it all so fun was how beautiful and green everything was.  We love where we live...especially in May!

Happy Birthday Isaac and G!  We love, love, love you!

xoxoxo
Mom