Isaac Bo-Bisaac

Isaac Bo Bisaac

As you recently read on the blog, Isaac eats fish eye balls.  But he also speaks some pretty awesome Italian.  For the past couple of months I have enjoyed the pleasure of driving Isaac and his Italian friend, Pierre-Antonio, to and from soccer practice every Tuesday night.  I drive down the road like a big dork with this huge, proud grin on my face because I can't stop smiling at hearing my son ramble off in a different language with his cute, chubby little buddy, Pierre.  It's freaking awesome!  He has full use of his sense of humor in the language, his accent sounds perfect (to me) and I love witnessing his total confidence with his friends. 

They frequently play a word game that really gets them tickled.  It goes something like this:  "Che facendo ora?", which translates into something like, "what am I doing now?"  and then the other one has to guess what the asker envisions himself doing.  "Ballaro"(dancing) or "Cantaro"(singing)...even if the word isn't supposed to end with "aro" they put that ending on it anyway and somehow that makes it all so funny to them.  And of course they always choose words like dancing, farting...funny stuff.  Half the time I don't understand what they're saying but even to me it sounds so funny! Another plus: Tonight they rocked out to "Get Down On It"by Kool and The Gang, which has a lot of repetition in it.  I overheard Pierre singing "Gedown a it" in total botched English.  And Isaac was totally giggling at/with him.  It was pretty funny!  

Isaac is completely fitting in at school now (phew!!).  He has his little posse and is happy almost every day when he comes home from school.  MOst of the time he can't wait to get back out the door to play soccer with his friend Alessandro who lives across the street.  At school he plays mostly with a cute kid named Phillipo but it sounds like he plays paper airplanes, makes club houses, has running races etc. with everyone from the three girls in his class to some of the 5th grade kids.  It's a nice change from last year...when we were all jumping all kinds of hurdles.  It's a steep learning curve, but I think he's over the hump.  POor guy climbed a lot last year!  Bravo Isaac!

Anyway, that's our Isaac update!

xoxo

Ash

Italy ♥: September Grape Harvest

Last weekend we experienced one of those Italian things you just have to do at least once in a lifetime. We harvested grapes!  At an Italian vineyard. 

It was more than a little work but well worth the pay off of good Italian family fun!

Isaac was particularly gung-ho!  

And Juliet wielded those sheers a little better than I had expected:

But she spent most of her time plucking the grApes from our busily shearing hands and putting them in the crates beneath us...or...sitting back on her heals underneath the vines, looking out at the vineyard and talking to herself. Even without understanding the cultural romantic significance of grape vineyards (Italian ones at that) the whole field and activity held some sort of magic even for her. 

Georgie also enjoyed the ambiance quite a lot.  She and I spent a lot of time discussing our future "farm"/ orchard;) 

We are convincing the boys as well:

Joey was the last one to drop his sheers;). And Isaac jumped right in to Georgie and my future homesteaders discussion;). He want to be sure we have lots of grapes!

Future farm family right here:

And if our future farm could come along with the chef of our 6 course meal that followed the harvesting I'd be in fat heaven. The goods this vineyard dished up had us rolling ourselves out the door. Prosciutto, pancetta and salame with bread, Crispelle with cream sauce, cheese and pesto, vegetable risotto, roasted potatoes and beef filet, mixed salad, frico (fried cheese...you don't even know)  and lastly panna cotta with fresh berries.  Sweet dreams!  

Xoxo