Skiing and bonfires

I love winter in Europe. The opportunities for travel are somewhat curtailed but that just means that we spend more quality time in our local area and on shorter trips. Specifically, it means snow skiing and bonfires!

The day after Christmas, AKA Boxing Day or Santo Stefano, we had a bonfire potluck at our house for our friends. We were missing the Crandalls, who had left in mid-December, but still had a great time.

Standing by my beloved creation before it goes up in flames. Most of it was made from the trimmings from our neighbor Aldo's yard.

In full conflagration with the guests circled around. I loved this view and had to snap a picture.

The next day I gave Ashley the day off and a huge shopping budget as her Christmas present. I took the kids up to the ice skating rink at Piancavallo, since the snow was not good enough for skiing yet. Juliet improved a lot in just a couple of hours.

The new year got off to a good start with the La Befana Bonfire celebration on 5 Jan, L'Epifana Eve. Also known as King's Day, the Epiphany in Italy is the official end of the Christmas holiday. Tradition holds that the wisemen invited a "witch" to come with them but she declined. She then changed her mind and tried to follow them, but was unable to find the home so she left gifts at every home she came across. The anti-Herod, if you will. To celebrate her in NE Italy, enormous bonfires are built and lit, with the witch on top. The direction of the wind determines the type of year it will be: towards the sea is good, away from the sea is bad, straight up is uncertain.

Ashley and Georgie at our neighbor's bonfire, which is the unofficial one for our little town. This monster put my bonfires to shame. It was huge!

 The witch on top.

 The townspeople gathered around. You couldn't stand too close, it was too hot.

After the witch burned away all that was left was the cross she was tied to. No, Neil Young, this is not white supremacist terrorism in Alabama!

Our neighbor, Bruno, pouring gasoline or some other flammable on the fire.

There were food and drinks and desserts, all free of charge and they wouldn't accept donations!

Isaac and his best friend from school, Simone. These two are a couple of LEGO-crazed, Wii-playing, constantly joking, occasionally fighting, but always LOUD Italian-speaking friends.

A few days later Ashley took the kids skiing at Piancavallo and met up with some friends there. This year is the worst year for snow in many decades and only a few days later the resort had to close and didn't reopen again for several weeks. So sad.

Juliet is an awesome skier! No edgie wedgie this year and she is skiing intermediate runs like a champ.

The Slabaugh girls with Samantha, Georgie, Juliet, and Chloe Weatherwax. Look at Jubie with her poles! Such a big girl!

For MLK Day the Joneses found a babysitter and we left the little kids behind to finally make the complete Sella Ronda skiing circuit. The sky was clear and the day was amazing, if very cold with crappy snow. We lost Tann for about an hour at the beginning of the day, but soon regrouped and made the most of it.

We started in Arabba and made the clockwise circuit. You never ski the same run or ride the same lift twice, and you go through about five or six different resorts while you make this huge 40 km circuit in the Dolomites. Georgie was freezing in this shot but still appreciated the views.

Ridiculous views like this all day.

We stopped for lunch here and got some outstanding German food. Behind Tann and me is the Alpi di Siusi area.

Isaac and Payton at the same spot.

Isaac at Sasso Lungo near Val di Gardena.

Georgie and I at the pass just east of Sasso Lungo. Every view was new so you never stopped being amazed.

Isaac and Payton at the same spot from a different angle.

Georgie a little farther along the circuit. She had warmed up and was feeling great.

Payton skiing the pass. Love those Dolomite peaks. We finished the circuit about an hour early and skied the last run a few times to finish out the day. Love the Sella Ronda.

The next weekend we decided to have yet another bonfire at our house. I had worked hard to get a new one built and our neighbor Aldo had helped add to it.

The pre-bonfire set-up. Isaac and Georgie and I were throwing the frisbee around on this lovely late January day.

Not as big as the Befana bonfire, of course, but the fire was about 10 feet tall and the flame at least 20. The sparks were showering down like confetti and the kids were playing in them. All very safe.

It was also a full moon, which you can see here outlined by the curving flame. It was great because even when you stepped away from the fire there was still plenty of light to see.

The next weekend we had a trip planned with the Joneses to my favorite ski resort ever: Sonnenalp Nassfeld on the Italian-Austrian border. I had been there four times before with Kwame and Greg, Greg and Megan, Greg and Ben, and Ben and Jeff. This time it was with all the giblets. We got a ski in-ski out apartment at the base of one of the lifts and it was worth every penny.

This was the view from our kitchen. They had the bunny slope lit up and they were putting on a skiing, pyrotechnic, and snow-cat show, complete with euro-techno music.

Ashley took one for the team the first morning and watched Juliet (sick with croup - but not too sick to dance), Jacqueline, and Kate the baby.

Meanwhile, the big kids were tearing it up on the man-made snow with incredible vistas. Landon is on the ground behind Georgie and I was very impressed with his skiing all weekend. Great story from this first morning: We found a cool kids' run with curves and small jumps called the "Funslope". There was a small platform at the end of the run and Isaac had gone off of it and fallen. Angela didn't see him because he was in the blind spot below the platform, so she went off the platform and crashed to the left trying to avoid him. She started yelling to Tann who pulled up and stopped behind Isaac. They yelled at me and I pulled up in front of Isaac, right below the platform.

Then, this idiot 40-something Italian dude starts coming down. At this point there are three visible, yelling adults standing below the platform protecting a non-visible child. Did that stop this moron? Certainly not. He started skiing towards the platform and was yelling at me to get out of the way. He had PLENTY of time to pull up and not go on the platform. But no, as if in a slap-stick movie he went off the platform at full speed, still yelling at me, and hit me like a line-backer lighting up a wide receiver. I let him have it in my imperfect Italian, yelling at him that my son was on the ground below the jump and that he was an enormous jackass. Tann was likewise berating him in English. He shut his mouth when he realized that there was a child on the ground and that he was outnumbered & outlanguaged.

This is the top of Nassfeld, right on the border between Austria on the right and Italy to the left.

It was foggy down in the Italian valleys but clear and bright in the Dolomites!

Georgie at the top. What a great day.

Isaac, Payton, Samantha, and Georgie on the run with the infamous Funslope. Despite that incident we skied this run numerous times throughout the weekend. There was a jump at the exit the we would all take turns on.

 Georgie and Samantha on the lift.

 This is the top of the eastern side of the resort.

 Looking east towards Tarvisio and Villach. Tann is on the right.

Looking north towards the village of Hermagor, where the sun was shining and there was no snow on the ground at the end of January. A very weird winter.

The next day it was foggy and colder, but we still had a great time. This is the top of the center part of the resort. They are usually blasting euro-techno out of that lodge, but that day it was AC/DC's  "Highway to Hell". I was full-on rocking out.

 I think Tann stole Ashley's phone and took a selfie.

The peak behind us is the top of the resort on the border with Italy. I loved them way the clouds and sky came together in this shot.

Random snowboarder photobomb!

Towards the end of the second day we skied the run with our favorite jump in the park. Just big enough to be fun but not dangerous.

 The last run of the day with Tann and the big Jones kids.

 The boys having a snowball fight.

All the big kids together at the end of the weekend. Better snow would have been nice, but we had a great weekend regardless.

We will have more skiing and more bonfires before the winter is out, but next up is our couples' date weekend in Portugal with the Trifilos.

Monsons Visit to Italy!

They've been saying they'd come from the moment we received orders for Italy.

As they are among my families "most apt to travel" I would have bet on it. 

When our 3 years was coming to a close and I hadn't heard anything solid from Aly I decided that I'd bet wrong.  

But by the skin of their teeth, (Joey's actually) we were extended!   

And come they did!

Here's Arie interpreting the Birth of Venus, a painting she actually got to see just a few days later in Florence!

Georgie was so glad to have a girl cousin around!

Goof Balls!

These were all taken in Polcenigo, on the way up to the castle. 

That face!

The Friday after they arrived we spent the day in Venice.  Isaac and Georgie had school but Juliet was permitted to skip.  

I love this photo. 

 This was taken in the Frari Church.  The girls were being a little showy 

and dramatic about their "prayers for Mary".

All Arie wanted out of Venice was for a pigeon to land on her head.  She was so happy when she got it!

And Aly just wanted to smooch Ryder on a Gondola.

Sure enough!

"Word"

Looking cute on The Grand Canal in Venice

This Gondolier wasn't a singer.  But Juliet remembered the last one we'd had that was.  So she decided it would be appropriate for her to sing to us.  No one had the heart to tell her she was tone deaf.  We came into an alley that had multiple Gondolas, some with singing Gondoliers.  Juliet just piped right up with them.  I have a video that I'll try to get loaded.  Love this firecracker:

This is one of my favorite pictures that we've taken since living in Italy. 

Aly and Kelly stayed on in Venice to see it at night.  The kids rode the train home with me.  Here they are playing "photo bomb"...a game the Monsons brought over with them from 'merica.  They were cracking themselves up.  And me too.

On Saturday we headed for the Dolomites.  We stopped in Bolzano along the way to see Otzi, the iceman and the lovely city.  

Here's Arie wearing a mockup of Otzi's jacket:

And these crazies posing with a mock up of what Otzi might have looked like when he died:

Here we are eating street food in Bolzano.

Cousins!

The following morning we hiked up to a rifugio with a Dolomite view.  We found snow along the way and a lot of complaints from the kids. Our view was obstructed by cloud cover.  Joey and I were really disappointed that they never really got a good view of the jagged, dramatic Dolomite rock.

But the lowland views weren't too shabby.

Boys

The Agriturismo we stayed in was perfect for us.  The perfect scenery, the perfect breakfast, the perfect farm full of animals.

The boys enjoyed the ping pong table.

And the girls LOVED the guinea pigs and bunny rabbits.

The chickens ran free in the yard.  The fenced in area you see  in the back was such a quaint, cute little garden.  I couldn't stop staring and daydreaming about it.  

The Girls

The Dolomites are hard to top.  So I through in a bit of "lock car keys in the car in the middle of Emilia Romagna" to spice things up a bit.  I think everyone appreciated it.  That happened just before we visited Villa San Donnino for a Balsamic Vinegar Tour.

Look at those 5!!!

Getting a description of the Vinegar making process.

And those three!

I'm curious to know how Aunt Kathy appreciated the 12 year old vinegar 

Aly and Kelly bought for her here.  Three years later, ours is almost gone!  

Next Stop:

Florence

For Pasta!

We chowed at a cute little restaurant close to our airbnb (airbnb was a bit sketchy, sorry guys!)

And the following morning we scoured Florence.  The Duomo, the Uffizi and the David.  The kids, Kelly and I went to the Museo Galileo which, on first thought was a little disappointing being that it had almost nothing in there about Galileo.  But after we settled into that some of the science artifact displays were pretty impressive.  My favorite was the series of antique cross section models of a womans pelvis area while giving birth.  They showed babies coming out in all the wrong and right ways possible.  If the kids were able to look at it (some were "grossed out") they got a pretty good education on the birth of a baby.

The second best little sandwich shop in Italy!

Just look at us would ya?

Georgie and Arie bought Marionette puppets of Pinocchio.  Arie had always wanted one and seized this "but I need a souvenir" opportunity to get one.  Georgie liked that idea.  So she did it too.

Last Stop:

A Few Lazy days at Our House

I love this picture and these two "babies".

This "baby" is not bad either.

I managed to procure a babysitter for their last evening here.  We ate at Il Rifugio and fully enjoyed the Frico:

And then they left:(  It was a great trip, one none of us will forget! 

 Thanks for the visit Monson Family!