in the past month we have hosted 2 very special different guest couples, traveled to stia with the harding students, bid farewell to the best HUF student group ever, had an art lesson in the piazza of the duomo, had a picnic and a cookout, witnessed 2 baptisms at our church, and gone to an art show of one of our students, all while maintaining our normal "avanti" routine.
we have been going pretty much non-stop for the past month so that is the reason for the lack of posts lately. allow me to catch you up.
1.) we went to stia, italy with the HUF group.
robbie so graciously accepted our self-invitation to join them and gave us a tour of this area that we will never forget and would have never been able to do without him. we stopped at an old (like 1000 a.d. old) monastery.
we toured a 100+ year old wool mill that is now an amazing museum (run by a woman who spends her free time traveling in the third world giving villages looms and teaching women how to support themselves and their families with the art of weaving, really cool). not to mention i may get to learn weaving from her this summer, but that's another story.
we ate lunch at a 700+ year old grain mill.
we ended the day on top of an old castle and bid a "see you later" to gretchen and clayton and the rest of their wonderful group.
2.) jonathan and leslie jerkins were with us for 2 1/2 days and in that time we gave them "laura and ryan's off the beaten path (kind of) tour of florence" we'll probably write a tour book of florence, just saying, look out rick steves. leslie has documented the rest of their adventure on her blog. she was such a trooper and somehow this is the only picture i took while they were with us (i think jonathan took all the other pictures).
she is taking advantage of the pregnant seating on the bus :)
3.) i got to take an art lesson from mine and ryan's favorite artist, alessandro buccoliero, in the piazza of the duomo. that was such a cool experience that i hope to continue after i get good at the techniques he taught me. he's so talented, kind and patient and his stand is part of our tour of florence.
that's him and i down in the left hand corner, he brought me a little stool and everything
4.) we had a picnic in the park with a lady at our church and her daughter and another lady and her son
and a cookout with the eirharts (the husband was once robbie's assistant of the HUF program and is now the director of the georgetown international program in florence and the wife is a sweet friend who has come to all of our american cooking schools)
the whole cookout group minus emily (taking the picture) and anna-maria and max (nap time)
5.) we had 2 baptisms at our church, a sweet lady named viviana who we met at the ladies retreat and her boyfriend fabio. sadly, they do not live in florence, they live in northern italy, so they aren't able to worship with us on a regular basis, but we are thrilled for their decisions and are praying for their strength and growth!
6.) we went to the exhibition of one of our students whose illustrations were chosen to be in a book that has been published. go clizia, we are so proud!
7.) we hosted the 3rd american cooking school. another success. menu...thanksgiving. sorry no pictures or video this time because we were all to busy to photo anything. oops, i'll try harder next time.
8.) my parents stayed with us for 10 AWESOME days!
to break it down:
san lorenzo market
people watched in every main piazza
suntanned in piazzale michelangelo
gelato, gelato, gelato
cinque terre
san gimengnano
lucca
fiesole
cooking school
birthday cookout at the bible school
church
lots and lots and lots of incredible food
ikea
chill time in our apartment
built shelves
repaired bicycles
read real simple
visited our artist
visited our metal artisan
cooked together
AMERICA concert
bike rides
taxi rides
bus rides
train rides
boat rides
car rides
dune buggy rides...
it was one of the most fun times of my life.
there are plenty of gorgeous and normal pictures on facebook of our trip and let's face it those can get boring so i'm going to sum up the trip with my 3 personal favorites which i think do a better job at that than any. it's been a great month and i will be better at updating from now on, enjoy!
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