We are finally settling in here in Florence. Besides almost daily trips to Carabe (the Sicilian gelato guy who had everyone deliriously licking ice cream off their fingers at our wedding), we have taken weekend day trips to Siena, Volterra, San Gimignano, Fiesole, Arezzo and Forte dei Marmi. Since all of those places have amazing gelato as well, we also joined the Virgin Active gym down the Arno.
Valentina is drooling like a crazy girl. We are optimistically attributing that to teething, although Lorenzo's mom said he had to wear a bib 24/7 until he was like two years old. Hoping it isn't genetic.
She is also experimenting with her high notes, as you can see from the video on this page. She did about a week straight of what we Americans call raspberries, or officially, "bilabial trills" . We were trying not to crack up and get her all excited by responding when she practiced in the middle of the night. Hard when you hear the sound floating out of the darkness at 5 AM. Pppfffttt.... pppfffttt.... pppfffttt. She seems to have perfected them and now has moved on to high pitched squeaking (see video). For those of you interested in linguistic development, according to Dr. Sears website: "Before a baby can form words, he has to master moving his mouth, tongue, and lips together," says Michael Schwartz, M.D., a pediatrician at ABC Pediatrics in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Blowing raspberries helps him coordinate this movement. WHO KNEW?
Davide spent his Herfstvakantie with us. We had a great time showing him Florence and surrounding towns. Our last night together, we stopped at the little walled Borgo of Monteriggioni and then had dinner in San Gimignano. There was a dance performance in the main square with fire dancers and even fire eaters. Valentina (apparently unimpressed) fell asleep during the performance, but the rest of us really enjoyed it!!
We had a recent stream of visitors...Desiree and Dimitri down from Breda; Martin, Caroline and the girls from Amsterdam and Heike here from Merano for work. We had a great time and encourage more visitors!!
