Catching Up

I haven't posted in ages! I want to blame in on our lack of internet access in Milan, but I can't. We still don't have broadband internet access at home, but that's no excuse. It's been 2 weeks since we got home from Sardinia. This is our second weekend at Stef's family house in Sondrio. Fall has definitely arrived here in the mountains. I wasn't quite prepared last weekend and had to layer up since I didn't really bring any warm clothes.

We had spent part of last weekend doing chores around the house. There was lots to be done since we had been away for 3 weekends and Stef is the 'man of the house' here. His mum had written a list: fix window, clean and install pipe for the woodstove, fix Tata's (the dog) doghouse, pick apples from the trees in the backyard, and cut the grass. I helped some. ;-)

We also visited his sister and two nephews, Luca and baby Federico. Federico is still the cutest little thing. Stef is very proud of him, happily pointing out how Federico has his uncle's blue eyes, ears, shape of his head, and of course he would have his uncle's intelligence too. haha.

We also found time before our big Sunday family lunch to go riding on the bicycle trail that passes through the valley. This is actually a really nice trail, spanning almost 45 kilometers, so that you could go on a 90km bike ride without having the share the road with motorists (except for a couple short sections, I was told). I really enjoyed the beautiful fall weather then.

Which brings us to this Saturday. We woke up this morning to rainy weather, so we're pretty much staying inside all day. I studied some Italian, ate lunch (spaghetti con vongole and fritata con papate) and here I am taking advantage of the broadband internet access.

I just uploaded a picture. Look who's making silly faces while picking apples. It was hard to reach all the apples so he used the 'shaking technique' a.k.a. grab on to the tree and shake it as hard as you can. I was skeptical but it worked!