Michelle + Cinque Terre + Mother's Day = One of the best days ever!

Okay, so on Sunday we headed up the coast from Pisa to Cinque Terre. What a wonderful place to spend Mother's Day! 

Cinque Terre was on my ''must do'' list when I found out we were going to Italy. In fact, I pinned it on Pinterest before we even got here.

So clearly I was excited to see it with my own eyes. And we were not disappointed at all. I will say the above photo is severely enhanced...It's beautiful and the buildings are really colorful but unless this photo was taken on the day the buildings were painted, they are not that vivid.

So we drove from our hotel to the town of La Spezia, where we parked at the train station. We then took the train to Cinque Terre (which is actually 5 cities).

You start in this bustling train station/city and the train goes through these dark tunnels, until suddenly you get peeks of the sea like this:

It really is gorgeous (this pic was taken from the train, through a window). We rode the train to the 5th city, Monterosso, first. There we ate lunch and took LOTS of photos.

 

 It is really so, so colorful and just goregous. Like nowhere else that I have ever been. We ate lunch then waded into the water because the kids wanted to be on that beach like nobody's business. The water was cold, I was shocked to see swimmers actually in the waves but there were definitely a lot of people enjoying it!

*Best Mother's Day* (at least thus far!)

So funny story...we took the photos of the kids loving the water and then let them search for shells and sea glass while we (the adults) took more photos. 

 So I'm standing with my back to the sea, Sissy is in front of me, Bubba and Pooks are beside me and Peanut is caddy corner to my left. We're in water no deeper than six inches. B is up on the beach, not in the water at all and Michelle is nearest Sissy, still in the water though and she was on the sand. All of the sudden this wave comes up and I say ''Move guys, wave is coming''and look back at Peanut as he is in the deepest water. The wave crashes his legs, he wavers but doesn't fall. Bubba and Pooks are fine. Poor Sissy, who wasn't even in the water, got caught completely off guard and fell face first into a small amount of water and a whole lot of sand. She was fine! No drowning scare or anything. She immeidately got up...and bawled. Everyone on the beach was laughing, because it was funny and she was fine but she was not happy. Her pants were soaked, her shirt was soaked, she had sand in her ears. She was a mess. So we had no choice but to strip her down to her undies (also wet but not coming off) and have her stay like that while we found a clothing shop or souvenior shop that sold a dress or swimsuit cover in her size.

And the really funny part? She LOVED being over1/2 naked. Strutting her stuff in her converse shoes up the walkway in nothing but her Minnie Mouse undies. So hence the family photo with her naked...

We managed to find a dress for her in the 3rd shop we stopped at. It was hideous and too big, but better than naked. We had no way of airing out her other clothes (I tried a hand dryer in a bathroom...no dice).

 I'm really not sure which is worse. The dress is tied in the back with a hair tie so her tiny boobies wouldn't show, it's bedazzled on the front with dolphins and reads 'Cinque Terre'. The worse part? She LOVED it. 

So after the water fiasco, we were running short on time. We had to be back at 7:30pm to pick the dogs up from the sitter, so we had to leave CT by 4pm at the very latest. It was evident we weren't going to see all 5 towns. Add in that the forecast was calling for storms and we didn't really have a moment to waste. We opted to ride the train back to Manarola and had planned on walking the Via Dell'Amore (Love Walk) from Manarola to the first town of Riomaggiore. Well we got to Manarola and the walk was closed due to too much rainfall. But, Manarola was so gorgeous, I don't feel like we missed anything!

 And the views were breath-taking...like a picture from a book or travel magazine!

Don't fret, I took a ton!

 

 After taking in the views, we made our way back down, then up the hill in town and back to the train station.

 

 It was a wonderful experience! While we didn't make it to all 5 towns, I feel extremely fortunate to visit the two that we did spend time in. And we left in the nick of time. As soon as we left La Spezia, it started down-pouring. Thunder, lightning, the works.

We love having visitors!

Last week, we were lucky enough to have a visitor come all the way over to Italy to see us...Auntie Michelle arrived on Friday the 10th and we were so excited to have her!

That first afternoon we got her settled in at home and went to our favorite eatery here in Italia, Regina's. 

 Regina's is our favorite for multiple reasons: the food is freaking delicious, the owners couldn't be more friendly, they speak English, it opens at 5:45 instead of 7:00pm like most and the food is delicious! Michelle was not disappointed, but she was tired. After traveling for 24 hours, that happens. So we headed home, made a quick pit stop for gelato, then really made it home and got ready for our weekend trip to: Tuscany and Cinque Terre!

Michelle was able to visit for 7 full days, which meant we were going to do a lot in those 7 days. Starting out with a road trip to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa (roughly 3 hours away).

We made it there in great time...tada!

Yep, as Pooks confirmed...it's still leaning! And the kids still grew bored quite quickly but we did get much better photos on this visit. Guess the 3rd time really is the charm!

We even snagged a family photo where everyone is smiling. No one is complaining of the sun or wind or being tired. Just smiles!

And to add to the collection of me being ridiculous, I present this gem!

Pisa really is a quick stop in Italy. Don't get me wrong, it's worth the stop but 1/2 hour is really all you need!

So we hopped back in the Swaggerwagon and headed to one of our favorite tiny Italian towns, Lucca. Not without a pitstop for Sissy first...

Once there we road the big 6 person bike around the walls. We asked a gentleman walking to take a photo, clearly he is unfamiliar with an iphone...

 But you can sorta see us all on there! We took a break 1/2 way around the city as two of the riders were annoying the crap out of me having trouble behaving. A time out seemed to help! I'll let you guess which 2 riders were having, issues.

 I really do just love Lucca. It's picturesque Italy. It's quaint, it has REAL trees, it's busy but not crowded. I just can't say enough good things.

 Now normally we can spend an entire day in Lucca alone but we were trying to show Michelle as much as possible in 7 days so we moved on to...Tirrenia. Tirrenia is a mapdot of a town right on the coast.

We walked around, we had dinner, we explored the beach (which strangely enough was covered in jellyfish...tiny jellyfish) then we made our way back to our hotel so we could get to bed at a decent time because Sunday we were going to Cinque Terre.

Continued in next post :)

Take me out to the ball game...

This year, Bubba and Pooks are {finally} old enough to play T-Ball and they had the want to play so I signed them up on the first day that sign up opened. 

And lucky for them, mom voluteered (well, I kinda got suckered in) to coaching. They would put the boys and their friends all on the same team...if one of the parents agreed to coach. Overall, it's been fun. We're only a month into now and while there have been a few tears shed, they've all come from my own (overly tired, overly sensitive) kid. I love Pooks but man oh man can he be a challenge!

We have one practice and one game each week, these pics are all from the first two games. B has played wrangler to the younger kids as well as photographer...

 

 It is red-robin play (all the kids bat, then we switch) so there is no winning or losing team, it's all about teaching the fundamentals and how to play on a team. The first game no matter where the ball was hit while we were fielding, 9 out of 12 kids all ran for it. We're working on it, but everyone is happy and getting along, so I call that a win!