Sicily.

We took a nice long weekend trip to Sicily with my parents.  After lots of headache at the airport and almost not being able to get on the plane because Owen didn't have a ticket, we made it there safely.  We stayed in Palermo, which is an amazing old city.  We did the "hop on, hop off" bus so we got to see most of the sights.

This was my moms favorite building, it's the symphony hall.  She was obsessed with the horses running off the roof!

My Parents, Part III.

Well, since I didn't get a bunch of complaints about the number of pictures from the last post, I decided to post a lot again this time : )  

We did a ton of traveling this time that my parents were here.  One of the day trips we did was back over to the island of Ischia.  It was a beautiful day and we had one of the best lunches we've had since being here.  It was a relaxing day filled with walking, beautiful scenery, and wine.  Perfect : )

Poor little Owen fell asleep and missed our gelato stop of the day.

If you don't notice why I love this picture, look again!!

It's a good thing that we did a lot of traveling because one of the days we spent hanging out at home, this happened!

Owen in the Gardens.

Sorry for the excessive number of pictures, but I had too many favorites to choose, so I'm posting them all!  Owen had a fun time playing in the grass in the garden in Lucca while JJ and my dad ran around.  It was an excellent afternoon.

My Parents, Part II.

Brian had to work most of the time that my parents were here, but that didn't stop us from packing up the boys and heading up the road to Tuscany.  We stayed in a great little B & B in Lucca and took day trips to Florence and Carrara, then did a quick stop by the leaning tower on the way home.  It was an amazing little vacation.

Here's Lucca - 

We ate a lot of gelato.

This is the inside of the main duomo in Florence.  It was beautiful.

Florence was very hot and humid.  Owen had a great time.

My dad found these amazing gardens in Lucca.

JJ ran, ran, and ran until he was extremely hot and tired.

The tower in Pisa was very impressive.

11 Months Old.

Owen turned 11 months old today and as you can see from the pictures below, he is super excited about it : )  He's crawling extremely fast these days, cruising all the furniture, and has stood independently for a few seconds a couple of times.  At this point, we think he's way more tough than JJ was, mainly because he has JJ sitting on him all the time, but he also seems more cautious.  We think it may take him longer to really learn to walk, but that's fine by me!

He finally got a tooth!!  He has one little tooth and is working on another.  I really think he's the slowest teether in the whole world!

My Parents, Part I.

My parents just left after a whirlwind 3 week visit.  We had an amazing time with them.  Last year, we mainly just stayed home and stared at our new baby, but this year we were on the go almost the whole 3 weeks!  Here's what we did the first few days.

The first full day they were here, we went down to Paestum and took a tour of a buffalo mozzarella farm/factory on the way.  As you can see, Owen was super excited about the tour.

These are probably the happiest buffalo that you'll ever meet.  They eat only organic food, listen to relaxing music in the morning, then get massages (as in this picture), then can go to the milking machine and eat.  Our tour guide said that happier buffalo make better milk/cheese, so they treat them well.  I'm not sure if this is right, but the cheese was good!

JJ telling grandpa all about the buffalo.

Here is the beautiful leather factory at the farm.  This is where the 3-month-old boy buffalo go and get turned into beautiful purses and belts!

We did allow a little relaxing and reading : )

Then we headed downtown on the second day.

Next up, our trip to Tuscany!