Amici

While we've been here, we've had the chance to see a few of Matt's friends. He went skiing with a friend a couple of weeks ago, he's going with another tomorrow. On Monday we visited a friend in the hospital. We've had some friends stop by to see us (Matt). And today we spent the afternoon touring the US Air Force Base (which is A LOT bigger now than it was when we lived here) with a good friend (Italian) and his wife (American).

(I took these for my sisters Carrie and Paula. Although the school is brand new, you guys will definitely have memories of playing ball at Aviano. If I remember correctly, they weren't all "Saints".)

While we were on base I ran into a guy (Julius) that I knew when I was attending 8th grade in Verona, Italy! Seriously...we sat across from him at lunch. Wild huh? We talked for a bit. Turns out, after 9th grade in Vicenza, his parents divorced so he moved to Aviano with his mom (who is Italian) and never left. He married an Italian woman, bought a home, has a son and works on base. Crazy huh? It was fun to see him and he was so nice...very complimentary of me and my little family. Kind of random to see him again...small, small world.

Anyway, there are a lot more friends that we'd like to see, but our time seems to be running out. Where did the month go?!

Well in an attempt to see numerous friends at once, last Sunday night a group of Matt's friends got together for dinner. This is the group from church that Matt used to run around with. With the exception of a few, most have remained in the PN branch and still get together with their spouses and kids. We met at Elda's house for mussels (my first try), pizza and cake for dessert. It was really a fun evening - crazy but fun. Imagine 6 Italian men, 4 Italian women, an American woman, 5 Italian kids and one half-Italian baby. It was insane but SO MUCH FUN! I really love all these people. We had a similar get together last time we were here and I fell in love with all of them. They are all so kind and thoughtful and fun! The kids played well together too and everyone oohed and aahed over HD. She was of course very entertaining and talkative and would sit on anyone's lap who would take her. She's definitely got some friends here the next time we come back.

Here's a quick story...For most of the evening, the men were discussing soccer, which ticked the women off. So the women finally got the men to stop talking about soccer and they started talking politics, which just got even more crazy...Finally, Matt's good friend banged on the table and yelled "Basta!" It was classic - I mean it was seriously what American's stereotypically think of Italians. I LOVED IT! They really are so full of life. It's the part of the Italian culture that I love the best and miss the most...

Francesco and Lisa holding HD and Elisa (another friend's daughter).

Just talking.
Lisa and HD

HD and Sofi (Lisa's daughter) after eating some cake. I LOVE Sofi's eyes!

The whole group - kind of a weird angle, but you get the idea.