this week the kids have been home from school about every other day with a nasty virus. They seem to be doing fine and then it hits them again. And I have come to realize, I will never home school my children. Once you've tasted the sweet nectar of those precious hours to get things done with a limited number of children, you can never go back. One of those sick days included an Enrichment meeting at church. I am the Enrichment leader, yes you heard me right, me. I've enjoyed sitting back and letting everyone else do the hard work long enough. But the problem/intimidating thing is that because I'm from Utah, they expect me to have these grandiose ideas and so much to contribute. Oh and they want me to teach the lessons at Enrichment. Reminder: Io parlo pocco Italiano. I'm sure I'll have plenty of posts about my adventures in language barrier mixed with church callings. And I could use some ideas!
So after the meeting, I proceeded to pick up as many greasy smashed chips as I could off the ground (thank you Brody) and went to one more appointment. Waited for a half hour late bus that was jammed pack and in major traffic the entire way. If you've ever rode the 14 in Florence, I'm sure you can relate. My kids were good considering they all had to share one seat while I hovered over them because I just couldn't stand up straight. Oh my aching back. My point of all these side stories is, come Saturday I needed some mom time. We played in the morning and after grocery shopping and Ryan got home, I rode the bike into the city. It was a wonderful ride, and I'm quite sore because I haven't rode the bike for weeks. I ran a few errands and then went browsing through the sales. Oh the sales. I went to this little unique boutique that is expensive but everything was an additional 50% off of the 30% off. I got a cute black wrap dress, regular 99 euros for 32 euros. And after trying on clothes I also realized, dang, I've gained way too much weight lately. Linsey, I need you to train me! I Hit up some more stores but still on a mission for boots. I have found some cute ones but just can't quite get them all the way up my calf with the zipper! I haven't found any that I love and I can't bring myself to paying 100 euros for boots on sale (yet) so to make up for he extra dress and being gone for 3 hours, I found a black pair of knee high boot for 29 euros. Lets hope they last longer than 2 months! So it was a wonderful afternoon and when I came home and tried on the dress with the boots the kids said with lit up faces "mom! you look so pretty, I like that. Is that for when you get a baby?" Thanks guys, you made my day :)


This is the view from our bedroom window. Behind the building is the Arno River. Irrelevant information. The other day, Abbey was sitting on our dresser looking out the window and said "can we go to the farm?"
me: "where's the farm?"
her: "right there. I want to ride a horse and Brody can ride a cow and Cloe can ride a horse."
me: "the building with the red roof, is that what your talking about?"
her: "yeah, it's a farm."
Hopefully she forgets about it because she will be very disappointed when I take her over there.