Christmas and Tuscany

We are all back to our normal schedules now after a long holiday break. We ended up having a white Christmas in Antwerp. It continued to snow off and on until about Christmas Eve. The kids were so excited for Santa. The bike shop across the street hung a decoration of a Santa hanging from a Christmas tree above their door. It was in perfect sight from the kids bedroom windows and Chloe keep saying, "Santa is watching me!". She still doesn't understand that it means she should behave. At least Colin was trying. There were so many presents left under our tree. We received great packages from Grammy, Aunt Chris, Mom Mom and Bobby and Al and Joan. We spent most of Christmas day playing with all of the new toys.

We had planned a trip to Tuscany that we ended up canceling because of our friends schedule. After talking with then on Christmas night, we decided to continue on with our plans. We managed to pack up and get on the road by 9 am the next morning. After getting caught in ski traffic in Switzerland, we made it to Milan for the night 12 hours later. The next morning, we continued on to Tuscany to the same villa, Le Torri, we stayed at in May. As before, our accommodations did not disappoint. There were just a few towns that we had not covered before. One of the towns we went to see was Cortona, where they filmed Under the Tuscan Sun. The woman still lives there a few months of the year, I never realized it was a true story. We also went to Montepulciano, which is a big wine town. New Years Eve, we went to Siena. They had a big concert going on the the main square. We were back at the villa for the New Year.Tuscany is so beautiful and Craig is looking forward to going back already. Chloe and I are not big fans of the winding roads that make us car sick. We managed to make the drive home in one day - 12 hours!

The following weekend was the New Years Toast that the city hosts in Grote Markt. Just like last year, they had rides, free beer and frites and giveaways with the city's logo. It was a beautiful day and relatively mild. We meet up for several of our friends and their kids. After the toast was over, we continued the party back at our place until that night. I was considering it a 'vacations over party' and I was happy to send the kids back to school the next day!

Road Trip: Days 4 - 10 Tuscany

We packed up early on Saturday to make the long drive to Italy - almost 400 miles. We met our friends from Belgium, Paul, Rachael and their 2 sons. We stayed at Le Torri, a 700 year old villa owned and run by a family. They make their own wine, olive oil, lemoncello and pesto, among other things. Everyweek, they host an arrival dinner for all of the guests on Saturday night. All of the food is cooked by the host's mother and it was amazing!

Sunday, we visited San Gimignano and Volterra, both walled towns. Monday we saw Siena, which was probably our favorite. The kids spent hours in the main square while we took turns with Paul and Rachael seeing things without the kids. I think Colin chased every pigeon in town. We visited Florence on Tuesday. I really enjoyed seeing David and Craig thought the views from the Duomo were great. We visited Lucca on Wednesday, but it poured almost the whole time we were there. We decided that we would have dinner at the villa that night. Just like Saturday, all of the food was handmade and outstanding. They even prepared special meals for the kids including individual plates of bruscetta, prosciutto wrapped breadsticks and asparagus toasts. The kids weren't even sure what to do with it. Thursday we drove to Pisa and climbed the tower. I don't know how many times I have seen pictures of it, but it was leaning more than I could have ever imagined. I really thought that I could have slid out the side of the tower when I was close to the top.

Chloe and I were glad to leave Tuscany because we were both getting car sick while driving on the winding roads. By the time we had left Italy for Switzerland, we had already driven over 1,500 miles.