Blackberry Cottage

We spent a week during spring break in an amazing cottage overlooking the Gulf of Poets near La Spezia in Northern Italy. During our time there, we hiked (including hiking from town-to-town in the Cinque Terre), collected shells, swam, ate lots of gelato, counted lizards, and cooked many wonderful meals. Legs and Metz enjoyed the Italian sea breeze, but not so much the Swiss highway tunnels. The cottage had a wonderful garden and wildflowers growing on the trails surrounding it and so we had multiple bouquets every night.

Animal sillies

The Wedding

There has been much anticipation about the wedding....

Everyone around here has been talking about it.

Finally the day came! Kitty Cat and the Stoat got married!

The groom:

The bride (dress designed and sewn by Annie):

There were so many guests! I think all the animals in the apartment came!

Steve did the officiating.

The rings:


The married couple!

Beading lizards

Zoë and Annie's Handarbeit teacher gave the girls instructions for how to make beaded lizards and we've all been having fun with that.

New tradition?

We don't have so much time left here, but we're thinking about starting a new tradition of weekly dinner cookouts on Zuriberg. Such fun!

Happy Birthday, Annie

Annie recently had her seventh birthday party! She invited some friends from school over and celebrated with cake and a piñata. The kids also made little wooden mosaic boxes (yes, Laurie, we even used mortar!).

Irisgarten

Last weekend we walked to the Iris Garden on the opposite side of the city. Only a few species of irises were blooming, but there were lots of other things to admire--cherry trees, tulips, wisteria.... We had a great time doing some sketching and just enjoying the beautiful spring day.