by Monica | Oct 10, 2009 | Announcements
Happy Birthday Niki!! I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating your fabulous self! We will be toasting you at dinner tonight. Yesterday we learned to make cheese! We traveled back into the walls of Cortona, up a very steep hill (it is a hill town, after all) and...
by Monica | Oct 8, 2009 | Announcements
I am sitting in a corner of the service area trying to stay out of the way while the staff here at Parco Fiorito is bustling around me serving about 15 guests for dinner. It smells great in here and I have opted out of the big dinner tonight, as Mark and I are extra...
by Monica | Oct 8, 2009 | Announcements
Buon Giorno! For you it is 1145 pm and for me it is 8:45 am. I just finished a quick breakfast, which is the one meal I do not do traditionally Italian. Italians generally enjoy a croissant or sweet pastry and a cappuccino in the morning and that is all. I need a...
by Monica | Oct 7, 2009 | Announcements
Happy Birthday Aunt Susie! We could not get online last night to call you and so we are a day late, but we love you and wish you a wonderful birthday nonetheless. We are here at Parco Fiorito and today is the first day of our official tour. We arrived yesterday by...
by Monica | Oct 5, 2009 | Announcements
Got pizza? Oh no you don’t! Yesterday was far more fabulous than we could have imagined it would be. We spent the morning and early afternoon with Rima and her husband Francesco, and though we had just met them for the first time, it felt like we were visiting...
by Monica | Oct 4, 2009 | Announcements
Buon giorno! It is another beautiful day in Florence; it will get up to 80 again today. Yesterday we wandered the city, mainly on the Otrarno (the other side of the river) and according to dad’s pedometer we clocked in around 9 miles of walking. Yes, my feet...
by Monica | Oct 4, 2009 | Announcements
Happy Birthday Katie! It is still Sunday where you are and since I was unable to call you I wanted to give you a shout out right away. Yesterday (Sunday) morning we went to the Uffizi gallery at 10 am for our reservation. Good thing, too, since the line was very long...
by Monica | Oct 3, 2009 | Announcements
We are in Florence! I am borrowing the computer that is in our apartment because the modem stick that I rented is not working on my computer. Not much of a surprise, most things do not work on my computer without a hassle… though I will not digress into how much...
by Monica | Oct 1, 2009 | Announcements
It’s 4:15 am; Mark and I woke at 2:30 after a very fitful night (for me, anyway) so that we can pack, clean up the house, finish some work, and be on the road to the airport by 10. We want to be really tired when we get on the plane so that we can sleep as much...
by Monica | Sep 18, 2009 | Announcements
I did not sleep well Tuesday night at all. We had the first annual Harvest Meal or, as the KCAA was touting it, Peninsula Food & Chef Showoff, and it was a raging success. Of course lots of little things did not go perfectly.. and yet close to 400 people were fed!...