Navi's Birthday Weekend

This year the twins decided to celebrate their birthdays on different weekends. First up, Navi. He wanted to have a friend spend the night, hamburgers and a movie for his birthday. Decorations were simple this year, and the roll away bed has paid off.

Navi's friend Adam came over. Lucky for him he also likes Minecraft. It was a Minecraft birthday party.

For dinner PapaJason prepared hamburgers.

He was very happy.

Then  DISASTER happened. DaddyQuique dropped the cake! Luckily he documented and took pictures the cake he personalized for Navi with gummy candy.

The festivities went on and everyone sang happy birthday in Italian.

Navi honestly didn't care how the cake look. It was salvageable and delicious.

Then it was gifts time. Ada was such a kind sister and made the extra effort to buy her brother a gift.

The night ended with a movie and popcorn. Happy Birthday Navi!

The next morning the kids had pancakes and eggs for breakfast.

Then one last game at the nurf gun range before Adam went home.

Cold Italian Mornings

Sometimes when the DaddyQuique gets up in the morning, to check the kids are on schedule getting ready for school, he finds them like this. Warming up to the radiator.

Actually, Navi does this everyday.

 He might have learned it from Lucy.

I Cugini

It's been cold in Italy, but PapaJason and the twins gather up their strength and join their cousins out for  a walk on the Brenta. DaddyQuique stayed home, thus no pictures. More than half way through their walk Navi shows up at home, alone. It's great he knows his way around. The rest made it back home 30 minutes later.

Their cousin Margherita came with them. They weren't tired enough so they turned the unused large closet into a gymnastics room.

They did great for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Ada is able to see her cousin because they live in the same city. The Veneto is in orange zone, which means people cannot leave their city and are only allowed to see/host two 'groups' outside their household. Lucky Ada.

Half Day

Saturday morning Ada was not feeling her best, her stomach hurt a bit and was tired. It was raining that day, overall a gloomy day. A few hours later though she was feeling better. With the enticement of a family movie night she agreed to go to school and finish her classes.

Normally in the mornings Ada meets a friend in il centro and gets a ride to school because their usual route to school is temporarily closed. Il ponte degli alpini is closed for the next four week in hopes that construction on the it will be completely finished. There's only two bridges in town and they must now take the ponte nuovo (cars & pedestrians), which only adds about 5 minutes compared to their usual walk, but... 

 ...the view is amazing! (picture shown was from a previous day)

She made it just in time for her math class. She had trouble with math class when she first arrived, but now she's working hard and catching up with the rest of her class. She is improving a lot.

Il Patrono: San Bassiano vescovo

On Tuesday the town celebrated the day of San Bassiano, the patron saint. Which mean no school for the twins.

After spending most, correction: all, the morning playing Minecraft on a screen DaddQuique got them out of the house, it took a threat or two, but they made it to the park. These two needed to get air and stretch out their legs.

They complained they wanted to go home right away, but after 10 minutes they started to climb trees.

On their own they really entertained themselves.

When they decided to play hide & seek in the park, it's big, DaddyQuique found a spot in the sun and relaxed.

Ada and Navi can sometimes object to doing certain things/outings, but once they are out and about they enjoy themselves.

Orange Zone

The Veneto region has been placed in orange zone (Italy's three teer covid system; yellow, orange, red). Restaurants/bars are closed to table service, but ca do take out. Our friend Andrea, who owns one of the corner coffee shops, has now been selling crepes out his door to drum up a little more business.

He's been very succesful. And when daddyQuique sees no one in line for crepes, he sends Ada down to buy a couple. Free delivery!

Two weeks ago Ada made some downloads on the iPad, claiming everything was free. DaddyQuique saw his credit card bill last week and noticed a $6.99 charge for Minecraft. Well, the game was downloaded and payed for - it just happend to be Navi's ultimate favorite game. So with some rules set up for screen time they have actually been getting along playing together. Was it worth it? Maybe.

DaddyQuique surprised the kids with hamburgers for dinner, 250g each (8oz.). Navi was so proud of his burger he wanted a picture.
 

Back To School

The twins' winter break was very quiet. A couple hikes and some walks in the city.
 

There was some homework that needed to be done, including reading an entire book, The Secret of Platfrom 13 - in Italian. 

Thursday morning arrived and it was for the twins to wake up early. But in the end they made it out.

Secretly they were glad to be back in school. And also doposcuola.

The days have been sunny, but the temperature outside is cold!

Orange Day Hike

A few days after the New Year Italy had an orange day. So hiking the Lopezjoneses went, except Ada - she feigned not feeling well to stay home.

It was a pretty tough start. The start of the hike involved climbing, it was literally a straight climb up. DaddyQuique was not in shape for this hike.

But the views were amazing.

And then it started to snow! They were almost at the top.

Luckily PapaJason has done this hike before and new of a great cave to shelter and have lunch.

The top was full of snow.

Navi was very happy to be able to play in the snow. Lucky he brought his brand new snow gloves.

There were some very cute pigs at the top. The snow and the pigs were the highlight of the hike for Navi.

New Years Eve - Happy 2021

New Year's Eve was a quiet affair at the Lopezjoneses. Ada and PapaJason went out to get pizza for dinner.

 Ada always orders margherita DOP and Navi diavola. The great thing is pizzas here take so little time to make and bake. You order and 6-8 minutes later it's ready to take home - and everyone gets their own individual pizza.

As a special treat DaddyQuique bought the twins a alcohol-free bottle of bubbles. It was pretty bad, no one liked it. Lesson learned.

Midnight approached and only Ada, Navi and DaddyQuique were up.

Cheers to a quick normalization in 2021!