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!

Orange Day Outing

On the orange day before Italy turns red again the twins went out for a walk in town. It took the promise of a pastry to get them to agree to go out of the apartment.

Along the way they met a few friends. This was the second cat they met. This one hangs out near the Ponte degli Alpini, aka the ponte vecchio.

The walk turned into a hunt for snow left over from Monday's storm.

There were still plenty of small snow patches through out town.

Last stop, the park. They found a good sized snow patch to kick snow at each other.
 

Snow - di nuovo!

Monday morning Navi woke up DaddyQuique to tell him it was snowing outside. He couldn't believe it, this was the first 'orange' day and the family had planned to go out on a hike.

This was the second snowing of the season, but this time this snow stuck and a good amount too.

Being an 'orange' day, PapaJason took the kids shopping for more weather appropriate shoes, boots in this case. DaddyQuique was ready with sturdy hiking boots and walked around town. He even saw kids making a snowman in on of the Piazzas, yep there was that much snow. By the afternoon much of the snow on the ground had melted and the weather turned to rain.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning came and there were plenty of gifts under the tree a the Lopezjoneses Italian apartment.

It was a wonderful morning for the twins. Even though this was the second holiday in Italy with just the four Lopezjoneses it was still special in its own way.

There were even some gifts that Santa brought from California. Including this onzie Ada received.

Later that afternoon Ada and Navi's cousins Margherita and Agnese, and their parents, came of for Christmas lunch with lots of food from their NonnaBruna. DaddyQuique made meatloaf and PapaJason made sauteed bellpeppers & eggplant, but it did not compare to the rabbit, ossobuco, polenta, beans, and foraged mushrooms NonnaBruna prepared. It was all delicious.

After another great meal there were a few more gifts to open.

And then a little entertainment from PapaJason, kareoke. Notice all the regazze are missing, that's how good it was.

Finally there was dessert, il dolci. Vanessa and the first made tiramisu and DaddyQuique made strawberry cheesecake. PapaJason made coffee.

Buon Natale!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve DaddyQuique spent all day in the kitchen. There was uncertainty if there would be tamales this year, but when the twins mentioned it would not be Christmas with out them DadddyQuique made them completely from scratch, on his own.

Corn husks were hard to come by in Italy so parchment paper was used instead. It worked okay, the tamales were cooked.

He liked them.

And she liked them.

After dinner everyone gathered for a family movie night. It was a great Christmas Eve at home.

One Last Outing for 2020

DaddyQuique and Ada went out on December 23 for one last snack and drink outing before the Italian Christmas and NYE lockdowns go into effect. Beginning Christmas Eve all of Italy will turn into a big Red zone for four days (with the strictest restrictions) and all bars and restaurants will close for services indoor/outdoor service - take out only. Then Italy will go into Orange zone for three days, then back to Red for four days for New Years, then one day of orange then two days of Red and finally January 7th to the scientifically designated colors, hopefully it will remain yellow!

Fun fact: Kids can go into bars in Italy. DaddyQuique. Ada joined her dad in one last cocktail before his favorite watering hole closes for the rest of 2020. Cheers.

Sleepover

On Saturday most of the Lopezjoneses went over to Vanessa and Giovanni's house for dinner. Ada loves hanging out with her cousins Mergheriat & Angese, but also their dog Nina and cat Frida. Navi decided to stay home, he enjoy his 'me' time playing Lego's with no on there to bother him.

Everyone ordered their own pizzas. The regazze made it into a pizza/movie night.

Friends

Covid has been tough on everyone, but the twins have managed to form their own covid bubbles. Even Margherita got to meet Ada's new friend from Dopo Scuola, Isra.

Navi has also been able to see his friend from school, Adam. A little sense of normality - for now.
 

The Holidays Approach

Ada lost three teeth, all with in a week! It's a shame she's scared the tooth fairy away or more like renounced, that would have been a good haul of Euros.

Navi's hair is still growing long. A chat with him revealed it is bothersome at times, especially during physical activity because it blocks his eyes, but he's unsure what he really wants to do with his hair.

Dining out, indoors/out, has been banned for a few months now, but the Lopezjoneses do enjoy eating at home, this dinner - quail.

DaddyQuique and Ada have decorated the apartment for the holidays. Ada used the recycle-reuse method by re-purposing household items such as a faux ficus tree into their Christmas tree, with some home made ornaments and small jewelry sacks into stockings.

DaddyQuique went out and bought €10 worth of paper and decorated the living room with holly leaves and created a faux fireplace to make it homey.

Sadly the Christmas markets in town have been cancelled. Things are pretty quiet, but still festive with the streets adorned with holiday lights and a Christmas tree in the main piazza, along with a nativity scene.

Happy Thanksgiving 2020

Thanksgiving in Italy went well for the Lopezjoneses. No one was opposed to not having turkey so for dinner; guinea hen, Piave mashed potatoes w/ brown gravy, sauteed spinach, stuffing, rolls, apple and pumpkin pies (both made from scratch). DaddyQuique had a long two days of prepping and cooking the entire meal himself.

 

 Everyone loved it!

The most important items for dinner to the twins were the pumpkin and apple pies. This was a challenge for DaddyQuique has he had to search out in three different stores all the ingredients to make the pie crusts (shortening was a challenge to find, but once he knew it was called strutto they pointed him to the butter - and there it was, one package of shortening hidden among the many butters and spreadable cheeses). 

The next challenge was finding canned pumpkin and condensed milk - not common in Italy, but those were easily remedied by making them both at home. In the end pies were made.

The twins really wanted the apple pie because their Nonna always makes a pie for Thanksgiving at home and the pumpkin... well, you can't have thanksgiving without pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

Updates!

Early in November a chocolate market set up for the weekend in Piazza Libertad. Ada and DaddyQuique checked it out, tried lots of freebies and bought some chocolate and licorice. 

The Italian government has been putting out new decrees every week. Masked were made mandatory outdoors a month ago, Christmas markets are cancelled and all local festivals, gyms are closed (including the twins' gymnastics classes), malls closed on weekends and worst of all restaurants must close at 6pm - no more dinners, not even outdoors. There's more to the new rules as well as a national curfew from 10pm-5am. And, like California, regions are now classified by a color according to the severity of covid. The Veneto, the region the Lopezjoneses are living in, is in the lowest tier yellow.

Lunches, one can still have lunch. On this occasion the dads and Navi lunched just below their apartment, seen in the background. The days are sunny, but the temperatures have been dropping.

Most weekend the Lopezjoneses head to the mountains for hiking, or on this weekend to an outdoor museum with their covid bubble relatives.

Lunch was of course outside, a little too cold for Ada and Navi, they are in dire need of warmer clothing.

One weekend the dads and Navi escaped to the beach in Sotomariana, south of Venice on the Adriatic Sea. Their hope was that they can take in some sun, Navi's was to play in the water, but it was much too cold. Sunny, but cold.

After lunch they walked across a connecting bridge to the island of Choggia.

Also known as "Little Venice."

School update: The twins are still attending school in person, with masks of course. They recently started attending an after school program to help with their homework. Their school is challenging and in some subjects their Italian language isn't sufficient enough. So 5 days a week they walk to Dopo Scuola for a few hours to receive help.

Covid Halloween 2020

Halloween this year, as the world knows, was different than years past and future. For the Lopezjoneses not only because of covid, but also because they're in Italy. It's not like it is in the US. Navi celebrated at home with a bag of candy. The past few years he's had little interest in dressing up, so this was a good night for him.

Ada on the other hand, had a birthday sleepover with her cousin Margherita (she and her family are part of our covid-bubble). DaddyQuique helped her gather articles of clothing and thanks to the outdoor markets made a costume for under €12! It was a coincidence that Ada and her cousin both chose to be corpse brides.