Meeting Santa

Last year Taylor loved meeting Santa Claus, and Madeline was a little apprehensive. This year it was the other way around. I'm wondering when they will both cooperate!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving pictures became a photo shoot to get a decent Christmas picture!

Baking with Mom

Here we are preparing cookies for Thanksgiving. Maddie is sporting her lovely Pilgrim hat from school.


Sneaking back into the flour jar! Caught ya!

Our final night in Rome

Our final evening was spent having an elgant dinner at the St. Regis Hotel in the Ritz Room. We were later surprised with some live entertainment, famous Italian opera singers!


Tom and I with the entertainment.


Our beautiful centerpiece. (Too bad I couldn't take it home!)

Santa Benedetta

I was able to have a fun and relaxing day at a vineyard in the country side, while Tom visited St. Paul's Basilica and a tour of the Catacombs.
The weather could not of have been nicer, not to mention the people, food and of course the wine.


We started with a cooking class outdoors.

First, we made pasta from scratch, all from flour, egg, olive oil, and wine. We all were attacked by flour from our cooking instructor (a little old Italian lady who didn't speak English, she was so much fun).
Here is Sarah and I enjoying our lesson.

Some of our home-made pasta. Yum!

Found out after the fact, that this table is from 500 BC. I just thought it was a really cool table!

Above the old table.

The Olive Oil was just as good as the wine. The oil we tasted was only ONE day old, so of course I shipped some home with us.

We were able to dine on our own pasta creation in this rustic country barn which also acted as their restaraunt. It was a day to remember!

A beautiful day in Florence

The beginning of our tour in Florence started on top of a hill overlooking the beautiful city.

Here is a replica of the Statue of David.







The 'real' Statue of David. Photos were prohibited, but we saw everyone else sneaking a picture from behind a column so we just had to take one too.

Here's to you mom! I spotted this outside of the train station right before our departure. Tom just had to take a picture.

Vatican

Here are some of our photos of the Vatican and Saint Peter's Square. It was really amazing and the Sistine Chapel was incredible (but unfortunatley we couldn't take pictures of it).

Our Roman Holiday!

Thanks to Tom's very hard work and dedication to his job, he earned us an amazing trip to Italy. It was the vacation of my dreams and I enjoyed every second of it! Thanks T, I love you!

After an 8 hour red-eye flight with no sleep and a long morning bus ride we finally arrived in the center of Rome. The Trevi fountain was a short walk from our hotel, which we visited almost daily. Our first taste of Italian was from a gelato shop right across from the fountain. Yum!

Here we are taking turns tossing coins into the fountain.


The Spanish Steps

The Arch of Constantine


The Colloseum


Views of the Forum

Mommy's little girls

I know they are a little too young for this, but just before our trip I cut the girls nails and decided to paint them hot pink. Surprisingly both sat completely still!

Aren't those the cutest toes you've ever seen?