Surprises all around...

June has come & gone and with that, all the surprises....or so one would think!!!

My friends here threw a wonderful baby shower for me and Carina. We were ridiculously spoiled and showered with gifts, and had the most amazing "homemade" Asian food!!! Oh man, it was sooo good, I'm ready for more! Little did I know, that was the beginning of a whole lotta people excited for baby Smith to arrive...

After flying home to surprise the "fam" (and it worked!!!), I was surprised (as well as my family, again) with a baby shower presented by the wonderful Wade Way neighbors, along with surprise visits from Marie, Nancy & Denise!!! Wow! Surprise after surprise, it became so exciting, I'm now just used to fun new things & people popping out of no where! Hah. (You like that pun???)

A whirlwind trip home constituted all the food cravings I could possibly imagine, of course, including my salt bagel with scallion cream cheese & Poopsie's (2 TIMES!!!) & all the MaryLou's I could drink. Gena sure was happy to have me home for that week to enjoy our coffee time.

Perfect timing, I got to go to one great Miller wedding. Wow, do they know how to throw a pahhhty!!! The neighborhood rented a van & 14+ of us rode up to reception in time for some serious Italian food (what, do they NOT know where I live????) and a happening band.

Wendy flew in for the day, on Father's Day, and with the shower surprise, she was able to enjoy all the little fun parts of Bambino Smith's arrival. It was wonderful to see her, and I think as it did to my family & friends at home, made her more excited to come visit again, in the fall.

The trip home, was of course, too quick, as usual. I was very lucky for Erin & Michelle to take off from work & want to go baby shopping with me and Gena. It actually DOES get boring after a while...as small & tiny as everything is....we have our limits.

When N8 returned from his trip, and I returned from mine, we went to an opera in Verona at the Arena. AMAZING again!!! It was wonderful. We went with 2 other friends & sat on the OLD stone (warm) steps & had a little picnic (yeah, right little, I packed enough food for a week!). We left the opera early to enjoy some espresso & ice cream in the piazza of Verona & take in the scenes & people & conversations.

The next day, N8, doggies & I drove to San Daniele for the Proscuitto Festival, on what seemed to be the hottest day we'd experienced so far. It was definitely our stupidity that made us think we could take me (7+ months pregnant) and 2 dogs (dying of heat exhaustion) for a "quick" trip and jaunt around the town. I don't think so. Hours later, we realized, bad idea. We looked for the Padoua "beer guy" who was there last year, when I went with friends, but he wasn't there. All the more reason to return home and drive in the a/c car!

Our neighbor, Claudio, has an amazing garden next door, and he continues to offer us zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers, and more...as well as advice on our sad-looking tomato plants growing in pots on our steps. We had an abundance of cherries from the trees in the yard, so N8 impressed Claudio & family (as well as me!!!) with a homemade cherry pie. Oh man, WICKED good.

All in all, the month of June was by far the best in a long time, and I'm very glad I went home. N8 leaves for 1 more trip for the next few weeks and so now I just sit tight and hang with the dogs and watch it get hotter & hotter in & outside of my house. :) Pool time will be practically daily, I'm sure!!!