Well, we have had a great run of it with the weather. It's been cold but not unbearable and we've had some great blue skies and only about 3 days of wet weather. Shane headed back to Aust for a week to catch up with people at work and it's apt that as he leaves, it starts raining, and does not stop, for 4 days. The upside to this wet weather is that it has stopped now (hooray!), and that there is a heap of white stuff on the peaks around Biella. The cold snap started last weekend, and with below 0 temps at night I'm going to have to work out what to do with the veggies that we are storing on our balcony and my beloved coriander that has saved the day the staple of pasta, time and time again. If it dies I'll be devastated.
I can't believe that we have been here for 3 months. The first few weeks of the boys at school I did have my doubts about whether what we had done was the right thing. We had a week about 2 weeks in where Charlie in particular was really upset every morning when we dropped him off at school, he would cry and I spent about half an hour outside his classroom one morning trying to convince him to go in. Broke my heart! Thinking back about what we were asking this 6 and 4 year old to do every day it seems so long ago... leave their mum and dad, and head into a room of strangers who spoke a completely foreign language and expected them to follow along and join in.
Sammy has been totally embraced by the kinder and the teachers love him, he's also a popular appearance each morning and afternoon at Charlie's school at drop off and pick up, all the bigger kids in particular love the boys and it's so nice to see them running around like crazy, playing and loving being with these kids and a part of the school community.
The kids have made some great friends and have been getting into playdates more than we were able to do in Melbourne, it's been so nice to have their friends over and watch them play nascondino (hide and seek), despite the apartment being small, they seem to be able to find space and hiding spots and rip around corners like lightening.
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| Kids playing soccer |
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| Sammy and his friends waving goodbye in the morning |
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| Who would've thought I'd get a blood blister from scoring 400 chestnuts? |
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| Castagnata, chestnuts roasting |
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| Sammy with his great kinder teachers |
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| One of the lovely mums at school |
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| Charlie doing his homework |
We've also had a bit more time to do things with the school, so we've gone along to Sam's kinder to help out with the nonni to prepare for the castagnata (the chestnut festival in Autumn).
Shane went along and read to the kinder kids in their English class and I'm doing lessons every second Friday with the grade 6s at Charlie's school teaching them about Australia. My class consists heavily of talking to them about Australian recipes and what we eat and showing them youtube clips so they love it.
