Willa’s Wonderings

It was great to have Grandma Monika visit with us for 10 days in June. As usual, she brought with her lots of energy, love, presents (including a great bag that I LOVE) AND her new soon to be husband, Francesco.

We were all a little nervous about meeting him since we are technically still getting to know my mother. Francesco stole our hearts within the first 2 days of him being here. He’s so sweet, easy going, curious, funny and clearly loves my mother– which made us all like him even more.

I still had to work for a few days once they arrived and our visitors toured Washington DC and the local area while I was at the office. They are both very adventurous and curious – a great match.

It was Francesco’s first visit to the US and I was concerned about showing him as much of America as i could. However, I was also completely exhausted from 6 months of traveling for work, putting in crazy hours and not getting a lot of rest. So, we decided to go the beach for a few days, to give everyone a chance to enjoy some downtime while still making sure that our Italian visitors experienced the US from the perspective of a “native”. I decided to rent a house in Bethany Beach, Delaware– the kids and I have been there many times when they were small and we made some great memories there. The house we rented was outside of Bethany and backing to the Bay and we really enjoyed listening to the birds and wildlife while still being close enough to the beach without needing to get in the car. We rented bicycles for everyone and it turned out that my mother had not been on a Bike in something like 30 years. She was a little nervous at first but by mid week, she was cruising around on her bike like an old pro. The three adults spent a relaxing week of reading, sleeping and drinking Coronas while the teenagers were off on their bicycles, looking for other teenagers.. We took several mini trips to surrounding villages with the highlight being a dolphin cruise I organized. The kids and I have done this many times but neither Monika or Francesco had ever seen a Dolphin in the open ocean before. It was SO cool to see their faces when the boat came to a stop in the open sea and the Dolphins started jumping out of the water, just a few feet away. Being a witness to their amazement made it that much better for us. The weather was perfect the entire week and when it got too hot, we retreated to our house for 2-3 hour siestas in the afternoon. .. Heaven!

I decided that i wanted to introduce our visitors to another East Coast City so we decided to head to Philadelphia “on the way home” (geography was never my strong suit).. We had a blast touring Philly in Duck Mobile– I thought my mother was going to have a heart attack when the driver started barreling into the Delaware River– that was SO cool. We also visited one of my very favorite places to see Art, the Barnes Foundation. It’s hard to describe the Barnes- it is probably the most exquisite private collection of impressionist period art, including over 150 Renoirs.. You have to see it to believe it. Here is a painting that my mother and I both loved:

We headed back to Frederick for our last weekend together and Amy and Shelley hosted a fantastic pool party which involved traditional American food, beer and a spirited water volleyball match.

We had a great visit and it was so nice to have an opportunity to continue to get to know my mother.