Mambo....Italiano!!!!

  Our trip to Italy was wonderful. We hit a few snags with our fuel (thanks Air Force) so we kept to local area of Aviano, where the Air Force Base is located. Here is Abby and I at, by far, my favorite restaurant. The service was outstanding, the food.....well, lets just say my mouth is watering even now, and the atmosphere completely Italian!!! It was warm and sunny the entire time we were down there!

 Daddy and Ben haning out!

 Abby discovers extra virgin olive oil on bread with pepper....and discovers she likes it!

 Ben with his happy little smile!

 This tortellini was so good! We passed around the dishes, KC and I loved this one!

 Italians are so kid friendly. The boys were acting up. I felt really hurried and embarrased, I blame Germany in part for this. We get dirty looks in public because heaven forbid we bring our kids out in public. The owner of the place whose named Giovanni, came over and talked to the boys, asking how they are and then smiled, telling us that if they wanted to play there is a playground just outside the window! Needless to say they were happy!

 More nummies!

 We were planning on going to Venice, but since its Fashing, Carnivale (Margi Gras X100) and we got snagged in our fuel we stuck to the area and found natural springs. Around this part of Italy there are natural springs of water that have gushed for over hundreds ofyears. The water is so cool and crisp. We walked along a wall (they like those walls) and found two of the more well know ones. I will get the names later. In these walls made of rocks, lizards and locusts lived. And you know my Thomas, if there is a lizard to be found, he is happy anywhere on the planet!

 They built a church near the river of the springs. There is a beautiful shrine here of Mary. These can also be found on every street corner.

 Happy Thomas with afore mentined lizard!

 Ben found one too!

 Here is the church.

 The walls of Perdone.

 A random shot of the kids in the car. Just to note, they really had fun, but didn't appreciate it, but they are kids. they will thank us later!

 They did however, appreciate the italian ice cream!

 The mouth of the famous spring. To date, 11 people have died trying to find out how deep the well runs. So they closed it off to divers in 1999. There is a marble white statue of Jesus Christ 17 meters below the surface. We couldn't see it on this day because it was cloudy.

 KC REALLY wanted to go for a swim. It did look really refreshing!

 Spaghetti! YUM-O!!

 Abby likes it!

 Just a neat looking house, I think!

 We ended up the weekend by attending mass at a Cathedra Madonna de la Monte (Our Lady of the Mountain) at 5:30. The kids were being so loud I thought they would throw us out, but nope, afterwords everyone smiled at me and patted Abby's head and said "Bella! Bella!"
Yes, I could quite happily live in Italy I think. The only problem is I would probably weigh 400 pounds!!!
That was our adventure into the northern part of Italy, pretty soon we will venture back to visit Tuscany!