35th Birthday Celebration

I was blessed with a lot of birthday love on the 12th!  Here's a few snapshots at lunch:

Mel hosted a little Prosecco happy hour after school

Camden and Emma making their pizza at Dom's

Heart shaped pizzas!

Me and Madds

Savannah, Chris, Jimmy and Jess at one end of the table

Cathy, Richard, and Terry at the other end

Camden, Orion, and Emma sporting their official Dom's hats while enjoying their pizza

Me and Cathy

Blowing out the candles on my Nutella pizza cake!

Sweet boy!

Crazy Jimmy and Chris

A smooch for my love

Mel and me

Emma's First Basketball Game

I just found this in my blog drafts. A month late, but here's our basketball girl!

Emma played in her first basketball game today!  She is the smallest player on the team and was the only girl on the court today. She is a scrappy defense player and played her heart out today!

Opening Ceremonies

 Chris doing his CYP/MC duties

 Ready to start the game!

 Emma and Jack have been teammates so many times, it was strange to be opponents today!

 Check out this defensive stance!

 Hustling down the court

 Jack and Emma go after the ball

(with their dads watching in the background)

Ready to play defense during the second half

 Emma also had to play against her pal, Liam

Tuscan Cooking Class

On Sunday night, the wonderful staff at our agriturismo organized a cooking class for us. Maurizio, our guest chef, has a cooking school in Siena.

Melissa started us off preparing the pork

 We would like to recreate this meal sometime soon, so everyone had out their technology to capture the experience.

 Sherri stirring the flour and water for the pasta

 The key to rolling pasta dough: you have to be quick or it will stick!

 Jen had a little dance as Maurizio showed us how a pro does it

 Watching how you make a piece of spaghetti

 Donita, Kim, and Melissa working hard.  I am holding up my 1 spaghetti noodle.  My talents were used to make bread crumbs. :)

 Enjoying our dinner

 My Iron Chef moment with Maurizio

 The ladies and our teacher

 An awesome impromptu dance party broke out as we were cleaning up.  Nelly's Hot in Herre was the song of the weekend, so it had to be our dance music!

All good things must come to an end. Packing up the van was an event!

A Sunday in Montalcino

8 ladies on the loose on a Sunday in Tuscany: it is bound to be a memorable day!

The drive from Pienza to Montalcino was gorgeous.  We pulled along the side of the road for a few photo ops.

 Me and my camera trying to capture the beauty of Tuscany

BUMMER!  During one of our photo stops, we picked up a screw in our tire. We pulled over and some very nice gentlemen helped us change the tire.  

Did I mention that we pulled over to get our tire changed at a wine store?!

 We had a private tour of Poggio Antico

 Hiding out between the wine barrels

We are ready to taste some wine!

LOTS of laughter this weekend!

 Kelli: the greatest hallway buddy a girl could ask for!

 Guess who is sweet talking for some more free goodies...

 Helping out with the wine purchases

 Montalcino Castle

The ladies walking through the town

How I got the above picture :)

 Tasting some of the famous Brunello di Montalcino

 My turn taking a group selfie with Kelli, Madds, and Jen