............From Left to Right, in 1st Dinner Photo: MAURIZIO (son of Irene), IRENE, (Settimio's sister in red blouse), ME, (JOANN), SARA (our niece), ROMANA (Settimio's other sister), and SONIA (our daughter). Claudio got cut off on this one.



...........From Left to Right, in 2nd Dinner Photo:
ROMANA , SILVIA (our niece, Sonia's cousin), SONIA, (our daughter), CLAUDIO, (our son-in-law), ANTONIO (Romana's hubby), SETTIMIO, (my husband) and SARA again.
Actually, most of Settimio's family doesn't call him by his birth name - they call him "MIMMO", (a kind of nickname) as I once did.

My apologies to all who already know all this, for my stating the obvious, but some people reading my Blog don't know everyone .

.... So now that I've introduced you to OUR ITALIAN FAMILY, (or at least the ones appearing in this Blog), I need to point out that there are 2 more of Settimio's wonderful sisters (Sandra and Gabriella) to whom we also paid a visit during this October 2007 trip, but Sonia took those pictures with her camera and now 6 weeks later, still hasn't sent them to us!) We had a fabulous Italian dinner at Sandra, Gabriella and Irene's separate apartments in Rome, but the 2 photos above were taken at Antonio & Romana's house in Nettuno (an hour away). I described all these delicious dinners in my Blog, shortly before the VENICE PICTURES begin.

P.S: Romana is a FANTASTIC COOK, always busy, and a No-Nonsense Italian Mamma!! Antonio works SO hard to put food on the table, (they own 2 grocery stores!) and Sara & Silvia are such sweethearts, and pretty girls too!! Irene and Maurizio also have hearts of pure gold and are very loving. We LOVED seeing everyone again, ..... but MORE about all of them later!

SOME PERSONAL BACKGROUND INFO: This is the first time Settimio and I have been back in Italy in 23 years, since 1984. Fear of flying, work considerations for both of us and other factors made long trips to Italy difficult for us, so we have been back only 3 times since our marriage in Rome in 1973. Our daughter Sonia has now been to Italy 3 times too, (twice with us), and at different ages, 6, 17, and now 29. In my early 20's I lived in Rome for 3 years (where I met my husband), and where I did various jobs like English teaching & tutoring -- (for various people, including a family of Missionaries and a pilot for Alitalia Airlines), fashion modeling for a clothing store, and child care for several families (both live-in and live-out). I sure could write "ANOTHER BOOK" ON THOSE YEARS (but I won't!) on all the interesting people in Italy I have known and all my Italian adventures! LOL . But I digress.....

We have always kept closely in touch by letter and telephone with Settimio's family, but far too many years have passed since we last saw them. However, all their kids have come to visit us many times thru the years, (mostly as teenagers) and we've enjoyed showing them around Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida. The most recent visit was from Romana's daughter, MANUELA and her boyfriend MARIO, just last year. They are pictured many times in my Blog, but way down below, in the 2006 FLORIDA TRIP PHOTOS, when they flew to Orlando to vacation with the 4 of us. We all had a GREAT TIME, needless to say!

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE, which I've always loved. It is SO BEAUTIFUL, especially in song, and I've always listened to A LOT of Italian music and Italian singers !! (I'm particularly "into" Tenors - as you may notice elsewhere in this Blog! : -)) I even brought along CDs of my favorite Tenors, like MARIO LANZA, VITTORIO GRIGOLO, MICHAEL AMANTE, and a few others. Mario Lanza of course, everyone my age and older remembered and loved! The others they were unfamiliar with. A lot of our Italian family in Italy didn't seem to be into classical singers or opera at all, though. Maybe great singers are just TOO commonplace in Italy!!

Anyway, I was very pleased to hear so many nice compliments given to me about MY Italian during this trip, even after all these years. Especially since the extensive and complex GRAMMAR of this lovely language is a real KILLER!! So I was VERY happy that I hadn't forgotten too much of the Italian I knew and spoke so fluently when I lived in Rome. This is probably because I had kept it up a bit through the years and we have Italian friends. Plus, it sure helps being married to and living with a native Italian for 35 years who won't LET me forget his language!! His knowledge of English was virtually ZERO for several years after we met. Thru our married years Settimio has continued to talk to me in Italian very often, and all throughout my first 5 years with him, I spoke to him in ITALIAN ONLY, until I finally put my foot down and said, "You've GOT to learn English!" Not surprising, since we were living in the USA then.

One regret is that we never taught Italian to Sonia, but that seemed an impossible task with all the other demands of parenthood and life. Besides, I was always too busy teaching my husband ENGLISH!! Sonia, now married 6 years, studied Spanish & Portuguese in high school and college, and her husband, Claudio is from BRAZIL, so he speaks Portuguese as well as English very well. However, it would have been GREAT if Sonia had been able to speak Italian with everyone in Italy, as her Italian aunts often remind us. But she and Claudio at least understood quite a bit, because of their knowledge of Spanish, ...the 2 languages have many similarities! As for Settimio....he now speaks English SO well for so many years, that HE gets stuck occasionally trying to recall an ITALIAN word! Sometimes I've even proudly been able to tell him what it is! hahahahaha