Why I Don’t Want to Leave Italy

You know why I don’t want to leave Italy? Here’s a list.

Camilla, Camilla, Camilla

I don’t want to leave Camilla because she’s my sister. And she’s really fun to play with. She’s fun to play with because she doesn’t like a lot of girl things. She doesn’t even like Barbie. She likes to play with stuffed animals, go outside and play and go swimming, like any normal girl.

We built a little house outside and we play in there a lot. We built it out of wine barrels, wood pallets, tarps and thick wooden sticks on top. We watched my DVD in there and then we went back in the house. Then it rained and I remembered I left my DVD player out there. When I went to get it, I got shocked. Good thing I didn’t get hit by lightening!

This Is Our House

I also like her because we talk a lot and never stop. When I stay at their house, every night Alessandro has to come in and tell us to go to sleep and stop talking. He says “shhh. Sono le dieci. Dormiti.” That means: shh. It’s ten o’clock. Go to sleep.

I also like her because we never fight or argue or anything. And, she’s pretty.

The Scenes, The Scenes, The Scenes

I also don’t want to leave Italy because of the beautiful scenes. You don’t see anything like this in any other country. That’s why I really like Italy. When it’s turning dark, the clouds turn a pinkish, orangish, reddish color and it’s so pretty.

And from our house that we built we could see a big view but now we can’t because there’s a bunch of wooden sticks in the front but we can still get to it.

The vines are really pretty. One of the most beautiful places was Campastrello. It was pretty because there were vines and a big pretty sky and there were really tall mountains with green on them.

The Whole Landini Family

I am going to miss my whole Landini family plus Sara. They are all nice and fun. Alessandro makes mozzarella in carroza which is fantastico. He also makes hamburgers fantastico. He’s fun because he plays with me. Same with Nicoletta.

Signora Franca is a really good cook. I always like her food. She is really nice to me, too.

Sara’s not a Landini but she’s still really nice. She really likes chocolate especially chocolate chip cookies. My grandma makes her the cookies. They are the best chocolate chip cookies other than the ones Barbara gave me.

Finally, I Will Just Miss Everything About Italy

I really don’t want to leave but I’m coming back next year for 4 weeks. That’s the good thing.

Gotta Go, Bye

Per Casey Da Gramma

We saw this dog yesterday and thought of you--wonder why?

Isn't he cute?

We miss you lots. Do you miss us or are you having just too much fun?

See you in a week.

Lots of love,
Gramma and Papa

Hodge Podge

Hi Everybody, I just got back from Garda, Como and Milan. We were only in Milan for two days. I went there to see the duomo, see the Last Supper and meet a lady named Sylvia who is really funny.

The duomo was pretty boring but huge. And we went on the roof of it and it was really, really, really high. I thought I might fall. The roof was really fancy but not colorful. It was white with a lot of carvings and gargoyles.

The next day we went to see the Last Supper. And it was really cool considering I like Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings and stuff. It was cool because the walls looked like they were going back like an actual house. It’s a painting of when Jesus had his last supper with his disciples until he was crucified.

The best part was Sylvia. I thought she was going to be serious adult like person but she wasn’t serious at all. She was fun and made me laugh by doing tongue twisters but in Italian and really funny things like in a picture sticking her tongue out. Here’s her picture doing that.

She also brought me two books. One of them was the first book she ever read. I’m looking forward to reading it. It’s in Italian, of course because she is Italian but speaks English. She’s lady Mark Twain—or should I say Alice Twain. She uses that name sometimes. Thank you Sylvia for the books.

Here at Viticcio I have a friend from last year who’s back. Her name is Caro. She’s from Belgium. She’s really nice and fun to play with.

This is Caro and Me. See My Cone Nose?

Caro Is A Lot of Fun

I’m not going to be writing for a while because my grandparents are not going to be here. I’m staying with Camilla. My grandparents are going to Croatia. I won’t have a computer to blog on. But don’t forget about me.

Gotta go, Bye.

Harder Than Cats and Dogs

Two days ago we went to Switzerland. When we go there, we had trouble finding parking but when we did, we went to the waterfront of Lugano and got on a little tram. This is me sitting on the front of it. I got to drive it—just kidding. The tram took us on a round trip around Lugano. There were a lot of obnoxious people on the tram, talking loud, loud. Then my gramma said “Can you get any louder?” And they got louder. I was glad when we got off the tram.


The lake was really pretty. There was a big fountain shooting water up high. I wish I were on top of it so that I could fly. Then I was so hungry that we went to Burger King and I had a crispy chicken burger and chunky fries except my grandparents ate most of the fries.

When we went back to the car, we drove to a really cool chocolate factory but it was a holiday so they weren’t working. We went in the museum that they had and saw some chocolate things that looked good. You know how burglars break in and steal precious things? This time they are going to break in and eat precious things.

We saw a video on making the chocolate. I’m eating some of the chocolate right now. It’s white chocolate and it’s good. Then we went into the store and bought some chocolate—a big package with a bunch of chocolate bars and a separate bar for my Uncle Jeff and Tommy chocolate bears for my friend Tommy.They gave a way a lot of nice samples. It was all good except the dark chocolate.

There was a red and white cow out in front of the museum. And here it is.


On the way back it was pouring rain harder than cats and dogs—just like the title. Good thing my papa was a good driver. I was so scared but I didn’t panic. There was thunder and lightening and dark grey clouds. It also hailed a lot. We were in the mountains and so it was especially dangerous.


So we got home and then later when I was going to bed, I looked outside and there was a huge flash of lightening. It went kachow! And it went all night.

Gotta go, bye.

My Gardaland Adventure

Monday I went to a place sort of like Disneyland but not as big. It is called Gardaland. It is really cool. I have been really wanting to go there. Back at Fattoria Viticcio I played a game called Gardaland and now I have actually been there.

I wanted to have either Camilla or Tommaso come with me but they couldn’t. So at first I said “then I’m not going.” But we went and I ended up having fun with my grandparents instead. It was a good family fun day.

The first ride we went on was called Ikarus. My grandpa went on it with me but my gramma was a scaredy cat. It was a really cool ride that spun around and went up in the air. Here’s a movie when Papa and I were on it.

One of my favorite rides was 793. First it lifted you up in the air and then dropped you about 130 miles per hour. I felt like I was going to die. Gramma didn’t go on that one either.

My most favorite was the Magic House. It is so strange I can’t even describe it. I don’t know if we were moving or the walls. My gramma went on that one. She fell off but me and my grandpa didn’t. Just kidding because if she fell off she’d get squashed by the ride.

The second one was Fuga da Atlantide. We got really wet on that one.

But my favorite of all of them, of all of the rides, was Tunga—just kidding. That was the worst one cuz we were going one kilometer per hour and all it was was mechanical machines that made noise while we were on the boat. I used to think that It’s a Small World at Disneyland was bad. It still is bad but not as bad as Tunga.

My actual favorite was Mammut which means mammoth. I liked that because it was a ride where you went up, down, around and sideways but no upside down. I felt like I was going to fly out back. The trouble with that one was that the line was super long.

The other things I liked weren’t rides at all. We saw several shows. One was a Gormiti one. Another was Hollywood Dreams. At the beginning there was a teenager singing Hollywood Dreams that’s still going through my mind. We also saw a really cool ice skating show. One guy could actually do a back flip on the ice and not fall down.

The best show was Tornedo di Camelot. The announcer of it was a donkey. Here he is.

In the show at the beginning there were two knights—red and yellow. We were on the yellow side and so we were cheering for him and he won. Then he had to fight the evil skull champion and he won again. He pretended to cut the bad guy’s head off—snap!

We finally got home thirteen hours later and got a good night’s sleep.

This was me shooting. I had a very high score. It was really fun. Bye, Bye

My New Friend Kate

Last week at Viticcio I met a girl named Kate from Seattle. Camilla and I had fun with her. Here’s a picture of Camilla, Kate and I having lunch together in our apartment.

Kate was 8 when I met her. Her birthday is July 2 which is three days before mine. Mine is July 5 which was yesterday and I didn’t enjoy it because I had a horrible ear ache. Read my blog entry My Horrible Birthday.

Kate had a birthday party with cake at 8:30 pm. It was fun. Then Camilla came and gave Kate two little bouncy balls. I gave her some presents in the morning. This is a picture of Kate and I at the party.

I really liked Kate but she drove me batty because she always said—I’m a power ranger, pokemon, yu-gi-oh, gormiti, dragon slayer and at the same time I’m a unicorn. She said it in a very high voice.

I hope I see her again.
See ya..

My Horrible Tenth Birthday

Yesterday was a horrible day even though it was my birthday when I turned 10—double digits. We left Fattoria Viticcio and went to Lake Garda but I haven’t even seen the lake yet. It was horrible because I had an ear ache and we didn’t know what was wrong with it. We just knew my ear was hurting and then later when we went to dinner, by ear hurt so bad that I was crying. Our really nice waitress offered to take us to a farmicia that was open because the one that was near where we are staying was closed. I couldn’t eat my ear was so bad.

After dinner I had to go to the hospital’s emergency room which in Italian is called “pronto soccorso.” There was really nice doctor who looked in my ear and said that I had an infection from swimming too much. He said we needed to go to a farmicia in Lonato that was open 24 hours a day. If we didn’t have a GPS it would have taken forever to get the hospital and to the farmicia. Lonato was several kilometers away—about 10. We had to get ear drops and pain pills; they start working right away.

But the good part of the day was I got a card from my Uncle Jeff with €13 inside and I got a phone call from my Uncle Dan and Aunt Glennis wishing me a happy birthday. They called all the way from Auburn, California.

When we got home from the hospital and the farmicia, my grandma put my ear drops in and then I went to sleep. By the time I got to sleep, it was after eleven o’clock.

Gotta go, bye……P.S. Fred says ‘hi.”

Super Animal Country

Yesterday my grandparents and I went to a place I call The Super Animal Country but it is really called Parco Naturale di Cavriglia. It had a lot of cool animals and there were llamas on the loose. They had chickens there and after a while they went crazy and I don't know why. They had parrots and there were some very beautiful ones. There was a pheasant.

We also saw a horse as you can see on the slide show--A Touch of the Wild West. He had a lot of some kind of fly that sucks blood from animals and people. It looks more like a bee than a fly.

When we got to a certain point of the park we saw monkeys, ostriches and cashmere goats.

We had a hard time getting into our car and so we had to take this llama home. I named him Fred. Ahh--stop kicking me, Fred.

On the way back, there was one of those weird flies in the back with me. I got so freaked out. My grandpa stopped the car and I ran out and screamed so Fred squashed him.

Well, gotta go play with Camilla. Bye.

The Birtrhday Party Begins

I had an awesome birthday. A lot of my friends came that were from my class here. Well, not all of them because some couldn't come. We had a lot of fun swimming and then we had a treasure hunt. My team should have won because we had three clues when Camilla's team only got one.

We got the goody bags for the treasure. They had things called Tech Decks, Skittles or candy made by Jolly Ranchers, bookmarks and bracelets. For the girls they had notebooks and pens instead of tech decks. We brought these things from home. The boys didn't know how to use the tech decks so I had to teach them. One girl really liked the tech decks and so I gave her one.

This is Camilla and Me Filling the Goody Bags

Last year here on my birthday it was raining but this year it was not. It was hot!! Here's a slide show of my birthday party.

It was also Camilla's birthday party, too. She waited for me to get here so that she could have her party when I was here so that I wouldn't miss it. I really liked that she waited. That made it better even though it made it a little confusing not mixing up the presents. Everyone wanted me to open their present first. They all sang Happy Birthday in English. The English teacher taught them.

After the party, Camilla slept over at my house in the top bunk and I was on the bottom.


Gotta go,
Bye

I’m Back to Italy!!

Hi Everybody, I’m Back to Italy

I’m having so much fun here. When I got to the airport when we got here, I thought Camilla would be at home waiting for me. But she was at the airport with Snoopy. Here’s a picture of Snoopy and us. Isn’t that cute?


Two days after we got back, guess what? Do you know what? Tommy slept over!! That was fun (even though I barely got any sleep.) Tommy, Camilla and I had a lot of fun swimming.




We also had a flexibility contest. Camilla won. We went to dinner that night at Il Portico. We went with Valentina and Riccardo.

After Tommy left, Camilla and I decided to do the tent in my room like we used to do. This time we used towels. When we’re in the tent we tell stories, watch movies and play with our pelux (stuffed animals.)



It’s really good to be with my friends. My birthday party is tomorrow and a lot of my friends from school and some new friends that I met will be here.

Camilla got new roller blades but she never wants to use them. I like using mine. I brought them with me so that I could do them with Camilla but she just doesn’t want to. She thinks it’s sort of boring. Here’s me rollerblading last night.

I am so glad to be in Tuscany with all the pretty views and beautiful sights and cute animals. It’s really rainy here—just kidding, it’s super hot. Think I’ll go in the pool.

See ya,