Oh, the dreaded introduction. What to say to entice the readers to want to read more. How about we skip the formalities and move ahead to the goods! OK, OK.
When I remember last Christmas, I am brought to the memory of my Grandpa Maynerd Soma passing. We are thinking about and missing him for certain. Along with death we are lead also to talk about births. My sister in law, Beth, will be having her second child at Christmas time or early January this year. Can’t wait for baby- neither can she!
Luke and I (mostly I) spent early spring obsessing about our big trip to Italy . We had some last minute kinks thrown in to our plan like “sorry the apartment you booked 6 months ago is not going to be available, we have a classier- more expensive apartment farther away from city center that we’ll let you rent for no extra charge. Oh, and does it matter that it is on the 5th floor with no elevator?” All in all, we found that all the planning paid off. We learned how to be savvy travelers and function on our own.
I could write enough to fill 4 years of Christmas letters about Italy ; I’ll spare you the agony and describe the highlights. We enjoyed Venice , which was VERY touristy, full of small pet dogs that traveled everywhere with their owners. It had NO cars or motorbikes, was very noisy on the street, and had no trees or grass. We enjoyed very much the view of St. Marks square from the Basilica of St. Marks. Luke and I fed the pigeons there (with seed laced w/ birth control) and watched the dueling orchestras and people watched from a distance. We ran into the public TV travel show star- Rick Steves, at a canal-side restaurant. We lived and died by his travel books. Luke wanted to get our book signed. I was content with his handshake.
Then we were off to Florence , our favorite. The best part was being SO central. We were on the central square of the city. Luke and I may as well have gotten college credit for Art Appreciation for all we saw; David and the greats of all the masters of the renaissance. Rodger and Beth joined us for a week here and so did my cousin Christine Soma. It was so neat to meet w/ her (I guess she also joined us in Venice and Pisa too) (Chris was on her semester abroad).
Moving on, we then rented a car to drive around Tuscany- we figured that would be rural enough to attempt driving there. It was very, very traffic ridden on the motorways as we arrived around their “Labor Day” weekend. We stayed in a Tuscan hill town called Volterra which was flooded w/ day trippers and very quiet at night. Luke and I filled a water bottle with some wine and went on an evening walk to see the once buried (discovered late 1800s) Roman amphitheater carved out of a hillside(that was beautifully lit at night) and walked to a Medici fortress that was retrofitted to be a modern day prison. Later, we drove to Parma to enjoy the food of the region and were lucky enough to visit the one and only Parmigiano Reggiano dairy.
Then we traveled on to lovely Roma. As Florence is to art, Rome is to Churches. We saw LOTS of churches. That is where the art is, in the churches. Bernini was the highlighted artist here. We quite enjoyed Rome , 10 days there was just enough.
Our trip was for 30 days. It didn’t feel like we had been gone a month until we arrived home and found that spring had sprung. If you are really interested in hearing more about our trip- our diary is published on our blog. www.ljfenton.blogspot.com We have been told that it is quite verbose and detailed, which I intended it to be, so as not to forget a single moment. Oh, and the photo below was taken in the Florence straw market. You rub the boar (symbol of Florence ) for luck and to return again.
If you do check our blog, you will see that the recent subject has been our new dog, Kaiser. We got him in June from Paws and Claws. He is a Jack Russell/rat terrier mix. Luke and I have taught him a few tricks like roll over, sit, stay, shake, to balance a treat on his nose- then catch it. I’d like to teach him to jump through hoops. Luke agreed to allow the adoption of the dog on the provision that it be a substitute for a baby. We’ll see how long that lasts!
I (Lisa) started a new job in June. I now work in the Research dept. at Mayo. It is a different kind of nursing where I mainly deal with well and healthy research participants rather than sick patients. I, for the most part, collect physical data from the participants; like give medication, take blood and patient histories. Many of the studies are very involved. I think there are like a thousand research studies going on within the institution currently. So, lots to learn, I feel I’m getting the hang of it.
Luke is continuing to keep the Rochester Athletic Club Café & Deli running smoothly as kitchen manager. Luke’s hours have changed so he is home for dinner most nights now and I quite enjoy that. We do share the cooking chores, but unfortunately for me not the clean up.
The late summer flooding in SE Minnesota did not affect us, thankfully. Our basement stayed dry with thanks to our sump pump that ran non-stop. In our backyard we have a creek that is ordinarily only a trickle. It turned into a rushing river trying to accommodate the rain water. Thankfully we didn’t see the Noah’s ark type flooding that was seen further east. John and Amy Tveiten were visiting at our home that weekend and they could barely get home because of the overrun roads. Their neighbor town Houston was severely flooded. John and Amy’s new home was thankfully untouched.
Merry Christmas Everybody, don’t forget what Christmas is really about. Praise Him for what
good fortune you have!
Love, Blessings and Merry Christmas!
Luke and Lisa Fenton
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