Spring

Last week it snowed here- pretty normal where I grew up in western Massachusetts but really unusual here near Milan.  We are all very tired of winter and anxiously awaiting spring to …..well, spring.  Which is why today, when we had a sunny day with temperatures in the mid fifties, my boys stripped down to their undershirts and played a game of soccer in the field behind our house. Wishful thinking I guess.

Little boy is still wearing his snow boots.  He’s much too lazy to even consider wearing shoes with velcro, let alone shoe laces.  He prefers these boots which simply slip on and hide the fact that he is wearing two mismatched and dirty socks.

My big boy is trying hard to get possession of the ball and make a goal.  Actually, there are no goal posts in this field.  There are however, some nice cabbages which Nonno planted that you can’t see in this picture.  If the ball crosses the imaginary line drawn between the cabbages and the corner of the white house in the photo then big boy has scored a goal.  This is not a happy arrangement for the chickens.

Though they usually manage to stay ahead of the ball by running from one end of the field to the other in order to avoid it,  occasionally some luckless chicken gets bonked by the soccer ball.  Please don’t alert any animal protection leagues.

Here are the three muskateers…my two boys and my niece.  Ignore little boy’s nose….I considered deleting that nasty green stuff with Adobe Photoshop but opted for brutal realism instead.  Just so you all could see how glamourous life is here on the continent.  Big boy is sporting some new accessories- he recently got braces put on his teeth.  He is also wearing a little wooden cross which he received when he made his first confession two weeks ago.  As you can see from the little tree that big boy is holding, Spring is not quite here…but don’t tell that to the kids:

or to this little guy:

Happy Spring!