Buon Compleanno, Pietro!

Yesterday, August 5, was Pietro's 9th birthday. Which was totally a trick because I was told before I got here that he was 9 so when I gave him a birthday card with a big 10 on it, everyone was confused. Either way, we had a grand celebration and his day was perfect. It started the night before when his best friends Mattis and Lorenzo came over to stay the night. The living room was transformed into a boys lair. They stayed up until half past one watching tv and playing on their Nintendo's. The next morning at 5:30...yes, 5:30 in the morning...just four hours after they went to sleep, they were awake again. By 6:30 the whole family was awake and making breakfast. By 9 am the boys had gotten in an hour of soccer in the garden and we packed up the car for Follonica. "What is Follonica?" you might ask. Well, it is just another small Italian town but it happens to be home to ACQUA VILLAGE, the outdoor water park. We were the third group in line when the gates opened at 10 am and we spent the ENTIRE day riding water slides, playing in the wave pool and dancing (lots of dancing). We brought along a picnic basket and inbetween activities we took breaks to sunbathe and eat paninis and fruit. By the time we left at 4pm, the entire gang was exhausted. Pietro even had a little after lunch siesta, but needless to say the car ride home was silent.

Once we were back home and cleaned up, we started getting ready for dinner: Pietro's birthday dinner. This dinner included the entire family, nonna, nonno, nonna, nonno, zia, zio, zia, zio and we can't forget nonna grande. An incredible family dinner consisting of plate after plate after plate of Tuscan food. The kids, however, got to sit out on the terrace watching TV and eating hamburgers and french fries (Pietro's birhday dinner of choice). Once dinner was over, two or three hours later, we all gathered around the most spectacular cake I have ever seen in person. Straight out of Cake Boss, this torta was modeled after a soccer field complete with a soccer player guarding a goal. We sang "Happy Birthday" in Italian AND English and then followed another two hours of dessert.