memorial day!!!!

This is Elaine. She is almost like "I got it! Hooray" because she caught the baseball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a picture of Elaine . Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello Elaine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Memorial Day weekend

Danielle had lots of visitors this weekend. She wanted me to write something on her blog about the weekend to surprise her. So this is the surprise message. She had a visit from her cousin Justin and his family--they rode the Wyndella boat on the Chicago River together and went to the Chicago Botanical Garden. This is a picture of them on the boat.
Today, Memorial Day, was spent with Danielle's friend Zachary and his family. Here is a picture of Danielle, Zachary and Zachary's mom playing catch in the garden.

Riding the Wild Lion

You can only see the ferocious lion's ears because the camera wasn't focused that well. This is me, the girl in the pink shirt. Samantha is the one with the headband. Trinity is the one with the white shirt.

Cute Polar Bear

In the Lincoln Park Zoo after we saw the polar bears not up close, a couple minutes later we went down into this rock-like thing where we saw a polar bear. It was swimming. And when we jumped up onto the cement he swam near us. He almost hit Trinity. If there was no glass he would. I had a lot of fun.

Petting Zoo Farm Animals

We went to the petting zoo and big zoo in kindergarten today. Well, actually, its not in my classroom, its in the Lincoln Park Zoo. ...but its not in Italy. Its in the USA. This is a picture of Trinity petting the pony.

Getting ready for Italy

I am happy that we are going to Italy but I am also sad that I am going to leave my friends in kindergarten. But I'll come back next year. The exciting thing about Italy is that I can make new friends. But the not so exciting part is that they don't speak English. The happy part is that I'm going to have three beds in my new room in Rome. And the sad part is that Mount Vesuvius erupted a long time ago and people died...but not very many. Some went away from Mount Vesuvius and never died, until they were old enough to. We saw a Pompeii exhibit and I have a book about Pompeii that starts when the earthquake began to the death of Pompeii. These people did not have TV or radio so they never knew when Mount Vesuvius would erupt. After Italy, I am going to get a pet bunny.

[Logo from the Pompeii exhibit Danielle saw at the Birmingham Art Museum over Xmas]

Danielle Contemplates Italy: Pros and Cons (birth of her blog)

Ever since December, when we learned we'd be spending the 2008-09 academic year teaching at Loyola University's Rome Center, we've been rhapsodizing about Italy to Danielle. At six, Danielle soon caught our excitement: in her eyes, as we'd convinced her, she'd be moving to the land of pizza, pasta, and gelato. In short, we were heading to a Danielle-food-paradise. When we added Pinocchio, pine nuts, Pompeii, and churches, churches and more churches to the mix, her excitement doubled. (Although Danielle has yet to attend a Catholic service, she is completely infatuated with all things Catholic, especially the "baby Jesus." The thought of seeing nativity scenes in every Roman shop window has especially captured her fancy).

Recently, though, as she approaches the end of kindergarten she has begun to voice some ambivalence about the upcoming Italy move. The first hint of ambivalence came with her comment to me the other evening; "Mom, there is something you are going to be really upset about if I tell you...so I can't tell you." After 30 minutes of coaxing and promises that I would not be upset no matter what (as my imagination ran the gamut of possible things so horrible that she dare not voice them), Danielle finally confessed: "I don't want to move to Italy anymore." Turns out she was so enamored with performing in the school spring musical (Cats) last month, that she didn't want to miss being in Cats again next year. So, we reassured her that if her school was performing Cats again next year, we would cancel the move to Italy... lucky for us the elementary school introduces a new musical each year! Relief. This week, after learning that Cats is not being performed next year, we had a repeat of the "Mom, you are going to be sad if I tell you something" drill. This time, she learned that in first grade kids get to check books out of the library and she didn't want to miss this exciting new first grade privilege. So again the reassurances that she will probably have the same privileges at her new school in Italy (sure hope this is the case!).

Finally, we went on line and found the blog of a San Diego boy who had moved to Italy for a year with his grand-parents when he was about 8 years old. His accounts of his adventures, especially his pictures of his birthday pool party with his Italian classmates, his visit to a medieval dungeon in an Italian hill town, and his photos of the Skittles candies visiting American friends brought him, revived her flagging enthusiasm for the move to Rome. (Thank you Casey, if you are reading this). And we decided that we would create her own blog of her year in Italy... Welcome to what, from here on out, is to be Danielle's blog of her year in Italy.

(In case you are wondering why this is called "Daniela in Italy" and not "Danielle in Italy," its because "Danielle in Italy" was already taken...But, hey, she'll probably be called "Daniela" by her Italian classmates, so we might as well start making the shift now....)