Dana and Sonja's visit!!

Dana and Sonja are friends from Gustavus and we have had fun sharing many experiences since college - this Italian experience together has to be one of the highlights!

Shortly after I dropped Laura and Paul off at the bus station, I met Dana and Sonja to begin the fun all over again!

Of course, we had to get the elevator shot...

The weather really cooperated for the Menard's visit to Florence!  It made for some beautiful pictures!  Here is a picture of Dana and Sonja next to the Arno.  

Sonja and I in the religious center.  

J rushed home from working in the morning so he could make it to our Fiat 500 Tour.  This tour turned out to be a ton of fun!  We had a caravan of these antique Fiat's - we drove through the city to a villa for wine tasting.  This was J's first time driving in the city and it was pretty crazy, but he did great!

We were pretty tightly packed into this Fiat, but that made it all the more fun and memorabel!  We felt like we were in a clown car, I had to kind of arrange my legs over Sonja's... hee hee, it was pretty comical just for us, everyone was laughing as they saw our convoy go by, so it must have been pretty amusing for them too!! 

We made a few stops along the way.  It was a beautiful fall day in Tuscany.  

After visiting the Villa and tasting wine, we stopped by Piazza Michelangelo to take in the gorgeous landscape - it never gets old!

While Laura and Paul were here, we started a puzzle just as a way to relax, but still be social - well, these puzzles had a way of really sucking us in.  We didn't quite finish the puzzle with Laura and Paul, but Dana and Sonja finished it up!  So we bought another one - we were puzzle machines!!  (I had to tell them that they needed to explain to people that J and I did show them a fun time and we didn't just sit around doing puzzles the whole time...  we're not quite that old and boring, yet!)  

Here is the second puzzle we finished!  (Notice the wine...  puzzles are way more fun with wine!  Also, it is of the Birth of Venus which they were scheduled to see the next day, so it was still Italian and educational...)

The next morning we decided to climb into Giotto's Bell Tower.  Another beautiful and fun day in Florence!  We walked around the city and did more essential sightseeing before they hit the Uffizi in the afternoon.

We had a great dinner and fun night in the city.

Dana was "nice" enough to introduce us the the SNL song "I'm on a Boat" which got stuck in our heads for the entire visit.  We would start singing this song at random times making up different words, it became this incredibly funny yet annoying joke...  Well, this building looks like the bow of a ship, so you can only imagine what we were all singing here... ugh, Dana!!!

We had wonderful visits with both Laura and Paul and Dana and Sonja.  We are lucky that some of our Minnesota friends were able to see our life here in Italy!

Again, we wouldn't let Dana and Sonja leave without showing their Fiorentina pride!!

Laura and Paul's Italian Honeymoon... well just a few days of it!

Laura and Paul got hitched in Minnesota on Oct 3.  I was able to make it back to MN for their wedding.  (Laura is a good friend from college band.)  I helped the cute couple plan their Italian honeymoon, so of course they had to make a stop-over in Florence!

On their first night in Firenze, we took the Tarnowski's out to see the sights by night.  Here is Laura and I on the Ponte Vecchio.  

Of course we had to squeeze in the the elevator and capture it on camera.  I still don't believe that the maximum capacity is 3 people... :o)

The next day, I took Laura and Paul all around the city.  I think this was a sign that the newly married couple came to the right place!

We had a wonderful lunch next to the Arno River before Laura and Paul spent an afternoon at the Uffizi. 

That evening we had an amazing meal at one of our favorite restaurants.  We ate more food then we thought possible, but it was sooo good!

For Laura and Paul's wedding gift, we gave them a Vespa wine tour through the Chianti wine region.  It was a blast and we all had fun "tooling" around Tuscany!

Here we are during our lesson on the vespas.  They were surprisingly easy to drive.

This trip was a blast!  It was a little chilly, but it was beautiful driving along the curvy country roads.  We only had one incident of Laura Tool "jumping ship" on a sharp curve...  she didn't get hurt, but she gave us a good laugh...

This might have been a safety hazard, but J is really good at these one-armed photos.

Along the way, our vespa convoy made stops in different vineyards - we had some amazing views!  It was fun to be next to the actual vines, we saw the process of making wine from start to finish.

Two Tools in Tuscany

Once we got to the vineyard, we had a tour of the villa and the wine making process.  After, we had a yummy lunch to go with our wine tasting. 

While we were eating, it started storming.  We were going to have a van pick us up, but the weather seemed to break up and we decided to go for it.  It was quite cold on the way back, we were all happy to warm up once we got home.  It was a great day.

Later that evening, we had another great meal and then took a walk up to Michelangelo's Piazza for an beautiful view of the city. 

We got up early the next morning to climb into the Duomo's dome.  Such a pretty city!!

Laura and Paul had to head out to finish up their honeymoon, but not before we made sure they were Fiorentina fans...  

I brought Laura and Paul to the bus station and rushed back home to clean the house and make the beds, because 2 hours later I left to welcome Dana and Sonja to Florence...