Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

Isn't this great?  The guy who came in the other day to film a bit with us - the one dressed as a luchador - actually got a luchador mask for his son this week.  The two were having fun with us on Sunday.  I only posted a picture of Madison and the father on Saturday.  Anyway, his son wanted to get Madison a luchador mask as well.  And it's pink!  So Madison tried it on today, and we had a blast wrestling again.  Believe me, you don't want to get in the ring with this pink tornado.  When she's not wearing her mask, she puts it on her fox - along with a pink sparkly cape.  It's a super hero fox, somewhat like Star Fox, but she's a girl.

Speaking of that cape, Madison was using it to hug us today, sort of wrapping us in it as she hugged us.  She called this maneuver the "glitter hug."  She comes up with some great stuff!

Today was a landmark day for Madison, as we went to an Italian Restaurant called Napoli's.  This was a most excellent experience - just what we've been looking for!  It's real Italian pizza, the kind you can get up north at pretty much every pizza joint.  Down here in Georgia, we have all sorts of pizza places from Pizza Hut to Papa Johns to Dominos to Little Caesar's to Cici's Pizza.  But none of that is real pizza.  Real pizza is the kind we grew up with, and real pizza is what Madison got today.  Yes, she loved it.  And we made an inner vow today to never waste our pizza eating on any other place in Hall County again.  We enjoyed Papa John's pizza, of course.  But this - again - is real pizza, and worth the drive over to Oakwood to get it.  Plus, you get the whole experience.  Madison saw murals of Italy on the wall, and heard Frank Sinatra and opera in the background, and the pizza was delivered on a pan that was elevated.  There was hot pepper and cheese in those containers - and checkered table coverings.  The menu above the counter was exactly as it should be, with those ancient marque letters and advertisements for Coke or Pepsi or whatever.  And it's Italian owned, which we sort of missed out on today a bit:  the yelling back and forth.  That's almost a mandatory part of the experience.

Afterwards, we dropped by Home Depot to pick up some stuff to fix the toilet - can you believe Mommy was able to repair it all by herself?  She diagnosed the problem, bought the replacement bits, and got to work and... voila!  We have a working toilet!

Which is kind of important.

We did some shopping today as well, but for the most part, it was a day of typing for Daddy, who has been working on material for Summer Xtreme.  This will sound like a broken record the next week or so - we've got a lot going on right now.

We read some books before bedtime, working towards our library summer reading program - oh yes, we'll have about twenty books read before the program actually even gets started!  Talk about a head start!  It also counts towards a little prize Madison will get at the beginning of first grade, multiple incentives to have kids read over the summer.

Madison brought home a whole lot of artwork today - the art has been coming home all week long in stages.  Daddy has to scan it all and get cracking on presentation, storage and so forth.  Lots of work to do there, but it's certainly worth it.  Some of the art is fantastic, and really shows her growing as a creative.  It helps that she's had great guidance in that area at school - we're really pleased with her art teachers.  And we're pleased with all her teachers, of course.  Today while doing some shopping, we actually ran into one of her teachers at Wal-Mart in Oakwood (across from Napoli's).  Madison was so surprised and happy to see Mrs. Allen - it was an unexpected little visit!  Both hugged each other as we talked about there being just one more day of kindergarten.  Just one more day tomorrow, and kindergarten is over with.

Wow.