Auguri Levi!

We haven't been up to much that warranted its own blog post, but now there are a bunch of little things that I'd like to catch up on!

On Friday night we went out to dinner with a family we met at church here in Rome. They are Italian but speak perfect English (she lived in London for a few years and he served his mission in England), and even their 4-year old daughter speaks English! They told us about the only restaurant in Rome that has a kid's play area, and in true Italian style it was still fantastic food. The restaurant was playing the Olympics on TV and we got to watch Italy versus the United States in the men's volleyball finals! Italy won, so dinner was on us! My favorite food of the night was honey bacon pizza, YUM.

It was such a great time. Again, in true Italian fashion, we were there over two hours, but mainly because of the great company (and the play place!). We talked politics, education, travel, comparing Italy and the United States. It was so interesting to compare notes about the strengths and weaknesses that each country possesses, and how each country can learn from the troubles of the other country.

On Saturday was little Levi's birthday! Five years old! I can do a whole blog post about my mixed emotions about him hitting this milestone, but I know I would sound like a crazy person, so I will refrain.

I wanted to take him somewhere fun (HIS kind of fun, not Keats-Shelley House fun, haha), so we decided on a water park! There were a few, but the one that looked the most fun was about an hour outside of Rome, over along the coast. It was called AquaFelix, and it was great! I was worried it would be packed, as no one is Italy is working right now, but it wasn't bad at all.

I left my camera in the car, so I didn't get any pictures. But I pulled some off Google just to remember.

This was Levi J's favorite one...not too scary but still fun

This was got really really fast at the end!! 

Lazy river

There were some great pools and a million fun slides. We were the only non-Italians there, which certainly was funny in some ways! I was literally the only woman there in a tankini, everyone wore bikinis, even the moms and grandmas! The men were not *all* in Speedos like we expected, but there were certainly lots of Speedos. The Levis both wore their rashguards of course, since we would be in the sun for hours. But the first time they tried to go on a slide, the lifeguard pulled them out and took them to the infirmary. They had to fill out a form with all their personal information and get a wristband in order to wear their rashguards on the slides. No one spoke much English, so we have absolutely no idea why they had to do that!!

(I almost posted a really funny picture from Google of an Italian guy in a little Speedo at Aquafelix, but thought better of it, hahaha).

We decided to only go for a half day, which was also quite a bit cheaper (though even a full day was only €20 for adults and the kids were free). That was the perfect amount of time to have fun without kids that were absolutely beat and grumpy at the end (especially with an hour drive back home). 

Today Levi J baked his own birthday cake (kid loves to bake!) with a candle he begged for at the store! He specified that he wanted Swiss chocolates on top, and got his wish. It was a pretty delicious cake!

At church today there was only one girl in his class who didn't speak English, so they did the lesson in English and Italian. They sang Happy Birthday to him twice, once in each language, and a little American girl who had just recently moved to Rome gave him a heart she cut out during sacrament meeting. He felt pretty darn special!

I hope this kid had a fabulous Roman birthday this year!