Day 27

To all of our faithful readers: Sorry for the delay in our next entry. The change of hands in blogging took a bit of time with inexperienced me (Jessie) taking the wheel. I hope you enjoy my portion of this experiment, though I make no promises of beautifully edited videos with a score. There will be pictures though! Once I learn how to add them. :)

We arrived in New York safely after a brief stop-over in Philadelphia. Joe took his motorcycle and I followed at a distance with the minivan full of children, luggage, and our dog. We had a perfect ride with beautiful weather all the way.

Now, being here since the fifteenth of July, Joe has completed the commissioned piece from last summer and begun his work of nature studies. He launched his first attempt today by photographing a plum, an apple, and a cherry. By midafternoon he astonished us all by displaying a finished 5X7 plum study...it is such a delicious rendering that Rosemary was tempted to pluck it from the page. Joe feels these type of drawings will not take much time to do because compared to a face, the fruit is just a lump with a stem. Good point, but what an accomplishment for his growth as a artist to crank out a drawing that a few years ago would have taken him much longer.

As for the children and myself we are happy to play in the yard at Grandma and Papa's, splash in the pool, slide down the slide, and just enjoy the time here. I don't think we've completely turned the house upside down, but we've definitly loosened the look of Dad's carefully manicured house. Since Friday we've also enjoyed having Grandma Oreste, Joe's grandmother, here to stay. We've had two cookie fringed visits with Uncle Dom, her son and Joe's mom's brother, who brought the girls black and whites cookies on Friday and rainbow cookies yesterday for Joe. Yummy Italian cooking abounds with sausage and peppers one night and meatballs and ravioli tonight (the girls helped Joe's mom make the meatballs...Carmellina especially takes an interest in cooking). We are definitly well fed-even unborn baby Sinagra.

More soon!