I woke up this morning and, since the household was still asleep,  did a little snooping around.  Aren’t aunties supposed to snoop around?  I looked around at the upstairs galleries, at all the beautiful photos of landscapes and  people whose detailed faces tell the stories of their lives.  John has such a powerful way of capturing the spirit of a place or a person.  In Christa’s study, I saw some really beautiful photos that John had taken of her on their first trip to Sicily. I took pictures of those pictures, so obviously, the quality isn’t as sharp as the originals.  I think Christa has a magical quality to her:

And this one of them in the mountains is awesome:

We went to the Italian food store that John and Christa have been raving about. It is a pretty amazing place! The deli just about bowled me over.  There is a large Italian community here in Columbus, Ohio and I felt right at home.  This Italian market/store, Carfagna’s, makes Seattle’s di Laurentis look like a little mom and pop shop:

Inside, there is a huge map of Italy and all her islands.  On a small sheet of paper, someone wrote “Where is your family from?” All the Columbus-ites write in their ancestral town and pin it to the town on the map with their family names:

Of course, I added ours:  Licata (maternal) Gallo (paternal)  families from the village of Grotte, Sicily all the way at the bottom of the map:

Christa and I just got back from a walk on a rails-to-trails path.  Last year, we rode our bikes on it for miles, but since then, those bikes are gone, so we walked it.  Off to shower and get ready for our evening out on the town!