Wedding Day August 20th

Monday morning we finally got a workout in. We have been being very active and with the rock climb on Saturday we counted that as our leg workout. But we did our chest and triceps workout in the bathroom of our apartment. Our apartment is pretty tiny so there’s not much room and I didn’t want to wake up Thomas so I was able to shut the door and do it in the bathroom. We brought our bands for a chest workout but it ended up basically being 20 minutes of push-ups. Once I finish my work out Kyle did his and me and Thomas went for a little walk while he got his. We had done a little window shopping on the walk back from the shuttle bus the night before and we’re wanting to go in a few stores to look at. It was raining so I ended up buying an umbrella because the one that was in our apartment was a piece of crap. I opened it up and half of the shade was broken and every other spoke was broken in half. I threw it in the trash and replaced it with a different one.

We stopped back into the apartment to meet up with Kyle and we were looking for maybe a jacket for him and some sandals for me. We couldn’t find a light jacket but we did find some sandals. The rain has stopped and the sun came out which also brought the crowds of people. It was kind of nice with the rain earlier in the morning because there was a lot of people that were not coming out on the street.

We had lunch while Thomas took a snooze in the stroller. We have coffee, muscle soup, and pizza of course. We knew that it was going to be a long day with the wedding that evening so we just kind of took it easy. We went back to the apartment to shower and get dressed to meet the shuttle at 3 o’clock at the train station.

My bread bowl collapsed

These boys were my friend Sonja's. I met her through Patty when I lived in New York and we've staying in touch via facebook. She has three boys and they were pretty sad we didn't' bring all four kids. When we first saw her she asked where everyone was, we got the look of 'must be nice' which we are all to familiar with because we're usually the ones stuck with all our kids while our friends drop them off at their grandparents. It was nice :-) 

The shuttle took us to Tusa in the mountains which was about an hour and a half ride along the shoreline and then up through the windee roads to the top of the mountain. The night before we had gone to Tusa on the ocean and we passed by the place we were at the night before. There was a lot of farmland up on the hill and the views were gorgeous. We took a little snooze with Thomas on the bus and made it to the town. We had to walk up the hill to get to the church but it felt considerably cooler up in the mountains versus down in Cefalu.

Wish I would have a better picture, but you can faintly see the town of Tusa up in the mountain

Arriving to Tusa. You can see all the white light frames which is for the Catholic festival I mentioned in an earlier blog. 

The Ceremony began and we were trying to get Thomas to sit with us for a bit but he had no interest. The Catholic mass was all in Italian and was not easy to sit through myself. But the church was beautiful.

We first started to take turns with Thomas outside trying to keep him occupied because he was just not having it inside. But then we just both ended up walking with Thomas in the stroller through the streets. 

Kyle discovered this beautiful over look so whenever we met up together we walked out there to see it and have an espresso and a beer.

It was about a 10 minute walk from the Cathedral, we headed back to see if they had finished yet and they still had not. We had heard different stories that it could last for an hour or maybe three hours. We walked to the other side of the mountain cliff to look out, this was right next to the church so we weren't far to hear when they had finished. It ended up being an hour and a half and they came out, we threw the rice and pedals then we headed back to the shuttle bus.

The boys loved Thomas and he loved the attention. I think he was missing his siblings and this made him feel more at ease. 

Then the shuttle bus took us about a two hour ride past Cefalu to a town called Termini.

The reception was held in a 12th century castle. The castle was gorgeous with many different areas. It was kind of confusing because when we arrive they didn’t seem to have things very well put together. There was one section of hors d’oeuvres but there wasn’t enough for very many people to get it. It did have a really pretty water feature that Thomas really wanted to jump in, and a glass floor that he was curious about but didn’t really like walking on. 

It began to sprinkle so they moved us into another area where more hors d’oeuvres were being served but the rain was starting to come down a bit stronger so they covered up the food. We went into the sheltered area with the tables but they didn’t want us to sit down because the tables were not numbered or ready for dinner yet. They ended up passing out umbrellas and we were able to eat and stand under an olive tree to eat. It was pretty funny seeing everybody eating in the rain and holding umbrellas, I was holding a baby and the umbrella but the food was amazing and nobody really cared. There was a squid which was amazing. 

And the swordfish display which was insane. Although I don’t think either of us eat any of the swordfish. There was lots of other really good food. 

Then we were able to make our way to the tables and sit down for another 4 to 5 courses that were spaced out among dancing. Thomas love dancing to the music. He actually did really well in the corner by where his stroller was, playing with some of the toys that we brought for him. 

Then he reached a point in the night that he was cranky so Kyle pushed him around the castle in the stroller enjoying the ocean sounds and views. Then Kyle would make his way back to eat the next course when it had arrived. One of our friends from New York had three young boys there that loves Thomas so they took their turns pushing him and playing with him which was helpful. 

Once dinner and dancing was over we moved into a room with a massive willow tree for desserts. The tables were being guarded by the staff because they were waiting for Katie and Antonio to cut the cake before they would let anyone eat the desert. But we stood around drooling at the choices and making our decisions for what we were choosing to grab first. It was pretty funny. 

Once we had dessert it was pretty much the end of the night and all the kids of the evening we’re starting to drop like flies and fall asleep here and there as we waited for the first shuttle back to Cefalu. It was about 1:30 or two before the first shuttle left which we all hopped on. It was about 3 AM before we got back home. We had checked the train schedule and knew that we were going to take one the next day at 10 AM so we set alarms for eight because we needed to get everything packed.