#321 1st Day of School

Kathleen captures some precious moments of the first day of school. With everyone still a little jet lagged, they donned their British school uniforms and set off for a day at the salt mines. One of Kathleen's facebook friends noticed that Maria is surreptitiously flipping an obscene gesture in the group picture. It makes them seem a little less cute.

Juliana is in the equivalent of 6th grade, Joseph 4th, Marco 2nd, and Maria 1st. In the British system, these are "Year 7", Year 5, Year 3, and Year 2 since Kindergarten is called "Year 1".

No pictures unfortunately of Kathleen's first day of school which included a facial and pedicure at the local "expat mothers with school age kids" salon.

#320 Return to China

The Cazzato family's contribution to Peoria economic stimulus continued throughout our time at home with Kathleen making daily trips to Target, Old Navy, Payless Shoe Source, and Walgreens. Her mission was to return to China with thousands of dollars worth of made-in-China products.

In fact, the annual summer stock-up has become a necessary tradition because the products we want and need are either unavailable or extremely overpriced in Suzhou. The airline still allows two checked bags per person of up to 50 pounds. Therefore, we brought back 12 checked bags with 51 pounds each. You can see Juliana and Joseph above surveying the luggage shortly after arrival at our house in Suzhou.

Since we expect this coming school year to be our last in China, this should be our last summer of importing a quarter ton of shoes, clothes, toiletries, and books to China.

If you are interested, you can see more photos from our vacation at snapfish.com.

#319 NE Kingdom, VT

Our final destination for the U.S. home leave trip was the "Northeast Kingdom" of Vermont. My former boss, Gary, offered us the use of his house on Lake Salem near his hometown of W. Charlestown, VT. We had four glorious days of fun and adventure in this area which is just four miles from the Canadian border. The first picture above is just a typical rural scene that I took during a run through the Vermont countryside.

Our main activities here were swimming, fishing, hiking, paddling, and jumping off the bridge at Echo Lake. Joseph, Maria, Juliana, and I all caught fish in Salem Lake. We caught extremely small specimens of perch, whitefish, and sunfish. Maria was especially proud of the sunfish she reeled in from the dock.

On our second day, we hiked to the top of Wheeler Mountain above Lake Willoughby. It was a quite challenging two hour climb to the summit which included scrambling over some exposed granite faces of the mountain. Afterward we swam on the beach at the north end of Lake Willoughby which had some of the clearest water I have ever seen.

On our last full day, we spent several hours paddling down the Clyde River and across Pensioner's Pond with two kayaks and a canoe that we rented at a great local outfitter named Clyde River Recreation. The scenery was gorgeous and all of the kids did very well piloting their boats.

We learned one Vermont lesson the hard way. On our drive back from Echo Lake to Salem Lake, I drove through a deep brown puddle in the right lane of a country road. The resulting splash bathed the right side of our car with an extremely foul stench. It was two car washes and a 1200 mile drive back to Peoria before the smell abated.

Our friend Gary advised us that all Vermonters know to "never eat yellow snow and never drive through brown puddles". Lessons learned the hard way.

#318 Saratoga, NY

During one day of our visit to my parents home, we went to the horse races in historic Saratoga, NY. Saratoga advertises themselves as "The August Place to Be" and we agree. It is worth at least one day per summer to take part in the tradition and excitement of thoroughbred horse racing, and of course gambling.

Each member of our family chose one horse to win in each of the five races that we watched. The winners in the family were Juliana and the ever-lucky Joseph. You can seem them gloating with their cash winnings.

Kathleen had the award for the biggest win that didn't happen. Each of us had chosen a horse for the first race, but it took me longer that expected to figure out the new electronic betting machines at the track. I ran out of time to place our bets and Kathleen's long shot pick came in first and paid 25:1. She would have won $25 if only I had placed her bet.

#317 Schenectady, NY

Next we drove north to Schenectady, New York where my parents, Ottavio and Eleanor, and brother Chris live. My parents still live in the same house in which I grew up. They are retired and my father is an avid gardener - you can see him and Joseph picking tomatoes for the sauce we ate later that night. The next picture shows my mother teaching Juliana how to make fresh tomato sauce.

We had beautiful weather in Schenectady with blue skies and mid-70 degree temperatures. One day we went to nearby Thatcher Park and hiked the famous Indian Ladder trail, one that I have been to many times when I was the age of my kids.

I have lost some weight in the past months and am lucky to have a tailor in the family. Tav and Ellie ran a tailor shop in Colonie, NY for more than 25 years and my father still maintains a small business in the basement of the house. Here is preparing to work on a pair of pants for me.

Finally we see Tav and Marco sporting the Italian soccer team uniform. Tav loves soccer and these two make a photogenic pair with their matching outfits. In fact, we frequently marvel at the resemblence that our two youngest kids - Marco and Maria - have to my parents. Both in appearance and personality, they resemble Tav and Ellie.

#316 Washington, DC

Annapolis is only an hour's drive from the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. Kathleen, Deirdre, the five oldest kids, and I spent a day in D.C. seeing a few sights. We toured the U.S. Capitol Building, then walked to the Washington Monument and the White House.

You can see us enjoying a picnic lunch on the mall. We also saw a forty year old Caterpillar motor grader parked on the mall. These Cat products live forever ! Also, we have Joseph posing with his cousin/buddy Brennan in front of the White House.

The walk from the Capitol to the Washington Monument was a bit far plus the weather was pretty hot. I had the ambition to also see the Lincoln Monument since our family hails from the Land of Lincoln. As you can see, however, in the last photograph - the kids had no energy for the remaining half mile walk to Lincoln (in the background).

#315 Annapolis, MD

Next stop on our U.S. Oddyssey was Annapolis, Maryland - home of Kathleen's brother John and his family of eight. John is a Navy psychologist and his family lives in the beautiful capital of Maryland next to the U.S. Naval Academy. John and Deirdre have five daughters and one son of similar ages to our four kids. We were also joined by Kathleen's oldest brother Dan who traveled down from Ithaca, NY with his wife and daughter and Kathleen's parents who followed us from Kentucky.

The visit was a great chance for the 11 cousins to spend time together. We all enjoyed kayaking, bird watching, sightseeing, and in-house entertainment by the children. Our family of six stayed at John's house, so we also enjoyed life with four adults and 10 kids under one roof for five days and four nights.