4th of July...Italian style

Megan and I just celebrated our second 4th of July in a row in Italy. Neither of us thought about it that way until this past Sunday night when we were a little sad that there were no fireworks and then we recalled that we had no fireworks last year either since we were driving from Italy to Monaco to watch the start of the Tour de France. The difference is that this year the kids are with us so we had reason to do a bit more celebrating. Megan's mother set us up with all sorts of 4th of July decorations and Megan found sparklers at the local tabacchi. We invited the neighbors as well as some friends from Novartis and we celebrated.

Anna's neighborhood friends, Giulia and Marina, put on their red, white and blue for the party.

We put Paola, Giulia, Anna and Marina in charge of making the flag cake.

After a swim and lots of running around the garden, we had a nice evening on our deck. Below is a picture of some of the people who came to celebrate with us. In addition to our family there was only one other American in the bunch. Our German, Danish, English and Italian friends were all happy to participate in a true American style barbecue followed by some sparklers.

We hope everyone had a Happy 4th of July!