Here are our photos from our visit to the chapel of St Francis in Assisi(St Francesco) located in the Tuscany region of Italy, south of Florence. The chapel for St Francis sits up on a hill, one for the monks and another higher up in the mountains for the nuns. You walk up through the town which was surround by a large stone wall and heavy gates for protection. The St Francis chapel was built after he died and is actually one chapel on top of the other, built into the side of the hill. We entered through the door in the bottom chapel and St Francis is buried there under the altar. No photos in the church. The ceilings are painted dark blue with stars, and the life of St Francis is painted along the walls of the upper chapel. The large stained glass window is built facing the setting sun which was not the usual for churches of the day. They usually build the church facing the rising sun to celebrate light and a new day. This one was celebrating the setting sun and life after death. INcluded are some photos from around the town. As you can see from the steps and roads, there is a lot of hiking and walking straight up and down on top of the hill! The shots from the top of the hill down into the valley are beautiful. The area is surrounded by the town in the valley(peasants) and olive tree orchards. And as I mentioned, The Franciscan cross looks like the letter T. Included is a shot of our tour guide and the local monk who took us through the chapel. Also a courtyard inside the chapel. And my favorite wine, cheese and sausage shop where I bought Tom some wild boar salami.  

We're Having A Heat Wave! A Tropical Heat Wave! Wow. Temps in the 100s here in Baltimore and humidity on top of that. It is actually hard to breathe outside sometimes, especially when there is no breeze. It seems to be coming to an end though with a couple of tstorms. We mostly spend our time indoors.It makes it hard to take Cookie for a walk. I usually wait until around 10pm.

Scott spent his mornings though outside on the greens at his Golf Camp this past week. He then spent his afternoons at Pets N Vets class at the local community college. SCott has taken the Pets class several times and never tires of it. You never know what type of animals will show up. This year they had a goat, a chicken, lizards, turtles, rabbits, cats, police dogs and lots of dogs as pets. Of course Scott took Cookie one afternoon, and our turtle another afternoon. We discovered our turtle is a yellow eared or yellow bellied turtle and not a red eared as we thought. Scott needed to take the turtle to class towards his Boy Scout merit badge "Pet CAre" that I have him working on. (Along with his summer reading and other badge work).

Thank goodness for Allison. She has been driving him all over for his classes. It has certainly been a great help. She is also staying busy on the weekends at work, and finally she and Tom were able to get all her model birds put up at the Nature Center over the week. She has already heard great compliments from guests and the staff on having the birds available on the trail. Now she is trying to schedule a class for the staff and hopefully one for the kids before she goes off to school in August.

Speaking of school, she received her college housing assignment and roommate. She sent off an email to Melania (seems she is Ukranian), but it also seems she is off visiting in the Ukraine. Allison is anxious to chat with her. She did scope her out on Facebook. We went off this weekend and spent Allison's graduation gift cards at Target, buying all her dorm room linens, as well as buying school supplies with her Staples gift cards.  We also got our fall semester bill-it was nice to see they credited Allison with her scholarship money. And she also received her orientation week schedule. What a week! Lots of activities planned all over campus. Allison is reading a book assigned to all the freshman, The Meaning of Matthew about a guy that was killed in Texas several years ago who was gay. The mom wrote the book and she is their guest speaker over the opening weekend. We have to drop Allison off at 7:30 in the morning on a Thursday, and then they have programs scheduled for students and family members all day until they send us off with an ice cream social. Salisbury is a very family oriented school and schedules programs during the year to get the kids and their parents and siblings together. Not to mention lots of activities organized for the kids to get involved in their community, as well as with each other(and of course to succeed in their classes).

We also had the Girl Scouts over on Friday night as we plan for our upcoming trip to Michigan. We will be leaving next Sunday and stopping overnight at Cedar Point. We also plan on driving up to my parent's house in Charlevoix to spend time on the water as well as taking a day trip to Mackinac Island. The girls are very excited! I also plan on taking Tom and Scott along for the trip. Scott can't wait for Cedar Point too!

Tom should be used to traveling by now. He had just gotten home from LA, and then was off to Salt Lake City all last week. He is busy repacking for a trip to Chicago this coming week. Too bad he lost his pager when we went off to the mountains last week! It is harder to keep in touch with him!

I have been busy at my new job. We finally put together our entire team, but may need to add a few extra therapists as we get busier. It is just nice to have a steady income again!