I fell behind on my photo-a-day resolution -- a certain puppy has a taste for external hard drive cords. So I owe the blog several photos this time. Today's theme is Italy, where I visited my sister a few months ago.

The photo above is of a street in Pompeii. At the time, we were a little bit lost (our Rick Steves audio tour didn't have the best directions) and we were scrambling to get out of the city's ruins before 6, when we'd have to pay an extra 20 Euro for our car's parking spot -- which, I want to mention, seemed to be directly on the patio of a pizza place.

This photo below is of a very convincing Michael Jackson impersonator in Rome. My sister was concerned that he might have been a victim of human trafficking. Regardless, he was a fantastic dancer with cleverly orchestrated costume changes.



Here's my nephew Elliott, playing with his cars, which he was doing maybe 80 percent of the time I was visiting.



Here's roly-poly, smiley Marshall...


My sister with my nephew on their balcony in Naples:


My pretty sister in windy Sorrento:


And, finally, Napoli at sunset, with bonus toddler and trike:

My nephew, Marshall

Terrible Tooz

As it turns out, moving to a new apartment and taking a vacation to Italy simultaneously is a difficult task. I hadn't meant to have the two events run so close together, but it just worked out that way.

Suffice to say in the last four weeks, despite the fact that I went on vacation, I've noticed two new grooves in the skin of my forehead that I don't think were there before.

While I wasn't being stressed out about moving and setting up cable/Internet/electricity/etc. from overseas or worrying that I might die in the Atlantic in a plane crash, I was relaxing with my nephews, the older of which is pictured below.

He doesn't say a lot of words, but he did call me Tooz, which I love. I also really love this picture, because I didn't realize until later that he was mischievously holding Spaghetti-Os in his mouth to spit out at a really inappropriate moment later.

Italia

I just got back from a trip to Italy to visit my sister, brother-in-law and two of my nephews, and I spent so much time relaxing, reading and taking in the sights that I definitely didn't take enough photos. But I do have some, so I'll be posting those over the next several days. A tease:

Napoli in the morning, from my bedroom balcony. That castle-like building in the lower left corner is a single-family home!

Commitment

OK. I've got an external hard drive full of photos that I can only assume will stop existing if no one ever sees them, and I'm going to try to post some of them with at least a little regularity.

So get ready! Sorry I haven't posted since last December! (Ooh, I winced when I typed that.)

Here are a couple of semi-recent photos from my niece's visit for her 8th birthday...

Here we are at her favorite restaurant, Tip Top:


And later at her favorite ice cream place, Jeni's, with a fresh cast from breaking her arm earlier that week:

I always tell people I'd rather be cold than hot. And I stand by that statement. But lately, I've been missing the sun just a little, and looking back at photos like this makes me miss it more.
I've got plenty of cold-weather photos to post, and I plan to get them up over the weekend. But if you miss the sun, too, then maybe this photo will bring you some virtual Vitamin D.

Rose-colored life

My parents and grandparents visited me a few weeks ago, and I forgot to put up this picture I took of my grandma in the Whetstone Park of Roses in Clintonville. It was one of those days that wasn't really that hot, but you could kind of smell your skin burning in the sun.

I wonder how the roses felt.

Father's Day

I went home to celebrate Father's Day (and to give my dad some photos of me and my four sisters, taken by my pal Erica McKeehen). I was there for just a little more than a day, but I snapped a few shots of some of my family.

Just a few shots of my little nephew.

The same weekend of the terrible floods in some of the southern states, I visited hometown of Jackson, Ohio. My nephew and I went for a walk to a park and checked out the comparatively little flooding in our area.

We found some people swimming there, which I must admit looked fun, but it also looked super gross.

Just my dad, through a paperweight. I liked the funhouse effect.

My dad walks my sister to the car as she, her husband and their baby go back home after their holiday visit with us. They're moving to Italy soon, and when they visit, we all treat them as if it's the last time we'll ever see them. We've been doing this since August.

My nephew showed us his newfound love for his Johnny Jump Up when my sister and her family visited for Thanksgiving. I caught him in a rare, motionless moment here.

Dad and I visited Richards Bros. Orchards in Thurman, Ohio, to pick up some apples, cider and peach butter. Deeeelicious.



Richards Bros. applewards.

My dad took me to this enormous quarry after we went to Richards Bros. Orchards in Thurman, Ohio. I'm not sure I'd be able to find it again, but that's OK because it kind of terrified me.



This little hollow was somewhere on the way to the man-made canyon.

Hiding from boys at the Jackson County Apple Festival.

Scenes from the Jackson County Apple Festival parade.

My nephew got baptized, and he loved being the center of attention for an even larger audience (the whole church congregation).

My niece and I hung out in my sister's backyard the other night, and it was the perfect time of day for silhouettes.

My uncle goofs around during a family road trip to the cemetery, which is not quite as weird as it sounds.