Soon after they headed back to London, Brenna's brother, Chris, and his wife, Kim, welcomed Benjamin Allen Aberle in to the world on February 20th. We haven't got to see the little guy in person yet, but we are excited to get to Sabetha and see our new nephew. In his father's words, "he sure is a wooly little thing".
During the last week of February, our next guest arrived, Christina Nunnelee. Christina is a good friend of ours from St. Louis. Christina and Brenna became friends soon after Brenna moved to St. Louis 6 years ago. She and Brenna got in some good traveling during her short visit here. Many good meals and good sights on their visits to Jesi, Rome, Venice, Reggio Emilia, San Gimignano in Tuscany, and Cinque Terre. On a sidenote, 2 gypsy women in the metro in Rome escaped with Brenna's wallet one day. They also narrowly eluded a subsequent tail-whooping from Christina, as the metro doors shut right after they took the wallet. So, the next time you visit Rome, just kindly tell any beggers that you may encounter, that Brenna Hoover had you covered in advance.
The basketball season has kept moving right along, as our guests have come and gone. Some of them have seen us play pretty well, and some of them didn't exactly get to see us in our best form. But this brings us to the arrival of our next guest. My dad, Jim, arrived on March 1st, and rode with Brenna to Ferrara, where our league's midseason Final 4 Cup took place over the weekend of March 1-2. That was definitely one weekend during the season, when our team came to play. We were the #4 seed coming in to the tournament, and we took care of the #1 seed, Soresina, on Saturday night, and then the host team, Ferrara, for the Cup Championship on Sunday. The first night, during the 3rd quarter, I ruptured the capsule around the main joint in my right foot. I continued to play through it that night. Then the next day, the medical staff performed a mini-miracle, as I was able to play in the Championship game. It was a very exciting time for our team and organization, as the Cup came to Jesi for the first time. I was happy that a lot of my teammates had family or friends there to help share the moment. I was especially proud that my wife and my dad were there to experience the excitement with me and my team. The greasy, sweaty hugs after the game grossed Brenna out a little bit, but she was able to take a shower immediately when we got home, so she was alright.
My mom, Annette, arrived later on in March, and she and Brenna took off for a road game up near Torino the day after her arrival, in a city called Casale Monferato. We lost a hard fought game to one of the better teams in our league that night, as I continued to play with my injury. At that point I was at about 75%, and our team seemed to go through a bit of a let down period after the Cup. A few days later, on the Thursday before Easter, we beat a very good team from the island of Sardegna on our home court. I was back to good form in this game, as some people accused me of showing off for my momma. We celebrated afterwards, as we're accustomed to do, with teammates and our families at a local pizzeria called Settimo Cielo, which translates to Seventh Heaven.
The next morning we drove to Bologna and flew direct from there to Brussels, Belgium. One of my mom's cousins, Jean Paul Van Langenacker, met us at the airport and took us on a tour of Brussels. We saw quite a bit of what the city has to offer, and then from there we drove to see my mom's aunt and uncle in their small village of Anthines, right outside of Liege. We stayed with aunt Janine and uncle Raymond all Easter weekend. It was a great time with our Belgian relatives, as we got to see many cousins, as well as see some sights and we had fresh snow every day. One of the highlights of the trip, other than the great celebration of Easter of course, was that they all got to meet Brenna for the first time. They loved her (what is there not to love?) and welcomed her as one of them... at least that's what we gathered from their broken english. It was a weekend full of smiles and hand gestures, as you can imagine, with my 82-year old great aunt being our lifeline of communication. The few days of rest were good for us all, and especially me and my injured foot. I continued with the therapy and pool work right away when we got back, in an attempt to get back to full strength. It definitely helped that I had, not only my wife here to nurse me back to health, but also my mother. How lucky was I?!
We celebrated a couple of birthdays in the last month and a half, as well. In March, for Brenna's birthday, we took a little mini-vacation to a village in the mountains south of here, near a national park. It was a good little getaway, as we saw some beautiful sights, and enjoyed a private meal in a trattoria in the center of this city. We literally had the place to ourselves. For my birthday a couple weeks ago, we took a trip to San Marino. San Marino is a small little country of its own, surrounded by Italy, about an hour and a half north of Jesi. Some of the best views we've seen in all of Italy were from the upper part of this city in San Marino. Due to the fact that we only get one day off a week, these day trips have been good for us. It's nice to see some different areas around here, that aren't the typical tourists spots.
Well... in closing we'd like make an official announcement, which some of you may know by now. Brenna is 11 weeks pregnant! She is due November 11th. We finally got a doctor's visit last Saturday and saw the little critter in there. It was not your typical sonogram, but it got the job done. What I mean is, as we entered the private room, the women said in Italian, "drop your pants and hop up on the table". No gown, no privacy, no step up, no "make yourself comfortable", nothing. As I sat down by Brenna's side, and the woman gave her a paper towel to cover up with, everything seemed fine. My hands were just a little sweaty, until the lady started jabbing the ultrasound tool into Brenna's gut. I didn't realize that this was normal, and she was just trying to make the little thing move, so she could get some measurements on it. We heard the heart beating, and found out that the size is in the 97th percentile at this point, 4.51 centimeters.
So, that's the update from Italy. As you can imagine, we're very excited about this development, and we're also looking very forward to being back in the States... especially my pregnant wife, who gets nauseous at the smell of pizza and pasta. Not such a good thing when you live in Italy. Her plan is to be back in St. Louis on May 8th. As for me, we have one regular season game remaining, and then the playoffs will begin on May 4th. Depending on how far we advance in the playoffs, I will be home anytime between May 12th and June 13th. We send all of our best wishes to you and your loved ones, and we look forward to catching up this summer.
Gus, Sandy, Brenna, and Lydia say goodbye in Rome
Nanny and Lydia enjoying the big win in Bologna!
