Melissa with the twins

Getting across town in Rome is not easy.  The center does not allow normal commute traffic, only taxi’s and buses so I have to go around. Hitting every red traffic light, too many cars, scooters zipping around, having to stop for every old man crossing the road with what seemed to be every corner…need-less-to-say, my drive across town was a bit frantic. I illegally parked, ran upstairs, grabbed our bags and headed back out. Melissa calls.  ”Where are you, they want to deliver.  Contractions are 6 minutes apart.  They’re coming!”  Alex was staying with the twins, Ethan and Izzy, so on the way back across town, I had to drop off an overnight bag for Alex.  In the meantime, Melissa is telling them that we are not delivering without Eric here. We did not stay in Rome to have the twins for me to not be there.

Me and one of the twins (we are not sure which)

Soon I arrived at the hospital. I found parking right away, an amazing feat in itself. Found the maternity ward of the hospital (not as easy as you’d think) and was upstairs.  ”I’m here,” I tell the occupants of the room.  Melissa is still looking somewhat calm.  ”Ok, let’s go,” one of the occupants say, and upstairs we go. I get upstairs and they are finishing prepping Melissa.  A variety of doctors and nurses say things to us in Italian and English, not quite sure what any of it was.  Soon, our doctor walks in, snaps on the latex…the fun begins. Melissa was not too keen on having a c-section and even less on having one in Italy. She stayed wonderfully poised throughout the process.  I can’t say how proud and impressed I am of Melissa giving birth in a foreign country, surrounded by a bunch of people who do not speak English. It was all a bit overwhelming and she was great.

The timeline:  We arrived at the doctors office at 11am, saw the doctor around 11:20, baby A was delivered at 2:33pm, baby B at 2:36pm.

Now that we know we have two wonderful healthy girls, the next question was the names. After the delivery, for the next 18 hours, people were in and out of our room, checking on Melissa, checking on the babies, taking them back and forth for various reasons (mainly to cook them a bit more), but the one question everyone kept asking was “What are their names?”  On Saturday morning, we finally had some time to ourselves with both babies in our collective arms.  We looked at one, then looked at the other. Looked again at the other, and then at the other once more.  After some very short deliberations, we agreed on the following:

Baby girl A, the smaller of the two at 4.8 lbs is Penelope Vittoria
Baby girl B, the bigger sister, arriving three minutes later, at 5.3 lbs is Sophia Virginia

Sophia Virginia

Penelope Vittoria

Sophia was always going to be the name of one of them. When we put them together we figured out which one looked more like a Sophia and which one looked more like a Penelope.  Both Melissa and I had “pre-agreed” on a few names but we did have to sort out the spelling.  I liked Sofia, while Melissa preferred Sophia. In the end we both were ok with the Sophia spelling as (I think) it is the original Greek spelling (and English spelling as well).  And since we took the English spelling for Sophia, we opted, based on my suggestion, that we use the Italian spelling of Vittoria as opposed to Victoria.  Ironically, the babies were born on 4 November, which is the day that Italy claimed victory over the Austrian-Hungarians in 1918 during WW1, so it is National Unity, or Victory day.

Alex with her little sister Sophia.

Alex with Penelope

The big four churches in Rome. Starting at the top left going clockwise; San Paolo Fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, St. Peters Basilica, and Santa Maria Maggiore.

The first basilica was built here by, guess who, Constantine in the 4th century on the site that St. Peter was said to be buried.  The current church was constructed over the 16th and 17th century finally reaching completion in 1626. I believe it is the largest Christian church in the world. Inside and out the church is a wonder to see.

St. Peter's Basilica

The Basilica at night

A common site in the piazza

The inside dimensions of the Basilica are 730 ft long and 500 ft wide.

The dome is 136 feet in diameter

My mom and sis inside the Basiilica

An early morning shot before the crowds arrive.

The big four churches in Rome. Starting at the top left going clockwise; San Paolo Fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, St. Peters Basilica, and Santa Maria Maggiore.

Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore was built in the 4th century (although some accounts indicate it might have been the 5th century).  It is the largest church of the 25 in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Pope Liberius and a Roman patrician and his wife had a church built on the summit of Esquiline Hill after the Virgin Mary appeared to them in a dream and told them to build a church in her honor. The site that it was built was said to be where snow fell the night of 5 August, during the heat of the Roman summer (and Rome is very hot during the August). The romanesque bell tower is 75 meters and the highest in Rome.

Santa Maria Maggiore

The Baptistery

5th century mosaics and the triumphal arch

The basilica and bell tower

The big four churches in Rome. Starting at the top left going clockwise; San Paolo Fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, St. Peters Basilica, and Santa Maria Maggiore.

Similar to San Paolo Fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano was founded by Constantine in the 4th century (313AD).  It was the first Christian basilica built in Rome and was the Pope’s principle residence until the 14th century.

San Giovanni in Laterano with the usual tourist info sold out front

The pipes inside San Giovanni

San Giovanni has many great monuments and statues throughout the church, more so than most.

Inside the nave are many statues of Apostles and Evangelists. Shown here is the Apostle Philip.

Inside San Giovanni

As stated, Rome has lots of churches. Four are considered the “big four”…because they are big and there are four of them. These are all ancient, major basilicas or papal basilicas. In no specific order…

The big four churches in Rome. Starting at the top left going clockwise; San Paolo Fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, St. Peters Basilica, and Santa Maria Maggiore.

Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura, or St. Paul outside the wall for the non Italian speakers (like myself), is the biggest church in Rome after St. Peter’s.  It is called outside the wall as it sits outside the Aurelian Wall (built between 271 and 275AD) that surrounds ancient Rome. St Paul’s is on the site where St. Paul was buried after being decapitated in AD 67 under the rule of Emperor Nero. It was built by Constantine in the 4th century, although much of what stands today was various enlargements and restorations over the centuries, including a major one that occurred after much of it was destroyed by fire in the 1800′s.

Looking into the courtyard of San Paolo Furori le Mura

The nave of the church has 20 columns on each side. The plan remains the same as when the church was built.

5th century triumphal arch with mosaics of Christ and apostles Peter, Paul, Andrew and Luke.

St. Paul

Melissa at 30 weeks.

Baby A and Baby B

The kids at the glacier

A couple of days after I got back from Petra in mid-August, we headed up to Chamonix, France with some friends Richard, Sarah and the twins (Ethan and Izzy).  The twins are the same age as Alexandria and attend school together.  Richard was running in an “ultra”, which translates to a real long race up and down mountains. They invited us along and as they already had a chateau, which had an additional room, it was an obvious choice to take them up on their offer.

With three kids and four adults (one being pregnant), I expected our two car caravan to take quite some time, but to my surprise, the potty breaks were much fewer than expected. Soon we traded cornetti for croissants and buon giorno for bonjour. The chateau was just outside of Chamonix and was gorgeous. Mountain trails, trees and creeks were just minutes from our door. The perfect get-a-way from the Roman heat in August!

Richard’s race wasn’t until the end of the week, which gave us plenty of time to browse the shops in Chamonix, eat many chocolate croissants and crepes, hike among the trees, have Alex get a gigantic knot on her head from falling on a rock and carry baguettes where ever we went. Chamonix was fantastic and a dramatic

The kids were adventurous leaping from rock to rock (or mountain to mountain per their stories).

contrast to Rome. It seemed like almost everyone walking around looked to be prepared to go on a hike of some sort. People had on hiking shoes, running shoes, carrying rock climbing shoes, moisture wick shirts, ropes slung over their shoulders, carrying water bottles, backpacks, etc. We felt right at home.

The kids did fantastic together all week and really enjoyed running around in the woods. Sticks were being gathered by the bundle and there was always a rock that had to be thrown. I think picking moss off rocks became their new favorite past time.

Ahhh, fresh mountain air

Richard and family before the race, with their Team shirts created by Richards brother, who owns an outdoor store.

Friday came too quickly and it was race day. The race goes around Monte Blanc. We were all up early and off to the Italian side of Monte Blanc (or Monte Bianco since we were heading back to Italy) to the town of Courmayeur. Richard’s race was scheduled for 98 km, which essentially goes half way around (and lots of up and down) Monte Blanc starting from the Italian side, through the Swiss part and back into France. At 10am, the race began and off he went, along with 1800 or so other people. We cheered him on and then headed off to met him at one of the checkpoints. He had to carry certain amount of gear such as water, head lamp, warm clothes etc. At a few of the check points, someone was allowed to bring in food (and things like a change of clothes). Being in France, one of the items we provided to him was a baguette with jambon. After getting refueled, off he went….again.  It was around 6 pm by that time and it would be getting dark soon. We made our way back to the chateau to eat and put the kids to bed as we had had a long day taking shuttle buses around the race route…into and out of 3 countries ourselves.

The kids joined Richard for the last few hundred meters as he came into the finish line.

Sarah and Richard’s mom went back out to meet him at another checkpoint later that night. Unfortunately, the weather on this night  was one of the coldest since we arrived, oh and throw in a some rain and snow as well. At midnight he had been racing for 14 hours. He got into one of the checkpoints during the wee hours, as lots of people dropped out at this point, many starting to suffer from hypothermia and just pure fatigue.  Despite his wife’s concern about him continuing, off he went after getting warmed up, with a cup of tea of course – he’s Brit. He pushed through the night and finally we got an update that he would be coming into Chamonix around croissant time.  Yeah for us!

After Sarah & Richard’s Mom pulled an all-nighter out on the race course, Melissa & I gathered the kids, and we we all went into the town center of Chamonix to cheer him on to the finish line. Ethan and Izzy (and Alex) ran with him the final 100 yards or so.  It was an amazing sight as we watched men and women drag themselves to the finish line after such a grueling race. Richard crossed just after 10 am, after going 93 or so km (there was a course change due to the inclement weather) in 24 hours and 14 minutes…..yes, he ran, walked, hobbled, crawled, etc for 24 hours!  Extremely impressive and an amazing achievement!  A croissant and baguette were waiting for him at the finish line (after all, we were in France).  Well done Richard!

Congradulation on being done.

There were actually four different races going on that week that were finishing during the weekend. It was nice how all the tourists and locals would cheer on the runners as they came into the town and towards the finish line. It is very uplifting to watch and I’m sure for the runners as well to have so much support along the race course. Richard even said that a local in one of the towns he ran through in the middle of the night gave him a cup of coffee….with a shot of grappa for warmth I guess.  Needless to say, he wasn’t much up for drinking it.

Just for reference, the winner of Richard’s race, the CCC, ran 93 km in just over 10 hours – can you say crazy?

The forest girls

More rock climbing

The gang at the glacier