Jersey love: Italian family.

I'd like you to meet my Italian family: the most hilarious, silly, fun, generous, loving, rambunctious bunch of crazies you will ever meet.   I love them with a passion. 

Luci Belle and I with cousins Colleen and Paula

My first cousin Paula (whose mother was my Aunt Lucille, Luci Belle's namesake), her husband Steve, and her children Colleen, David, and Brian, all live just a few towns over from Madison.  After a short 10-minute drive, you pull into their driveway that seems to be crammed with cars at all hours of the day and night.  Open the screen door on the wide covered front porch and feel yourself exhale as you walk into their inviting home that's always welcoming friends, their kids' friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Together, we are mostly smiling, laughing, generally being boisterous, and, of course, EATING.   Feeding people is one of the ways they love, and they do it well.  A casual weeknight dinner?  There's no such thing at their place - every meal is an occasion.  And it makes you feel special to be cooked for, to be fussed over, and to be fed their very best - carefully prepared, delicious comfort food.

And did I mention there's a lot of silliness?   Paula and I don't look alike or anything...

We were thankful to have several amazing dinners at their home while we were in Jersey - grilled meat and eggplant and peaches slathered in honey and sprinkled with almonds; a full Italian spread with an antipasto platter, bubbling homemade sauce and Aunt Lucille's meatball recipe, lasagna, eggplant parmagiana, Italian cookies and cannoli for dessert, espresso with a twist of lemon; and finally, a birthday dinner for Luci Belle with sausage and peppers, a chocolate birthday cake, and of course, coffee with Sambuca.

Every bite, every taste, was amazing.  I think they actually inject love into their dishes.

Paula's husband Steve at his manly-man grill

Mother/daughter lasagna-making

A good Italian girl

So many people showed up for dinner that Steve had to extend the length of their already long dining room table and add a card table at the end.  Sitting around their table eating, laughing, everyone talking over one another at high decibels - one of my very favorite things...

A very typical Steve pose

Cousins Brian and Colleen

My daddy

And here are some moments from Luci Belle's Italian birthday party.  Even though the poor baby was cutting a molar and had a 102-degree fever, I think she still had fun...

Playing with cousins Michelle and David (my godson)

Cousins Michelle & Julia helping her blow out the candle

I know you want to be a part of my family now.  And they would probably adopt you, set a place for you at the dinner table, and ask you to stay all weekend.  Because that's just what they do.

Jersey love: summer = swimming all day.

What is better than moonlight at the pool?  All day at the pool!  It's where I spent practically every day of summer from the time I was born until I left for college, and I couldn't wait to share this experience with my daughter.  She loved it, as I knew she would.

Just arriving, checking out the scene, enjoying her baby-sized beach chair

Post-swim SNACK TIME! Pumpkin seeds = yummy.

Jersey love: moonlight swim.

We arrived in New Jersey on a Friday afternoon, just in time for the last "Moonlight Swim" of the season at the Madison Community Pool.  As I've shared so many times before, this pool is like none other. First of all, it has a social director, who just happens to be my mother.  Throughout the pool season from Memorial Day to Labor Day, there are all kinds of events from luaus to magic shows to jazz bands to massages.

The Moonlight Swim is magical - the pool stays open until 10:00pm, and you get to swim under the stars, eat delicious food, and dance to live music by local artists.  In the evening, the grass is actually chilly under your feet, and townspeople are wrapped in sweatshirts and towels as they contentedly sit, watch, and listen from the lawn.  Others swim laps or gather in groups in the water and chat.  The crickets in the woods that surround the pool on three sides provide the real soundtrack for the evening.

So, being in town to catch the last Moonlight Swim?  I could hardly pull on my bathing suit quickly enough.

As I unpacked the diaper bag and re-stuffed it with swim diapers and towels, my mom informed me that there had been a few changes to how she attends Moonlight Swims now.  "Oh, really?" I asked, my interest piqued.  "Yes," she replied matter-of-factly.  "I don't swim at the Moonlight Swim.  I dance.  I wear a bathing suit, my body glittah, and sneakuhs and socks.  And tonight, I'm gonna dance with my grand-daughta."

And that is exactly what she did.  If only we could all be so uninhibited.

While Mimi danced with her granddaughter, I had the luxury of swimming laps {by myself!} under the moonlight.  As I backstroked down the length of the Olympics-sized lanes, I aligned myself with the swim team pennant rope to stay straight, and my ears immersed underwater muted everything.  It was just me, the water, and the moon overhead.  I stroked slowly, not wanting to speed up this peaceful moment.  I wanted to bottle up that feeling and bring it back to Texas.

From the water, I could spot my mother across the pool, whisking my daughter across the deck to the Oldies as dusk settled.  My parents danced cheek-to-cheek to their favorite song, "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton, as they usually do. 

At almost closing time, I exited the water and went to find a towel.  My toes were pruned, my hair a tangled mess.  My daughter's eyelids were heavy.  Mom's friends were sitting on the benches watching her, wishing they all had the guts to dance in front of a hundred people in a bathing suit and tennis shoes.  And I knew the evening was nothing short of perfection.

Jersey love: summer = playing outside.

God speaks to me through nature, that is for sure.  I think that's why it grieves me to spend summer indoors where I currently live.  It breathed such life into my soul to enjoy summer outside in New Jersey, spending morning through evening with toes in the grass, swinging with my husband, spending time with my parents who work so hard to cultivate beauty on their piece of land, watching our little girl so contentedly fall in love with nature, too.

She could have played all day with all of Mimi's "critters" - squirrels, rabbits, turtles, birds.  I walked to the very back of the yard and admired my favorite trees, ones with trunks so wide you cannot get your arms around them.  Under those trees, we have buried beloved family cats, dogs, and even a pigeon named Rainbow.  We had badminton tournaments.  I made mudpies and sat on the grass playing my tennis racket guitar. 

It's amazing to be in places that have held you all your life and then to be able to introduce a new little life to those sacred places.

Here are some of my favorite moments...

You give Jersey a bad name.

We are {reluctantly} back from New Jersey.

While I was there, I was struck with the notion that so many people still think New Jersey is just one giant, ugly turnpike flanked by industrial buildings and factories with guidos and guidettes walking the streets.  I'm not sayin' that doesn't exist in Jersey, or that the show Jersey Shore isn't authentic.  Admittedly, I rocked my share of Aqua Net back in the day.  But New Jersey is so much more.  To me, it's...

• Revolutionary war towns
• Boisterous Italian family
• Quaint farmer's markets
• Deep forests with moss and streams and hills
• The best delis and diners
• Walking into town
• A place where summer is enjoyed outside

Every morning, we shuffled outside to enjoy my parents' back yard first thing, drinking coffee and tea while Luci Belle played with all of my mom's yard critters and watched cardinals and orioles and bluebirds gleefully feeding in the morning light.

We felt rain on our skin and took two walks after the rain, just to celebrate it, because we've missed it so much.

I even had purple lips after swimming one evening and left the Madison Pool wrapped in a wet towel with goose bumps on my arms and legs.  We went home and ordered Rocco's pizza for dinner and ate it in our bathingsuits.

That is summer.

So in case you don't believe me, I'm going to show you.  Through a series of short posts, I'm going to share some of the beautiful moments we captured in my home state. 

Until then, I leave you with this photo of our little Jersey girl...

Off to the land where summer is wonderful...

Our little family is leaving on a 7am flight tomorrow morning for New Jersey, where it's thirty degrees cooler than Texas (highs in the 80s, 60s at night).  Thank you, sweet Lord!  I can't wait to lay in the grass, drink the rain, and swim to my heart's content.  And of course, I can't wait to introduce our daughter to my homeland and to party with the Italians! 

More to come...