A-Z Mondays, "I" is for "Italians!"

Better late than never, right? Hey, it's still Monday where I am...so here goes.

I was contemplating what to do for my "I" post...I mulled over several different ideas yesterday...I came up with Illustration...Imagination, Illumination, Idiosyncrasies, Ideology....you name it, I'd thought about it...but nothing struck me as the right thing to post about, UNTIL I woke up this morning at 3:48am thinking of my new friends across the world, Simona and Marco - the Italians! Of course! The timing was perfect! Why hadn't I thought of it before! Today was the perfect day to tell you about my new wonderful Italian friends!

Simona and Marco, (if you don't already know these incredible blogging buddies), are Mom and Dad to three gorgeous Golden pups, Paco, Milo and Maya, in Asti, Italy. Over the last couple of months, Simona and Val of My Boo Bears had become very close, and Val invited Simona and Marco to come and vacation here in San Diego, and stay with her. Simona and Marco decided to come, and I got the benefit of meeting them, since Val is my neighbor and lives right across the street!

Simona and Marco arrived in San Diego late the evening of Oct. 23rd...just in time to rest up and come over for our Halloween party the next night. It was perfect timing! I'm pretty sure they thought we were all crazy that first night, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and get a kick out of all of the crazy people they met that first night.

The next day, as we recovered from the party, Val, Simona and Marco headed just north of San Diego, to Encinitas, a lovely beach community, to a fantastic beach house Val and rented for the week. Together, along with Golden Samantha's family, who also made a long trek to come and visit (from the Bay area), they spent a wonderful week exploring, sight seeing, and relaxing in the gloriously perfect fall weather. We all got together for a delicious dinner at a swanky restaurant mid week, and had a wonderful time chatting about (what else!) our Goldens! Between all of us we have 10 Goldens! Incredible!

On the following Saturday, Halloween day, Simona and Marco joined us at the Golden Costume parade and party I'd organized for our Golden group. They got a kick out of seeing so many Goldens in costume - there was literally every size, shape and shade you could imagine! I was sure to give them a special introduction to the group - and I was just so tickled that they came to the meetup. What a pleasure it was to have them join us! KBL, another blogger buddy, Golden group member, and wonderful friend was also there, and bought Simona and Marco some raffle tickets. It was so cool when Simona's number was called first, and she got to pick a special gift to bring home to her fur babies!

The entire day was a blast, and I felt truly honored that they took the time to come to the meetup.

The next morning, Simona and Marco headed north to Los Angeles, to visit with even more blogger buddies! They spent two and a half days seeing the sites of LA, everything from Universal Studios, to the Hollywood sign, to the famous streets of downtown. They thoroughly enjoyed their world wind tour!

They arrived back in San Diego Tuesday morning, in time to return their rental car, take a quick swim, do a little site seeing, and have a nice dinner before their evening flight home.

Take a little swim? Yup! That's what I meant about glorious fall weather. Our pool was 74F. and Simona decided it was warm enough to take a swim with the dogs. Where else can you swim on Nov. 3rd without freezing your buns off? It was so fun seeing her enjoy herself so much!

After her swim, we headed out for a bit, as I mentioned yesterday...to the Cabrillo National Monument, and the tide pools.

It was a fast, fun afternoon, and the only thing that could have been better was to have been able to have more time to spend together!

The visit wound up with an awesome dinner, and long, warm hugs goodbye.

It was a visit I will never forget, with new friends that I look forward to spending many more vacations with!

Così lungamente per ora i miei cari amici, spero di vederlo ancora presto! (I know, my Italian is terrible!) Ti amo tutti!

If you'd like to see what other bloggers are doing for A-Z Mondays, be sure to stop by Jen's blog here.