One, Little Two, Litttle Three Litttle "Tosi"es

Madelyn and her Bis Nonna (Great Grandma)

Four Generations of Tosis'

The Tosi Clan Left to right

Front row: Gina, Arianna, Gabriella, Nonna Trudy, Valerie, Madelyn, Daneen

Top Row: Gino, Amadio, Nick, Vince, and uncle Gino's Russian friends.

Mount Vernon

The girls hanging out with G.W himself

The front of Mount Vernon. I wish I could have had an unobstructed view but they were setting up for a naturalization ceremony that took place on the Fourth of July.

Gina, Gabriella, and Madelyn in the Pleasure Garden.

The Fleur-de-lies shrubs show the French influence the Custis family had on the area.

Slave Quarters

The view of the Potomac River from the Back of the house.

We were loving the cooler Virginia weather!

We are in the circle drive in front of the main house.

The separate main house kitchen.

Washington/Custis Family Tomb. Its actually Washington's second tomb, his body was moved from the decaying cellar like tomb on the grounds and moved to a more scenic and grandiose tomb where his son lays in rest next to him.

Most people assume that George Washington was a rich and famous General. Although he was a brilliant military leader, he was broke when he married Martha Custis Washington, who happened to be the richest family in the colonies at the time. It was the Custis family who owned Mount Vernon and maintained its up keep.

I just love taking Madelyn to as many historical sites as we can visit. It maybe the history nerd in me but we had a blast taking my sisters out for a fun outing, although there was a three hour wait for the house tour, we all had fun strolling around the beautiful grounds enjoying some cooler weather.

Angela's Wedding

Madelyn had so much fun being the "Flower girl"--well that's what she called herself. Thanks Christina for indulging her fantasy.

Waiting for the wedding ceremony to begin at the Botanical Gardens in Fairfax Virginia.


Angela and Uncle Gino

Mr. & Mrs. Wes Morrison

Michael show off his artistic skills.

Tosi Family

Uncle Gino and myself

All of the Tosi in once place!

My cousins- Angela and Christina

Checking out the Koi pond, she wanted to "swim with the fishes"

Uncle Gino dancing with all the Madelyn, Gabriella, and Arianna.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Uncle Nick and Madelyn boogie'n down on the dance floor

Look at that handsome little brother of mine!

After two days of traveling and enduring the plot from Trains, Planes, Automobiles, we flew into Virgina just in time to change and make it to the wedding of my cousin Angela Tosi to Wes Morrison at the Botanical Gardens in Fairfax Virgina. Beautiful as you can see from the pictures. It was was so excited to see my cousins, Angela and Christina! The last time I saw either one of them was right after Madelyn was born. And this was the first time that my Uncle Gino or Aunt Greta had ever meet Madelyn. It was so much visiting with them and show off my precious pride and joy. But the dance floor proved to provide the most entertainment as Madelyn hardly ever wanted to leave the floor except to go look for the fish. She loves to dance and had fun playing with my sisters as well.

Best Wishes, Angela and Wes!

Stranded in Atlanta

Downtown Atlanta


The Jazz Festival "Winedown Wednesdays" in Centennial Park


In the CNN Plaza


We never had any intentions of spending a few days in Atlanta Georgia, but Delta Airlines had a different itinerary in mind. Michael, myself, and Madelyn were en route to Washington D.C and Virginia for my cousin's Angela's wedding. We happily left Dallas with our boarding passes ready or our lay over in Atlanta. It was not until we arrived in Atlanta did Delta decide to cancel the flight due to a lack of passengers to Charlottesville, VA. They automatically rebooked us for two days later, putting all of us on three different flights. Yeah, like that's going work for a three year old, yet alone making it to the wedding the next day. It took four hours in line with the customer care representative just to get us rebooked for the next morning. Oh did I mention that they were not going to provide a hotel room. By this point I was anything but polite and much more in the pissy mood. I do have to say its funny now that Michael, kept telling me to "Get, EM", as he stood behind me as I negotiated with the service agents! Finally after waiting another hour and demanding to speak to the manager did we get a crummy hotel room and meal vouchers.....and now the kicker...They LOST OF OUR LUGGAGE! So were stranded in Atlanta with no luggage for two days in a crummy smelly hotel room with a cranky sleep deprived three year old. So what else do you do with nothing to do......sight see! After pouting and realizing all the screaming and yelling was not going to get me there that evening, but it did make me feel better, I decide that it was better to make lemonade with the lemons that Delta delt us.


I wish that we had gotten out to see more earlier in the day, since many sights like the Cola-Cola Museum close at 5pm. We took the cheap sight seeing tour the MARTA (aka, the subway) into downtown and walked around and saw many of the downtown attractions like the Underground and the CNN towers & museum and even enjoyed a Jazz Festival happening in Centennial Park.

Luckily I packed extra clothes for Madelyn in my carry on, so she was just fine with this new hotel adventure. To ease our inconvenience's, Delta gave us a toiletry bag and a size medium tee-shirt to change into--yeah like that did any good for us. We finally made it into Charlottesville the next morning and I was ready to blow a gasket when our bags weren't there. Almost in tears I go up the baggage claim counter to file a missing bag report, when the nice guy says oh wait, I have your bags here, they flew them specially last night. Relived, but almost even more upset, because it they can fly our luggage the night before, why could they fly us with our bags.

Morale of the story: Avoid Delta Airlines!!!!

PS. Our return flight was delayed three hours because they forgot to schedule a pilot...arg!