by Vicky Carabini

Ciao a tutti! Our Italian entry in the Swallow's Day Parade this past weekend was a huge hit along the parade route! We will now call our entry 'The Italian AWARD WINNING entry' as we were awarded FIRST Place Civic Horse Drawn Float!!!!

Our Italian spirit was present from the moment we headed out onto the parade route with our horse drawn trolley leading the way followed by the impressive array of the 20 regional flags of Italy, a pizza tosser, Venetians dressed ready for Carnevale and students from Fondazione Italia.

Two Sicilian donkeys stole the show adorned with red, white & green flowers from Zoomars. Best of all, Jim Bianchi played the accordion while Dan Occhipinti kept beat with the tambourine played along side our two lovely Sicilian donne dressed sopranos that sang Italian favorites along the entire parade route.

It was a true moving display of all things Italian. Once again Carolyn Franks hosted the post parade party at Zoomars allowing guests to enter her pristine petting zoo for free. Jim and Dan kept us all in high spirits playing Italian music for hours. A special thank you to Trader Joe's for their beautiful antipasto display of salami, cheese, nuts, fruit & bread and to Giuseppe Monaco for bringing his pizza oven serving the best pizza and lasagna on wheels.

Thanks to all of you for supporting this month of movies, St. Joseph's Day Table and of course the Italian entry in the Swallow's Day Parade. None of these events would be successful without your support. A huge round of applause to Lisa Carlson and Theresa Oddo for working the St. Joseph table and to Lisa Daalgard for helping to organize our parade entry. Our post parade party would not have been possible without the generosity of Carolyn Franks and the staff of Zoomars.

Grazie a Voi,
Vicky