The Arrival of the Tyorans

In June of this past year, a group of parents and children jumped into their cars following a little league all star baseball game and headed to one of mine and Anna’s favorite Italian restaurants in Santa Barbara (Via Vai). The purpose of the excursion was to enjoy a great lunch while killing three and a half hours in between double headers. As it turned out, Mark Tyoran a local Realtor in Westlake of over twenty years and the father of one of our players (Spencer) sat next to Anna and I. Over the course of the meal we were asked by one of my fellow coaches Randy and his wife Dianna about the family adventure that we were scheduled to embark upon in just 60 days. Mark sat quietly and absorbed the answers that we gave with a sheepish smile on his face…

Two days later we received a call from his wife Tracy, who Anna had met a few times at the kid’s school and ball field. “We want to know more about your trip to Italy. We’ve often talked about doing something like this and are inspired by your decision to do so”, she said. Within one week the four of us were having dinner at a local restaurant, where we answered the dozens of questions they had. The Tyoran’s arrived with their three children here in Florence one week before Christmas. They plan to live here for six months! Now, how’s that for living by the seat of your pants!

We’ve gotten to know the Tyoran family pretty well in a short period of time (Not having many fellow Americans around can do that to you!) and it’s been simply a blast since they arrived. They seem to be enjoying living here ever bit as much as we do and between the four of us, we are helping each other in discovering the secrets to successful Italian living. The Tyoran’s have two boys (Spencer who is 8 and Brendon who is 6) as well as one girl (Sophia who is 2). Trey and Spencer have instantly hit it off and so have Brendon and Olivia. The four of them ride the bus to school together every day and we have already introduced them to our favorite Italian water park! The nice thing is that they live only five minutes away from us. Not that Anna and I have disliked the significant amount of quality one on one time that we have spent together in the past five months (Especially during the day time), but its really nice to be able to pick up the phone and call our friends about joining us for a day trip to a local village or a long afternoon lunch over a bottle of wine. Case in point was a day in late January when Anna and I returned from the gym and decided that we wanted to drive about forty five minutes North to an area in the Appenine Mountains known as the Mugello. Our objective was to have a nice long lunch in the beautiful mountain environment and to hit the shopping outlets that were in this area. We picked up the phone and called Mark and Tracy and they were “game” for joining us. The four of us had a wonderful day exploring this peaceful landscape even though we all agreed that the outlets reminded us too much of those in Camarillo!

It’s a bit odd that we needed to travel half way around the planet to become friends with a family that resides in our own backyard. The really neat thing about our friendship (Even though it’s in its early stages) is that I already have a feeling that we will be friends for a very long time. There’s a bond that is rapidly growing between us that will be difficult to break. This bond of course is our love of Florence and the amazing and beautiful experiences we are having in Italy. For those that have children, you will likely recall that when you had your first child, you immediately found kinship with other parents of your age who were going through similar adjustments and experiences. This of course fostered the sharing of personal feelings and the advising of one another regarding parenthood. These were people that not only understood you and what you were going through, but they also differed greatly from your friends who had never been through the experience. Living here is not something that Anna and I can fully describe. It’s a feeling that we have inside ourselves that words, photos and stories can not fully portray. The ability to have another family here that can relate so directly to what we are feeling is quite a nice blessing and one that will surely result in a very unique friendship. I’m sure that future pages of Florentine Braheem will have many references to our friends from So Cal.