It was June 24, 2015, and everything was a buzz of excitement as we waited in anticipation to celebrate Piero’s birthday in Detroit! Most of the same group that celebrated Gianluca’s back in February, was once again, joined in Il Volo love, to celebrate the “real” opera singer of the group!

The balloons were in place outside to make sure no one missed where the party was. Red, green, and silver star balloons were waving in the wind to announce his special day. Along with a happy birthday one, of course!

Sharon and her lovely house were the hosts of this event. Everyone started arriving around 6p. Our theme was “make your own pizza” and we had salad from Buddy’s and angel hair pasta to go with it with a very creative tomato sauce! And, how could we forget all the wine! Oh, did I mention cake???

About 6:30p, we decided we better quickly make our “tanti auguri” video for Piero. So, we all gathered around Emilia’s phone and we sang “Tanti Auguri” to Piero and even added some harmony in at the end! Emilia sent it off into Ivolosphereland and it was quickly picked up on a few Facebook pages.

After some more chatting, it was time to prepare the toppings for the pizzas! I put on the Italian apron that Sharon had won at the Gianluca party, and I went to work chopping and prepping the toppings. We fired up the grill – yes, we had pizza cooked on the grill! They actually turned out wonderful and we all enjoyed our individual pizzas, angel hair pasta, salad, and wine. We ate outside in Sharon’s lovely backyard, surrounded by beautiful trees, a few Koi ponds, and a lovely breeze. It was a very beautiful evening for Piero’s birthday.

Of course, earlier in Italy, he was having his own fun at their last concert in Roma, where they gave him a cake, and flowers, and he had his fun with Ignazio!

Later, it was time to cut the cake and it was delicious. We also had some M&Ms custom made with Piero’s picture on them, along with Tanti Auguri, his birthdate, and stars. The M&Ms were in red, white, and green. We also had lots of other Italian themed decorations to go along with the other festivities of the evening.

We were stuffed full of pizza, pasta, wine, and cake, but we finished off the evening watching one of our favorite videos of them – “Il Volo Takes Flight – from the Detroit Opera House!” We never tire of their first performance taped live from Detroit!

By then it was nearing 11p and the party started to break up. Emilia had a really long drive home and a few of us had to go to work the next day. We helped Sharon clean up and Emilia, Ginny, and Donna had gone home. Chris, Sharon, and I were just about to leave when we got a Facebook instant message from Emilia! She was very excited and said that she thinks Piero saw our video on Facebook and gave it a “like!” Well, that just made the perfect ending to a perfect evening for us! All of our hard work and efforts did not go unnoticed by our guest of honor for the evening.   Even though he was thousands of miles away, he was as close as our fingertips!

Chris and I finally left about 12:30am! We were exhausted, but sated, and are looking forward to Ignazio’s celebration in October!

Part II

Since I did not write this story as soon as I had wanted, and as often happens, procrastination pays off, I have some personal accounts from Piero that I can share here to go with his birthday celebration!

As everyone now knows, the guys were here on July 6 at PBS and all of us at the party were fortunate to have also been at the PBS evening with them. A few of the girls, Donna and Sharon, from the party, were also lucky enough to meet them at the airport when they finally arrived. They brought some of the decorations from the party, and they also told Piero about the M&Ms that were made special for his party. He was very excited about seeing the M&Ms and lucky for him, we had each saved one package of them! They told him about the cake and showed him the pictures of our evening. I do have a direct quote from Piero…. he asked, “Who ate the part of the cake with my glasses?” Sorry, I don’t have a answer though – I don’t remember! Lol!

So, at the meet and greet, Donna, Sharon, and I all brought him our saved package of the M&Ms with his picture, etc. on it. I later found out that he was very excited to receive each package and even though when I gave him my package, and it was the 3^rd one he had gotten, he was still very happy, as he showed it to Gianluca! I wonder if they ate them and if he shared? I guess we will never know the answer to that one….