Just a taste.

I still need to weed through the photos and compose a post from our trip to Italy, so hopefully this will tide you over for now. Here is the four of us outside of the Coliseum in Rome - definitely one of the highlights of the trip.


Those two wonderful people on the right of the photo are my lovely, gracious parents. The two people on either side of the four of us are real Gladiators. The guy in the background wearing the brown shirt is a jerk.

You'll notice that we are wearing pants. That's because after the Coliseum we were headed to St. Peter's Basilica, in which you are not allowed to have your shoulders or knees exposed. Clearly this picture was taken early in our Coliseum excursion because by the end, my sleeves were pushed up and my pants were rolled up, because it was a cool 108 degrees that day (no joke) and we were wearing JEANS. Apparently every one else knew that they could wear shorts and bring pants to change into. We will remember that for next time.

On the upside, through this tour group we were on (Tauck - look them up, they were fabulous. I couldn't imagine taking a trip like this on our own), we were able to walk right past the line of people who probably waited two hours in line just to buy tickets. We were total VIPs on this trip, it was awesome!

More to come...

P.S. I HATE wearing flats!

New York, New York

To say that our trip to New York was amazing would be an understatement. It was downright perfect! For only being there for 2 full days, we were able to do and see so much. With the Yankees game and tour and David Letterman(!), that alone was a lot, but we were also able to visit Times Square and Ground Zero and we still had time to conquer the public transportation system, visiting 3 boroughs in 2 days.

New York City is a fantastic city. I could spend days just standing in Manhattan watching the people and soaking up the excitement. I'm sure you could spend a lifetime there and still never see everything that it offers. I am very much pining to return. I hope it's not another 11 more years before I go back.

*I have Dave news, but I am not blogging about it yet because I don't want to spoil the news in case some people read it before I can tell them. But trust me, it's good stuff. You'll want to come back and read about it.

Pack it up, pack it in.

So tomorrow we take off for NYC. We’re staying in the lovely (I hope?) borough of Queens. (I quite like the word ‘borough’.) We’ll be 4 crazy midwestern kids left to our own devices in the man-swallowing metropolis of New York. It’ll be nothing if not an adventure, all activities aside.

The last time I was in New York, it was 11 years ago. I went on a bus trip with some of my family. We saw Broadway shows, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and went to the top of the World Trade Center. Interesting. I wonder how much of it I will remember once we're there. If I had my Mom's keen sense of direction, I would remember exactly where everything is and how to get there. Alas, I do not have that talent. Not even kinda.

I'm excited for all of it. Everyone is. It should be a blast.