good morning. we arrived in venice yesterday...i could go on and on. it is my favorite place so far...it is much more wonderful than you could imagine. everything is more beautiful than i pictured and life seems to move a bit slower here than in the other big cities. we walked around town yesterday and last night heard a real opera, inside a building we were walking past. we also walked past a piazza that was filled with tons of couples dancing, beautiful. our room is the best out of all the places we've stayed. it has wood beam ceilings, is big, and has a rooftop terrace. i have lots and lots and lots of pics to show from the trip. i'm not sure if we'll be on here again before we come home. we come home saturday night at seven thirty. we have had a wonderful time, and are bringing home tons of pics and good memories. this has been the trip of a lifetime.
however, there is truly no place like home. we look forward to coming home and seeing you all. caleb's hat sounds cute and i heard nathan learned to say poppa. miss you all. love you too.ciao for now.

hello again. we're still doing well, and headed to venice tomorrow. enjoying the country roads and life a lot. becca, i am definitely interested in the photobook deal you mentioned. we love and miss you all, be home saturday.

ciao from tuscany. we rented a car this morning in florence and brett was my knight in shining armor as he drove through the very crowded streets of the city to get us to the highway. we drove for about an hour (we may have had a few wrong turns here and there), but then made it to our villa. it is absolutely beautiful. there is a great view, a pool, and the most beautiful terrace outside our room. we are very pleased with the place. we don't have internet there so i am actually writing this from a cafe in greve, a small town nearby.
things are going well, and most exciting of all, we've been married one year today. we're having a four course dinner at the villa tonight. we will be back in touch on tuesday. no worries until then, we're doing great. love you all.

today has been a very good day. we slept in late, and went to a church where famous people are buried. we saw galileo, dante, and michelangelo 'stombs. brett says we also saw the father of accountings tomb, which he says sam will appreciate. next lunch, and laundromat where we quickly washed two loads of clothes. we laid them out in the room to dry, opened the windows, and walked to the accademia gallery where the famous david statue is. you are strictly forbidden to take pictures, but i disobeyed. i snapped two pics of david, and then a lady who works at the gallery saw me and scolded me in italian and glared at me too. however, it was worth the scold, because i got two neat pics of david. lol. we stopped at the supermarket to get some things for supper and are going to relax some at the hotel tonight. the only souvenir we've bought so far is a plastic wall hanging to put pics in for my classroom. i was proud of the fact i asked the lady in the store in italian where they were located because i saw one hanging in the store. she replied and i successfully found what she meant. i will also convince brett to take me for gelato later tonight. tomorrow we drive to the country so i'm not sure if i'll be able to update for a few days. we are excited to get in the pool at the place in tuscany. it is supposedly in the middle of a field. there is always swimming competitions on the tv here, apparently they are having some big competition in rome. after watching swimming, we are ready to go. something unexpected is our sunburns from walking every day. that is the only thing i didn't pack we have needed so far, but we bought some. oh, last though, jack cleared things up for me last night and told me what tripe is. yuck. lol. ciao for now.

we made it to florence. today's first log post went something like this-we got up late, missed breakfast, and missed our train. actually we've been relying on brett's cell phone to use as a watch and we still aren't sure what happened with it today, but the time definitely was wrong or messed up on it because we missed the train we had tickets for. it was an easy problem to fix because they have self-service machines where you can simply change the time of your ticket in case that happens. the train ride was beautiful-it was exactly as you would picture the countryside in italy to look like. we saw a lot of hay and fields of sunflowers. we rode first class and i definitely think it is worth the extra cost. they bring you a snack, drink, and the seats are much, much roomier. after arriving in florence we found our hotel, checked in, and went for a walk. we saw the duomo, a famous done here, and stopped to eat. the menu was in all italian-most are in english and italian. so i ordered tripe, which i thought was a certain kind of sandwich. it wasn't....it was some sort of octopus, squid thing. it was the squishiest food i've ever put in my mouth. i couldn't eat it, so brett was a trooper and ate it for me. he said it was good. after that we napped. tomorrow we get to go to the accademia gallery and see the famous statue of david. not sure what else we'll stumble across. we are definitely ready to get to the beautiful countryside. we love and miss you all.

thankyou so much for all of the comments. we really appreciate them a lot. we are having such a great time, but both miss our families too. i will try to answer all questions-the weather here is very, very hot. we've been trying to get up pretty early in the morning, see some sites, and return around three o'clock to nap and get out of the heat, and then go back out around 7 or so until bedtime......ten or eleven. today we went to the vatican, it was so big and completely overwhelming. we listened to our tour guide for about 15 minutes and then split from the tour-hahaha. i thought i was long-winded. anyway, we got lost, sorta, in the vatican museums for a very long time. you cannot believe all of the incredible, breathtaking art. also, you cannot believe the crowds-not a good place for a claustrophobic for sure. for example, in the sistine chapel we got to the part with the famous ceiling and if you even moved an inch you would bump into someone. it was very, very hot and stuffy and crowded, yet still amazing. we were glad for the experience, and took a lot of pictures. it was just very different than we expected. next we went to st. peter's square, which was a lot bigger than i expected, having only seen it in movies and on postcards. we didn't go in st. peter's church because the line was very long, and in the sun. beautiful outside though, and again, we took pics.
tomorrow we leave for florence, so i will close with a few thoughts on rome. overall the food is ok, but not fantastic-it is pricey though. the gelato is good, we've had it two or three times. rome is very, very, very crowded all the time, even at 11 o'clock at night. the italians are very expressive, passionate people. they are understanding and helpful to us, and we haven't felt unsafe yet. we've also been very smart about our belongings and how loud we're speaking though. the city is full of amazing famous tourist attractions, which i am very appreciative to have seen. however, i think my favorite experiences have been wandering the streets. our hotel is in a very quiet neighborhood which has been a great blessing. our hotel breakfast has been some of the best food we've had here-eggs, cheese, fruit, cappucino, etc. many things are very american here-taylor swift on tv, coca cola, kit-kat bars, etc. the subway is convenient, but crowded and dirty. overall we have enjoyed our rome experience, but are ready to move on. tomorrow we go to florence for two days....we should be able to use internet in the hotel there.
i am coming home with the red log book, lots of pictures and stories. we miss you all very much. tell kyla she can save the curly ribbons for me. love you all.

ciao. ok, despite the cost, i'm on here again because i just can't stand not hearing from people at home. lol. we have walked and walked and walked and walked some more today' lots of walking. i am convinced i'm walking off all this good italian food, and then some. we went to trevi fountain, spanish steps, and another fountain we recognized from the movie angels and demons. we basically wandered a lot today too. i forgot the itinerary i typed up at home, which has actually been a nice blessing. i spent so much time preparing for the trip i remember the important details and it has been nice not to be on a schedule. we had gelato today, and breakfast at the hotel this morning-cheeses, bread, yogurt, fruit, coffee. my favorite refreshing treat so far is an iced cappucino from a sidewalk cafe. we have successfully been ordering and communicating. funny story'today brett was speaking italian at lunch to order and made it two or three sentences until the waitress spouted something off in italian and then he got this goofy, clueless look on his face-she said she thought he knew italian. funny. we have felt extremely safe and even walked around late last night. we are keeping our heads up, especially when crossing a busy street, communicating in english quietly, and acting as if we know what we're doing. it's working so far. we even managed the subway and train station today without any problems. we are taking lots of pictures and have set the timer a few times to get pics of us both. sorry this is so random-too many stories and experiences running through my head at once and this is getting too long. will write again soon, dear husband is at the grocery store getting stuff for a picnic in orange park tonight, which is where you can look out over the whole city of rome. colossuem tomorrow. love and miss you all-thank you for the comments.

hello from italy. we made it just fine and had a good plane ride. neither of us could sleep very much, but we got a bit of rest. once we got here we had a full day, walking around the city, napping this afternoon, and then walking around rome again. so far we have used a bit of italian to communicate and have managed to order food twice. dinner tonight was delicious. i am logging all interesting events in my mini red notebook, which brett thinks is silly. however, i will have many great stories to tell because of it when we return. we ve also taken quite a few pictures. a funny story'we were standing in the passport line at fco'rome airport, and heard a rather loud couple next to us say they were from arkansas. no, we didnt jump in the loud conversation with them, but we thought it was funny. i dont know how to use the space bar or apostrophe on this computer so this is as good as it gets for tonight. the cost is 5 euro per hour for computer use at the hotel so i will probably wait until tuesday or wednesday to write again. we miss you all and love you. ciao p.s.'leave a comment or send an e'mail if you want...i would love to hear from you

Ok, so Brett and I had a discussion about the time difference last night and after some research, we're not sure.

So final fact,

the time in Italy is very different from the U.S. ! :) :)

Final fact:

Italy is 8 hours ahead of U.S. time, in case you were wondering!

Ciao for now!

Blessings:

I found my plain silver wedding band so I can now look "legit" in Italy :)

Brett's boss bragged on how good he did this week to his co-workers and let him leave a bit early, so he's already working on the last final this semester!

I got to see Caleb, Nathan, Daddy, Jana, and Becca today. I was excited to watch Caleb ride the carousel and to see Sam and Becca's new van!

I got Brett an "International Driver's Permit" just in the nick of time today.

Thank-you to everyone for being so excited for us to go on this trip. It makes it that much more relaxing and enjoyable to know everyone is rooting for us to have a good time.

Ciao!

Today I packed, packed, and packed :)

Still a few things to put in the suitcase, but not too much. We are packing light!

Pray for Brett-he is still working on one very long final, has another final to go......and we leave Saturday.

I'll try to post every few days while we're gone.
:)

Salve! (hi)
Come sta? (How are you?)
Sono felice! (I am happy)

Italy and real gelato in five days.

Ciao! (goodbye)

Kinda hard to tell what the pic is, but this is a tree that will be displayed in my classroom next year...The students will write the IB attitude or attribute they noticed a classmate displaying on a leaf and then hang it up..........the orange birds will have the attitudes written on them.

Italy in 9 days!