Next Up - Italy!

This is just one of the many views we plan to see on our journey to Italy.  Lovely, isn't it.

We board our flight on Tuesday and arrive in Venice via Paris on Wednesday.  All our hotels have been booked in the three cities we will be visiting.  My son, Charles, has taken care of all of this.  He has been multiple times, and wants me to share this magnificent part of the world!  We will be joining he and Jon in Venice and then on to Florence and Rome before returning to our home in Utah.

I have had a great time today deciding which tours I needed to schedule for Kevin and I.  We are going to cram as much into this trip as is possible…lots of fun, family and food and wine.  We are so excited we can hardly wait.  I have taken great pains to forget nothing on this trip.  Passports and other travel receipts and documents are safely stored in my carry on luggage…it is going to be a wonderful experience.

There is so much I want to see in these three cities that it was hard to decide exactly where to begin!  I am an artist at heart and all of this is food for my soul.  Kevin loves history and so the experience brings so much of what he has read about the Medici's and others to life.

I will be blogging/posting as we travel our way through Italy.  I have scheduled a trip outside Florence to Tuscany to visit to ancient cities there.   My son has booked a wonderfully romantic sounding evening for a night in Venice, and we will be seeing Murano (beautiful glass) and Burano (amazingly colorful houses lining the canals) and so much more!

I researched the weather for April in Italy.  Sounds like a great time to visit before the Summer heat and crowds arrive.  I have everything laid out to pack and even contacted my physician about antibiotics to take along in case we catch anything!  I also packed fun stuff like Pepto Bismol, Immodium, etc.  I don't want ANYTHING to get in the way of this being a spectacular trip.

We are closing on our new home here in Utah on Friday, and so that won't be on our minds as we travel Italy.  When we get back, we will hit the ground running to accomplish our move by May 1st!
It really is an exciting time for us and I certainly don't feel my age!

Can't wait to share our experiences and pictures with all of you.  I encourage each and every one of you to travel any time you have the opportunity.  One thing I have learned for sure (and I have been traveling off and on since the early seventies) is that you don't learn anything about other countries and the people and politics there until you GO there.

I am just a little excited, in case you can't tell!  I plan on sharing some new recipes with you too!

See you in my blog when I return!

PEACE, LOVE AND JOY

Packing It Up! AGAIN!!!

Well, it is now March.  In fact, it is bearing down on the END of March.  I have sold my condo on Beautiful Okaloosa Island and have made the decision to become a full time permanent resident of Ogden, Utah.

Yep, the Okaloosagirl who thought she could/would never leave the beautiful Gulf of Mexico behind.  However, I have fallen in love with this amazing place, and besides that my beautiful daughter and granddaughters are here too!

We have actually enjoyed every single minute and new adventure here in Utah.  The people here are amazingly friendly and giving…volunteerism here is beyond belief and people are proud of their home town and work to take care of the environment.

I decided to sell the condo on Friday, February 28th and flew down on Saturday….the first day of March!  They started showing the condo immediately to the tune of two to three times a day!  Dawn and I had to keep leaving because every time we came back, they called to show it again.  By Wednesday, March 5th I had a Contract and we CLOSED on Friday, March 7th! What a whirlwind.

Just before I left to go to Florida, and immediately after calling my Realtor, Mary Ann Miller, I contacted a Realtor here in Utah, Shawna with Cornerstone Real Estate.  I went out to see the some on the Monday before I left for Florida and immediately fell in love with the very first one I saw!  Good grief…come to find out the people who were selling it had just listed it the Friday before!  All of this has been amazing.  The Riley's, family who own the town home, are being transferred to Georgia, from whence we came! What an interesting turn of events.  The home has EVERYTHING I could possibly want and more, including a lovely view of the mountains.  We are sitting right at the mouth of Ogden Canyon and one tenth of a mile from my favorite walking trail along the Ogden River!  I don't believe in coincidence, and know this was all orchestrated by an all-knowing, all loving God who has looked out for me all my life.  Amazing.

So, here we go again, packing up to move for the FOURTH time in two years!  Hysterical! I am becoming an expert at packing.  In addition to this monumental move across town, we are leaving for Italy on April 1st!  This lovely trip to Venice, Florence and Rome is a gift from my son Charles!  What a gift!  We can hardly wait to get there and see all the lovely things Italy has to offer (Kevin is anxious to eat a lot of pasta!).

So in a few weeks I will be posting a lot of pictures from Italy as we enjoy our trip.  I am also excited and somewhat melancholy to say I will be going back to Macon to watch Eric Kline graduate from High School the middle of May!  Melancholy because I can not believe how quickly the last 18 years have passed…but, so proud of the amazing young man he has become!  I will collect my hugs and cry a lot I am sure!

Then I am coming home to get ready to welcome dear friend Roberta Johstono and her sister, Barbara, to Utah and we will be driving to Seattle, Washington and boarding a Royal Caribbean ship to Alaska! More pictures will be forthcoming!  Blog, blog, blog.

I am still deciding about whether to take my lovely, expensive camera with me on these excursions, or just rely on the old reliable iPhone!  I really need to practice with the camera before I go anywhere!
As you can see, the next couple months are going to be extremely hectic ones, but exciting at the same time.  I better get a B12 shot or I won't be able to keep up with myself.

I also started teaching a nutrition and diet class this week in Layton…as if I don't have enough to do!  But, as usual I am better when I am busy!  So I hope I will have lots of pictures and adventures to share with you all in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, I wish you all

PEACE, LOVE & JOY

Linda