God sometimes gives us unexpected gifts. Our gift has been a grandson who enlivens our lives and makes retirement very different than the one we anticipated. He is a special joy. And that's "Casey." In 2006 we fulfilled our dream of living in Italy for a year. It was every bit as wonderful as anticipated. This blog begins in 2005 as we prepared for that experience. Since then we have explored many places together. That's the "Travel." And finally, I am a person of opinions--spiritually, politically, on just about anything and that's the "Other Stuff." Welcome to my blog.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

We're Off to Bella Italia--Again

Home is beckoning and we will be there soon--real soon.

We left this morning from San Diego to San Francisco to Frankfurt to Firenze. Ken and I are excited but it doesn't compare to Casey's anticipation. His friends are calling to him. He doesn't know that Camilla will be waiting at the airport--what a reunion that will be. Although, I expect that after all the anticipation, e-mails this year, snail mail and little packages, they will find themselves a little tongue-tied at first.

When we first arrived for our wonderful year, they did not have a common language and so they interacted by hitting the each other with balloons--ones that filled our apartment when we opened the door. It was a great welcome making us feel wanted and at home immediately. The balloon relationship continued for quite a while.


July 2006

Now I think all it will take is a dip in the pool and they will pick up right where they were last July. Two children with shared souls.


July 2007

So--we are in the air now..dining on wonderful plane food, lulling ourselves to sleep with muzak, pretending to sleep.

Hopefully all the flights will connect, our luggage will arrive along with us, anticipation will be over and we will be back on the vineyard in Greve-in Chianti--our home.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How exciting!!!

And I love the balloon relationship, we could all use at least one of those in our lives. My friend (and minister) is a huge balloon fan - at our recent Sunday School closing, the kids lured her outside, pelted her with water balloons and raced away laughing...without missing a beat, she grabbed some balloons herself and took off after them!

Gil said...

Hi,

You guys will probably be there when you read this. I hope you had no problems on the way over. We will be leaving JFK Monday night and heading to Naples.

Anonymous said...

Ben tornati. Davvero.

Jane said...

Gil, yes, we are here!
Anne, there were balloons at the airport.
Judith, I need my dictionary or Casey--I am ashamed!