Hello From Rome!

The Abbotts are in Rome!

We made the long haul to Italy from Dallas! The trip was pretty nice. Kids did great considering how young they are. John slept the entire trip and Christina most of it. We had a few set backs when we arrived at the airport. The carseat was sent to locations that only American Airlines knows and is not telling. Christina and I got busy praying and it finally turned up. :) Then we had to find our shuttle/ Easy breezy..right? Wrong...everybody speaks the native language here...Italiano. There aren't enough lessons in my borrowed italian cd to know how to ask how to find them and the trouble with phrase books is the Italian people talk so fast. But once again prayer comes to the rescue and we found our shuttle that was packed with people. At first I was not happy about that but one of those folks was friendly and spoke good English. Once again God to the rescue. Our driver turned out to be very nice and before we knew it we were at our apt.

I could write an entire book about the drive there in the bus...not a little shuttle van...a proper bus. By that time our english language help was gone and we went down very narrow streets, packed to the hilt with cars, motorcycles and people! The bus driver went down all those itsy little streets in that king kong of a bus without a single incident ...and no one on the street seemed worried! The kids were asleep again, Luisa and I were fading( it was about 10 pm and we had been traveling for about 24 hours) So after the bus driver and Josh unloaded all our luggage that we had packed carefully and being very conservative, we discovered the 4 flights of stairs! Our room was at the very top of course. Don't they make movies about about stuff like this! THAT'S when we knew we did not pack conservative enough! Josh then headed down the street hunting food and water. Pizza and water never tasted so good. :)

We had a fantastic night's sleep and Josh and Luisa headed off the Vatican while the kids and I opted to stay in our apt. and explore locally. We found a great little place for lunch and with the help of the stroller brought back bags of groceries. That worked great till we got to the 4 flights of stairs! I wasn,t thinking about that when we shopped. groan! Johnathan, christina and I hauled them up.. ourselves every step of the way. It was great to have a few staples and soon their mom and dad were back and we were all talking at once about our adventures of the day. I am off to bed for a day of sight seeing tmrw. Maybe I can post a pic on my blog tmrw.

Blessings to all!
Elaine

Italy here I Come!

This is my last week before my trip to Italy and there is much to do to prepare
for my trip. Today it feels like I will never get everything done before the 20th
but each day I am able to cross more off my list. I find myself trying
to imagine what it will be like there. Of course I am never able to totally imagine
it but I know it will be wonderful. I wish Larry was going with us but we will bring back
Lots of stories and adventures to share with him.

I got my keyboard today and this is my attempt at learning to use it. Not too bad.
Who would ever have thought even 10 years ago that I would use my telephone
with a keyboard to write my blog and post it. Amazing.

I think God has many adventures waiting for us in Italy. A time to relax and visit
many holy and historical sites. A time for family and a time for reflection.

I will check in as often as I can. This is my test run with uploading from my phone.

Ciao!

Elaine