Thanks so much. I have bookmarked this.

I haven't read it, but you may be able to check it out and confirm or deny some of the assertions.

And if you decide it will work, I'll be happy for you, and would be happy for me too but for the fact that I have 2 new grandbabies, so will not leave the US. IF I didn't, and you were to stay there, I might very well join you!

that would let us have some kind of residency here. It's a long process, but once we get it, we would have a lot more options.

It is such an amazingly lovely place. Great food, great people and an unbelievable landscape.

Grandbabies are going to be an issue for me as well in the next few years, so this would be just a part of the year thing.

You are welcome to visit anytime we are here, ellen.

friends LIVING in Italy!



And might even encourage my older daughter + her son, born in December, to visit with me! I might have mentioned, she studied Italian in college, spent 1 semester in Rome (where I visited her,) and she has the travel bug (which we inherited from my dear Dad!)

I started taking my kids traveling when they were very, very young.

They now love it and can do it on the cheap.

My daughter is going to Nigeria on Wednesday, which is not great news, actually.

She works for the CDC and will be going to work on the ebola project.

I am so, so proud of her, but also afraid for her.

She is not hand on clinical, but it's still a frightening place right now.

But I sure do love that she is doing this.

and we'll all be thinking of her. Thank her for her work, please.

We started traveling with our daughters early too, took our older to Scotland when she was about 3, and the 4 of us drove around France before her First Grade. That was some trip to plan! And we went to a wedding in Poland in 2000, just at our younger daughter's 13th birthday. We extended the trip to Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Genoa, Cinque Terre, and an afternoon in Nice.

I have known many people like you and me who have introduced their children to the new and strange, and I have no doubt that the kids are better off for it.

And then I know people who have never left their home town. Not to put them down, but they have missed out.

I hope to spend whatever is left of my life exploring….. and I hope that I can take my grandkids with me.

Good for you for what you did. It's not easy.

on sending them my email.