Sette di noi fuori per l'Italia!

Seven of us set off for Italy! I thought about impressing you by doing this entire post in Italian. But, since I don't speak Italian (nor actually write it) I decided it would be too much trouble to fake!

Tomorrow is the big day. My sisters and I will meet up in Chicago mid day. It's going to be fun, tiring, crazy busy but completely EPIC!! At least I hope so. We've never travelled together before. Add to that, we are older and you know how older people have their own quirks. It will definitely be interesting!

I was talking to friends yesterday about families where some members are estranged. I was saying how my family has always been close. But after this trip, that could change!! I think we'll be fine as long as we steer clear of politics. That's about the only thing this family can get worked up about. Besides, there's really nothing good to say about politics on either side these days.

Anyway, I wanted to share this layout since it has a lot to do with the trip we are about to take. The AYM word for April was "when."

"When did we become the "OLD" aunts?" When we were growing up, we referred to my Italian grandmother and her sisters as the "old" aunts. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in that position---except we don't feel "old!" And our "old" aunts were younger than us when we started calling them that!

We plan to toast the "old" aunts on our trip. We're going to visit LaSpezia---the ancestral home. We're hoping to discover places our ancestors frequented. We do know of one church for sure. We had hoped to connect with some family members, but that didn't happen. Who knows? When we get there, we might just uncover something exciting.

Hopefully I'll be able to blog from Italy. But we have such a busy schedule, I might not have the time. We'll see.