I'm a travellin' man...

...made a lot of stops...all over the world.

OK, so the rest of the song doesn't apply, but the travelling part does. Jamie and I are sketching out our summer and fall, and it looks like we'll be on the road a bit.

The big news is that we've booked our tickets to Italy. This is a trip we had originally planned to take last year, but put off for a year after we bought our house. But the trip is now ON!! The big itinerary so far - fly into Rome on September 9th, fly back to Seattle from Milan on September 21. And in between? Well, we have some time to figure that out.

We're certainly open to suggestions from the world travellers in our wide reading audience. The current plan right now is to spend 2-3 days in Rome, and then work in a trip to Florence/Tuscany, possibly Venice, and a few other stops as we head NW toward Milan.

With that trip on the books, we're also looking toward some other trips this summer including:

- A possible visit to Grandma Shafer in early July to coincide with the visit of Scott's cousins. Grandma Shafer turned 90 this past January, so we've been planning to make a visit to Florida for a while.

- Scott's return to Florida in late July for a Microsoft conference. Yes, Florida, twice, in July. Plenty of sticky humidness for everyone!

- A visit to the Bay Area and Napa Valley for Jamie's cousin's wedding in August. This will likely be a fast trip, but hopefully we'll be able to work in a night in San Fran for dinner to visit with some friends.

- A TBD Lake Chelan weekend with college friends. Yes, after 10 or so years, we've finally decided that with all of the kids around that the old Yakima river float might finally merit retirement.

Of course we'll be sprinking in a few Spokane visits I'm sure as well, starting with next weekend for Bloomsday.

It'll be a busy summer again, as we balance being out of town, and hosting in town folks as well. Where does the time go?