Today is a very meaningful day for all of us because it was 20 years ago today that my dad passed away. It seemed very fitting that this was also our first full day in Rome. He would have been so happy to know that we made this trip together in celebration of my mom's 75th birthday.

    Today we spent the day at the Vatican and St. Peter's basilica. How amazing to be able to view some of the greatest masterpieces known to man.

    We had a great dinner and then spent the evening on the Spanish Steps where we met lots of great people and performed some well loved American music.

Well after a pretty crazy day, we went on to have an extremely enjoyable evening. We walked down to the Trevi Fountain then down to Piazza Navona. We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant called Tucci. The night was perfection with delicious food and wine and wonderful music. The beautiful weather was the icing on the cake.

We enjoyed a perfect flight from New York to Milan. From there we took a train to Rome and then had to take the metro to our hotel. This is where things started to get interesting. While on the metro, an Italian man starts telling me to be careful and that he saw a girl trying to open up my backpack. This made us a little paranoid so when we got off the train we checked all of our belongings and all was in order.
    To exit the metro, we had to ascend a really long escalator that seemed to go on forever. About a third of the way up, the escalator stops and here we all are, five woman with backpacks and suitcases needing to get up another hundred steps. My instinct was to turn around and go back down so we could use the working escalator, but everyone wanted to continue up.
    There seemed to be no one else around except 2 guys and a girl who proceeded to try to grab our bags to help us up. We were concerned and kept telling them that we didn't need help, but they weren't taking no for an answer. The girl focused on Julie and just kept trying to grab her suitcase to carry it up the escalator. Finally, we made it to the top and they were gone.
    All of our bags were zipped up and seemed secure so we took the short walk to the hotel. When we had to present our passports at the hotel, Julie realized that her wallet was GONE! This meant that her cash, credit cards, license and passport were gone as well. What a way to start our vacation.
    We immediately headed over to the American embassy who told us we had to get a police report. We then walked a few blocks to the police station where we were taken into a sketchy back room. Once there, we explained what happened. The officer picked up a passport and started to read the name, "Julie Ann Teresa"? We said, no - but were looking at each other thinking what were the odds that the name was Julie. He then picks up a second passport and says, "Julie Erbe". We were in shock and Nancy almost fainted. He then produced the wallet, credit card, license and everything else that was in the wallet - except the cash. Luckily she only had about 80 euros.
    Who would believe that in the first 5 minutes in Rome we would get robbed and in the next 5 minutes we would get almost everything back.
    We all learned a very valuable lesson and feel very lucky that this story had a happy ending!!

     My beautiful mother just turned 75 years old.  One of her dreams has always been to visit Italy.  This year, we are taking her on the vacation of a lifetime.  My two sisters, my mom, my aunt and I are all going to Italy for two weeks.  We have been talking about this trip for the past 4 years and have been seriously planning it for the last 6 months.  After all this time, it's almost hard to believe the trip is only two days away.  Our plan is to visit Rome, Sorrento, Positano, Florence, Venice and Milan.  Follow along as we create wonderful memories and make dreams come true!