We interupt this regularly scheduled blog...

I'm leaving in about 3 hours for the airport, flying to beautiful, sunny...St. Louis. I'll be there for one week for work, returning next weekend. With our impending move back to paradise Italy, this stupid conference comes at a bad time as I should be spending my time getting things ready for the move but I'll just have to bite my lower lip and get through it.

See everyone next week...

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? SI!

Some of my hardcore readers may recall how I was unbelievably screwed out of my old job in Italy over two years ago. You may recall how devastated I was and how I have spent the past two and a half years here trying desperately to get back down there somehow, someway, with no luck.

Well it has finally happened. We are going home.

They had posted my old job way back in June, I applied and was notified that I made the referral list in mid July but have been on pins and needles since then waiting to hear if I would get selected or get screwed again. This was my last chance. If I had not gotten selected this time, the dream would be over and I would accept the fact that we would never return to the land that we love so much. In the past few weeks I had heard whispers that I had a good chance of getting selected but I would not allow myself to get my hopes up because I could not take the heartbreak of getting passed over yet again. So imagine my excitement and pure, unadulterated joy when I got the phone call this morning informing me that I have been selected for the position! The impossible dream has come true! I have a ton of paperwork and documents to do before we go back but if all goes well we should be back in paradise sometime in November.

You cannot possibly imagine how excited I am. You think you can imagine but trust me, you can't. In the coming days and weeks I'll be posting more updates on Italy but for now I am celebrating with a silky smooth Barbera d'Alba and some Grana Padano. The wife and the X Man are excited as well as the X Man will be starting in the Italian school when we get there. Giampietro has already told us that he plans on taking the X Man to school each day.

Life is good...and about to get so much better!

Some pics from Luca's first trip to Italy

Luca meets Giampietro, Agnese, Monica, Luca and another Luca...

We're back from Italy.

Yay.

Guess where we're going tomorrow...

We're taking off right after work, staying in the Austrian Alps tomorrow night and should arrive in paradise (aka Italia) sometime Saturday morning. As usual I plan on doing some fly fishing on the Brenta River in Bassano dal Grappa, eating plenty of pizza, pasta and panini, drinking plenty of vino buono, visiting all of nostra amici (our good friends), spending a day in Venezia visiting with our Venetian friends Denise, Theresa and Michelangelo, and of course watching a lot of calcio (soccer). We'll be staying with Giampietro and Agnese's house and you cannot imagine how anxious and excited they are to meet little Luca.

I'm so excited to get there that I'm already dreading having to return to Germany.

Luca is Baptised.

This past Friday we did Luca's baptism at the base chapel. In a strange coincidence, the Chaplain who did the X Man's baptism 4 years ago happens to be stationed here now so we had him do Luca's as well. Virginia's best friend from back home, Bhing, and her husband Toni are Luca's godparents - Toni is a German from the city of Darmstadt which is only about 30 minutes away and they were here with their 2 kids visiting his family so we took advantage of the opportunity to do the ceremony while they were here. Of course, the real party was afterwards, we had a huge reception at our house. Virginia had been really wanting to do a big party with tons of food and man did we ever. Bhing came over the day before and they cooked all day, then they cooked all the next day and were joined by another Filipina friend of Virginia's named Fely and later on by two more Filipina friends of Fely. When we got back from the church, there were two more Filipinas in the kitchen that I didn't even know. I've never seen so much food in one place but it's just as well as we had probably around 50 people over plus a dozen or so kids. Since I knew there would be plenty of kids, I bought a pinata and hung it up on our terrace and it was a huge hit. Overall, it was a fantastic night, one of the best we've had since we came to Germany. Here are some pics (the last picture is Bhing and Toni)...

Sarah Palin

Seriously, I don't care what anybody says...this woman is HAWT.

Couple new pics