This trip really started many years before it began. My sisters and I discussed that someday / someway, the three of us needed to get our mother to Hawaii. Yes, you read that right, we were trying to plan a trip to Hawaii. Hawaii was one of our Mom’s bucket list items of places to visit. The part that pissed me off was that it had been on her list of must see places long before my Dad transitioned into the afterlife back in June of 2007. I was mad at him for not taking her there, well maybe I was just mad that he went and died, but, that is a different story. He certainly had the means / money, but somehow the years slipped by and then I believe that his health and legs just didn’t hold up, so my Mom never did get her trip to Hawaii.

So we (sister Linda and I) started talking about taking Mom to Hawaii. Then we talked to sister Kathy about it and she agreed we should do it. Neither Linda or I were all that interested in going back to Hawaii, but Kathy seemed excited about it and all three of us wanted my Mom to get there. Brother Bill and his wife Susan had taken her to Australia a few years earlier and they had no plans on a trip to Hawaii so we decided it was up to us and we started making plans.

I’m not really sure how it happened, but somehow our little Hawaiian vacation turned into Rome, Italy! What the Heck? How did that happen? (Not sure, but I think my brother-in-law Gary had something to do with it.) Before we knew it, flights were scheduled, hotel rooms booked and here we are, the three sisters accompanied by our 83-year-young Mother starting our trip to Rome!