Day 1 - The Trip Begins

SLC – NYC - Rome

            Today marks the beginning of the trip we’ve been dreaming of now for 5 + years, ever since President Monson announced the Rome, Italy temple.  However, we been and actively planning only for the last year.  Lara’s been hoping to return for 20 years now, ever since 1992 when she returned from her mission.  We managed to farm out our 4 children living at home, Emma and Sydney will be at Grandma Fraziers, Charlie will be at Bonnie Burtons, and Maren will be with her friend Jane Coates.  Stewart is in Spain on his mission.  All the schedules have been organized, all the hotels reserved, all the wills and legal documents updated, and so we are off.

            We will be traveling with 3 other couples; Jeff and Sara Brunken, Jodi and Rich Ludlow, John and Katie Graham.  Although everyone has given their input into the trip, the bulk of the logistics, itinerary, tours, reservations, etc have been planned by us.  It’s been a fun part of the trip experience.  However, there’s a bit of pressure hoping that everything will turn out and that everyone will enjoy 17 days of togetherness.  Lara is also hoping that her Italian will all come back, she’s been practicing now for several weeks with CDs in her car and by reading the Book of Mormon in Italian.

            We are all arriving in Rome on Saturday on 3 separate flights.  After seeing everyone at the SLC airport we hopped on a plane with the Ludlows and Grahams while the Brunkens jumped on a different flight.  For some reason, our layover in NYC ended up longer than the Grahams and we waited for our Alitalia flight – which for Lara was the beginning of our Italian experience since everything was in Italian.