Gassed up and ready to go

Note to self: If you are planning to travel internationally, remember to renew your passport. In all my excitement over learning that we actually will be taking our Italy trip next month, I completely forgot that John's passport expired in December, mine in January. Oops. (Also, did you know that even a passport with a few months left on it is no good in most instances? Although it is still valid, "they" won't let you leave the country with it because they're afraid you won't be back before it expires. My dad learned this the hard way this week and made a last-minute trip to the Chicago passport office as a result.)

Luckily, buying the tickets for Julia and my weekend trip to Paris in May late last Friday night reminded me that my passport is no longer valid. Less than 12 hours later, I had printed the forms, filled them out (along with accompanying checks), gotten pictures for both of us, and sent them on their merry expedited way, on Valentine's Day, no less. Our new passports arrived today. In celebration, I reserved our tickets to the Accademia and the Uffizi galleries in Florence today (it will be a big museum day since they are both closed 2 of the 3 days we are there). Disaster averted. All systems are go!