The last day.

 OK...It's actually April 14, and I'm sitting her waiting to get my winter tires taken off as I'm watching it snow outside. Oh the irony. I've been putting together some pictures for the twins to show their class and I remembered I still haven't blogged about our last day in Italy.

We packed that morning. We wanted to be sure we had room for everything in case we needed to get another bag or anything. It turns out we actually left with less then what we came with. Our awesome laundry machine made some of our clothes so dingy we didn't think they were worth saving, and we left all the school workbooks we came with. I'd love to say we'd work on them at thome, too, but I know myself better than that.

We went for a final walk around Florence, a final carousel ride (the pictures look the same as the other 74 rides on the carousel!) and ended up at the Duomo. The kids had been asking all month to climb the dome and today was the day. All 463 stairs.

The climb wasn't all that bad and only took us about 15 minutes. The last few flights were pretty harrowing, though, and the last 10 steps are more like a ladder up to the top. It was pretty scary for the little ones, but when you got up there...

climbing...

almost there...

Yikes!

Wow!

Ooooooo!

Ahhhh!

The view was amazing. It was a beautiful day and we could see for miles. It was really a treat to get to see the city that we had come to know so well like this. The kids were able to point out all the places they knew and find our apartment.

After we climbed down, we went for our last gelato near Santa Croce. We were all pretty tired after all the walking and climbing, so we went home and went to bed pretty early because we had a taxi coming at 7:30 the next morning to take us to the airport.

The flight home went without a hitch. The kids were seasoned travelers by then, and I was much more relaxed because I knew they could handle anything now!