Belated Welcome to Charlie Lansdale!

Due to being on vacation we are late with posting a welcome message to Edward Charles "Charlie" Lansdale. He was born on August 1st to Ted and Kiki. We visited with him before we left for Italy and again last night. He has already grown a bunch and is a very handsome little guy. We also got to see Addie and Alexis last night. She has changed so much and is all smiles and very chatty. Anyhow, here is a picture of snug Charlie snoozing during dinner last night. Enjoy!

Xenson snd the 21st century

Mobile blogging has arrived to xenson.com and while I can not promise that there will be more posted on the site, I can promise to try.

Additionally, please note that I am working on a conclusion post of our italy trip so stay tooned.

Hopefully, at that time, pictures of the trip will be added to the website too.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer.

Italy, Post 2:

Ok so first things first, this keyboard, as we said last year, is alittle different than our std US keyboards, that being said, I am sorrry for grammer mistakes, I blame my mother for any spelling mistakes (it runs in the family).

Day Three: Still in Positano
Jared and I had the option of sleeping in this morning or traveling south on the boat to Amalfi, being the lazy people, we opted to sleep in. Jessica and her mom on the other hand took the boat and apparently had a great time there. The oldest paper manufacturer is there and I think thats pretty much it's claim to fame, well that and maybe the views (if you want more about the girl excursion, you must chat with one of them).

The men, awoke around 10 am to find breakfast on the balcony overlooking the sea. We'll, I say the men but Jared slept in for another 45 min. Once we collected ourselves and made pretty for the ladies, we walked down the 388 steps to get to the beach and wondered why we decided to take a shower that morning.

Knowing that the women were due in sometime around 12, we headed over to where the boats are due in.....and we waited. Apparently their ferry was late in Amalfi which caused alittle hickup in our meeting up plans....well, when we thought the last ferry arrived form Amalfi, we decided the best thing to do would be to walk up the 388 steps to the hotel room, just incase we missed them. We did just that and to our disappointment, the room was empty.

Cut to chase, (jessica is complaining that I am typing too much, someone please say they actually read this so she sees that a fan base wants this day by day info). We all finally met each other and hit the beach for a relaxing afternoon....ah, we all needed it too.

Blah, blah blah dinner, blah blah blah......food is great, I ate more fish here than ever and they even bring you the whole fish before you eat it to say wether you like it or not! What am I supposed to say, um, it looks alittle scrawny, give me one with some meat on his bones....or, he looks too slippery.....

Day Four: to Rome or bust!
Public transportation becomes your friend outside of the states, enough said.....

Also, it's about 11pm here and I want to read alittle so, of to bed......to fill you in on days Four through six, we go here to Rome walked, ALOT!!!!!!!!, and are now leaving....but there is so much more I can go into detail about....that will have to wait.

Ah, Roma!

Sorry family first for not calling you all to let you know that I am here safe and sound. I haven't even set foot in a store to purchase a phone card to the states, I expect that I'll be able to get one here soon.

Aside from that, our trip thus far has been filled with heat and good times. It's hard not to like sitting on the top of a 200 foot cliff drinking wine from the local vinyards and eating pesce (ok maybe there is an a in there maybe not). Though, I do say, it's hard not to like the view, except maybe if you climbed the 388 steps to get there to eat there to get that view. Ok, so maybe it wasn't 388 steps to eat but it was that many to get to and from the beach, and we made that trip several times.

That was all in Positano which was a treck just to get there.....I'll run you through a quick day-by-day account of things to date.

Day 1 - Boston to Newark to Rome (or was it?)
Ok so our flight out of Boston became a bit of hassle, every flight out of Boston to Newark that night was delayed by several hours, which, of course, made us miss our connection to Rome....an 8:30 arrival into Rome became a 12:30 arrival. I unerstand that to the non-traveller, that might seem inconcequential, however this proved to be a wrinkle in the perfect transportation puzzle we had set for ourselves.

Our nice beautiful boat ride to Positano from Napoli became a train ride to Sorrento and then a bus on the "death road" as Jessica and her Mom dubbed it. Jared and I were quite at easy, well, maybe not but we needed to put on a good show for the ladies.

We finally arrived in Positano at around 10 pm on day 1/2. All of us traveled for nearly 24 hours to get there and lucky for Positano it was a beautiful night.

Day 2 - Positano/Capri
Not put off from the previous day travels, the adventurers in us decided to take the boat from Positano to Capri. Wow, what a boat ride! While we may have struggled with the sea on the way over there, food, we figured, would cheer us up. We were right on that one, we sat alone on a roof deck that had an amazing view of main land Italy, we also enjoyed some wine and did I mention, fantastic food.

Once the lazy food session was over, we took a cab from the main town to....um, I never was good with names, where is Jessica when you need her? Anyway, it was the town on the top of the Island....and up it was! Another "death road" later we reached the peak and found that there was another incredible journey ahead of usA ski lift that would take you up to the former villa of Roman emperors which provided views of the entire island. The whole way up I wondered how the Romans built this Ski Lift but thank god they did, it would have been a hell of a hike up there! (yes, I am kidding, please, it was obviously not the Romans that did it, it was probably there when they got there, why else would they go up there?).

While waiting for the ferry, we rented a small boat and guide to take us to some of the sites around the island, no the Blue cave thingy was closed (Jessica to insert yet another name - got it, Grotto!). We did however, have a fantastic time on that boat. The ride, while bumpy at times, was very very enjoyable and very one on one. Our guide reminded everyone of their Grandfather, very flirty with the ladies and very macho with the men. The pictures from that boat trip are seriously some of my favorite on this trip.

Finally, Jared and I also had time while on the boat to jump in the water and swim around for a bit.

Cut to dinner comment above and end day two.

Day 3 - Saving space for later (must get ready for dinner)

Off to Italy...

As many of you know already, Jessica and I are going to Italy today with her mother and her brother for her 30th birthday. I figured I would post that since we haven't updated this page for awhile and it looks like we won't do it again for some time. We may go to an internet place as we did on our honeymoon but with 2 other people there, we may not find the time for ourselves.

Anyway, We'll be posting pictures when we return.