Some pictures of where we will be living.

These were all taken with Texas Harry's camera.So these are NOT my pictures!! hahaha but I thought I'd share what the town we're moving to looks like and pictures of the house we will be living in.  The contract hasn't been signed yet but Richard seemed fairly sure that it would all work out.

The first few pictures are in and around the piazza in Basiglio(Bah-see-lee-ooo)

AHHHHHH PIZZA!!! hahahaha

And now the house, this is the living room coming in from the front door I think. Lots of shelves and leather couch so at least Reese can't stain it like she did the last one in Vancouver!!! The people in the picture work at the cafe that the landlords own, and are living there at the moment.

Door to the side goes to the terrace and then backyard

To the right is the main floor bathroom, only shower in the house, currently getting a new shower enclosure...and might need a new curtain too :)

THE BOX aka the garage, which of course will be empty of all of that random stuff when we move in...it has a manual lift/slide door! :)

The tavern style kitchen in the basement. The door frame to the right of the picture goes out into the garden. Door to the left is a pantry. Cooking with gas, which I've NEVER done before!!!

The terrace on the left and the backyard is fenced/enclosed! To the right is the second floor bathroom, so Reese's bathtub!!

What will be used as our guest room, so study it well friends and family :)

To the left is looking into the rest of the complex, the other photo will likely be Reese's room as it already has a low to the floor single bed. Perfect, just need to check safety on some of the other furniture now!!

Our bathroom in the master room up in the attic!!! His and Her sinks!!

Jacuzzi tub!!! And yes folks, that thing in the lower left corner is indeed a BIDET......and no, I have never used one and have no idea how you go about doing it. Maybe google can tell me!!

Our room and the permanent drawers, so lots of storage

The master room, might have to see how the bed works out!!! Big skylight can be opened, kind of cool :)

I dislike my husband a little today :) ( you will too when you read this!)

So today Richard and Ken got on a plane VERY early in the morning and flew to Paris for the day. Now if you're not big into sport you may not understand why they did this, but if you're a fan of cycling I'm sure you know why.
That's right, my husband was in Paris today to watch Lance Armstrong finish his last Tour de France.

Can anyone say "JEALOUS!?"

Because I am green with envy over this, I would have LOVED to watch Lance finish on the Champs de Lysee today. How AWESOME is that!!!!!
Richard said the crowds were INSANE there though. I REALLY hope he took a lot of pictures!!!!

We MAY have found the new Burwell Abode!!

Richard went and looked at places to live yesterday. After checking them out our #1 pick was still the top choice. It far exceeded what I expected in a place to live!! It has a dryer(YESSSS) and air conditioning(AHHHHH) and bug screens(so we won't be covered in red dots) and a box(yes that is a garage to the rest of you!). Its a three bedroom and three bathroom house, with a tavern style(basement) kitchen, a backyard(HALLEJULAH!!) and a park across the street. Its in a gated community with cobble stone streets!! AND...most important of all, its in our price range ;)
Richard met the owners of the place, they own the Bar(which in Italy is like a coffee house) around the corner and the husband used to play ice hockey for Milano Devils!! He played hockey in Milan with Yari Kuri after he'd come from Edmonton!! How cool is that!?! SO.....this means he speaks fairly good English which is a bonus in a landlord over there :) We've told the estate agent we'll take the place and hopefully it can all be wrapped up this week sometime. The shower needs to be fixed and the price needs to be agreed upon since the internet had a different price than the estate agent told Richard.
Keep your fingers crossed for us, this place sounds PERFECT!!!

Richard has made it to Milan, already having phone issues!!

So Richard made it to Milan and sent me the number to call his hotel room. It just rang and rang with no answer for me and didn't ring at all on his end!! So then he gave me the number to the front desk and I called that twice and no answer. Now we're trying to get the phone card working from the other end so he can call me. Ahhhhh European phone systems.
Just spoke to Richard, despite me telling him numerous times that he needed a 1 Euro coin to get a luggage trolley in Milan airport he arrived without one and the change machine was broken(as apparently it usually is!) and he had to haul all four of his gigantic bags through customs and out to the taxis all by himself...yuck.
We were warned NOT to take the guys standing by the airport doors' taxis. So he went and found the official taxi stand. It was a 35 Euro trip to the hotel and he's all checked in and ready to go.
Tomorrow he is meeting our estate agent in the afternoon to look at places one of the other guys Ken is tagging along too. Can't wait to hear how that goes!!!!
Looks like we've potentially sold a few more things off our list, not sure about the car though. Someone is interested and said they'd get back to me tonight with an offer. Hopefully its over what we want or I'll have to say no!!! ahhhhhh the joys of selling off all of your worldly goods :)
Richard is going to take pictures of the places they are looking at tomorrow so hopefully I'll get an email full tomorrow night.
Its hot in Calgary tonight, but apparently its BRUTAL in Milan!!!

And one flies the coop

So Richard leaves for Milan today!!! He flies at 1pm, we'll be heading to the airport in a few hours. His boss wants him to go to Paris this weekend to watch Lance finish his last Tour de France. HOW JEALOUS AM I!?!?!?!?!
He's meeting our estate agent on Sat to look at the two places we liked and hopefully he can choose one and get them all over fixing it up. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to have a dishwasher, I'm probably not going to have a dryer or airconditioning and I might have to learn to cook with gas!!!! The big sell on the rental places there is that they have bug screens in the windows!! hahahaha apparently bug screens are NOT common in Italy and if you can't afford screens you either rig something up or sleep under one of those Out of Africa bug canopies above your bed!!
I did a tour of the village that we want to live in on Google Maps and it seems nice, small but nice. I was happy to see an english speaking hair dresser in the piazza...or at least I'm assuming with a sign like Angela's Hair Design, someone there speaks my language!!!!
I also found the Milano 3 Sporting Club in Basiglio which has child minding and I don't care what it costs I'm having a membership!
All right, better go get ready to eject the first Burwell on his Italian adventure, Stay tuned!

And so it begins......the paperwork

So apparently getting your dogs to Italy is harder than it sounds. I'm slightly annoyed at the moment that I ok'd a rabies titre on Cadbury in a panic only to find out that we didn't need it........$450 later. I seriously wanted to throw up when I heard it was unneccessary. Other than that minor mishap everything seems to be trucking along.
Richard's HR is all over the move and we are hoping to move to a little place south of Milan. We've actually found the perfect place, it has a backyard and everything, but we have to wait for Richard to be over there now!! Hopefully he goes next week sometime. At least we're not going to have to be apart as a family for the full 6 weeks now though. By the time he gets over there it will be more like 3 weeks! This is assuming that Reese and I go mid-August. We will be leaving then unless my great aunt needs chemo/radiation and if she does we will stay to help her out.
We have been using an estate agent named Maria and she seems very helpful so far.
Richard got his medical done today and I ordered all the replacement certificates that I need to get my British passport since this will make staying in Italy much easier for all of us! Reese will get hers too at the same time.
The Italian lessons have stopped, I REALLY need to focus on this or I'm going to have a self-inflicted meltdown when I get there and can't speak to anyone!!!
We are now in the process of selling off everything that doesn't need to be stored or taken with us :) Fun fun