There finally comes a time in a person's life where they actually slow down long enough to look around them and see what they have. That time for me was going into retirement and as my father always said, "Things do happen for a reason". My oldest daughter and her husband moved into our house long enough to get their new place finished and along with them they brought a little lady known as Miss Elliot. I cannot express in words the feelings and emotions that having a one and a half year old running around your house can bring out of you. That alone gave me the drive to write this book. As the title states "Living, Laughing & Learning" we have done it all. Our lives have evolved around hard work which has allowed us to live the life we have. Now is when life really begins.

Mike and Barbara Bivona have danced their way around the world, embracing the colorful rhythms of each country and culture in their travels. Now, Mike, the author of Dancing Around the World with Mike and Barbara Bivona, returns to share more of their globe-trotting adventures in part one of a new travel memoir series. While cruising the islands, they witnessed lava flowing into the surf off the shores of Hawaii and danced on a nightclub floor that once saw the white-uniformed officers of the warships anchored at the naval station in Pearl Harbor. Mike describes the thrill and challenge of learning the intricate steps of the Argentine tango in Buenos Aires and, more importantly, absorbing its proper attitude from master dancers. The brimstone fumes wreathing the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius transported them back in time, as the frozen bodies of the unlucky residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum-as well as the evidence of Romans' lively erotic imagination left on walls and sculptured into clay-inspired numerous colorful conversations. Mike and Barbara's shared passion for art and history has led them to seek out the haunts of other lovers of adventure-Columbus, Ponce de Leon, General Custer, circus impresario John Ringling, and the elderly jazz musicians in New Orleans. Part memoir and part travelogue, this volume offers you a trip around the world with the Bivonas-without ever leaving your chair.