Umbria

We picked a rental car and got out of Rome with no hitches (one might think we are getting good at this by now!). We drove about an hour and half north to the Umbria region where we had rented a villa for two weeks. Two weeks is a big deal for us. We realized that over the last 12 months we have only been in 4 places for two weeks - the campervan, Cambodia and Swaziland (which is sort of cheating because we were there a week, left for a week and then returned for a week) and Barcelona. Mom & Dad have talked about renting an Italian villa ever since Dad proposed in Italy 19 years ago, so to say we are excited is an understatement. We also wanted to be remote and hoped to spend time processing, chatting, and truly relaxing we feel like we have had a pretty hectic pace for some time. Its amazing how much more fun it is to unpack knowing you don't have to redo it for 14 days as opposed to 5. An additional bonus was that the stone work and architecture had similarities to our own home, which was a sweet surprise. We are caught off guard a bit with just how much home is tugging on us we near the end of the trip.

The first night we arrived Italy was playing Germany in the European Cup quarterfinals and we were excited to watch. Upon meeting our home's owner though, we learned that they cancelled the TV subscription and the game was not an option in the house. So we figured we head into town to watch following her instructions to "follow the noise". We drove into Civitella del Lago and tried to grab a pizza but the small restaurant was full. We walked around and learned that in the center of town the game was being shows from a projection tv on a wall and one family was setting up to sell pop and microwave popcorn. With some broken Italian/English (not a lot of English was spoken in the remote areas) we were welcome. We went back and ordered some pizzas to go and watched the game with locals. This was an exhilarating experience as soccer here, of course, is a big deal. We were the only blond heads in the crowd and SJ was the only person of color, so we stood out to say the least. The game went to OT and then proceeded to penalty kicks and then sudden death penalty kicks with Germany finally winning on the 9th kick, thus ended our home country victory streak (NZ won the rugby world cup and Barcelona captured La Liga both while we were in country, so naturally we must be a local good luck charm). By the time the game ended it was midnight and we crashed hard in our new residence.

Walking the streets of Civitella del Lago before game

Wall where the game was projected

We are literally the only blond folks in the crowd

Game once the sun went down

Besides that little outing we barely left our villa for the next week, enjoying the pool, books and quiet, except all the noise that our children seem to make at just about every breathing moment. We occupied each day with working out (long overdue), laying in the sun, reading books and cooking. Yes, we spent a lot of time cooking and it was a real treat to enjoy some long-missed recipes from home like whole-made cinnamon rolls and lemonade but we also tried our hands at many new Tuscan style of eats. Our house had its own true wood burning pizza oven, which we used several times. This requires about two hours of prep to get it heated properly and cooks up amazing pizzas - there may be one of these in our future at home :). We also tried our luck cooking meat in it which came out quite delicious as well. The boys would then be in charge of clean up (which worked some of the time at least) while mom and dad sat and watched amazing sunsets.

Wood-fired Italian pizza? YES Please!

Pasta dinners

Fresh lemonade

Our oldest specializes in homemade cinnamon rolls

#2 enjoys the cinnamon rolls more than anyone else

Many evenings we dedicated to watching a slideshow of photos one country at a time and reminiscing about just so much we have accomplished. It shocks even us to consider and was a good to process and remember all the various aspects of this multi-faceted trip.

Our other monumental task was dealing with the looming details of the future. It is amazing what being gone a year affords you in terms of not dealing with the mundane details of American life. We are already overwhelmed with many of the details of returning home and all that comes with it. At this time, we only have two calendar events and while here both hit conflicts - ugg.

Health Insurance, which should be easy with Obamacare (right?), is proving one of the most challenging because our home state does not believe we left since we did not sell our home. This means that they may not let us enroll in insurance until January 1. The federal government says no problem and that our state is supposed to follow their guidelines but we don't exactly fit into one of their check-boxes which is throwing a wrench into things. Ironically, had we sold our home, this would not be a problem. So the wonderful law that we call Obamacare, which is designed so that people have insurance may actually penalize us for not having a product that no one will sell us - yes this is true. We are still working on this but many hours on the phone have been wasted.

In addition to this, we had individual conversations with the kids on how we will work out their finances, chores and school details upon return. Two kids will switch rooms, two will get cell phones for the first time. Lots of chores will be done :). We will continue with teaching our kids about real world finances, bank accounts and work in slightly different systems than before. This time allowed for some sweet conversations with each of them that they sort of treated like parent/teacher conferences without our necessary intending them to be such.

We did find it funny that at one point during the week Mom made a comment to Dad about the Amazon guy, and Dad thought she was referring to a man in the jungle. We laughed at realizing we know we've been off the grid for awhile when that's your definition of 'The Amazon guy' instead of the man delivering packages from the website/warehouse! We haven't seen an Amazon package in months, but apparently they deliver to the villa as the Amazon man was very proud to explain to Mom that he can deliver very big packages!

The real world is pulling us in like a tractor beam and to be honest its a bit uncomfortable. While this time away has been anything but easy, one thing we have had is complete control over our time. Preparing to head home only reminds us just how much of that we will be giving up. Time, we have come to realize, is our greatest asset. It needs to be nourished and cherished and not wasted. Just how this affects our re-entry into U.S. life is yet to be seen but its one concrete way we know we have changed.