Vacation Time?

YES!

Why exactly?

1) I haven't been on a vacation in a LONG time. We have did Grand Junction last summer, nice break, but in state and no beach. We did our road trip to Portland/Forks/Seattle August 2009. Awesome trip, but no beach (well we went to a beach, but no sun for tanning or warm water). We went to Mexico, Cancun, May 2008. So that was my last real vacation.

2) I need a vacation. I obviously work a lot, but I have also had a lot going on this year! Sometimes we all need a little R&R.

3) I want to have a bigger vacation partly because we do plan on having our first kid within the next couple years. So I really want to have a vacation, just the two of us, that we would not be able to take for a long time.

Mostly because of #3, I want to do probably a two week vacation and I want it to be out of the country. Down the road, thanks to grandparents, we will probably have a couple opportunities to take week-long trips to places like Napa, New York, Charleston, etc. that we have talked about going to.

So my initial thoughts were Italy, Brazil or New Zealand. We went to the book store to do some research and determine what place we wanted to visit.

Dylan asked me what kind of trip I wanted. I said mostly more adventurous (adventurous for me that is!) where we would do some activity things (hiking, biking) and traveling, getting a feel for the place. So less on the relaxing side and more on the exploring/learning side. 

First we looked at Italy. Dylan has already been to Rome, but as it was amazing, he is more than willing (anxious in fact) to go back. So we thought we'd do Rome, Florence and Tuscany, and maybe Naples/Amalfi Coast area. We had a pretty good idea of what to expect with Italy, so we looked into other things.

Then we looked at New Zealand. Not as historical to visit as Italy, but high on the adventure side. It would be more of a hiking and scenic trip. We definitely want to visit, but partly because of the cost and partly because I really want to go with my sister, we decided to take this off our list.

Then we looked into Brazil and even Argentina a bit. For Brazil we would essentially stay in Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo. I would like to make it up to the Amazon, but I would be worried about dying (bugs and disease and stuff). We would probably go for Carnaval because although it is most costly, it would be awesome. Ultimately though, we decided it didn't sound like quite as much fun as Italy.

So Italy it is! Or may be. We would shoot to go April-June time frame of 2012. We currently have the house and wedding to save and pay for, and we essentially have limitless projects for the house that can use our money. As I mentioned, we are wanting to have kids soon, so we would like to have reasonable savings for that. Dylan will need to get a car within the next year too. So really the cost will be the biggest factor, but we have 8 months or so to save up for it and make a real decision about it.

Turns out that I don't really know much about Italy though. None of my history classes gave Italy much attention. I know a bit about ancient Rome, but even that is lacking. So I will be looking into Italian history books so that I really understand more about it.

Really interesting about this is that last night, Dylan had the tv on the ION channel and the new show that starts on Showtime this Sunday, The Borgias, was on ION! The episode that isn't even supposed to air yet was on a channel we have (we don't have Showtime, so we wouldn't have gotten a chance to see it). Good show though. It's the true history about a family in Italy that controls the papacy and gains power through bribery, murder etc. They are essentially the original mafia. Sweet stuff. So even last night I realized I don't know much about Italy, but now I'll have some real motivation!

So we will start to look into that more. I'm sure you all will hear plenty about it :)