Progettiamo!

That would be: "Let's Plan!" in Italian.

i.e. We are planning our trip to Italy!

Since we bought our house instead of going on a honeymoon, this trip will be our delayed honeymoon and also pre-kids trip.

Don't let the exclamation point above fool you, I was not entirely excited about this trip .

Why would someone not be excited about going to Italy?

The money. This comes down to two things:

A) We finally got my credit card completely and fully paid off as of like yesterday. (For any new readers, it wasn't like we went crazy on the CC, just put a couple larger purchases on there and the last bits of the wedding, and then with other things coming up it didn't get paid off as quickly as we'd have liked) We have been putting all of our extra cash towards that and therefore limiting the amount we spend on things for the house and limiting us going out.

I am SO sick of saving money. We make pretty good money and we have and like nice things and after the last 6 months of saving constantly I was looking forward to making a couple little purchases here and there and those things being within our budget. Now our budget is allocated towards the trip.

Focusing on the limiting us going out, by going to Italy we will be in the same boat where we will be saving our cash to pay for the trip and then saving to have money to spend while on our trip. This being a pre-kids trip means that we are on limited time before we get pregnant and have kids (by our own choice). There is/was quite a list of things I wanted to do before we have kids. I wanted to go out for tapas and happy hours at a couple cool places, go to a couple concerts, stuff like that. The reason we will now still not be able to do those things is because we will be going to Italy.

B) I really wanted my bedroom set and there are a couple other things we really want to do to the house. These things will be pushed off some more because of this trip. During this last week I have done a good job of letting these plans go and putting them on my "One Day" to-do list instead of my "This Year" to-do list. There is a chance we may get to some of them this year, but we'll see.

Why I am and why I should be excited for Italy?

It means Dylan and I get our honeymoon and a sweet trip together. We have so much fun traveling together. That is part of the reason why I knew he was the one I wanted to marry. Back in 2009 (OMG that is SO long ago sounding now! It's 2012, Wow) we did a big 10 day road trip and drove 6,000 miles in those 10 days. That clearly means we spent a lot of time together in the car. We didn't fight the whole time (not that we fight a lot, but given the circumstances I think that is pretty impressive) and had so much fun. I am really looking forward to getting away from real life and getting to experience something amazing with my husband.

This is also our last chance for a LONG time to do a big trip like this. We'll hopefully have a baby around within the next year or two and then another one or two more chillins after that, with 2-3 years between each. That means it will be 2038 by the time our third child is 18 and it will be 2042 by the time that last child graduates college (We're only paying for 4 years that is, they can take longer on their own funding). But by 2042 we will be done being largely financially responsible for our kids and I will only be 54 and Dylan will be 57. Still relatively young and able to go travel the world. Not that we can't go on trips with our kids, which we will for sure, but a good long while before we can really go on a long trip without really having to worry about them. I'll try convincing the grandparents to watch them all sooner, but this is "worst case" scenario :)

And finally: BECAUSE ITALY IS AWESOME! We have decided to do Rome, Tuscany and Florence. I will be writing about the trip we are planning separately, but obviously Italy is pretty damn cool with the Renaissance and Ancient Rome and the wine.

With us being newlyweds, needing a vacation and wanting to do a big trip we have decided to go with it! Look out for some more details soon!