"I hate goodbyes"

12/17 - 11:32pm

Just had to say goodbye to some of our most favorite people in the world.  Such a bittersweet moment.  And even confused by the words ‘missing home.’  When you are a vagabond such a concept starts to blur it’s lines.  We couldn’t be more grateful to God for the past 4 months here and the expanse of revelation we have been given on family, life and living.  My heart is more full than when we arrived and for that I am incredibly grateful. 

Oh yeah.  We cooked a pig yesterday.  Well, sort of.  Here’s the thing, sometimes when you have all the fancy tools to do something right it all goes wrong.  That happened to be our exact scenario last night.  It’s 7pm, guests are arriving in 30, we feel the soil on top of underground oven, and, its ice cold.  Oh $%^&!  Lucky for us, Candido is an avid hunter and has a full on butcher shop in his man cave.  We quickly pulled the raw pig from it’s grave, hacked the crapola out of it, and started batch grilling it in their indoor wood barbecue.  The result - pure genius.  And another life lesson learned.  Well two actually.  The first is, if you don’t work hard to make something happen the result is usually shite, and secondly, don’t worry about nothing, there is always a solution, just throw meat over hot fire and be happy!

So that was yesterday.  A night of Italian company, laughter, meat, booze and meat with incredible people.  Tonight, pretty much the same thing but narrowed down to our family.  Camerotas, Caffreys and Curry.  That is how we say goodbye.  Ace’s to Kings, some tears and abundant love. 

We are truly going to miss this place.  I can’t help but look back to my first post and wonder, “did I accomplish all I was hoping for on day 1,”  and the answer is a resounding yes.  Thank you Jesus for life and life to the fullest.  San Diego, here we come.

Montefalco Montelcino Gubbio Cortona

12/15 - 2:59pm

I find myself taking in the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and touches of these final days in Italy and really living in the moment.  We fly home in 3 days and I am caught between the excitement of seeing my family, friends and the Pacific Ocean while digesting the reality that I will not be waking up in this beautiful foreign country.  As I sit here on the couch looking out to are backyard which has brought so many memories over the past 4 months, swimming races in the pool, sitting in the lounge chairs reading a book, cheese boards under the pergola and my absolute family favorite kickball I am challenged to never forget these times and cling to them knowing that this chapter has come to an end.

I’m transported a few days back when the four of us took our last journey into the wine region of Montefalco and stopped off at a tiny family winery where the 17 year old son (the 4th generation soon to be winemaker) spent time sharing his passions of the family business with us as we drank their incredible vino.  Looking at this boy I see a life that I hope to be able to pass down to my children, something simple, authentic, and yet full.  The whole family works together, eats together, farms together and drinks together.  This simple picture of country side life resonates deep in my soul and I long for this to be a part of our life.

As expected and unavoidable this week has flown by and our adventures now history.  From Christmas dinner with the Camerotas,  bright lights in Gubbio, ice skating, wine tasting in Montelcino, swimming in the thermal baths, and sushi in Cortona we haven’t had much down time to catch our breath.  We picked up our pig this morning and dug the hole at Candido’s house where we will be burying him tomorrow morning and then eat him with our friends from the village for our final dinner in Umbria.  And what better way to finish off a 4 month journey. 

This has truly been some of the richest and deepest experiences I have had and to have been able to share it with my family, well, thank you God for this, I love You!

Camerotas Caffrey's and Food

12/8 - 3:10pm

17 Courses, 2 Bottles of Greco Nero, Champagne and Grapa.  This is how one spends the first of their last 11 days in Italy.

La Locanda del Capitano was our theater for a 4 hour dining performance as the Michelin star chef Giancarlo Polito entertained us with course after course of Modernist Italian Cuisine.  Tony, Andrea, Shiloh and I were the recipients of this magical meal, and it was infinity spectacular.  The four of us had a date night Christmas dinner that I’m certain won’t soon be forgotten while our kids hung back at the house watching Christmas movies and eating risotto.  It was an absolutely perfect night and I am already starting to feel the woes of Italy withdrawal. 

We all woke up late, the Camerotas spent the night at our place where Shi had put together and Elmau like buffet breakfast, baked some pumpkin pies and watched The Santa Claus.  Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  We are all doing our family Christmas dinner together on Friday and the menu is looking brilliantly gluttonous.  No doubt my New Years diet is going to have to be more extreme than I’d originally planned. 

11 Days and Counting

12/7 - 3:17pm

Abbots. Butchers. BBQ. Liver break. Steaks & Guido. Florence. Recovery.

This basically sums up the past 10 days.  Betty & Jason Abbot, some of our super close Napa family, joined us post Elmau for a couple days of relentless eating and drinking (and trying to fix the heater so we didn’t die).  Their first night in we barbecued a Brontosaurus T-bone steak with Shiloh’s life changing risotto, vino and Montenegro.  The more I think about it, we literally just ate and drank the entire time they were here, no sight seeing, no plans, just food and friends (and booze), which is basically my core love language.

We then spent the next 5 days in hibernation and detox from our reckless enjoyment of the past week, and I averaged 10 hours of sleep a day which yeah, felt unproductive, but WOW, felt so darn good.

We were then invited by Guido, the owner of the house we’re staying in, to dinner up the road at L’Antica Osteria, a Steak & Wine house, with the Camerota’s.  And after pounds of carpaccio and endless rib-eye (served on a thousand degree salt stone) and at least 10 bottles of wine, we stumbled with dignity back home and went into an immediate meat coma.  Side note, the stereotype is true, when Italians go big for dinner they GO BIG.  Guido literally had the server bringing out a new dish every 5 minutes and at one point the table was so completely packed with food that we were force feeding ourselves just to make room...and I kind of loved it!

Waking up the next morning all I wanted to do was drink some green juice, have a tums, and go back to bed - but Shi had other plans for this fatty.  And so we were Florence bound.  Likely one of my biggest regrets now that we have less than 2 weeks here is not going to Florence more often.  It is less than an hour and a half from our place and we found a 2bedroom modern AirBnB apartment right in downtown for $100 a night. Stupid stupid stupid!  We had the best time with the kids, first with lunch at Olivia (classy fried Italian foods) breaking up into teams and doing a self made scavenger hunt, constant snacking, then dinner at the most incredible restaurant Il Santo Bevitore (Pottery Barn meets Italy).  The best was that check out was later in the day so we were able to spend our morning doing another scavenger hunt and fitting in lunch at The Corner, a modern bakery and cafe.

The rest of this week has been for the most part more recovery to our bodies and hang time with the kids and cats. We’ve built fires upstairs, played music, watched movies and done some major catch up on work and homeschooling. 

I am really going to miss it here.  We have 11 days left in this paradise and I am going to make sure we take in every moment.

Bye Bye Schloss Bailey's & Clark's

11/27 - 5:13pm

Playing recap, and there are absolutely no words to be able to describe the past 4 days.  I can honestly say that this past week is a top contender for the best week of my life. 

Custom Thanksgiving dinner catered by the Michelin star chef. Famous jazz band performance. Football on the big screen accompanied by Scotch tasting. Late night cocktails. Serenaded by special guest piano superstar. Spa. Hike to Alm and Thanksgiving leftovers. Archery round two. BMW i8 test drive to Garmisch. Last supper with Bailbots & Clarks. Late night Bar Lounge hang sesh. Pipes, heaters, stars. Sauna. Verona bound. Clarffrey’s excursion through downtown. Vino. Bed. Home.

There is so much more that can be said, but I am thinking I’m going to leave the details for the imagination.