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.