Italy, Part 1

ITALIA!

Here are some of my favorite pictures (of the 600+) taken on our trip to Italy this August.

(This first one is after climbing the Dome of St. Peter's in 95 degree weather, hence the sweat.) I'll post more details about the itinerary, stories of our travels and a special section about eating gluten-free in Italy soon.

ROME:

Inside the Colosseum

The Borghese (my favorite museum and villa in Rome or Florence)

Around Trastevere (the neatest neighborhood in Rome, where we stayed). The Piazza Santa Maria was such a neat place to come home to at the end of the day--it really came alive at night.

Trevi Fountain (with some roses a gypsy forced me to hold so he could try to rob Adam)

the Tiber River

churches, churches, churches

San Pietro in Vincoli ("St. Peter in Chains"; a church with the most underrated Michaelangelo sculpture, Moses--which he left for his apprentices to complete so he could go work on the Sistine Chapel--and, of course, Peter's Chains.

Food, wonderful food!

The Pantheon (so amazing...the hole in the ceiling isn't covered, so it still rains right onto the marble floors, as is has for almost 2000 years)
More coming soon (this is exhausting!) including the Vatican and St. Peters, Florence, andTuscany...

home.

So I've decided to start an "official" family blog. It will really be more like mine, with a lot of family stuff included.

Looking over my calendar for the next month, its strange to see "MOVE" and "BAR"-"BAR"-"BAR"only a few weeks away. I'm getting antsy about all the stuff around our apartment (like a moving-induced nesting instinct?) as I realize that I will probably never find a convenient spot to store toilet paper, repair all the broken disney figurines in the "fix" pile by the dish drying rack, establish a mail-management routine [or "male-management" for that matter--ha! there's my pun!]. We are pretty much done here. And given the chaos moving brings about, I'm going to try to direct my stray organizing instincts towards planning for this huge endeavor.

Since we've been married, we've packed our things into a moving truck seven times. Moving is not a particularly fun chore, but its always been exciting, and never really sad. This is the first time I am dreading the move because it hurts to even acknowledge that its happening.

Los Angeles doesn't just "feel" like home--it IS home. Its home for our kids, its home to our precious church (Reality L.A.), to our many friendships (some just fledgling little things I had planned to nurture into something wonderful), its home to our crowded, messy apartment that I never painted and managed to feel like home despite the fact. The kids recognize the roads and routes places, and beg for detours to favorite destinations like yoku-yoku and "tiki joe's". They know which kids to expect to see in the courtyard at certain times of day. I have a list a mile long of cool things to do in L.A. that will never happen. I'm buying baby gifts for babies I will never get to meet. The Von's Starbucks girl, Maddie, knows my drink before I order it.

This will be hard on all of us.

Adam observed on the way to church this morning that while we're fairly certain God didn't "call us" to L.A. for a lifetime, he had a definite purpose for us being here these three years. I feel so blessed that we heard his call to Reality, and that we listened! (I remember thinking: A brand new church? With how many kids? In Hollywood? And what's it called again?) I would never have imagined that Adam and I would experience such tremendous spiritual growth individually, and in our marriage, in our time here. The Lord has done such a work in us through the teaching and fellowship of this church that we often ask ourselves why we would ever leave.

When I have that answer, I'll be sure to post it.

In the meantime--sniffle--I'm making lists. Many, many lists. To try to wrap my mind around this move, and prevent it from feeling like the world is turning upside down for all of us.