Off we go...sort of

I woke up slowly this morning. It was a restless night at my in-law's house, filled with frequent visits from my nine year old who suffers from nighttime fears. She is afraid of basically every sound she hears, which makes sense considering that this is only one of 13 places we've made home since June 12th when we moved out of our family home of 10 years in Campbell, CA. Once I pried my eyes open, I rolled over and looked at Dave, my husband of 13 years. He whispered to me, "We're flying to Italy today."

For months now, we've been moving towards August 5th as the day we make the big move! The flight is in less than 4 hours. This has always been the day that the adventure begins! Well until we realized it couldn't be... that's right VISAS! Since deciding on this family sabbatical in January, we have made quick work of arranging all the details of selling a house, finishing school, updating passports, setting up a living trust, seeing the doctor, dentist, the list goes on and on and on. But somehow, we missed the memo that in order to get an italian visa, it would take months just to get an appointment at the italian consulate. The soonest available appointment? August 20th. Only 15 days after we booked our tickets to leave. Well, we never thought the adventure would go without a hiccup, but that was a pretty big miss!

So now we are on plan B (stay updated on plan C, D, and so on...)

Plan B: Fly to Italy as scheduled on Aug 5. Stay as planned in our 8 day VRBO. Secure a long term rental in Lucca with which we can show proof of to the consulate in San Francisco. Fly back to SF on Aug 15, meet with the Italian Consulate in SF on the 20th and then wait for visa approval, for an indeterminate amount of time. Since we still have no housing in the bay area, and since we're homeschooling our 2 sweet girls this year, why not make the indeterminate amount of time educational? So on Aug 21st, we're flying to the east coast and spending 3 weeks exploring Virginia, DC, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts. Ashley is in fifth grade this year, so we plan on tackling a good portion of her social studies curriculum on this trip. Colonial Day? We're going to Colonial Williamsburg! Declaration of Independence? We're going to the National Archives. How does a bill become a law? Our Capitol tour is Aug. 27th!

So when do we actually make the big move? Well the new date is September 12th. At least according to plan B...