Just the four of us....

I could spend hours taking pictures of these....

Mike and I have been talking a lot.

In fact, I haven't really spoken to anyone else since Darcy and Kelly left for Morocco. That was 20 days ago..

( I actually had to find a calendar, figure out the day and month and put the pieces of the puzzle together for that one...)

When I was awake at night worrying about all the possible things that we would encounter in Europe, my alone time with Mike and the kids definitely creeped in a number of times. We spend so much time at home socializing with different people. We also both have lots of alone time, together as a couple and by ourselves. Here it is just the 4 of us. Its kind of cool...and pretty rare. There have been no outside influences acting upon us.

Oddly, our lack of social time with others has not been an issue. I was expecting to be the crazy one again chatting to strangers on the street..I have tried, but no one really knows what language I am speaking. (Olivia gets mistaken for French, Max for American, but myself...they just kind of look at me oddly. I have been told outright once "you are definitely not Italian"....it saved me from a 50 Euro fine.) Here it is Friday night and we have had a fairly quiet, but very pleasant evening. The kids have been outside playing, we have all had dinner together, completed/argued over a bit of school work and now we are all reading. I don't think it gets much better than this. Mike and I are both feeling very content.

I am finding it very easy to live in the moment here. We have no set plan. All we know today is that we will be in the Liguria Riviera next Thursday, but from now until then...anything could happen. The picture is so big that one cannot even speculate. I am so far removed from the past and have no clue about the future....I am finding it very easy to be appreciative of the here and now. I have even begun to enjoy cooking again.

To see all pics of venice go here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilola/sets/72157623812246167/

I promise to edit/name/give descriptions when I find some spare time...and internet!!
I am not losing my mind with all those "wall" pictures...I am making Max a "book of walls" for him to graffiti on...