I cannot wait for spring break 2012!!!

Should I add a "WOOT! WOOT!" or would that be too much??

I have never been one to make "Spring Break" plans. Not even in high school nor college did I vacation during spring break. It's just something I never thought of doing. I'm not into the party scene and spring break seems like it's meant for people who party hard. I am not a stereotypical spring break co-ed, I have no desire to go to Cancun or Corpus Christi, never want to be so drunk that girls gone wild seems ''fun'' and could care less about beads.

Up until this year I had all four kids at home so we could have spring break any ol' time...B put in a request, got the week off and boom, vacation without the crowd. Last year my parents visited us in Texas during their spring break and Sea World was INSANELY packed, the riverwalk was crowded and I just wasn't up for that. I mean, we lived there. Why deal with the crowds when we could go on a boring Tuesday and have the place to ourselves? (and coincedentally, it wasn't spring break week in Kansas but it was in Texas).  I am not a fan of crowds and waiting but we did it and we survived it and we all did have fun.

 Well fast forward to this year. Bubba is in school now and we live in Italy. All of Europe is a hop skip away and well, Spring break just got more appealing. I was toying with the idea of going on a mini-vacay somewhere...I just hadn't figured out where yet. We have yet to get our tourist passports {we have official military ones as of now} so going out of the country isn't an option {at least not legally an option}. Well about the same time I started thinking of places to go, my good friend Amy posted a link of Facebook to the most adorable Tuscon B&B, nestled in a farmhouse. It's a farmhouse in Tuscany with a vineyard, a pool, a playground, goats and other animals for the kids to see, a pizza night, a welcome buffet and you have our own little apartment with a kitchenette. It's 20km from Florence, 60km from Pisa. Breakfast-provided, wifi-provided. To say I was jealous as I hopped around the website would be an understatement. Seriously adorable, seriously affordable. I suddenly wanted to go but I hated the idea of crashing their vacation.

As luck would have it, the next day we ran into her and her husband and we all got to talking about it. They urged us to book an apartment the same week and go to Tuscany with them. Can you imagine their family of 6 with our family of six, in Tuscany?! It took us all of about 20 seconds to say ''YES!". It's a no brainer! The place is about 3 hours away, our kids get along great with their kids, all the adults hit it off from the start...we were ready to book.

Until we remembered, B hadn't put in a leave request for work because we hadn't thought about going anywhere for the week. The weekend dragged on forever while we waited for Monday to roll around so he could request off. Adding to the anticipation was the fact that we went out to dinner with the Brock family sunday night. Amy gave me a Rick Steves guidebook to Florence & Tuscany with the words ''no pressure". By the end of dinner we were telling B to really try to persuade his boss, and that if she was reluctant to grant him leave we'd drag all 12 of us down to his office.

Got the word back monday afternoon: Tuscany is ON! I am so so excited. For many reasons but one of which is silly. On my 'bucket list of Europe' is to get a picture of me (forced perspective) stepping on the leaning tower.

source: google images

Only one more month!!