La Nostra Casa

Our Home!

Well, it took us a little longer than expected, and just 4 days shy of exactly 3 months in temporary housing, but as of June 14 we are finally moved into our home in Naples! So, as I sit here

and contemplate and appreciate where the last 5-6 months of organizing, purging, packing, farewells, moving, unpacking, and reorganizing has brought us, please come on a little house tour with us! 

We officially live in the town of Giugliano (Joo-lee-AH-no) in an area known as Licola. We are to the west of Napoli and not at all far from the beaches of the west coast. In fact, on a clear day, you can see a tiny piece of the island of Ischia (Isola d'Ischia) from the office balcony. And if not for the trees, you could see a sliver of the Tyrrhenian Sea. 

Now on to the house! Buildings throughout Naples are made of concrete, and the homes are no exception. This makes for amazing insulation and temperature regulation. Rather than central heat and air conditioning, most rooms have mini-split AC units in a corner near the ceiling (you can see one in the living room photo) for cooling and a radiator closer to the floor (you can see one in my first photo near the far doorway) for heating. We LOVE this design, because you are only heating or cooling the rooms you are using, rather than an entire house. It's both economically and environmentally friendly! 

The house is situated on a very generous piece of property. It's our own little oasis! And yes, the kids have taken advantage of the pool nearly every day since moving in. 

On the main level, we have a large living room (soggiorno), dining room (sala da pranzo), kitchen (cucina) and a full bathroom (bagno). The back portion of the dining room is currently full of broken-down moving boxes and packing paper, but we're planning on making that a cozy reading corner eventually. The table is also one that was already in the house, so we're using it while Sara works on a long-overdue refinishing of our normal table. 

The ground floor bathroom also has a great view of one of our lemon trees!

On the upper floor (what most Europeans call the first floor) we have 4 bedrooms (camera da letto) and another full bath. 

Our bedroom, the bathroom, and another room we are using as an office/game room/closet are on one hallway. Since the bedroom we chose is smaller, we put our larger dresser and wardrobes in the other room. It's still a bit of a catch-all, so no photos of that one. 

The kids' hallway is to the right at the top of the stairs. We are waiting for Olle's choice in bed frame to be back in stock, so he's still using a trundle frame for now and Audrey's mattress is still on the floor. Soon, though! We have a little more unpacking and organizing to do in their rooms, but they are both very happy with their set-ups. 

Finally, we have a lower level. I guess it's technically a basement (cantina), but it has doors that open onto a second driveway and separate garage so it doesn't feel completely subterranean. This has tons of storage space, so we have a play space for the kids, overflow storage for kitchen items, holiday bins, etc. There is also another room that will become the guest room (who's visiting first??) and a third full bathroom / laundry room. Olle is working on reassembling some Lego sets and is excited to display them on the top row of cubbies. 

Luna would like you to take note of the exterior doors and natural light.

We have 2 very productive lemon trees that have yielded enormous and very fragrant lemons, along with a mandarin orange tree. We've already made our first batch of lemonade! We also have well-established jasmine growing along 2 sides of the yard. They are mostly finished blooming now, but in the spring when we first saw the house, the fragrance was incredible! 

There are windows and doors throughout the house, including in the stairway, and we love all the natural light and breezes! I think we have only turned on a couple of AC units during the day 2 days this past week. Otherwise, we have only turned the bedroom units on overnight. 

We still need to pick up a few things in addition to beds, like rugs for the bedrooms, and artwork and things hung on the walls, but it's coming together! We also have the sweetest landlord/owner. He lives right across the street and checks in every few days to make sure we're doing ok. He doesn't speak much English, but he loves that we are working on our Italian, and we do most communicating through WhatsApp so we can translate as needed. 

The kids and Sara are planning out some day trips for the summer, including museums, the local aquarium, beach days and some hiking. Shane has a busy summer continuing to learn the ropes of his job, and without much vacation time there won't be any big trips, but we are looking forward to some weekends away exploring more of Italy.

For now, the kids are swimming to their hearts' content and enjoying la dolce vita!

Arrivederci e a presto!

Quell' Estetica Romana

Quell' Estetica Romana - That Roman Aesthetic

Well, it has been a VERY long time since our last post. A lot, and also not much at all, has happened over the past 6 weeks, so let's dive in!

A car was mentioned in the prior post. Shane's little 60+MPG Mini commuter car was acquired on April 29th. What a difference vehicular freedom makes! Sara's car arrived a few weeks later, so we are fully mobile.

What did we do the first weekend with a car? We left the base. We were initially thinking big for our first outing. Do we pick Rome (45 min train ride), Florence (<3-hour train ride), Amalfi Coast, or Pompeii (short drive for both). We decided on Parco Archeologico di Ercolano (Herculaneum Archeological Park). According to legend, Herculaneum was founded by Hercules, so how could we not choose it first? This city sits on the western base of Vesuvio. Since the prevailing winds at the time blew toward the southeast, where Pompeii sits, most of the inhabitants of Herculaneum had an opportunity to evacuate by the time the ash and hot gases arrived. Sara and the kids really appreciated going to the much-smaller-than-Pompeii site. Shane might have dealt with a mutiny if they had endured any more of his "must look at everything" self. The size of some of the homes, along with the incredible preservation of intricate tile work and paintings, made for an unforgettable time exploring such a historic site!

 Gotta love that Roman art aesthetic             

Sara busted out with new friends a couple of times in May, first on a boat tour around Capri and then enjoying a day at Villa Matilde Winery. The community that is base life is pretty amazing, and feeling so welcomed and included into an already-established group has been truly wonderful. It has definitely helped during a tough transition. Huge thanks to the OG BFF Kara for connecting us with Becky, who brought the rest of the crew!

Next, a house update. Much to our disappointment, our original choice in house fell through. The housing office on base performed an inspection that returned quite a list of issues for the landlord to address. We were told it would be ready in 10 days. After 14 days we reached out to the housing office for an update and found out that it was on the landlord to let them know when it was ready for another inspection. After several additional days, more uncertainty and poor communication, we decided to just start over. The good news is we found an even better house with a very responsive landlord and are set to move in this Thursday! And our household goods shipment arrived a couple of weeks ago and is scheduled to be delivered on move-in day, so we will have our furnishings to fill it. We are at 12 weeks of temporary living and are extremely ready to be in our own space with our own things. And we will have lemon and orange trees to enjoy!

Shane has already had his second work trip. He enjoyed a nice 5-hour train tour of Italy through Rome, Florence, and Bologna on his way to the Northeastern Italian town of Vicenza. He says it was work, but it certainly didn't look like a hardship to go! Sicily is his next trip at the end of June. We will try to join this time since the kids are out of school.

The kids both had exciting field trips before the end the school year. 

Olle's class visited an archeological museum (there are so many in the area that I can't figure out which one it was!) where they learned about prehistoric civilizations, painting pottery, and even a story about archeologists finding remains of an ancient man and bear in a cave. He tells the story much better that I do! 

Audrey's class went on a nature hike on the side of Vesuvius, and Sara got to chaperone! While we didn't go anywhere near the summit, it was still exciting to say we were on the side of a volcano. We saw loads of interesting flowers and plants, spotted a few birds and lizards, and enjoyed getting back to nature in a new place. 

Round things out with a trip to the beach for Memorial Day, Audrey's advancement to middle school (7th grade), a water splash and foam party 3K run and a cooking class and I'd say we're starting summer off on the right foot! 

In all honesty, things haven't been all sunshine and rainbows. Moving to a completely new country, where communication off of the base is intimidating, we don't understand how everything works and living in cramped temporary housing with the cheapest, most uncomfortable furniture imaginable, has been challenging. The food is incredible, people are kind and understanding, the weather is AMAZING, and there is a lot of history and beauty all around us. We are slowly taking it all in, but it's still hard, and we certainly couldn't have done it without such wonderful people around us for support. We can't wait for move-in day later this week. It will be like Christmas getting all of our things and FINALLY getting to settle in. 

Can't wait to share more soon!