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Well folks, today is my last blog entry before Italy... and I am tired.  I am not sure I have anything really exciting to write about other than how I have been staying up really late doing laundry, packing, last minute stuff.  I can't believe it's tomorrow.

Jake took this pic while we were waiting for the bus from downtown on Sunday

I don't remember exactly when we started thinking about the trip, but it was pretty soon after our wedding {8/5/11}. Airline tickets were purchased around Christmas and hotel reservations were made. We made our last payment to our travel agent in May! It has been really nice not incurring any debt and just using our savings to make this trip happen.  I remember when Jake and I went to Hawaii in 2009, I basically figured out how much it would cost us {airfare, lodging, rental car, spending money}, I divided that up by how many months we had to save and we just both saved half of that amount each month. It was really a good system. So, we basically did that on a bigger scale this time. We used our wedding money to get a jump start on our savings and then calculated what we needed and saved each month. It has been tough at times though, sometimes I felt like I was in college again {living on only a small allowance}. Is this what saving for a house is like? Because that sucks. 

My plan is to take a vacation from the blog while we are on our trip {I might post a picture here and there, no promises}.  When I get back, I will do recaps {most likely by city}.  Anyway, try to make it through these next two weeks without me ;) I'll be back blogging on the 19th.

Ciao,

Kim