What were you grateful for this week? Being cared for.  

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?My first out of country trip with my host family. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. I just felt fully integrated into the family. Not that I haven’t already felt this way for ages!

Tell us about your week!  SO. The last two weeks have been wonderful, difficult, rewarding, exciting, and EXHAUSTING. But I saw a place I’ve never seen before and returned to a place that I’ve already been and loved, so all in all I think that it can fully be considered a win. I went on two trips with the family; the first was to their family Lake House, located in a BEAUTIFUL place called Oggebbio.

The lake itself is called Lake Monegra, which is the largest lake in Italy and also in Southern Switzerland. We spent five days there, and it was the most beautiful and most Italian place I have ever been. The house they have is actually PINK. Everything inside of it is the most traditionally Italian styled antiques I’ve seen, they have a massive front lawn that overlooks the lake (which is stunning), so it’s incredible when there’s good weather because you just spend the whole day outside in the sun, running around. I found myself completely enamored with it. We were lucky enough to have mostly nice weather as well. 

We were there from Thursday to Tuesday, and returned late in the afternoon. The next day was spent packing because we left for Madrid, Spain, on Thursday. So that was a bit of a rush but nothing that I haven’t done before. What I hadn’t done before, was travel with small children. Ever. I have NEVER DONE THAT, and WOW was it a whole new world. 

Airports have become a bit of a strange place for me. Since I spend so much time in them, and usually I’m leaving something behind that I’ve loved or that I’ve really enjoyed, I’ve taught myself to just go into autopilot. I go through all of the motions without really speaking to anyone or paying attention to anything other than the time, the bathrooms, and the gate number. So having to actually being present and aware and focused was a bit unnerving to me.

But being in Spain was absolutely amazing. We took the boys to two of the different zoos they have there (Eliana was working; which the whole reason we were there), and on the final day I took a few hours to walk around the city and remember the last time I had been there, then returned and took the boys to visit their Mom at work. 

We got home today (Monday) and I felt extremely worn down and a bit disoriented, but I went about my day and trooped through until the end, at which I felt satisfied and accomplished. I am grateful that I don’t feel like I have to keep up a facade and pretend like everything is fine even if I’m actually dying. I have no shame in showing the reality of my energy levels.