What were you grateful for this week?To be in my favorite place with great people. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?I wouldn’t say difficult, but just getting the hang of how the family functions and keeping my eyes and ears open to how I can best help and be apart of the family. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. This week it was G’s birthday so I tried my best to find her a gift she might like—a make up set and a dress up costume. She loved it, and even put some make up on me this morning. Bellessimo!

Tell us about your week! The week was spent in my favorite place—the mountains! There is nothing like the summertime cool mountain air. It sure beat the heat of Rome. We traveled seven hours by car to the beautiful Tirolean village of San Candido, Italy. It’s about 10 km shy of the Austrian border, so locally people speak Italian and German.

I felt a little bit at home because of 1) mountains and 2) I could somewhat understand the german menu card 😉 it made me reminiscent of my time last summer. We started our week off strong with a full day of hiking. I was so impressed how well the kids held up. I didn’t hear more that one complaint! Funny/embarrassing story: the kids were too tired, so my host parents and I decided us three would split from the kids and other family we are traveling with to hike 10 minutes more on the trail to a chapel in the woods. It was a charming little church. As we were leaving I got a little carried away and excited to be hiking…so I ended up a little bit ahead and followed the signs for where I thought we were going. Turns out we weren’t going there…so I ended up lost on a different trail. This is typical me. But I was happy to be lost in such a beautiful place. We ended up being really close to each other, so it didn’t take me long to find the group. I’m happy they are so light hearted, I got a few laughs once I arrived. This was thankfully the only time I got lost this week. The rest of the week was full of more hiking, alpine coasters, tram rides, campfires, and even a baking class at the Loacker chocolate biscuit factory. Now we head straight to Sardinia for the next two weeks for some R&R on the beach. Catch me with a sunburn!