What were you grateful for this week?My home in Milan. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?Saying goodbye AGAIN to my best friend. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.It wasn’t necessarily something that I did, but I was blown away by the faces the boys made when they saw me after going on my little vacation. 

Tell us about your week!  I WENT ON A VACATION. I took a trip to meet up with some of my favorite people on the planet and it was a whirlwind and so wonderful and messy and honestly exactly what it should have been. 

After a month of living in Lipari (which was incredible and I got the best tan of my entire life there), I ventured back to England. It was quite the journey and not the greatest to do by yourself, but everything went smoothly (I was such a stress case my host family wanted to smack me), and I arrived at Liverpool and FINALLY found the pub where my travel family was waiting for me with open arms and a beer. 

It was the most dramatic reunion that I have ever been a part of, which is really saying something, and it’s because it was the first time I had seen Chelsea in SEVEN MONTHS. In the past six years of our friendship, before that, the longest that we had been apart was I think… a month??? Maybe. It was the best feeling in the world. There was a group of seven of us and we went to a festival called Creamfields and to be honest, it was just cold and muddy and challenging. But we made the best of it, and I am happy that we went. 

That adventure was followed immediately by a trip to Ibiza (sorry WHAT WHEN DID THIS BECOME MY LIFE) which actually took a piece of my soul. That piece of me will reside in Ibiza forever. But, it was so much fun. We all just loved getting to be together 24/7, with no cares and no places to be.

I returned back to Milan on Saturday afternoon and my family came home on Sunday evening. My reunion with the boys was so heartwarming. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so excited to see me (except for Chelsea) and it made me feel relieved to be back in the house. I hadn’t even realized it, but we had been traveling for three months straight. I think that in total, there were 6 days that we actually spent in Milan starting at the beginning of June. Now the boys are beginning school and we will settle into a routine and summer will turn into fall and the beat will go on.