What were you grateful for this week?I am grateful that I am here experiencing this amazing country and all of its amazing sights. 

What was the most challenging part of this week?There were some miscommunications with my host mom this week but we are working to get them fixed and talking them through. I missed my boyfriend and family this week a lot, but I love getting to call them.

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. My host mom has been really busy this week so I cleaned up after dinner and breakfast and put the dishes away for her so that she could just relax when she gets home. 

Tell us about your week!  I have been learning Italian very slowly but I feel like I have made some real progress this week and really tried to apply myself. My host family and I have started writing down words that they struggle with or that are new to them and put them on the fridge so that they can see them and learn the new words. I stayed with my host family this weekend and got to spend more quality time with them and it was a lot of fun. I got to share one of my favorite movies, Narnia, with my family and they loved it! We had some crazy things happen this week though, we had a bird die on our balcony and the burial service was very sad, we lost of the pets in the garden but we found him and he was not hurt.

I taught my girl and her friends how to play ninja and they loved it and want to play all the time now. I also learned some cool things about my camera this week and got some amazing photos of the moon over the last few days. I also got to spend a lot of time with the cousins this week. We went shopping at the mall and helped plan part of the oldest’s 18th birthday party. This week has been so much fun with my family even though we are all dying of heat.