Highlights of 2012- Europe Trip

Has it really been a year?

All I can say in my own defence is that I've been a tiny bit busy. Grad school, job, volunteer work, and all the other day to day stuff.  But, Oh, Man, have we had fun this year!!

I'll tell you bit by bit about the smaller things, but, the big news is, I realized a long-term dream, and took our kids for a trip to Europe. Yes, we went to Europe with our kids.  And I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we had.  But I'm going to try.

I had been dreaming of a year, or at least a summer, seeing several countries, maybe renting a villa and settling down to get to know people in one place. But that was not to be.

Just like in the rest of parenting, travelling with the kids required trimming my expectations to better fit with reality.  We have one income.  I am a student.  We could only get two weeks off.  But I was determined that we would go before my oldest graduates from high school.  And she's doing that this year.

So we flew to Amsterdam, spent a day racing around, saw the VanGogh museum (swoon) then jumped back on the plane and flew to Rome.  We were awake that day for 30+ hours, and experienced a kind of tiredness we hardly knew existed.  But we knew we would be, and we were so excited and happy, it just didn't matter.

Four wonderful days in Rome followed, and we saw pretty much everything. Turns out that I LOVE Rome.  My kids walked miles every day with only the mildest complaints. They were loving everything too much to care that their feet hurt.

Then on to Naples, Sorrento, Herculaneum and Pompeii, a fast flight to Venice, a few days in Florence, and sadly, home.

It was so much fun to travel together.  I can't imagine better company.  For all their lives, we've been doing the things WE think are fun together, which has always included museums and galleries and other cultural experiences.  They caught our enthusiasm, and were turned into art enthusiasts naturally.  At 16 and 13, they were delighted to go to the Uffizi, the Vatican, the Academia, the Van Gogh museum, the Galleria Borghese, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, we took breaks and balanced out the museum visits with gelato and pizza and shopping and hanging out at the Campo di fiori.  But the point is, that I have now proved to myself that whatever a parent is excited about can be fun for her kids, given enough time and encouragement.

So, two questions for you today.  1. What do your kids love because you do?  and 2.  What do you want to teach your kids to love?