Rage Against The Minivan

Life Lately

Another family from the kids’ school is traveling Europe this week as well. The mom and I schemed a surprise to have the kids “run into each other” at dinner. It was the perfect timing for my kids to have a non-sibling to chat with. A dinner and a last sunset swim wrapped up our time here. On to Rome!

Happy Father’s Day to Wayne Lowen, my dad and this family’s patron saint of the travel bug we all share. He humored me when, at 16, I said that for my birthday I wanted to fly to Haiti and visit some friends there by myself. And thus began my sometimes questionable but always adventurous wanderlust.

When I backpacked Europe for 3 months right after college, Cinque Terre was the favorite place I visited. Feels so fun to be back here and show them this place.

Highs and lows of Florence: High = seeing @weezerat Firenze Rocks. Low = 5 hours of demoralizing clothing shopping trying to replace our carefully-curated belongings with whatever random stuff we had time to find. 3 days later, zero word on our luggage from @vueling. High = art and architecture. Low = beer hair and mosh pits too close for comfort. High = late night gelato with @johnpritchard. Low = being humbled by what my hair does in humidity without my blow dryer and flat iron. High: my kids being absolute troopers and keeping me laughing.

 

Sunset swim. See my stories for the audio. I thought about posting this without audio. But I think it’s important to show the reality. Last night in the Cinque Terre area a large group of teens were goading, yelling, and barking at my boys while they swam. You can hear them yelling something that sounds like “speech” at them. Pretty sure they were German. Not sure what that meant. What I am sure of is that they spent quite a bit of time mocking my boys while local teens watched and laughed.

Us buying luggage on the side of the road since @vueling decided to hold back the luggage of every single passenger on our flight, not tell us even after we landed, and then let 200+ passengers go Lord of the Flies on two workers at the Florence airport who had no idea what to do. Guess we will be spending our first day in Florence shopping for underwear and toiletries. And of course it starts to rain on our walk to our hotel so that the only clothes we have, which we will be sleeping in, are now wet. Buona fortuna! I need a nap.

Some of the best moments aren’t in pictures. Our first night in Barcelona, after a rough overnight flight with little sleep, I booked us a sunset “happiness” walking tour with a guide who touted that he would share research on positive psychology in between our stops. I read that description and was like, oh yes. Psych mixed with tourism? Sign me up. It was great, but at the very end he took us to Citadel park to do a gratitude chat and a meditation. It was a sweet moment but made all the more memorable because most of us fell into a deep sleep during the mediation. But I will never forget that moment … laying on the grass in the twilight with my kids. I love doing this adventure of life with them.

En route to the airport with 2 weeks worth of clothes for Europe in a compact carry-on for each of us! Please start a prayer chain ….

Loved having @aus_rivers and his boyfriend staying with us for the past two weeks while @marquezlinderart was touring with #tootsiethemusical. Austin used to visit us during the summers as a kid and it was fun to have him back as an adult!

 

These Playbill pajamas are her greatest thrifting score yet.

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