We crossed the three month mark two days ago. In the month since my two month review, we finished our time in the Netherlands, spent three weeks in Germany and have now been in Italy for one week. The week in the Netherlands and the two we spent in Dresden, Germany were our hardest so far. We hit a wall and needed to make some adjustments. To process what was going on and to try to move past it, we reached out to the counselor Scott and I work with, Ken, and my sister Linda, a professional coach.

When Scott and I met with Ken, we talked through most of what was happening and he helped us see what might be going on below the surface and made some suggestions for how to deal with it. The whole family met with Linda. She worked her coaching magic, asking questions related to how we could improve how things were going. Everyone took turns answering her questions. This helped us decide to really question whether or not to go to our last stop in Germany (Munich) and to find a place in Italy to stay for almost a month instead of staying in two different places in Tuscany before going to Rome. We ultimately decided to go to Munich for a few days and then head to Italy.

What’s going well:

• School, most days
• Our rhythm of buying groceries, breakfast and meal prep at home, and eating out every other day or so.
• Eating the local cuisine often, even at home
• The kids each have their own room so they can have some space.
• Surprisingly, going to bed late and getting up late.
• Seeing a lot that’s close to where we’re staying before heading a little further away for day trips.
• Walks on the beach
• Country specific read alouds – our current book is Midnight in the Piazza
• Paying attention to the weather when planning outings and staying flexible because of the rain

What’s not going well:

• So much rain!
• It’s really hard to make time to write the blog
• Scott and I don’t have enough time to ourselves and with just each other
• We’re struggling with how best to support John during this gap year and while he’s processing life
• There’s a lot of teenage friction; dealing with that well is sometimes difficult

We want to Start: going on walks by ourselves during the afternoons when we’re at home and have some planned one on one time with each kid.

What we want to Change- space out when we eat foods that our outside ofour normal diet.

We want to Continue: reading aloud together, enjoying the local foods, Scott making morning homemade decaf espresso drinks with the Bialetti, and exploring our home base town on our home days.

I think stopping to assess how things are going whether you’re on a trip, in regular life or working towards specific goals is very important. I’m thankful I learned how to do this and established the habit of doing it long before we embarked on this journey.

Wherever you are, I hope you are well and feel God’s peace.