It’s been four months since we left the United States. We spent most of the last month in Italy and are now Nafplio Greece, a small city on the Peloponnesian peninsula and our last stop before heading towards home. To update everyone that’s not aware, we had to cancel the last three weeks of our trip because of the war in Israel. We voted and decided that instead of traveling to another country, we will stop in London for a few days and then come home two weeks early.

When we first planned the trip, I was not excited about the idea of coming home for the holidays during this study abroad year. Since our kids are older and that break really made a difference in how they felt about the trip, I consented to it. Even though I started seeing the benefits to having time at home between the school semesters, I have since become grateful we will be home for a while.

This fall has been intense. Good, but intense. I knew it would be hard to travel like this with our family in the stage that it is in, and it has been. I know the time at home will be life-giving. I’m looking forward to the comforts of home, seeing friends and family and going to mass at our home parish. We also know we need to make some adjustments to our plan for second semester and I believe the break from traveling and the ease of home will allow us the head space to make those decisions.

I will continue to write my memoirs of our travels this fall as well as some other articles here and there about the logistics of homeschooling and traveling as a family and lessons I have learned from this experience.

So, here we are in Greece. It’s beautiful and sunny here and ironically reminds us mostly of Costa Rica, rather than other places we’ve been in Europe. There are not a lot of tourists here like there were in Italy, so except for the weekend in Athens, places have not been crowded.

During our time in Italy, we spent 3 weeks in Tuscany, 3 days in Venice and then 10 days in Rome. Our time in Rome was so lovely, it would have been a wonderful ending to our trip. Everyone was in a sweet spot and feeling closure with this intense and rich experience and felt ready to go home. However, it was not quite time; We had flights to Athens and London purchased and lodging in Athens, Nafplio and London booked. There’s also the important fact that there’s a nice family living in our home for a couple more weeks.

This is the first time I’ve been out of the United States on Thanksgiving and the rumor is true, other countries do no celebrate this holiday. I always wondered what that was like, and now I know. As the days of November passed, a few places here and there put up Christmas decorations, but of course, no mention of Thanksgiving. We have, however, seen several signs advertising Black Friday sales – which made us all chuckle and scratch our heads. We are going to make a small Thanksgiving here tomorrow and will be extra grateful for all of the gifts God has given us, including each of you. Thank you for reading this and sharing this journey with me.

I hope wherever you are, you are able to pause, have some peaceful moments and spend time with people special to you. I also pray that God will gift you with an extra measure of His love, grace and mercy, for yourself and for those you love.