This is the first of my long over-due posts after our wonderful trip back to the States. We were away from home for exactly one month! In some ways I wish I had been more diligent in using other people's computers and posting along the way; but in trying to capture all the moments of each day, I am sure I would have missed out on actually just being and enjoying. I have been digesting that month for nearly a month now and with the end of summer (announced this evening with a violent thunderstorm) closing in on me, I have decided the only way to get over my writer's block is by writing.
Our trip was an extravaganza of visits and reunions. Emily was introduced (or in most cases reintroduced) to quite a large ammount of family. The other day at the pool she calmly offered to stay with her cousins while I went back to the towel to fetch her swimming goggles--they weren't cousins at all, but I guess she's begun thinking that she could be related to just about anyone!
We began meeting family even here in Spain, as we decided to leave through Barcelona rather than Málaga. I have been harassing Angelines to take a trip to Alicante (about half way between here and Barcelona on the Med. coast) to visit her father's family, and so cheap flights from BCN seemed like just the ticket (ha ha). Emily and her cousins Julia and Marco hit it off from the get-go. Especially Julia, who is just a year older, was enchanted with Emily. They were inseparable for the two days we were with them. We also visited Angelines's two aunts and a few other cousins while in town.
In Barcelona we were able to stay with friends and leave our car with them for the month we were away. By the time we reached Seattle with Maggie, we had slept in three different beds and two planes in a span of just four days!
Emily was a champ through all of our travel. In the car she was great and on the plane she only became fussy when sheer exhaustion clashed with uncomfortable airline seating...haven't we all been there? She's finally just big enough that it's getting hard for her to get in a good sleeping position on a plane. Somewhere over Canada she finally went out but by the time we made our return journey, she was a pro at sleeping while travelling. ;)
I am going to skip over details in this first entry. Fitting a month of travel into a reasonably sized blog post just isn't possible. We were able to spend time with both my sisters, although each of them is now a flight away from my parents' house, spend nearly three weeks with Ga and Papa; and also visit many friends and family. It was wonderful to be there for so long, because it really meant that our time with my parents wasn't at all rushed, nor did we feel the presure of trying to balance and fairly divvy visiting time among loved ones. Of course, we were left wanting more time together, but we had had so much time to just BE that I felt we really had a quality visit as opposed to constanly trying to squeeze things in.
I am especially grateful for all the time Emily was able to be with my parents and also see and experience the U.S. As my mom said, "I think she really got a feel for our life". She has repeatedly said she misses them since we've been back and talks about our next visit. Everyone in La Roda has heard about "her" horse Hobo in California and how she rode all by herself. I think, however, that our next visit to the States may be somewhere other than my childhood home. As much as I love to visit and see all the other people I love on the West Coast, it would be nice to explore other parts of the country with my family.
Now we are back home and recovered from jet-lag. We have been playing catch-up with projects around the house, getting the cars tuned up for the weekly Granada commute, and trying to beat the heat at the city pool. Next week I go back to school and Emily officially starts the following Monday. Angelines is looking forward to it with dread. Emily is, I think, slightly indifferent, although she has more than once made mention of friends and teachers from school. I am looking forward to having a year under my belt that can constitute some kind of experience from which to continue building and growing.
In this last week we are planning to make the most of our precious time together as a family. Having zero free-time with the three of us all together, has been (and will be) the most difficult part of our life between two cities. Tomorrow we're planning an outing to a cave since Emily is obsessed with prehistoric life (?!) and Wednesday we will go to the beach (Norte, too). We are wringing all the goodness out of summer and charging our batteries 100% for the coming school year!
