Hi, blog.

We're home. 

New York greeted us with the worst heat wave in who knows how long, but we're happy to be here with our air conditioning blasting nonetheless. 

On the last night of our trip, I woke up & proceeded to just stare at the ceiling for the few lovely hours between 3 & 5am. Racing thoughts, heart palpitations, & the feeling of a big giant hole being burned through my stomach. I think that we'd done a really great job of relaxing on our trip & just enjoying ourselves - not worrying about everything that had to happen when we got home, or the inevitable events that were racing towards us. But that last night, oh my gosh. I could not sleep, I could not relax, & I could not get my brain to turn off. The next morning, Mike told me that he'd experienced the same thing. Both of us, sitting there in silence, staring at the ceiling & thinking about the next few (crazy) weeks of our lives & all of the changes that will happen.

Yesterday, I was sitting alone in church (Q was taking a nap in the hall) & looked around at the few hundred familiar faces that I see every week & I had to stare at the ceiling & blink really, really fast to ensure that I didn't make a spectacle.

Two more weeks in New York. Three if I count the week sandwiched in where we're at Priest Lake.

I just can't let go of this feeling of something very large & heavy is pummeling towards us. 

Deep breaths. 

But our trip! We started in Lucerne, Switzerland, drove to Italy & spent a few days at Lake Como, traveled to Parma (south of Milan) & spent time in the countryside with a colleague of Mike's, drove to the coast & Santa Margarita, spent a day in Portofino, took the trains to & through Cinque Terre, drove back to the Swiss Alps & spent a night at the most beautiful bed & breakfast in Les Diablerets, & then finished off with a few days perched on a mountainside in Murren. Lakes, ocean & mountains. One morning, we were on a beach, & two days later, we were in snow. Crazy, but it was really, really just amazing. We've had such unusual circumstances this summer & are really happy that we had the chance to do this together. And Quinn! I would have never, ever left him at home & I'm so glad that he was with us. He was a happy traveler & mostly-perfect - except for the time when he picked up what we worried was perhaps some sort of life-threatening virus in the Italian countryside (that produced bright red spots - um, scary). We made lots of calls & sent emails to our nearest & dearest - including his pediatrician, of course - & decided that he would likely survive. But still, scary! No one wants bright red spots popping up on their fresh little babies, especially when you're far away from home. Anyway - He served as the very best ambassador everywhere we went & we made all sorts of friends as a result along the way. My favorite was when a German family in Murren, Switzerland came up to us at a restaurant & asked if they could take a photo of him before they left, because their daughters just loved him so much. Traveling with him was such a positive experience & the more we do it, the more confident we are (while realizing that I'm certain that entering the toddler years - or adding siblings - will make things increasingly more complicated). It's a little tricky, requires a bit of strategy, & you have to set different (slower) expectations, but it is entirely possible to have a really lovely vacation. My parents traveled extensively with our (large) family growing up, & leading up to & throughout our trip I just kept thinking, My parents did this with seven, so I can manage with one. They had fun doing it, we have fantastic memories as a result, & I'm really grateful for their example of living life & not stopping after children. I'm also grateful for the time that they spent living in Switzerland & traveling often while they were there, because they spent hours talking to us before we left & we would have missed some really amazing things without their advice. 

I took a few photos. Around 1,700 I think, which really feels like not that many considering that we were there for almost two weeks. But, I also have a camera that weighs almost as much as my child, & managing both gets a little bit tricky (although both are insured!). I have no idea how to post all (some) of them, & just realized last night that I still haven't sorted through family photos or wedding photos or friends visiting photos that I the week before I left on my trip. One thing at a time I suppose. 

Quinn came back a new boy. Just look at that expression (from Sunday afternoon)! He's become a total rascal (Mike's favorite new name for him). He has a moppy head full of hair, he loves cuddling with his mama, he'll eat just about anything (& has a new love for pesto, Chinese food, & unusual cheeses) & makes friends wherever he goes, because he basically loves almost everyone. On the downside, he may have developed a bit of a binky addiction on our trip, & also might prefer spending a bit of the night sleeping in our bed (see above re: cuddling with his mama). We're working on both of those now that we're home, & we're also working on teaching him that 2am is not an appropriate time to wake up for the day. Jet lag coming back is not so fun.

It's really just been the craziest year. The busiest summer! It's not slowing down any time soon either, but I have good friends & a good family & everything will be okay! Everything will be okay, everything will be okay, everything will be okay. Eventually. In the meantime, as busy as we are, I'm trying to still document, because I'm thinking that someday we'll look back on this chapter of our lives & realize how much we learned & how much we grew. And really, it's all just part of the big adventure for our little family.