Thanksgiving and Switzerland

Hey everyone! 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are in full swing of the Christmas spirit! I have yet to decorate but am hoping to get a few shopping trips in over the next week to fill our house with Christmas! I am a little hesitant on what we should get for a tree since Carter is a curious toddler! I just know he will want to get into the tree and the presents. We will see what we come up with! 

Laurie (Tyler’s mom) was able to spend a week with us over Thanksgiving. She showed up with literally an entire suitcase of stuff just for us. It was like Mary Poppins bag and she kept pulling out item after item - peanut butter, candles, toys, shoes, powdered coffee creamer, oatmeal, clothes, Christmas presents... the list goes on and I seriously could not stop laughing. She brought SO MUCH. It was awesome though to have so many things from home and it was so nice of her to bring it all out. 

We wanted to be able to do as much as possible while she was here and try to show her as much of Italy as we could. We took day trips to Milan and Como, showed her around our city, and hit up as many Italian restaurants as we could. She was able to see Ty play in a game and see how we spend Thanksgiving overseas. We had everyone from the team come over to our house (about 16 people + 3 kids), had an abundance of food and spent a fun evening together with everyone. It was a quick week and it went by way too fast but we all had a great time! 

Over the past weekend, Tyler had some time off so we decided it was finally time to go to Switzerland! We are literally 10 minutes from the border and only about 30 minutes from Lugano, Switzerland which is where we decided to go. And oh my goodness. Talk about beautiful!! The lake in Lugano is so big and as you’re driving in, you can see it from above and it really takes your breath away! The mountains and hills surrounding the lake paints the most picturesque image. The city is also beautiful, clean and you can tell people are probably pretty wealthy there (Hermès, Gucci, expensive cars etc). We took a boat tour and got to see the gorgeous scenery and walked around the city center where they were starting to get their Christmas markets going for the season. Lugano is probably on my top 3 cities I have been to and we only spent a few hours there! I could go on about how pretty it was. I am already looking forward to going back and would also love seeing more of Switzerland. 

We always joke about the things Carter will get to tell his friends at school and the things he will bring for show and tell. We laugh at how extravagant his stories will sound. “ I was born in France”...  “Here is a picture of me in front of the Eiffel Tower at 2 months old” ... and from our trip to Lugano he will get to add “my first boat ride was in Switzerland”.  Kid, you have a pretty cool life. 

I can’t believe tomorrow is already December 1st. Each holiday gets more exciting as Carter gets older and starts understanding more. I can’t wait to see how he handles seeing Santa as last year he cried and cried at 9 months old. My guess is that he will have similar feelings this year and throw a fit and run away now that he can move around on his own. LOL. Oh the joys of toddlerhood! 

Enjoy your holiday season! I will try to get another blog post up before the end of the year! 

Halloween in Italy

Hello again! Here is what we have been up to the past few weeks:

We were able to take advantage of a day off from basketball and travel to Lake Como. It is only about a 45 minute drive from us and the weather worked out in our favor and was perfect. Lake Como is absolutely beautiful! (Google it!) I secretly kind of wished we lived there! We took in the gorgeous views, ate lunch right on the lake, grabbed some gelato and ended the day with Carter playing at a playground with the lake and mountains as the backdrop. It really was a perfect day! We are hoping to make it back there once more before the weather gets too chilly. 

On to a completely different topic.... Holidays. Holidays overseas are always difficult. Especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Up until now, Halloween wasn't really that big of a deal to miss out on. But of course, now with Carter, it's almost as hard as Thanksgiving and Christmas in my opinion! Preparing to head overseas this season, it really did make me sad that Carter was going to miss Halloween in the States. Even though he is young and still doesn't fully understand what it is, I still wanted him to be able to be home and go trick or treating. It makes me sad to miss out on American holidays with our family. Those are the special moments that we miss out on that are the hardest things to handle over here. 

I still wanted to make it special so I got Carter some Halloween goodies to pack up in my suitcase - of course there was already Halloween stuff out at Target in August! I never even thought about taking Carter trick or treating here until Tyler brought it up one day in September right after we got here. The whole team lives in the same apartment complex (which has never happened with previous teams, everyone lived in different locations). So with us all being so close, it would make it super convenient to take Carter trick or treating here. I don't know why I never thought of it but I was so excited to do something for Carter that was Halloween related! 

Once October rolled around, stores started filling with Halloween stuff. I did not realize how much Italy has embraced the Halloween tradition and it is definitely by far the most I have seen while overseas. I was able to grab some cute Halloween goodies/decorations and we were even able to find pumpkins to carve. We found Carter a Batman mask and dressed him up as Batman and he was so stinking cute. He even left the mask on the whole time which Tyler and I could barely believe! He did so great even though I'm sure he must have been thinking "what the heck are these two getting me into" ;) Even though we weren't home, I'd say we had a pretty good Halloween for Carter and I am already looking forward to next year when he understands it even more. 

It might sound silly that I am talking about being sad about missing Halloween in the States, but those are really the moments that matter! Holiday traditions surrounded by family and friends are priceless and I can't wait to have those back again. Thankfully, this year we are going to have a little bit of home with us on both Thanksgiving AND Christmas! This will be the first time ever in the 8 years Tyler has played overseas that we will have family with us on those holidays. Laurie (Tyler's mom) will be with us for Thanksgiving and Erica and Dan (Tyler's sister and her husband) will be with us for Christmas! I am so excited and am so happy we will get to spend the holidays with them. I can't wait for them to experience the holidays overseas. 

I will probably be back with another post after Thanksgiving. Enjoy eating way too much turkey and pie and enjoy the time that you get to spend with family and friends. Don't take it for granted! 

First Month Back in Italy

Hi again! 

After a few weeks of getting adjusted, we have finally settled down into our routine and schedule here in Italy. Jet lag is always a disaster for me. It seriously takes me a good 3 weeks to get adjusted to the time change every season. I am convinced I get the worst case of jet lag known to mankind! My days and nights are all mixed up and I feel like a complete zombie. It really is the worst feeling to not feel like you are in sync with what time it is! But thankfully that has passed and I am good to go! 

Creating a routine overseas has become even more important now. When it was just Tyler and me, we would just binge watch tv shows on Netflix when he was home from practice or on days off (I am laughing to myself right now at how much as changed!) Now that Carter is a toddler, it's so important that we aren't just sitting around the house all day, every day. We try to get him out and do as much as we can - going to the park, going on walks, going to the store etc. We are so blessed this season because we have a large backyard at our apartment(more like a townhouse). There is also a little playground for our apartment complex that happens to be right outside our front door. Those two things have truly been a blessing as we use them everyday. 

As many of you saw by the pictures I recently posted, we enrolled Carter into a weekly toddler class. We were out walking in the center one day, and we literally just stumbled upon this little school that was tucked away. I noticed it was an English school and so I decided to google it when I got home. After checking it out, I sent the director a message and asked if Carter would be able to potentially enroll (even though the school is technically for Italian kids to learn English). She was so kind and told us that she would love for us to come down and check things out. 

I assumed that since Carter is so young, his class would just basically be for him to go and play with other toddlers. Which was totally fine with us because we basically just wanted him to be able to socialize with other kids. I figured they might point out an English word here or there and the whole class would be in Italian, but at least by us taking him to an English school it would be beneficial on our end because we could communicate in English with his teachers. But I was blown away! They teach the whole class entirely in English and have super interactive lessons and activities for the kids. They definitely have a great curriculum and it was so awesome to see Carter in his first class! It feels so great to have something like this for Carter every week, it makes it feel we are making steps towards making this city feel more like a "home" to us.   

Tyler is super busy with long practices and games. Everything is going great though with the team which helps to confirm our choice in coming back to Italy. We are getting familiar with our city and hoping to take advantage of days off and get some traveling in over the course of the season. We were able to make a day trip to Milan a few weeks ago and that was fun to take pictures of Carter and get a little shopping and eating in. I've already had more pizza than I really should have in the past month, but hey we're in Italy and pizza doesn't compare anywhere else! Oh, and we won't even talk about how much gelato we've had (insert the emoji with the girl putting her arms up)! As far as pasta goes, I've had a few good dishes but still on the hunt for the best in this area! 

That's just a little update on the past few weeks. I forget sometimes to give ourselves a little grace in getting settled in to a new city. It takes time to get used to the area, where things are, get items that we need that didn't come with our place and just getting acclimated to a new culture in general. It is funny the little things we forgot about Italy, I find myself saying/thinking "oh yeah! I forgot about that!" Now that we are getting acquainted/reacquainted with things, I will have more to share about our life here in Italy.  

Ciao! 

New Season, New Outlook

Hey everyone! 

I come to you in much better spirits than my last blog post and I am so grateful for that. As many of you know, last season was a big struggle for me. I just hit a point where the overseas lifestyle was taking a toll on me and I missed home so much. To be completely honest, I was miserable. I wasn't happy and I wasn't enjoying any of my time in France. I wasn't fun to be around (for Tyler) and the days couldn't go by fast enough until my flight home to the US. 

I am feeling a billion times better and having a much more positive outlook on this season. The summer and time at home is exactly what I needed to be renewed. Carter and I got to spend 4 months in the USA, Tyler about 3 months, and we had an amazing summer just being HOME. I have truly grown such an appreciation for our country and I am so thankful for our home in Minnesota. We are so blessed to be Americans.  Only getting to spend about 3-4 months of your year in your home country makes you truly thankful for what you have and realize that you should never take anything for granted. While it never gets easier leaving home (it's even harder now with a child in my opinion), I am looking forward to this season ahead. 

So here we are, season 8, back in Italy! If you know me, you know how much I LOVE Italy! The season after Tyler and I got married, we were in Italy. It was an incredible season of being able to travel to many beautiful Italian cities and eating the best food I have ever had in my life. I honestly thought that we would be back again after that season. Tyler had a great year and we just thought for sure we would be back the following season. But this crazy world of basketball is so unpredictable. Before we knew it, Tyler had signed with a team in France and we ended up there for three years.  Not that there is anything wrong with France by any means, but I always hoped there would be an opportunity to go back to Italy! When this offer came up over the summer and Tyler and I started seriously considering that this was the best move for both his career and our family, I could hardly contain my excitement! After having a pretty crappy season on my part, I was so looking forward to a new, refreshing chapter back in Italy. 

I will always miss home and I honestly can't wait for the day that we are settled in the USA for good, but I know that this time in our lives is so temporary. Tyler has already been doing this for 8 years now and we definitely have more years behind us than in front of us in his career. I have such a renewed outlook and want to soak up every opportunity of being overseas. God has blessed us so much with everything that He given us and I don't want to waste it away. One day I am sure I will miss it. 

I'm going to try REALLY hard to be much better at blogging. The past few seasons I've only shared a couple updates each season so I am going to try my best be a little better at it this season. I will be back soon to share how everything is going for us these first few weeks in Italy! 

Just Being Honest

Hi everyone. 

I realize I didn't really do a good job on keeping an updated blog this season. But just to be real, it is because this was one of the hardest seasons for me personally. 

While I have so much to be thankful for, this season just flat out kicked my butt. Living overseas finally started taking a huge toll on me and it was just a difficult time for me. 

The first part of the season was completely as normal. Of course I missed home and family as usual but nothing more so than what I am used to going through. I knew that we were going to be able to go home after Christmas and for the first time in Tyler's career, he was going to get to come home too. I was over the moon and so excited for our time home. It gave me something to look forward to. 

Tyler was able to be home for a week and Carter and I stayed a couple of extra weeks before heading back to France. I was super bummed to be leaving home but I thought that after a week or so back in France, it would wear off and I would be fine again. 

That wasn't the case at all. 

The last three months have been a huge struggle for me and although it's hard to admit that, it's honest. 

In a way, I almost think our trip home triggered all of this. That was the first time in SEVEN YEARS we had been home in the winter together. I kept saying to Tyler while we were back, "this is so weird being home right now". Seeing snow and Christmas lights is something we do not see when we are home during the summer. It was like an alternate world and I got a glimpse of what a normal life would be like once we are back in the States permanently. This may sound bizarre to most of you reading this, but living overseas has made me crave a normal life more than ever. I want to be in Minnesota, in our house, cook dinner while Carter plays in the living room. I want to take Carter trick or treating and spend Thanksgiving with family eating way too much food. I want to plan a weekend trip with girlfriends or go to a football game with Tyler. I want to go to Target and drink a coffee while I spend way too much time and money there. I want to wake up in my own bed every single morning. I want to see our family and friends more than three months out of the year. I want to go to the store and understand what people are saying around me. I want to be able to stop fitting my life into 2 suitcases to live out of for 8 months. 

I want a normal life. 

I think everything finally just hit me and I realized how much I truly miss life in the USA. It sucks not seeing your family and friends for so long. And it sucks leaving your life behind at the end of every summer. 

I'm not trying to complain because we still have an incredible life. I am so thankful that I get to spend as much time as I do with Tyler and Carter. It is a huge blessing that I get to stay home with Carter and I absolutely love it. I feel a little selfish feeling this way. The grass is always greener, right?

Carter and I are back in the US now and Tyler will be back in a couple weeks. I honestly just want to put this season behind me and move forward. I know Tyler's career is not finished nor do I want it to be. I know that we will eventually be heading back overseas and I am hoping that my mentality will be a little better come next season. I am trusting in God every day that He has us where He wants us. I know He will help me through this difficult time that I am going through. 

I know this post was a little personal, but i wanted to share it. It's not always easy living overseas.