While we had a lot of fun during our travels this summer, it was actually a very tough summer for us. Not only was it hard on the girls and I to be out of our routine in Italy for so long, and tough to travel on my own with the girls, but throughout the summer, my Dad was in very poor health.
Dad had surgery to remove a cancerous mass in his colon a few days before our scheduled trip from Italy to the East Coast. Around the time that we were flying, he was in a lot of pain and eventually was re-admitted to the hospital where they discovered that he had a leak in his intestine, so he had been poisoned from the inside. The day after the girls and I arrive in NJ, we decided it would be best if Eloise and I flew to Seattle to see Dad because we really didn't think he was going to make it through the week. He did manage to get better, so we flew back to MD and finished our East Coast part of the vacation with Andy.
During this time, however, Dad continued to experience various complications from surgery and the weekend that we were in Boston, during my friend Anda's wedding, it seemed that the end might be near again. So, I decided to cut our Boston trip short by several days and I flew to Seattle with both girls, while Andy returned to Maryland. We decided that the girls and I would just stay in Seattle until our scheduled flight back to Italy in late July. At the time, in my head I even kept my return flight as "open" thinking that I might need to reschedule my ticket and stay a little longer.
After we got to Seattle, Dad improved again, but still wasn't in great shape. For the next few days and weeks, we were in Seattle spending time with family and some friends and I spent time trying to get to see Dad in the hospital. He continued to struggle, but toward the end of our trip he seemed to be getting much better.
As luck would have it, the day I left Seattle to return to Italy, as originally planned, Dad checked into a rehab center. He is still currently in the rehab center, but will likely be discharged on August 18th, the day before his 83rd birthday. It looks like he'll be able to return to the boat, which is amazing news. There were many many points this summer where I didn't think he'd be where he is now and I'm so glad he's still with us.
Ultimately, he still has some cancer, but we are not really sure what is the next step as far as treatment goes, but I hope he continues to fight like he has been.
While in Seattle, we had a lot of fun spending time with family and friends. Claire and Eloise got to spend a lot of time with their cousin Natalie, whom they simply adored, especially Claire. Here are the three girls, playing tea party.
Natalie LOVED helping Ellie learn how to walk.
Claire and Natalie went to a "real" tea party at Pottery Barn Kids... too funny!
Eloise entertained herself by pushing around the shopping cart.
They had lots of fun hanging around doing art projects...
picking flowers...
arranging the flowers into bowls of water...
and being silly in the bath.
Mommy also had fun taking the girls out to eat, especially for sushi!
We also spent one afternoon driving down to Centralia, WA to meet up with my cousin Amy and her darling son Max, who is one year older than Claire. We all had a lot of fun playing in the park. Max is such a cute kid with a TON of personality and Claire is totally crazy about her cousin!
