Just a few pictures of us having fun here. Calico playing on a crazy cool playground with two submarine’s near the aquarium.

We landed in Malta last week!

The trip to Malta was a last minute addition to our summer trip to France. We were not sure what to expect and so far it has been a pleasant surprise apart from a lot of traffic and trying to remember how to drive on the left side of the road. Everyone is incredibly nice, incredible history, and the coastline is amazing. We are still exploring and getting settled after a few days in Gozo.

August 23rd was Calico’s first day at the beach! We left our hotel around 5 pm and rode the bus down to the beach from our hotel. The beach was sandy and super shallow which was great for him. We changed him into his awesome little European swim trunks, and he happily held our hands as we splashed our way into the water. He was so excited he was bouncing and laughing non-stop. We got out and he kicked and had so much fun, it was awesome to see :). At first he held onto me pretty tightly but as he got braver he wanted to move and kick and do what the other kids were doing. We stayed until he was a bit cold and then headed to play in the sand. He loved that too and he played with his new sand bucket and shovel with complete concentration for quite some time. He really liked playing with the texture on his skin, between his toes, and squeezed between his fingers. Fun evening :)

He also had fun on our short ferry ride to a smaller island for a few days!

P.S. Malta is my 46th country to visit :)!!!

And, here are a few pics of our apartment in Malta, nice two bedroom place that we are loving.

We spent a month in Dijon France in the Burgundy region this summer and it was a good trip. Not quite as magical as our stay in Strasbourg last year but a much-needed change of pace. We had a great time with family as my mom and step-dad visited for about 10 days and my brother and his girlfriend Isadora visited for a long weekend :). Fun times!

We had so many amazing meals, ate some amazing desserts, and drank a lot of good wine (plus sent some home)! I forgot how nice it is to have a slow 2 to 3-hour lunch with family. Calico even managed to sit through a few of those lunches…

Calico is such a blast! Even over the course of this trip, it is crazy how much more he can do and say. His first word after mama/dada was “ball” and he is a nut for any type of ball. Anytime he sees kids playing with a ball he just watches and wants to run over and try to play. It is so much fun to have this time with him in a new place.

What changed this year?

Calico is older! When he was 5 months old he was barely crawling and we could take him everywhere and he just sat and watched :). Now we have to hand him back and forth during a meal or try to keep him occupied at the table. Plus he doesn’t like to sit in his stroller for long periods and needs to get out and run and jump. We wonder if he will be the type of kid who is going to sit and color while we eat in a year :). We did not know quite what to expect at this age with his personality and that definitely adjusted what we thought we could do. I think in the future we will make sure we are really close to pedestrian areas or big parks that he can play at. And, probably smaller towns as well.

The weather was too hot! We did not realize that this region is the hottest in France in the summer and we need to check that better next time (94 degrees plus for the first 2 to 3 weeks before it dropped to the 80s). Our apartment did not have AC and the main living room got hit by morning to afternoon sun every day. We slept fine with fans, but we plan to move our yearly trip to winter/early-spring going forward. That way we get to enjoy the amazing Colorado summer and escape the cold of late winter.

Calico was sick the first week and his energy was low and he was extra clingy. That was a bummer as it lined up with when my mom and step-dad visited so we did not get to do as much with them or take them up on their offer to watch him for a few date nights.

What did we learn? What would we change going forward?

Lindsey did a 3-week trip back to Arkansas prior to France and she had a great time but was also exhausted going into our family trip. That is not something we will do next time as it is just too much go-go-go. She needed more solo time once she was here and we should have planned that better. Towards the end of the trip, we got that sorted out better.

Lindsey and I get in this rut where we forget to take time for ourselves that we desperately need. We are trying to do better at this both in Colorado and when we travel. We just get stuck where we are both watching Calico halfway while trying to do something and both of us get frustrated. We both need breaks where we eat a long meal alone or read or workout or do a wine/cheese tasting or something. I was especially bad where I would put off a workout and then get frustrated as I really needed one.

We need to make more plans and schedule things we want to do. Not a crazy amount, but just more planned trips via the train, or car, to eat a special meal, or do a wine tasting, or see some history. It is too easy to get stuck in a loop where we are tired and we don’t do something special or adventures. We had such great memories of driving to the lake to swim or doing a wine tasting and that is fun for Calico too.

If it is going to be hot we need to get AC. When it was just us we could go out during the day, or hang out at a park or cafe, but with a little one, it is nice to have a room with AC for him to play in during peak heat.

I worked a little bit on this trip and with that about to switch to full time as I start a new business, we are going to try to find a temporary babysitter to help when we travel next time. That way the babysitter can watch Calico while I am home working in the morning and Lindsey can go explore and have a break. Or, Lindsey has help when she takes Calico with her to explore a new city. It would be really nice if we trust them to have a lunch just me and Lindsey too :). I think in general we are going to try to get some more help here and there, as it really helps out.

Christian Cameron is one of my favorite authors. His “Traitor Son Series” about the Red Knight is one of my favorite book series and one where I was sad to even read the last book because I did not want to say goodbye to such amazing characters and have nothing more to read about them. I do not know why I waited so long to read more of his books and the minute I picked up Killer Of Men, the first book in the Long War series, I was thrown into an utterly amazing story. The story starts with a young farm boy named Arimnestos, Arimnestos is a historical figure who was the commander of the Plataean contingent during the Greco-Persian wars. Christian creates a 6 book fictionalized series about him and they are utterly amazing books. I will probably read them again in a few years :).

I highly recommend you read these books. Not only are they amazingly well written with characters you will fall in love with, they walk you through a really interesting period of history. You might even notice Herodutus peak his head in.