When I pictured this summer, I had a lot of ideas of how it would look. We had trips booked — in particular a long-planned family reunion in France — and others in the works. We had family and friends intending to come stay with us. I expected to spend a lot of time on swimming lessons and pool dates at the base pool. In September, I planned to take Loch for a quick trip back to the States to see family members and attend a cousin’s wedding.

Obviously, covid-19 stomped on our plans. If you asked me back at May, I would have told you that I expected this summer to totally suck.

Luckily, I was wrong.

While we are still deeply disappointed by not being able to see our families this year, we ended up salvaging a pretty awesome summer after all. Obviously we’d prefer none of this had happened, but since it did I think we did a pretty decent job finding the silver linings. For instance, pretty much all of our friends — who travel as much as we do and many of whom typically leave for the entire summer — were around to hang out with more this year. This was the year of the group beach trip! Because of social distancing, we spent a ton of time outdoors this year — the beach, hikes, riding bikes and even the base pool once it opened up. With way fewer tourists this year, the island was also much less crowded than usual — we even ventured to Taormina in August! Normally, I wouldn’t be caught there during the high season because it is absolute madness but this year? Bam Bar in August, baby!

Overall, since we didn’t travel internationally much (other than our quick trip to Malta), we spent a lot of time just really savoring Sicily and spending time with our wonderful friends. While I certainly hope that by next summer we have a vaccine and more freedom to travel, I feel unbelievably grateful for these last few months. I love this gorgeous place!

For most of this summer, we ended up spending at least two, sometimes three days a week at the beach — usually once on the weekend as a family, and once or twice during the week with friends since beach time is a good socially-distant activity. The big kids had an absolute blast swimming with their friends!

We took advantage of trying out various different beaches this year, including a rocky beach to the north near Fiumefreddo. We also took a nice trip down to a town called Marina di Ragusa for a three-day stay in June.

This summer also ended up being a perfect year to try out a few activities that we’ve been meaning to do but never seemed to get around to, including the Adventure Park at Monti Rossi in Nicolosi. I was so proud of my big kids for completing the ropes course!

We did get to travel a little this summer and seized our opportunity to go to Malta about a week after it opened to travelers from Italy. We also had tickets to go to Poland at the end of July, but unfortunately ended up bailing on that trip because of some airline scheduling changes shortened to the trip so much that it didn’t seem worth the travel time any more. Unfortunately both those countries are now labeled “red,” meaning anyone returning to Italy from there has to either quarantine for two weeks or get a Covid test as soon as they return. We had hopes of leaving traveling internationally this fall, but since it is risky to book anything without knowing if a country will turn red before or during our trip, we’ve pretty much settled on staying within Italy for the rest of the year. Fortunately there are still so many places we’d love to see here!

Owen and Fiona started school in-person last week for the first time since March 10, and I can’t even explain how happy they are to be back. Owen is in second grade this year, while Fiona is in first. Things are much different at the school this year, obviously, but they are so happy to be around other kids that they don’t seem to mind much. I’m insanely grateful that we are living out here at this moment in time because our numbers have been mercifully low in Sicily and I feel comfortable sending them back. I know most of my friends in the States are dealing with distance learning this semester as well as juggling jobs, and I just want to send you all hugs (and all the wine).

Looking back over this strange, stressful and sometimes scary year, I’m ultimately glad that the Italian government took the steps it did this spring. Our extremely strict lockdown was difficult to deal with from March to June, but it has really allowed Italy to stomp on this jackass of a virus. We went from almost 1,000 deaths per day during the darkest days, to single digits each day for weeks now. While each of those deaths still happening is a tragedy, the Italian lockdown and the precautions still in place now clearly saved countless lives. Here in Sicily, everyone is watching the numbers with some concern right now because our numbers of cases are starting to rise (perhaps letting our guard down too much at the end of summer?), but having made it through one lockdown already, I know we can do it again if need be. At any rate, I am clinging to the knowledge that each month that passes brings us closer to the release of an effective vaccine. And with that, closer to the opportunity to see our families at last! It has been too long.