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Ok, I need to write a little more background now at this
point.
So this trip was something I had been hoping for and looking
for a way to make happen for a while, but I wasn’t really sure how we would
pull if off. Then things starting
falling into place, and then a few things fell out of place, and few more
things fell into place, and here we are.
Some of you may know that I served in mission for the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in western Switzerland and eastern France,
and there are a few people I have kept in contact with for twenty-five years
now. I am particularly close to the
Vigliotti family who live in Switzerland, and the last time I saw them was ten
years ago. When we were driving our
daughter Alex to college last August, Becky and Alex were asleep in the
motorhome while I was driving into the night for a while. I was thinking about the Vigliottis and the
fact that Domenico, the father/ grandfather of the family was having major
surgery coming up. I had a strong
impression that I needed to go see them, but I just didn’t know how I would
manage to swing that especially with a daughter starting college in
Canada.
For the last twelve years or so, I organize an optional trip
for my 7th and 8th grade students to Washington DC over
Spring Break. The company I use to plan
the trip gives me some travel credit, and I found out at some point this year
that I had more credit in my travel account than I realized. Also, I was planning a trip for this Spring
Break as well so that would give me even more travel credit.
Around this same time, my son Zac, who was taking French 2
in high school, learned about a student travel trip to France this summer
through school. He was interested in
going, and we considered using some of my travel credit to help him pay for
that. Then I realized that instead we
could use the travel credit to all go on a trip together, and then we would
leave Zac with my friends the Vigliottis for a while longer so he would get a
French immersion experience that he wanted.
So I cashed in all of my travel credit and was able to pay
for the bulk of the trip using that. We even talked Becky’s sister Dee, who was
born on an American Air Force base in France but had never been back, into
joining us for part of the trip. Becky,
Katie and I are travelling for about 3 ½ weeks, Dee is with us for almost 2 of
the weeks, and we are leaving Zac with the Vigliottis for an extra 3
weeks.
The only hiccup is that Alex simply surprised all of us with
how well she has done in wrestling this year.
Becky and I had talked about this year being the right time to plan a
trip like this because we thought it would be the last summer that we would all
be together as a family for a large amount of time. At first, Alex’s wrestling coaches were
planning to not have her officially compete this season so we thought that we
would have one more summer with her, but they changed their mind part-way
thought the season, and she surprised all of us – not by her success but how
quickly she made it to such a high level.
After placing 2nd at the college nationals, she
was offered a sponsorship by the Titan Mercury Wrestling Club, and they started
covering her trips and tournaments to try to make US National teams. She won the Junior World Team trials, the
Senior US Open and the Senior World Team Trials Challenge Tournament, and she
was supposed to wrestle Olympic and multiple-time World Champion Helen Maroulis
on June 23 for a spot on the US World Team.
So we changed plans, and Alex is going to join us for the last week of
the trip. Of course, we found out about
a day ago that Helen is not cleared from a concussion yet and her wrestle-off
with Alex will be postponed, but at this point, it’s too late to change plans
so Alex will be joining us on June 25.
So that’s some of the background of the trip. I will write more about the Vigliotti family
soon.
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