While I try to sort through my 1,000+ photos from South Africa, I wanted to post on what was happening during that trip back home in São Paulo — my amazing mom was living in our apartment and taking perfect care of our sweet little Colt! She arrived to our place on the morning of September 1st and even though Colt hadn’t seen her in person since early April, he immediately recognized her and was so happy to see her! He instantly just smiled and giggled with her. She thought that it might be because we FaceTime all the time so he is able to remember her better. At any rate, he was happy to see her.

We spent a couple of days together so that she could get used to our apartment complex, get comfortable going to the grocery store, the park, etc. and then we just left for 2 weeks! My mom is amazing though and she’s totally fearless – she just finds a way to make things work and get things done on her own – even when she’s in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak (a single word of) the language!

While we were gone, we were blessed enough to have friends come visit my mom a few times to give her a little company. Although Joe was traveling for a good portion of her visit, he was able to come by a couple of times. Our sweet friend Tom was awesome and took Colt and my mom out to lunch twice, Brett and Jana came by and played with them at the apartment and she met up with Michelle and her baby Jack at the park once as well. THANK YOU to all who made the effort to see her and make her feel welcome!

Throughout their time together, my mom took such perfect care of Colt. She took him to the park, the playground, and to the pool every day. They read books and played games and each day she brought out new little toys and gifts that she had brought to be sure that he didn’t get bored and start missing us. Colt was so happy with her the entire time (she swears “no tears”) and seeing his smiling face made being away much easier. She also did all of the grocery shopping and cooking and kept everything running while we were gone. When we got back I realized that even I had never done that much time with Colt on my own!! It’s no small task and takes a lot of work, energy and love. Thankfully Gigi has it all. She was incredible and when we returned I couldn’t believe all of the new things that Colt was doing and saying!

After getting home I was so sad that I only had about a 14 hour overlap with my mom before she had to take off, but I know that my dad and family were missing her in South Carolina. Anyway, BIG THANK YOU to my incredible mom. You gave Michael and me such a priceless gift of your time, energy, know-how and love and you gave Colt the most special gift of time with you. We love you!!