Update

It's been over ten days since we returned from the US. A part of me feels like we've returned from the moon - adjusting to the smallness of Malta is always hard, no matter how many times I go away. But life has to go on and I am more or less back to my normal routine. The word 'normal' however, does not seem to include blogging and other social media. I always struggle with that in summer and this year is no exception. Anyway, back to our trip …

For probably the first time since we've been crossing the pond, we arrived in St  Louis at the decent hour of 5pm, which meant that it was midnight back home and we had been awake since the ungodly hour of 4am or something like that (by now I'd lost track, but who cares when you're on holiday?). Also for the first time ever, our whole trip went without a hitch and even the Homeland Security guys didn't seem too threatening this time round. This meant that we arrived in St Louis with smiles on our faces and an enormous appetite which we immediately sated at IHOP - an American breakfast in the late evening sounded like a perfectly good idea. We spent the next 4 days in Canton, my husband's hometown in northern Missouri. It's a place of cornfields, farms and the sluggish Mississippi and is perfect for a few days of perfect relaxation.

From Canton it was back to St Louis on the 4th of July to fly to Florida.  We spent 4 days in Orlando (more about that some other time) and managed to fit quite a bit into our schedule including meeting up with some friends. From Florida we flew back to St Louis for 5 days and then spent the final week in Canton. Some firsts on this trip were an evening at a county fair, a jet-ski ride on the Mississippi, a tour of an old brewery that is being restored, a terrifying theme park ride, an up-close-and-personal look at the Saturn V rocket that propelled mankind to the moon, a swim in the Atlantic and a family photo shoot in a meadow complete with an old barn and some very lovely horses. Most importantly of all we reunited with family and friends (and I made some new ones).

Today I downloaded my photos and spent some time re-living the memories. Unfortunately, the heat must have addled by brain because I only took about half the amount of photos that I usually do. I will make sure to share some of our 'adventures' in the coming weeks. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer and that it's not infernally hot in your part of the world. I am already looking forward to cooler days and to wearing boots and beanies.