Trey Braheem

The big event of the last month for Trey was going away for one night and two days to Torino (Turin) on a school field trip to the museum of Egyptian Archeology (The second largest in the world). Kirk was in town, so he and I took Trey in the early morning to a meeting place near the school, where we dropped him off at the bus. The first question that his teacher (Ms. Raffanti) asked me when we arrived at 6:30 am was “Is he nervous, because many of the kids are?” The answer was summed up in the fact that he was already at the door of the bus laughing and talking to his friends. Its so interesting how much this adventure has made a difference in Trey. He has grown up so much in the past four months. In fact, Anna and I can’t believe that its only been four months when you measure it against his growth. Not once during the days building up to the field trip did he show signs of nerves and all the way up to departure, he was nothing but excited to experience some independence. That night, we received a call from Ms. Raffanti to give us an update on how Trey was doing. “He’s had a smile on his face the entire day” she explained. As it turned out, Trey didn’t like the museum as much as he thought he would (His reasons are in this months interview) but all in all, it was a great two days for him as he loved hanging out with the boys and being a nine year old all on his own without mom and dad there to correct him!

In the past month, Anna and I were successful in convincing Trey that he needed to participate in more than just tennis (When it rains, there is no tennis class, so there can be several days between physical activities), so we finally convinced him to take swimming as well. We needed to twist his arm pretty hard, “I already know how to swim, he kept insisting.” When he finally went with me to the tryout, he was a bit humbled by the fact that he scored the same as his little sister!!! Trey takes swimming one day a week, while Olivia has class twice, so the race is on to see who can master the four strokes of swimming faster! More to come…

Like Olivia, Trey too has had his bouts with missing home off and on. It seems to happen following his experiencing something that reminds him of California (IE talking to his buddy Holden on the phone, his grandparents visiting, etc…) but all and all Trey is getting adjusted quite well to life in Italy. Trey is a very different kid than his sister and it takes him much longer to make friends. The friends that he has at home are “True Friends” in mine and Anna’s eyes. The type of friends that you have for a lifetime because you have so much in common and the personalities mesh well. For this reason the adjustment to life in Italy has been harder on Trey. Anna and I are a bit concerned as to how difficult it will be on both of the kids when we leave the US on the 2nd of January to return to Italia. The bottom line is that Trey is looking forward to spending much of his waking hours with the boys back home, riding his bike and talking Poke Mon.

One thing that has made the adjustment that much easier is Trey’s liking for his teacher Ms. Raffanti. From the first day of school and the parent teacher conference, Anna and I were immediately impressed by her philosophy on teaching and she sure has Trey in a good space mentally when it comes to school. What a difference a year makes. Last year was his worst year of school (Not academically, but in that he really disliked his teacher and most all other things about Carden in Westlake). This year is his favorite year and he simply loves his teacher. In fact in the holiday card he gave to her he said “Dear Ms. Raffanti, Buon Natale (Merry Christmas). Thank you for being my teacher. You are the best teacher that I have ever had and I love being in your class!” Those were purely his words. No intervention from mom and dad on that one!



Q1 – What will you miss the most about Italy when you go home for two weeks?
OA – “I’ll miss the food a lot. I will miss our friends here like Blaze, Diego and Simone and Giovane (The bus driver), I will miss living at the castle because we are so high up and can see all of Florence.”

Q2 – Why do you like your teacher Ms Raffanti so much, what makes her a good teacher?
OA – “She’s really nice and she is very easy for me to understand. She tries to make learning fun. She’s the best teacher I have ever had.”

Q3 – “When you think of the first four months in Italy, what are the thoughts that come to your mind?”
OA – “Well the first thought is that it was really hard at first, but its progressively getting better each day. We are learning more Italian which makes it easier and its starting to feel more like normal living.”

Q4 – Tell us about the field trip to Torino. How was it to be alone (Without mom and dad) for one night?
TA – “I thought that the museum was kind of boring because we didn’t see everything and the guide only showed us the most important things. There was basically just a bunch of pottery and statues. I really liked the monastery that we slept in though. We had a huge room with five beds and a really big bathroom. The beds were really comfortable and my two friends (Blaze and Diego) were my roommates so it was a lot of fun to be with them for two days. It was fun to be away from mom and dad for one night!”

Q5 – How did it feel to see your Grandma Gina when she came to visit?
TA – “I was really happy for her to come to Italy and was really excited to see her. She was the second family guest and I had not seen her in a long time. I finally got to see her and was fun to have her stay with us for those days.”