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For Christmas, I gave my two teen girls an eight- day trip to Europe. It took every airline mile I had and probably 30 shis serving drinks at the Moun- tain America Center suites, on top of my regular job, to make it happen. I said, "I think we should make that a double!" for sure A BILLION TIMES. If you were drinking Patron, Crown or anything else the MAC considers top-shelf liquor, you proba- bly never le my site for more than 30 seconds, just so I could hover to the point of annoyance for both of us. It was that important to me to show these girls that when your life doesn't go as planned, you don't give up, you show up. ey didn't pick the divorced-kid life but it can still be a good one. As I planned this trip, I let both girls pick the things they wanted to do. My youngest daughter, Cami, loves the theater so she wanted to go to London to see plays, four of which we sat through including Six and Hamilton. Well, most of us. Aer the second production, her sister Bizzy was like, "I'm out." But I persevered because I love my Cam Cam with all my heart and the theater makes her happy. For her part of the trip, Bizzy picked Florence. Katie: at sounds so fun. We can see the statues of David, Pisa, the Uffizi, Ponte Veccio… Bizzy [blank stare]: I don't want to do any of that. Katie: What?! Why would we possibly take a two- hour train ride to Florence then? It's pretty far out of the way. Bizzy: Because that's where season 4 of the Jersey Shore was filmed. 24/7 with Two Teens is the Most Fun You Can Have By Katie Burke Katie: Please tell me you're joking. Bizzy: ere's a walking tour already laid out. I need to see the land of the Meatballs. And, peeps, she was dead serious. Of course, my first reaction was like hell-o NO. But then it oc- curred to me. Life is so short. It could be over to- morrow for any of us. If it would make my meatball happy to eat meatballs where the meatballs made meatballs, then we should go and do it. Besides, I'm the reality-TV-super-fan OG. She's just the bet- ter-done knockoff. So we fan-girled together in front of where the cast lived. We took pictures in front of the clothes they le behind. We ate pizza and meatballs where they worked. We stood in front of the laundromat where the gang GTL'ld. e best part? e walking tour cost us nothing but our pride and we sold that out years ago. But we also covered the important stuff, because you know, history and everything. In case you're wondering, it is possible to do Europe on a budget. I lowered my hotel standards to "Does it have a roof?" and then I booked the cheapest room possible. When we arrived in Florence and began walking to our hotel, I started getting con- cerned because we appeared to be in a good location near the center of town. When we approached the building, full panic set in because I was convinced I messed up the currency conversion and we were going to be staying a couple of nights in a place I could never afford. en we walked up six full blown flights of stairs with no elevator to find a room equipped with bunk beds and everything was right in the world again. We also saved money by hoofing it around. In my old life, I would have been like, "1.2 miles? Taxi!" Nowadays, the girls and I laced up our shoes and got our walk on and I don't think my girls even noticed a difference. ey got to experience Europe with their forced-upon, self-inflicted best friend, ME! I think we made memories that won't soon be forgotten. So it was worth every early morning and long night. Ciao for now, Europe! European Vacation 54 IDAHO FALLS MAGAZINE JULY 2023 IF