Tattoos Together | An Original

46

SIX MONTHS LATER
Reese

Between Lollapalooza, Charlie and Jackson's second birthday, and starting school back up, things have been pretty eventful for me. Dominic and I are doing great, and we're currently on our way to Australia to cheer Maren on at her first international senior elite gymnastics competition. Making her senior elite debut, means she's competing with the likes of Olympians, and world-class gymnasts.

A lot of sports commentators have been keeping an eye on her, even when she was just a junior elite (the difference is age. You start in senior elite in the January after you turn 16). Now, she's projected to make the Olympic team, and we couldn't be prouder of her.

The Pacific Rim is a competition held in Australia every year, and it's one of the biggest international gymnastics events besides the World Championships and The Olympics. It's a great place for Maren to make her debut.

Here in Australia besides Dominic and I, is Maeve, Milo and Sabrina (they started officially dating last September), Uncle Grayson and Aunt Alex, and Taytum and Andrew.

Tenley and Josh are in New Jersey until May, and my parents both had to work. They're all watching from home, which is great. However, the rest of us are so excited to be here in person. I'm especially happy that Dominic was able to come with us. I always feel more at home on trips if he's with me. It's weird to say that, since these are family trips, yet it's true. Even when I'm with my family, I don't feel as comfortable without Dominic anymore. He brings another aspect of home to me.

There's a day in between the qualifying round and the first day of the final events. In gymnastics, there's four events called vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. Each of those events have their individual final events, but the most important one is the individual all-around, which means the qualified athletes have to perform each of those routines in one event, and the totaled scores determine the winner.

Our time in Australia is two weeks long. A week for Maren's competitions, and a week for family vacation. We stay at a huge air b&b, we explore the towns around us, and we all have a great time together.

One of the days, Taytum and I go downtown together to make some content for our channels, and we end up having a really nice day together. Despite Taytum's apartment being a flight of stairs away from mine, we don't always get to spend this much time together. We're both working a lot on our own projects, and she travels a lot. During the school year we're both busy with school, but this vacation has been such a nice breath of fresh air for us.

Right now, I'm in the kitchen of the air b&b with Aunt Alex. She's in the habit of always making stuff for us kids to snack on. It's the motherly tendencies in her. When I was little and always showing up at her house with Milo, she'd always have something ready for us to snack on after school, or after high school parties when we were old enough. She makes the best fruit dips, chip dips, and dessert dips in the world.

I douse a grape in some yogurt dip before eating it. "This is my favorite fruit dip in the world," I say.

Aunt Alex smiles. "You've loved that stuff since you were six months old, Reesey Girl."

"I'm so happy we're all here. Australia is beautiful."

"It's one of your Uncle Grayson's favorite places in the world. We went on our honeymoon trip here. We went on our fifteenth anniversary trip here last year as well."