Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Life Updates

So, how do you like my every five months posting schedule?  I'm thinking about writing a tutorial on the worst possible ways to operate a personal weblog.  I've finally found my calling!  Anyway, insert empty promises about updating more often, blah blah blah... moving on.

Actually, life has been rather exciting over the past few months.  I mean, exciting in a way that only a suburban, married mother of two would find to be a thrill, but busy nonetheless.  Since October...

We had a spooktacular Halloween with two of the cutest rag dolls I've ever seen.

I met up with these beauties in Paris for a girls' weekend that included a boat ride down the Seine, the best steak and frites I've ever tasted, a mentally unbalanced young man sketching us in a bar, shopping on the Champs Elysees, and did not include children.  I insisted that there be candles and sharp knives on every table we dined at!

We celebrated the 3rd birthday of those aforementioned rag dolls, also known as Charlotte and Annabelle,  Three has been a bit of an awakening in terms of how difficult parenting can be (and I don't kid myself that it gets any easier), but they really are the sweetest girls, and so freaking smart and hilarious it blows my mind on the daily.  We're pretty convinced we should keep them.

 

We hit a few Christmas markets for our last holiday season in Germany and time marched inexorably on as I turned yet another year older.

   

We visited Louisiana for Christmas and New Year's enjoying a flurry of family time, and finally getting to experience the magical Christmas Tea at the Roosevelt in New Orleans.  We left the kids with my inlaws for a weekend to spend a few days in the Big Easy with our dear friends, Tim and Nicole.  And Annabelle also survived the trauma of her first haircut, finally ridding herself of the dreaded mullet she'd been rocking for far too long.  Now when I go get my hair done, the girls ask me if I get to sit in a pink car and watch Frozen--I wish!

I stayed in Louisiana for a full five weeks, while Colby had to return to work, but he joined me for a week in the Northern Virginia area so we could find a house at our new assignment.  We landed on this diamond in the rough that we got for a great price and will spend the rest of our born days renovating. 

 

My mom accompanied me and the girls on our flight back to Germany, and as well as being a huge help to me while we prepped for the move, we snuck in another pottery shopping trip, this time to Nove in Italy with a side excursion to fair Verona.

 

Colby and I took a Valentine's Day kid-free weekend trip to bid farewell to our favorite city, Paris.  We stood in the rain for an hour so we could finally visit the catacombs, accidentally spend the equivalent of a new hot water heater at a fancy dinner, sipped on decadent hot chocolate, and visited the gorgeous palace of Fontainebleu.  It was a delightful way to end our time in Europe.

We had all of our belongings packed up, then spent the next month living at a friend's house and two different temporary apartments, had going away lunches, coffees and dinners, and finally made it to a couple of Easter markets where my obsession with hand painted Easter eggs was fully ignited.

 

We made the flight back across the pond, and have spent the last week closing on our house and working furiously to make it at least habitable, if not beautiful before we move in tomorrow.  More on this later, hopefully with at least a couple of afters to show for all of our work!

A whole host of family including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins big and small celebrated Colby's birthday with a chocolate cake from The Swiss Bakery, because we found ourselves in need of a little taste of... home???

 

And oh yeah, found out we're having another one of these little things!  Coming August 2016.  Eek!

Where Did You Come From? Where Did You Go?

I've recently heard a little phrase coined to describe the massive problem I'm about to share, which I'm positive will evoke an ounce of pity from absolutely no one.  I'm finding it nearly impossible to stay up to date on trip recaps.  Now that the girls are fully insane during the day, I get very little blogging time aside from the couple of hours that they nap and the maybe one or two hours that I'm awake before them in the morning.  That's also when I have to squeeze in things like exercise, chores, random bits of paperwork, and of course keeping up with my demanding Hulu queue.  Unfortunately, this old blog of mine gets the shaft most of the time and in the meanwhile, we just keep on visiting amazing places!  I know.  Don't you feel sorry for me?  Yeah, that's what we like to call #USAFEproblems (that acronym stands for US Air Forces in Europe for the uninitiated.)

Anyway, I still have to wrap up our Croatia getaway with our day trips to Mostar, Bosnia in Herzegovina and Ptuj, Slovenia, our trip to the Loire Valley in France, our weekend in the Netherlands and Aachen, Germany, and most recently, my sister/sister trip to Marrakech, Morocco.  That's not even including Copenhagen and our Baltic cruise last summer since I'm still scared to look at the pitiful number of photos that were recovered from a tragic SIM card failure... moment of silence, please...

So, for today, let's hit a quick and easy one and finish up our winter trip to France.  I already covered the amazing chateaus we toured, but we also took the time to do a little ancestor hunting and a quick day trip to Paris for a macaron baking class.

My mom has been very interested in our genealogy for as long as I can remember, and has managed to amass quite a bit of information about where we come from, dating back to the 1600s in France.  My grandparents moved from Quebec, and settled in New Hampshire amongst many other families who had also moved from Canada.  My mom's oldest brother and sister grew up speaking French, but as was the way of most immigrants at that time, by grandparents stopped teaching it to their three younger children as a way to make it easier for them to assimilate (feel free to correct any of the details for me, family!).

However, we knew that though we had been in North America for hundreds of years, our family originally came from a rural region in France called Perche.  When my mom was looking into the area that we would be visiting during our trip to the Loire region, she realized that we were just a 1 1/2-2 hour drive away from where the two original brothers that we descend from on my grandmother's side had lived.  So, it didn't take much convincing to decide to devote a day to visiting our past.  

And it truly did feel like a step back in time.  The roads that we drove along were back country roads that few tourists would purposefully travel, and we passed through sleepy ghost towns that seemed to have no residents, thought there were Christmas lights hung and lacy curtains in the windows.  After driving up and down the same stretch of road a few times, we finally located the old mill in Guemencais where the brothers had made their living before sailing to the New World in a group known as "La Compagnie des Cent Associes" (The Company of One Hundred Associates), recruited by representatives of the king to settle New France.

This group of men was memorialized in a stained glass window in the town church in Tourouvre, and we also had another lucky find in a different church in Ige when we stumbled upon the priest who invited us into his house to show us his book about the Gagnier (one of MANY spellings) settlers and the scores of people he has met over the years who have traveled to find their ancestors' home.  He was such a lovely man and it was a truly special experience to share that moment with someone who has so much passion for their town's history and legacy.

We also managed to find this cottage, La Giguererie, where my grandfather's family line originated from, the house they lived in before they also took part in the emigration to Canada.  It was a once in a lifetime experience to be able to tour my own history in such a personal way, and I'm so glad we took the time to drive out there and see it for ourselves.  It made me feel extra Frenchified!

Our last excursion was to Paris where my mom and I took a macaron class with La Cuisine, the same school through which Colby and I did our market and cooking class for our anniversary trip.  It was much more intense as macarons are shockingly labor intensive--even splitting the work amongst eight or nine people--but so fun and rewarding.  We couldn't believe how gorgeous and delicious our macarons turned out--salted caramel with chocolate ganache and candied chestnuts with cinnamon chocolate ganache, all fillings also made from scratch.  I've got an application in at Laduree, but for some reason I haven't heard back from them yet!

We also took a little bit of time to take in the Christmas windows at the Galerie Lafayette where I had a super tasty birthday lunch (oh French cafeterias, you are magnificent) (and yes, that is red wine in a juice glass) as well as the Marche Noel at La Defense.  As much as j'adore Paris, I must admit, the Christmas decorations were a bit of a let down.  Maybe they think they're just a little too cool to get totally into it?  There just weren't nearly as many sparkling lights and trees as I had been dreaming of.  So I still maintain that Paris in the fall is absolute perfection!

So, that was it for France.  I suspect it's probably the last long trip we do there as we've traveled it so extensively over the past few years.  Maybe we'll do one more trip to Paris, or possibly a weekend in Lyon, but we still have so much of the rest of the world left unexplored.  Onward to the next big thing!!

Chateau Envy

In mid-December, we spent a week in the Loire valley touring just a few of the scads of chateaus littering the region.  We made stops at Blois, Chambord, Ambois, Chaumont and the granddaddy of them all, Chenonceau.  Despite the primarily gloomy, misty, moisty weather, this is one of my favorite trips that we've taken.  I am a huge sucker for castles, even after so many years of living amongst them, and these chateaus are basically the Platonic ideal of the castle.

Our home away from home for the week was the beautiful, and historic, Chateau de la Noue, built in the 1600s and passed down through the same family for the last 200 years.  We stayed in the two story wing of the chateau off to the left by the cars in the photo above, and the rest of the chateau is used for events and single room rentals.  But the week we were there, we had it to ourselves.  It made for an excellent base in the midst of the chateaus, and we enjoyed our evenings spent by the roaring fire, even attempting to roast chestnuts one afternoon!

Our first stop was at the Chateau de Blois, constructed in four very distinct segments over the course of five centuries, from the 1200s to the 1600s.  It consists of over 564 rooms, and in case that doesn't seem ridiculous enough, out of those 564 rooms, only 23 were used on a regular basis.  Its big moment in history came in 1429 when a little French girl named Jean d'Arc came riding through on a mission from God and was blessed by the Archbishop of Reims.  It was also one of the many residences of the French kings and the infamous Catherine de Medici--she got around, more on her later.  My favorite part of the chateau was this beautiful exterior round staircase dating from the Renaissance.

We had lunch in the center of Blois, as the chateau is situated conveniently in the center of town, then headed over to the spiky Chateau de Chambord.  This chateau had my favorite exterior by far, and though the interior was overwhelmingly massive in scale, it didn't contain much in the way of furniture or decor.  Chambord is the largest of the Loire valley chateaus, with a fireplace for every day of the year--and we were grateful that a couple of them were lit on the day we visited!  Construction was begun in 1519 by Francis I, who seemed to spend most of his reign bebopping around France starting construction on chateaus that he would live in for a hot minute before moving on to the next one.  We were lucky enough to get a little splash of sunshine and a striking sunset just as we were exiting the chateau.

The next way we made our way to the Chateau d'Amboise, which is situated at the widest spot of the Loire river.  It was not built as a royal residence, but was confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century.  Then in a satisfying display of karma, King Charles died when he ran into a door lintel jerky, entitled royal head first.  Much of the chateau was destroyed after it fell into disuse in the 16th century, but not before Leonardo da Vinci came for a visit and was subsequently buried in the chapel on the grounds.  This was also the chateau where Henry II and Catherine Medici raised their children, along with a certain ward you may have heard of--one Mary Queen of Scots.

We had lunch in Amboise and visited a delicious chocolate shop, Bigot (they would have trouble franchising in America with that name...), then moved on to our next stop, Chateau Chaumont.  The most fortress-like of all the chateaus we visited, Chaumont is where Catherine de Medici banished Henry's most favored and powerful mistress, Diane de Poitiers, upon his death so that Catherine could move into the luxurious Chateau de Chenonceau.  It was hard to feel toooooo bad for Diane upon seeing how charming the grounds were and how comfortable the interior was.  Diane was something of a self-styled interior decorator and landscaper, so she made the best of her situation and turned Chaumont from a 10th century fortress into a palace fit for an adulterer.  

The most unique aspect of Chaumont is the unfinished attics, which have been renovated just to the point of making them safe, and then opened for visitors to see the bones of the house, the numerous storage rooms housing various artifacts, pieces of furniture, and art from the property that don't fit into the current downstairs displays.  It is also a gallery for modern artists who come from around the world to work and display their art.  My favorite artist on display was Gabriel Orozco, who took inspiration from the many layers of peeling wallpaper in the attic to paint the moody floral and patterned canvases above.  Displayed in the half-light of the attic at dusk, the paintings took on a spectacularly haunting, evocative affect.

Finally... the most famous chateau of all the Loire valley chateaus.  Seen on placemats, mousepads, and coffee cups around the world--Chateau de Chenonceau.  Strikingly built to bridge the Cher River, Chenonceau has its humble roots in an 11th century mill.  In the early 1500s, the current chateau was begun, and when Diane de Poitiers was gifted with it in 1547, she added the arched bridge across the river.  Not to be outdone, HBIC, Catherine de Medici, extended the gallery of the chateau across the bridge and in 1559 shot the first fireworks there to celebrate her son, Francis II's, ascension to the throne.  Chenonceau's exterior is graceful and majestic as it sweeps across the water, but what really blew me away was the interior which was gorgeously furnished and stunningly decorated for Christmas.  I was glad we saved this one for last, as I'm not sure how any other experience could have quite measured up.

While in the Loire valley we also took a day to go ancestor hunting and went into Paris for a Christmas market and a macaron class, but I'll save that for a separate post.

A Week in Provence Part 2

Lest I give the impression that our magical week in Provence was completely without disaster, let me be very clear, when faced with the combined presence of Brittany and I, there is absolutely no experience safe from the potential of absolute calamity.  In our short six days alone together we: held up a toll booth because none of my credit cards would work in the machine, smashed my phone to smithereens though a freak GPS incident, lost a parking garage ticket in the pay machine which vanished into oblivion as even the parking attendant was unable to locate it after dismantling almost the entire contraption, scraped the paint off of the side doors to our car which had thus far managed to survive ten years of existence without experiencing such misfortune, and missed the same exact tunnel exit no fewer than three times resulting in a battle to the near death with the black, rotten core of Marseille's rush hour traffic.  I just want you to remember that when you're looking at all of my carefully framed vacation snaps--there is always more to a story than meets the eye!

That said, all was certainly not as fraught as those moments, and the fact that we managed to make it out the door each morning clothed and fed meant that every day began with a minor miracle.  After our whirlwind tour of Marseille, and our trip back in time to the height of the Roman empire, we spent our next day in Avignon, most notable as home to seven popes and two delightfully dubbed "anti-popes" of the Avignon Papcy from 1305 to 1403.  While not our favorite stop in Provence, we did enjoy the East Villagy vibed Rue de Teintures, home to a number of organic, vegetarian, gluten-free eateries, artists galleries and the tie-dyed filled windows of tiny boutiques.  The massive chocolate chip cookie did not fail to raise Avignon in my estimation.

The next day, we donned our finest artist's smocks, and headed to Arles for a tête-à-tête... à-tête... with the ignoble, misunderstood Vincent Van Gogh.  Arles was the setting for perhaps Van Gogh's most prolific artistic period, (those sunflowers!) and was also, unfortunately the site of the mental breakdown which led to his eventual death in a hospital just a few miles away.  His artistic inspirations have been marked by a delightful "easel tour" which winds throughout the city.  Each easel shows the piece that Van Gogh was inspired to paint from its vantage point, undoubtedly the most famous being his Cafe Terrace at Night--now a garishly yellow tourist trap.

But, not to be outdone by that hapless artiste, the Romans once again stand seemingly impervious to the ravages of time.  A recently restored, glaringly white amphitheater rests majestically on a hill in the center of town, and a somewhat less intact Roman theater nearby still plays host to musical acts and performers.  While dismissed by many as grubby and workaday, we were charmed by Arles and counted it among our favorite stops.

For our final day in Provence, we crammed in as much of the hill villages as possible.  We started our day in the red-ochre hilltop village of Roussillon, arriving just in time to catch the end of its market before lunch.  The terracotta colored buildings reminded us of nothing so much as the American Southwest--feeling at some points as though we had been suddenly transported to New Mexico.

From Roussillon, we made our way to Lacoste with a brief stop at one last Roman ruin located just off the highway, Pont Julien.  This graceful bridge dates to 3 BC and unbelievably was used for car traffic until 2005.  Those Romans, man, they knew what they were doing.  In Roman days, this bridge was a part of the Via Domitia, a highly traveled road which served to connect Italy with its territories in France.

Our final stop on our journey was in Lacoste, where mysteriously, there was not an alligator or polo shirt to be found.  Instead, we discovered a near ghost town of winding alleys, grey stone buildings, the Marquis de Sade's crumbling castle, and of course a charming cafe just begging to be Instagrammed.  And so ended our unforgettable holiday in Southern France just as a it should--avec café et une belle vue!

A Week in Provence Part 1

Here in Germany, we are already leaving summer in our rearview mirror.  Temperatures are beginning to drop, days are becoming noticeably shorter, the commissary is consistently out of canned pumpkin--fall is truly upon us!  So, it seems only right to talk about what I did on my summer vacations!  It was perhaps the busiest summer of my life.  From the south of France, to the Alps in Germany, from the Baltic coast to the Dalmation, I managed to hit twelve countries in a little less than three months.  Then I came home and was immediately struck down with the absolute worst cold I have ever experienced.  Two weeks straight of voicelessness, hacking coughs, an excruciatingly sore throat and fevers.  But now, at long last, the time has come to recap my summer sojourns--before I forget everything completely!

Choosing completely at random, I'll start with my sisters' trip to Provence at the beginning of August.  My sis and I ditched Colby and absconded with the girls for an exotic, ruins-filled trip to the Mediterranean coast.  We stayed in a beautiful apartment in Marseille for the week, using it as a base to explore the city and the surrounding areas.  Having already experienced the French Riviera for a week last summer, we zeroed in on western Provence, and I must say, I found it far more interesting and worthwhile than the Cote d'Azur.  (Though the infinity pool and views of the cerulean Med from our vacation home last year are essentially unbeatable for relaxation purposes.)

Marseille has gotten itself a pretty negative reputation in the vacationing world, but both my sister and I fell in love with it.  While it is certainly quite different from the surrounding quaintness that is the calling card of most Provencal villages, we loved the hum of electricity that buzzed through the town, the exotic, enthralling miasma of Turkish, African, Mediterranean and European culture.  On our first day we visited the Arab market, a Tunisian bakery, the waterfront, La Charité Museum, the Cathédrale de la Nouvelle Major, and took in the view of the majestic Notre Dame de la Garde, perched on the highest point in Marseille.

We also had a bit of an adventure when a not so slick pickpocket strolled casually by us while we were consulting a map and attempted to palm my sister's cell phone.  Eagle eyed, bold as brass Brittany spotted the move instantly and tore off after the guy, grabbing his wrist and wresting the phone back from him with a snarl as I shouted "Nice try!" from the safety of 10 feet back!  Hoo boy, it is always something when you're traveling!

The next day, we headed out into the countryside to visit the Pont du Gard, a 2000 year old Roman aqueduct.  The entire aqueduct was once 31 miles long, and ran largely underground, but this bridge is the only portion remaining today, preserved after the fall of the Roman Empire largely due to its purpose as a toll bridge and now as a UNESCO Heritage site.  Incredibly, this bridge still stands without mortar, and up until the year 2000, traffic still flowed across it.  Now, traffic has been diverted,  there are gorgeous visitor's centers, a lovely beach area and it is among France's most visited tourist attractions.

We continued our tour of Roman history with a stop in Orange to visit the Théâtre antique d'Orange, one of the best preserved Roman theaters still in existence.  It was built early in the 1st century AD and functioned through 391 AD when it was abandoned due to an edict from the Christian church.  It went on to become a defensive structure during the Middle Ages, a refuge for townspeople during the religious wars of the 16th century, and now functions once again as a theater and major tourist draw.  Before entering the theater, we hid out from some bad weather in a charming cafe, then when the coast was clear, entered the theater just in time to catch an orchestra practicing for a performance taking place later that night.  History and a show--what could be better!

Ahead of us was still a visit with the former Palace of the Popes, communing with Vincent Van Gogh and a surreal visit to the red rock, Southwesternish village that we dubbed "New Franxico", but I'll save that for my next installment of the travel journal!  À bientôt 

More Than Mustard

Time, you slippery beast!  Try as I might, this summer is slipping from my grasp faster than I can find the time and energy to document it.  But I want so much to remember all of our adventures from these past few months, so please bear with me as I take a trip back in time to our early summer getaway with my inlaws to the Burgundy region of France, along with a little hop into Switzerland.

We departed on June 1, the morning after my night half marathon in Mannheim--I got home from the run around 11 pm, to bed just after midnight and was up at 5:30 the next morning to finish packing and hit the road!  We checked into a beautiful two bedroom, two story apartment overlooking the rooftops of Dijon, and set out for a quick wander around our environs as well as a delicious dinner in the stunning Place de la Liberation.  It made for a lovely evening as the sunset turned all of the buildings a warm golden hue and the girls found some playmates in the square.

For our first full day of sightseeing, we set out to explore Beaune and a few other small Burgundian villages.  Beaune is probably best known for its remarkable mosaic tiled roofs, best exemplified at the Hotel Dieu.  This former charitable hospital was founded in 1443 by one of the wealthy chancellors of Burgundy.  It is still functioning as a modern hospital off-premises, and these beautiful old buildings are set up as they would have been found hundreds of years ago with rows of beds, cabinets full of herbs and medicines, gleaming copper pots in the kitchen--and of course, those beautiful tiles!

After a quick picnic in a park, we set off for the countryside, weaving our way through vineyards and charming towns.  Our first stop was in Chateuneuf--not to be confused with the more famous Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Provence!  We were some of the only people wandering the streets rife with old stone cottages, manors, flora, and of course, the obligatory castle.  Fortunately, we were able to find a lone restauranteur who was happy to serve us ice cream!

Our final stop for the day was in the much more bustling town of Semur-en-Auxois.  This was the perfect counterpoint to the sleepy enchantment of Chateuneuf.  From the banners snapping in the breeze to the smells of the variety of restaurants, and the numerous souvenier shops along the main street, we knew we were back in tourist central.  We made our way up and down the streets and narrow alleys, stumbled upon ramparts, and gazed upon perhaps our frillionth Notre Dame before deciding to call it quits for the day.

Typically, our m.o. for any trip is to get there and do whatever Rick Steves tells us to do.  However, in Dijon, we were flying blind in terms of Uncle Rick, so instead we stopped by the TI to pick up a little booklet that led us along the "Owl Trail".  This is a Best Of tour, stopping at the many highlights of Dijon, and our merry band of travelers made it last almost all day, though I am assured it is possible to complete in a couple of hours!  My particular favorite stops were the market and the elegant Darcy garden.

For our final stop of the trip, we detoured through Switzerland on the way home for a quick spin through Bern.  Colby and I had been once before, so the fact that it rained on us almost the whole day wasn't too much of a bummer!  We walked through the center of town down to one of the highlights, the bear park.  It actually ended up being helpful that the sun wasn't out since it got the bears up from their naps to enjoy the cooling rain with their lunch!  And of course, I got my Swiss chocolate.

After that, it was back home for a little break from traveling, with another wonderful trip in our rear view mirror!

Adventures in Daytripping

As this is posting, we are off exploring beautiful Copenhagen, Denmark and preparing to board a ship for a Baltic cruise!  I decided instead of packing (how boring--much better to do that some time around midnight the night before we leave), I would get myself caught up on the old blogeroo.

We've had lots of exciting adventures over the past few weeks, first with Colby's parents who visited for about three weeks, and now my parents who are here until the end of July.  It has been positively WUNDERBAR having all of the extra help around the house, and I have been taking full advantage of all the free babysitting by being a social butterfly as often as possible.

Of course, the most exciting part of people visiting is the added pressure/incentive to take more daytrips around our little part of the world.  I think we do a good job of getting out and about even when we're on our own, but when we've got family or friends in town we get kicked into traveling high gear.  Our first daytrip was out to Thionville, France for lunch and then the Ouvrage Hackenberg, one of the largest fortifications along the Maginot Line.  It turned out that the fortifications were a pretty major fail during World War II, as fighting styles had changed so much in the decades since World War I, but it was still a fascinating sight to see this underground battlestation.

Our next adventure was a big day starting in Trier to hit the highlights from the Porta Nigra to the cathedral to the Roman basilica and baths, then up along the Mosel for another stop at Burg Eltz.  Since I had already toured the interior, I let my inlaws go in for the tour while I stayed in the courtyard with the girls.  We had lots of little adventures of our own from trying their first suckers, which were so kindly bestowed upon them by a German lady, to bombarding any oncoming foes of the squirrel variety with Annabelle's snack cup!

Then it was off to Wissembourg, France and Baden Baden.  My inlaws like to really pack a day full, as you may have noticed!  Wissembourg was absolutely adorable, and I would highly recommend it all on its own as a daytrip from the KMC area.  And if you go, you must stop at Patisserie Daniel Rebert for some of the most decadent pastries you will ever taste in your life!

Baden Baden was a repeat performance for Colby and me as it was part of our first weekend away after moving to Germany.  But it felt much different this time as I was no longer lugging two babies around inside my stomach!  It's a truly beautiful resort city that has a very unique vibe from the rest of Germany--much more turn of the century cosmopolitan.

Once my parents arrived, we had a couple outings of our own, at a somewhat more relaxed pace.  We hit up Trier again and ate at one of the best restaurants I've found in Germany, Kartoffelkiste.  Sooo yummy!  From there we visited the same major highlights, but also added the old Roman amphitheater which was a bit of a walk from the main tourist area, but worth the trek for the cool descent below the old "stage" to see where the actors/gladiators/workers could move around behind the scenes.  Charlotte and Annabelle's favorite part was the refreshing splash fountain!

Aside from the daytrips, we also took a quick weekend trip with Colby's parents to Dijon and the Bordeaux region of France, but more on that a bit later.  Now, I'm off to see what other items I can add to my "to do" list to avoid packing!

I Want To Go Back To There

It's becoming somewhat routine to come back to my blog after a few weeks away and toss out the excuse that life has been SO CRAZY lately, and then promise to try and do better.  Would it help if I brought you flowers?  Or chocolates?  What about baby photos?  I guess it's finally starting to sink in that crazy is just the status quo now, and I can probably stop referring to it as such.  Life = Crazy.  Moving on.

In the past three weeks

• My parents arrived for a visit
• The girls turned 6 months old, started sitting unassisted, "eating" solid food (still a work in progress), went swimming for the first time, and were supermodels at their 6 month photo session
• We spent a week on the French Riviera with my parents and my aunt
• We had a lovely weekend in the beautiful city of Nuremberg

That's an awful lot of excitement, and life won't be slowing down much any time soon.  My parents are on a cruise now, so we have a slightly quieter week, then they and my inlaws will arrive on the 26th.  My inlaws will stay through June 9th, then my sister arrives for the summer on the 11th.  We're planning trips to Prague, Berlin and Paris, and some of our bestest friends are coming to visit in July.  I guess I should amend my previous conclusion to state that Life = Crazy = Awesome.

Our week in France was absolute magic.  We rented a villa in the little town of St. Aygulf, about an hour from Nice, which meant that we were close enough to take in all of the touristy sights and far enough away from the hustle and bustle that we were able to completely and entirely decompress with a stunning view of the Mediterranean from every window.

We spent a couple of days just lounging around the house in pajamas and out by the pool, and a few days touring Nice, Antibes and Monaco.  I fell even more in love with France on this trip.  I love their approach to life--they work just as hard as they have to and are serious about relaxation and enjoying the good things in life.  My kind of place.

And now, for a little armchair traveling:

Monaco

Antibes

Nice

Storming the Citadel & the Supermarket

This weekend was pretty spectacular.  I didn't know until the middle of the week that it was going to be a 3-day weekend for Colby, and while he had the alert phone for work, we weren't able to stray too far, but we did sneak off for a quick little adventure across the French border!
It just so happened, that last week I had lunch with a good friend who had mentioned visiting a very cool citadel in the curiously named, Bitche, France.  I was running low on ideas for good day trips, so it was perfect timing for her to mention it.  Friday, we packed up the girls and made the hour-long drive to Bitche.
The citadel was considered to be inpregnable, and its most important moment of history was during the Franco-Prussian war, when France lost a great deal of territory near their shared border to the Germans.  The presentation of this time during the citadel's exitence was extremely well done.  When we bought our tickets, we were each given a set of headphones and directed to the first stop of the tour in a small theater, housed in what used to house the guards.

At each stop along the tour, a 3-7 minute piece of a movie is shown, which tells the story of how the citadel stood against the invading Prussian forces.  It was an incredibly well-done film, and really engaged me in the story in a way that doesn't often happen for me at battle sites.

When we finished our tour, we stopped in the cafe to feed ourselves and the babies, then continued on to our next exciting stop--the Cora supermarket in Forbach, France.  We'd been hearing about the Cora since we moved here--how they had a great fish selection, good cheap wines, and more, but we hadn't been yet mainly because I found it hard to get overly excited about a supermarket.  OH HOW WRONG WAS I!!!  Suffice it to say, I got really, really excited about this supermarket.
We spent about an hour wandering the aisles, and came home with a trunk full of goodies from fish to cheese to macaroons to macarons and more.  That night we came home and enjoyed a delicious salmon dinner, and last night we enjoyed lamb filet mignon with herbed butter and white asparagus--all paired with authentic French bread, bien sûr.  It's about a 40-minute drive from our house to Cora, but I think we'll try to make time for the journey on a semi-regular basis!

The rest of the weekend was spent lazing about the house catching up on a couple seasons worth of Doctor Who, Skyping with some friends and family, and doing some long-put-off decorating in the nursery.  We also made the executive decision that every weekend should be a three-day-weekend.  Who's with us?