Back from 'Les Vacances' in the south of France.....

As those of you with kiddos know, vacation is no longer relaxing AT ALL, but all the same, it was good to see a different part of France and get some good language practice.  Being a tourist with a 2.5 year old and 4 month old was interesting.  We went to exactly 2 museums, but played on about 10 playgrounds and visited multiple libraries.  In a sense, our restrictions gave us a more 'normal' every day view of the places we visited.

Albertville after a snow

We left snowy Albertville and headed down to Provence, spending a couple of nights in Avignon. It is famous for having the Pope's palace from years ago when he sought refuge there.  This is the view from my classroom in Albertville after the big snowfall.

Pont Du Gard, an enormous Roman aqueduct, near Avignon

After Avignon we visited an ancient Roman aqueduct (see Patrick and Luke bottom center) on our way down to Montpelier.  Provence seemed to have Roman ruins and ancient fortressed cities with castles about every two miles.

As stated, many days we wondered why in the world we were attempting to be tourists with our young family, but in general the kiddos rolled with the show.  Miriam is finally old enough to help entertain Luke at times.  He absolutely loves holding her, hugging and kissing her and speaking to her in a super high pitched voice (despite his size, this reminds us he has not started puberty yet!) about how pretty she is :).  Amazingly, when she's screaming in the car, the thing most likely to calm her down is Luke shrieking the ABCs.... thank goodness his shrieking is good for something!

The French Riviera is all we imagined and more.  It was still quite chilly, but wonderful to be next to bright blue water and steep cliffs.  Here we are in a 'calanque' (a cove) in the small town of La Ciotat.  We had the great fortune of staying in a woman's home in the previous town who then called up her mother in La Ciotat and asked if we could stay with her for a couple of nights.  As we often do, we found ourselves on adventure--they both were part of the French communist party. Not only did we enjoy interesting conversations on politics and religion (IN FRENCH!), but Mdm Maryse did our laundry for us while we were out one day. We were lovingly sent off with several communist newsletters!

Luke with his newfound 4 year old friend Coline

Luke loved being at the ocean (in Nice, France) again as it was reminiscent of our San Diego life.  He brought us many wonderful conversations and openings into the lives of locals as he made friends wherever we went.  

One of the floats at Carnival in Nice

Nice was having its famous 'Carnival' festival while we were there.  A woman stopped us on the street and gave us free tickets. We had no idea what to expect, but found ourselves bathed in flowers from passing floats and entertained by productions such as the passing insect above.  Luke stared in awe, a bit fearful and not sure whether to believe me that it wasn't real!

Despite many occasions of parenting screaming, napless children on this trip, we smiled and laughed a lot and gave thanks for the chance to be in beautiful places.  At the end of some pretty hard days where Luke had to eat soap for being disobedient, he would run to us with a big hug and say, "I love you Mommy and Daddy.  I had a good day!"  Glad he did at least!

This is more normal life- Luke running around crazy without clothes on and Miriam, half-dressed, lying on the floor somewhere, startled by him.  We're back at language school and preparing to start classes again tomorrow.  Its cold, rainy/snowy and fairly calm.  Church this morning was nice, about 50 people crammed into a small room and no child care, but Luke is getting used to staying quiet, we're understanding more and more of what is being spoken, and we've been blessed by those we've met there.  Life is good.

Send us updates on your lives too.  We miss all of you.