The Last Time

We have been doing a lot of things for the last time in our family. Although we are very excited to return home and Bret is super excited that he is no longer a student, we are still sad to leave France. Max had his last time going swimming with his class on Tuesday. This has been his favorite part of school so we sent the camera with his teacher to get some pictures of him.

Max on the bus with his friend AnneRose.

Max getting ready to jump into the pool.

Max with some of his school friends afterward.

He is really going to miss school and all the friends he has made here.

A Visit to Santa's Village

Last Saturday we took the kids to the Santa village in Metz.


Max was much more interested in the train then the long line to sit on Santa's lap. Max, Maddie and Bret rode the train around the village while I took the pictures. The kids had a lot of fun. Here is the train engine.

Dad and Maddie going through the tunnel. (Max is sitting in front of them)

After visiting Santa's village we went to some more of the Christmas markets here in Metz. There food and holiday treats are were so good. Although we did skip the hot wine and the escargots! Yuck! Maddie was really worn out by the end of the day, she fell asleep before we even got back to the car.

Christmas Market

It is tradition in France for cities to have Christmas markets . We went to the some in Metz this weekend. They are in 5 different locations around town. At the train station they have a Christmas train made out of an old steam engine. The booths are made out of old train cars.


There was also a children's train ride. Max rode in the fire engine and had a blast pushing the siren and ringing the bells.


After the train station there were several other markets that we went to in the old part of Metz. We bought some tartiflette from one of the booths. It is a dish with potatoes, onions and ham with melted cheese on top. I still can't decide if I like it or not. It taste good when you first take a bit but the cheese that they put on it is pretty strong so it leaves a not so pleasant aftertaste. At one of the markets there was a HUGE Christmas tree ride. I have never seen anything like it.


Maddie was feeling left out watching Max go on all the rides so Bret took her on the merry-go-round. She rode on a pig . Bret said she kept looking down at the pig and petting it on the head. When the ride was over she did not want to get off.

Crazy Sunday Night!

Sometimes it can get pretty hectic around here at bed time. Cleaning up dinner, getting the kids bathed and ready for bed. Both of our kids are usually full of energy even at the end of the day. A Sunday night 2 weeks ago things got particularly crazy when we ended up giving Maddie three baths. She had her first bath and I got her out, put her diaper on, while I was in the bathroom washing up Max she got into our recycle garbage can and pulled out an empty (well almost empty) sour cream container.


She not only ate some she rubbed in in her hair and all over her body . So she went back into the bath. I got her out and put her pajamas on. She went into the bathroom to visit Max who was still in the bath and came out looking like this.



Max said he was giving her spiky hair. She was soaked. So she went back into the tub and into a new pair of pajamas! We did get some cute pictures out of it though.

Pont du Gard

The Pont du Gard is part of a Roman Aqueduct built over 2000 years ago, in 19 BC. It is was so awesome to see, it is over 170 ft tall. The Romans built it across the river to carry water 31 miles from a spring into the city of Nimes. From the spring to the town the aqueduct descends only 55 feet over its 31 miles. This bridge was built to cross the river. It is really amazing the engineering that went into building the aqueducts so many years ago.


To see more pictures of Pont du Gard click here.

Grenoble

Grenoble is the biggest city in the French Alps. We rode the tram to up to up the mountain to the citadel. The tram is 4 large bubbles that are clear so you can see out all around you. It was a very beautiful ride. There is a panoramic view of the alps from the top of the mountain.....but there was an inversion the day we went and so we couldn't see the mountains very well. But it was a fun ride.


This is a picture of the kids at a grocery store in Grenoble. It is a little train ride we put the kids on, it was Maddie's first ride and she loved it! We thought it might scare her because it went pretty fast but she wasn't scared. In fact, when it stopped she wanted to back on an ride again.

Marseille

Ok. I am finally putting up part 5 of our trip.... now that it has been almost a month . After Nice we went west along the coast to the city of Marseille. Marseille is the second largest city in France, after Paris. We we went to the old port, it was really cool, there was a morning fish market, the boats with their morning catches were pulled right up to the edge of the port where they were selling the fish. That's about as fresh as you can get....if you like fish . After looking at all the fish we got our tickets for the boat. The ride was a little cold with the wind but Max and Maddie both loved it.


Here is a picture of Max on the bow of the boat with the Old Port behind him.


Here is a picture of the coast line of Marseille from the boat.


We took the boat out to the Island of If, the home of the Chateau d'If. This is the castle in the story The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a castle that was first built to defend Marseille from attack and later turned into a prison. It is famous for it's security, no prisoner ever escaped from this castle, The Count of Monte Cristo is a fictional story. But it is said to have housed the man in the iron mask. The castle and island are white stone, a beautiful contrast to the very blue Mediterranean water.


The castle is well preserved and you can tour through the prison cells, all made out of the white rock. We got a lot of pictures of Max and Maddie as prisoners. They are so cute together.


We have more pictures of our day in Marseille here in our photo album.

The French Rivera

After Pisa we headed up the coast of Italy and around to the Cote D'Azur in the South of France. A disclaimer about the following pictures, they were not taken by us. The memory card that we used to take the pictures on this part of our trip was lost . But to give you an idea about how beautiful it was I found a couple pictures on the internet. We spent the morning in Nice, this a really cool city. We parked by the port and there was a huge cruise ship there and another one on its way in. Max was pretty amazed and the enormous size of the boats. We climbed up on top of the hill that you see on the right of this pictures. From there we had a beautiful view of the water, the city and the mountains. The Mediterranean Sea is so, so blue, it was that way in Spain too. Nice has pebble beaches. Instead of soft sand there are little rocks about the size of flat golf balls, not the greatest to walk on but they make a really cool sound as the waves come in to shore.


Later that afternoon we drove down the coast to Monaco. This is a small country a little over a mile squared. It has more millionaires per capita then any other country. We went to the port and saw some huge yachts.



Then we went to a town called Eze, It is called a perched Village, because it sits on the top of a really tall hill. The mid evil part of the village on the very top is for pedestrians only. The streets are all too narrow for cars, and they wind up in a spiral to the top of the hill. On the top there is a botanical garden with plants and sculptures. From the gardens you get an awesome view of the mountains and the ocean. It was a really cool place and we wish we had the pictures we took of it to share. But like I said earlier, these pictures will give you an idea.

Pisa

Now for part 3 of our trip. After Venice we headed to the west coast of Italy, to Pisa. We stayed in a little fishing town south of Pisa. It was a really cool town and would have been 10 times better if it were summer. We stayed at a little resort with a private beach and a huge swimming pool, too bad we weren't able to make use of them in the winter.....but that is why the rooms were so cheap . I don't think we will soon forget that place, the rooms were like little villas and there were tons of trees and grass everywhere. On the web they advertised laundry facilities, so needing to do a bunch of laundry we followed the signs to a shed in a wooded area with 2 washing machines and no dryers. We had to wash our clothes, then hang them all around our room to dry. There was also a family of cats living in a shed next to our room. The kids loved that and Maddie was constantly wanting to go outside to play with them.




We went to visit the famous leaning tower of Pisa. It was really cool to see. It is hard to imagine that a structure that big can still hold together shile leaning at that angle.



We couldn't resist joining the other tourists in getting some "holding up the tower" pictures.



Max was very impressed and has talked about the leaning tower of Pisa several times since our trip. To see more pictures of Pisa click here.

Venice

On Sunday afternoon we left Munich, Germany and headed toward Italy, it was the most beautiful drive from through Austria, the alps and into Northern Italy. On Monday we went to Venice. Venice was incredible, unlike any place I have ever been. Max really liked watching all the boats. We was really excited when we got to see a police boat speed through the water with it siren going.

Maddie loves to stop and smell the flowers. This was in an out of the way plaza where we got some cheap pizza for lunch. It was really good but it did a number on Bret's stomach, he was in pain half of the day. (That is what he gets for ordering the Gorgonzola Pizza, I guess).


The canal streets were so picturesque. We didn't take a Gondola ride because they were very expensive. But they were fun to watch.


This is the Piazza San Marco. There are hundreds of pigeons. The kids were having so much fun chasing them and feeding them.



To see more pictures of Venice, click here.

Neuschwanstein

We are back! We just got back from a really fun trip. We saw so much that I decided to write about our trip in increments. The first day we drove to Munich, Germany. This is the southeast area of Germany known as Bavaria. On Saturday we went to Hohenschwangua Castle and Neuschwanstein Castle.

Hohenschwangua Castle was a castle is where King Ludwig spent his summer as a child, then on the next hill over he built Neuschanstein Castle. To get to the castle it was a big hike up a hill. The castle is huge and very beautiful.

On Sunday we went to the English ward in Munich. It was so different to go to church in English again. They had a large primary and it was Max's first time every going to primary in English and he loved it.

Swimming in France

As many of you know Max is in school here in France. He has a lot of fun at school, they do a lot of fun activities with the kids. One of the things he gets to do with his class this year is, swimming. They started last Tuesday and will be going every Tuesday afternoon. Max was so excited about this, he loves, loves, loves swimming. The kids get to ride the bus with the elementary school kids to the swimming pool, which is in a town not far from us. In order to go swimming he had to get a French swimming outfit. After seeing the style for swimming suits here in France, I knew that if we sent Max with his long "boardshorts" style swim trunks he would really stand out and look very strange to the other kids. The boys here wear speedo style, or tight short shorts style swimming suits, so we bought Max a "French" swimming suit. Also in public swimming pools they require everyone to wear a swimming cap, so we bought him one of those as well, he calls it his "swimming hat." When we got his swimming uniform on I wanted to take a picture but he was so excited that I could barely get him to hold still in order to take it.

The teacher said he had a lot of fun swimming and that he exhausted so much energy that he fell asleep on the short 5 minute bus ride back to the school.
I also wanted to include this picture of Maddie. She was fascinated by the red swimming cap. She was constantly trying to put it on her head. After several tries she finally succeeded.

Maddie is the only toddler I know who always wants to put things on instead of take them off. She will bring us her shoes constantly wanting them on. She loves to put on hats and sunglasses. Just recently she started trying to put her coat on or carrying it all around with her and trying to get us to put it on her. What a crazy girl!