The beginning....

Well this is the beginning of many more posts to come... but I just had to start!

We started on Tuesday, 9/15 early....Well as anyone from the peninsula knows, when you fly out of SeaTac, you might as well be planning on getting up and out of your house at least 4 hours before your flight.  Lucky us, our flight left at 12:45 p.m., but between that day being the first day of preschool for Blake which started at 9:30 (at a new school.... yes, yes, I know- wrong day to leave, but he's usually a pretty laid back kid with transitions- so easy smeezy), Chloe's school day (which starts at 9:15), and the fact that we needed to be on the 9:25 ferry.  So thank goodness for my parents.  Dad decided to go in late to work, he and mom showed up in the morning around 8:30, so we could say our goodbyes and transition the kids better.  We left with dad in our van, mom had the kids, and then dad dropped us off at the ferry.  The funniest part is that he looks at his watch, he's ahead of time, so he decided to book it back to their house on the north end of the island, ditch our van there, throw on his gear, and then drive his scooter onto the ferry (the same one we're on).  Crazy enough- he made it with about 2 minutes to spare! 

Anyhow, we hopped a ride with a town car (Abas- great guy... I'll try to find his e-mail, because he was so professional AND affordable).  We had plenty of time.... we checked our bags (we each got to check 1 for free because we booked our flights before they made the change to charging everyone)... they weighed in at something like 22 pounds for one and 23 for the other.  They are LARGE flexible sided, rolling bags, so since you can have 50 pounds, you can imagine how much I was planning on bringing home from this trip!!!  You do the math.... I was figuring on at least another 50 pounds of stuff!  Anyway, I digress....  we had  a leisurely wait for our flight after going through all the security checks and what not.... we even slept on our flight from SeaTac to Atlanta... we had a 2 hour layover, but we grabbed some food, stretched our legs, and then we had a 10 p.m. flight from Atlanta to Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport.  Delta was great- they had so-so food, but the flight attendants were nice, attentive, and to top it off we both SLEPT!  Kent popped some Ambien and he was out for at least 5 out of the 9 hours of that flight.  We passed through customs totally smoothly.... then off to get the rental car (which we pre-paid for).  For some reason they couldn't find the car that we rented, so we ended up with a slightly bigger car (4 doors instead of  2 I think), but really it sure didn't seem bigger....  we had a Toyota Yaris (wondering what that looks like?  www.toyota.com/yaris  ours was silver with a totally broken passenger side mirror).  Now mind you we knew it would be small, but we were traveling and we were told that you needed to keep EVERYTHING in the trunk of the car, NOTHING in site, if you both planned on exiting the car together.  We managed to finagle it after a few jigsaw puzzle maneuvers making things "fit" together (mind you our bags are practically empty), but then we were finally out of the aiport (we landed 1:30 p.m. Paris time on Wednesday, 9/16) by 3:30 p.m.  Now let me tell you that Paris is never a good city to drive ANYWHERE near...  let alone at 3:30 in the afternoon.  Thank GOD I had typed up some directions from www.mapquest.fr to help us figure out how to get from the airport to the Loire Valley (near Amboise, Blois, Chenonceau- that was our destination, but we didn't have reservations anywhere).  To travel about 30 km it took us over an hour and a half of total craziness.  We were both glad to be out of there.

Finally we were off onto a massive highway, and about halfway through our journey on this particular highway (because you see France is loaded with all sorts of highways) I realized we were not exactly going in the correct direction.  We somehow got onto the incorrect highway up in Paris (after making atleast 10 different exit changes before ever getting off of the Parisienne highway systems).  OOPS!  Well we're on vacation.... but our first destination needs to be more west.... so this is when I (as the navigator) started to figure out how to read the Michelin map we came with and we eventually got over to our general destination area.  Only problem was that we didn't have much of any food with us, we were exhausted after 23 + hours of travel and about 5 hours of driving time, we saw a grocery store and thought we were saved (just at the outer edges of Amboise).  Nope- you can't use American visas in European gas pumps- why I don't know, but you can't (I panicked and thought it was because our cards had been denied even though I had called to have each of them cleared for international travel.... but Rick Steve's was helpful later that night when I frantically discovered the little morsel of info- we were destined for cash only gas stations from then on I guess).  Then we decided to go into the store- at least get some bread, some cheese and some wine so we could go down the road to somewhere (not sure where yet) to stay.  Nope- the grocery was closing its doors (at 8 pm) for the night.... ok, that's fine.... we'll survive....  onto more emergent needs- the potty.... thankfully they had one and it was still open.  Then back to the hunt for a place to stay. I happened to spot a sign on the side of the road by a round-about  that was right at the grocery store and it was for a chambre d'hote.  Chambre d'hote is a B&B.  OH MY GOODNESS!!!!  IT was the absolute best deal we had our entire trip (only 50 Euros a night with a full breakfast, full kitchen if we had any food to cook in it which we didn't but still a full kitchen, a full bathroom, a desk corner, a fire place, a twin bed, a queen bed, off street parking and this amazing landscape and decor)- amazingly clean, beautifully decorated, fabulous breakfast.... wow- wish it hadn't been raining so we could have enjoyed the outside more, and wish we'd been able to stay longer.  Oh well it was a great place, but we were pooped, we were hungry (scrounging for random food left in our travel bags) and so we just went to bed about 10 p.m.

We met a Canadian woman the next morning- it was nice to speak some English with someone because the lady of the house spoke almost NO English and this was only day 1 of my rusty French!  I wish there was a name for her location, but there was not.  All I can say is that if you ever travel to Amboise, in the Loire Valley, in the direction of leaving the old part of Amboise and heading to the road to go to Chenonceau, she's just past the E.Leclar grocery store round about (heading west), her driveway is right off the main road, but she feels miles from civilization when you're there.  

This pic is from the  corner of the house (our room was right there at the corner)... the pathway was lined with potted plants, the path was beautiful stone... one way led back to the car, and behind us is the pond.

This is the veiw from the other side of pond- I tried to dry my hair with a really old blow dryer and Kent got bored and went off to take pictures.  He slopped around to the far side of the pond- squint your eyes and you can see the house tucked in the willow trees and evergreens.  It was a very green area!

Ok, so our room is in disarray, but red and white toile was the theme- I think it was a converted barn (as you can see the plaster filled trough in the back of the room), behind our room is the full kitchen and bath.  Still- amazing for 50 Euros for sure!

Well goodbye fabulous little B&B- off we go to Chenonceau and to for another "unplanned" and "unbooked" destination.

The trip really happened, we've just been busy getting home...

I had all wonderful intentions of going to an internet location when we were on our trip, downloading a few pics from time to time, posting to our blog every few days (for our kids, for our memories, for friends).... but I have to tell you its FREAKING expensive to use internet cafes and even internet access at tourist offices.  Almost impossible to find when you're off in the countryside of France.  So to stay in touch we thought we'd use a French calling card (the only way you can use a public phone)- I have to say.... those are almost as equally hard to come by in countryside towns.  When you're traveling in somewhat bedroom communities, nobody needs a public phone because they've already got a phone at home.  My advice- go with an international phone- I think the ease of access is worth the very slight extra cost from a calling card. 

Well, needless to say I had to find some way to share and journal, so I did the age old pen and paper journal... I would write every morning about the day before and we tried to find a phone at least every 2 days (because we had to call between 8-9 a.m. to get the kids before school, but after they woke up, otherwise we would miss them when they were at school and then it was too late our time to be standing on an abandoned street corner at a phone with no lights). Good old pen and paper.... but since I wrote in the car, or at a cafe table, or maybe we'd stop and write something down on a walk.... I'm having a hard time deciphering my wine-infused, messy, tiny handwriting!  Hmmmm.....  I'll get there.

I have finally finished downloading our photos from our trip- that took HOURS of time, and I haven't even edited any of them, just merely downloaded them to Costco's website.  Boy, we came back with something like 700+ photos.  Of course some are of things we thought were so wonderful at the moment, and then when I look at the photos now I wonder what exactly we were trying to capture.  Some are goofy pictures of each other (see we never got pics together because our lens wouldn't stay attached to the camera- somehow our every so expensive and new Nikon broke on our trip)....  and some are just full of more memories than I could write.

If you ever have the chance to go with your spouse for a trip for 1 week, 2 weeks, or to be lucky enough to go for 17 days like we did- just enjoy EVERY single minute of it.  We had our tiffs, we had our bickering, our lost escapades in twising countryside, our late night run to find a hotel, our picnic lunches, dinners, and lunches again.... but we had some AMAZING moments- we had great conversation, we talked about things we haven't talked about for years, we enjoyed amazing meals, we were quiet together and read together (or rather Kent sped through books and I would knit most times), but overall we just were excited to have this amazing opportunity and we savored it!

THANK YOU to everyone that helped make this trip possible- Nana & Pa for kid care and weekend fun for them; Nonny and Poppy for more kid care, dog care, house care, and more and more kid care; She-She for coming down to help out on the weekend; Aunty Lissa for filling in with the kids too; our friends- Jen and Kristin for carpooling Blake, Julie Anne for carpooling, Stacy for keeping Chloe overnight to get her to the soccer game, really- without EVERYONE this trip wouldn't have come together.

I am still unpacking... I have one small pile of papers, old tickets, receipts, random crap that came out of the 2 checked bags (each weighing exactly 51 pounds) and 4 oversized carry on bags (which we went with 2 very light weight checked bags and only 3 very light weight and small carry on bags on the way)...  but otherwise I'm almost done with the unpacking.  I've unpacked the kid's bags of stuff from their overnights in our absence, we've caught up on laundry- oh that was quite a pile of laundry we had on our bed last night!  I've even vacuumed, had play group over, started carpooling, and managed ot make some home made meals.  Phew- this back in the swing of things doesn't come slowly- when you're a parent and you leave and then you come back, you get thrown back in it!

Besides all of the physical unpacking, our kids have been emotionally unpacking since about day 2 or 3 that we've been home.  All the "everything is great" news turned into throwing up all the bummer stuff that they both had experienced in the first few weeks of school.  I am sure that it has all been blown out of proportion because they knew they had our undivided attention, and knew we'd be over protective and over attentive to their needs, but its still heavy stuff.  Parenting may take a break while you're gone, but you sure don't get to jump in slowly when you get back.  Just be forewarned if you yourself think of taking a break from your kids for more than a weekend!  Be prepared to jump in with both feet, both hands, and maybe a tail (if I could grow one, I'd be using it now too).

Anyhow, I'm tired and all I want to do is get the France posts posted.... but maybe tomorrow night? Just know that this trip made both Kent and I realize how very lucky we are, how very blessed we are, how very loved we are, and how very much we need, desire, and love each other.   It also made us love our children more, made us prioritize more, and made us really think about living our lives a little bit more intentionally and with purpose than to just breathe, plug along, over do, and just plainly live!  We are excited to be home with a new and invigorated plan to connect with our family, our faith, and friends, and to make our family a stronger  unit.  We know that we- our marriage- is the foundation to our family and we are really strong right now.  We're excited for our family's future and our marriage too!