As we get closer to moving back to the US, we have been really sad and thinking about what we are going to miss about our life in France.  So I thought I should start to focus on what we have to look forward to in the US….

• Shopping carts with only 2 wheels that turn – the shopping carts here have 4 wheels that turn, which makes it very hard to push.  They often slide sideways if you are walking on an incline, and they don’t turn corners very well!
• Stores, restaurants, coffee shops being open on Sunday (all day) – Almost everything is closed on Sundays here except for grocery stores which close by 12:30, which is nice, but we are used to American conveniences of being able to doing our grocery shopping/running errands/getting a coffee at Starbucks 7 days a week!
• Stores, coffee shops, other places of business opening before 10am – again, sometimes an inconvenience when the place you would like to go to doesn’t open until 10am or sometimes not until 2pm on Monday afternoon and then they close by 7pm
• Air conditioning!!!! – this is a luxury here.  Most homes, stores, restaurants, offices, doctor’s offices, schools etc do NOT have air conditioning.
• Being able to speak English – while my French has improved over the last 5 years, and I can communicate fairly well, there’s still a lot that I don’t know how to say.  Sometimes it takes me some time to think about what I want to say, and I speak slowly.  I don’t know how to joke or be sarcastic.  Sometimes I really want to tell someone off and I just don’t know how to!  I really look forward to being able to speak my mind and easily say what I want to say when I want to say it.
• Having more things to do with the kids – we live in a pretty small city here.  There are no children’s museums, zoos, baby gym classes, etc.  Most sports or extracurricular activities start at age 5 or later.  I’m so glad that Greenville has so much to offer for families!
• More kid-friendly restaurants – one of the biggest thing about trying to eat dinner at a restaurant with your kids here is the restaurants don’t open until 7.  For us Americans, this can be later than we normally eat (especially with young children).  If you have babies or young children, it can also be hard to find a restaurant with a high chair or a changing table.  Sometimes the people working at the restaurant, or the other patrons, feel that children “should be seen and not heard” and they are not very happy to have kids eating there (although I will say we have rarely encountered this).
• Personal space – there are a lot of times when we have been standing in line somewhere and people will stand very very close to you.  Or, if you don’t stand close enough to the person in front of you, people don’t think you’re in line and they will go in front of you.
• More living space! – We have been living in 984 sf of living space for 5 years.  We have one bathroom that we share between us and the 2 kids.  2 of the 3 bedrooms don’t have closets, and the one in the master bedroom only fits my clothes.  I can’t wait to have more space, and to have a separate bathroom from the kids…with my own sink!!
• Having a yard – when we moved here we thought we’d only be here for 3 years, so we weren’t too concerned about finding a house with an outdoor space for the kids.  After staying here longer, and adding another child to our family, we will really enjoy having a yard for them to play in.
• Going back to work – don’t get me wrong, sometimes not working can be great. I’ve really enjoyed being home with my kids while they’re young, being able to take Makenna back and forth to school, accompany Makenna’s class on field trips, take the kids to the park whenever I want, have play dates with friends, and see the kids change and grow.  There has also been times when it’s hard, when I’m tired or stressed or bored.  I’m looking forward to going back to work, although I know it will be a tough transition.  Hopefully I will have some flexibility where I don’t have to miss out on important or special times in my kids’ lives!
• Most importantly, being close to friends and family – it has definitely been hard being away from our friends and family for 5 years, and it will be so nice reuniting with everyone!! Can’t wait to see y’all in just a few months!

Last week, Europe experienced an intense heat wave where several cities, including Clermont Ferrand, experienced the hottest day on record.  We had several days that were between 103-105 degrees.  Most schools are not equipped to handle these high temperatures (if they are, they just have a fan in the classroom) so some closed while others advised parents that they could keep their children home.  The ones that were open were spraying the kids with water during recess, and giving them lots of water to drink throughout the day.  Some events were even canceled because of the high temperatures.

Air conditioning is a rare commodity in Europe, so this made for very uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions.  Most apartments have metal shutters which thankfully reduce the amount of sun and heat that come into the apartment.

Normally in the summer we will leave all of our windows and shutters open at night and then close them during the day.  I’ll usually close them around 9-10am and also close our blackout curtains.  While it helps with the heat, I hate living in a dark apartment all day!  During the heat wave, the temperatures didn’t cool down much at night, so after the first couple days this method didn’t really help.

We did put the kiddie pool to good use, and set it up on the balcony where we could put our feet in it to cool down.

We have a portable A/C unit that helps ever so slightly.  We have to fill it with water and stick a hose out of a door or window.  In order to try and cool down our kitchen/living area, we have to put the A/C where the doors to the balcony are….so once we put the hose out the door we then have to put a bungee cord around the 2 door handles to keep the open door as closed as possible.  Then we use a combination of styrofoam, pillows and blankets to block the open space around the door.  It’s quite a setup (and a job)!  Being that the space we are trying to cool down is pretty large, it doesn’t get much cooler in here but it does help take the edge off.

Oh and I should mention that Makenna’s dance recital was during the heat wave….in a gymnasium that of course was not air conditioned.  We got through it but it was pretty brutal!

Another side effect of the summer weather is that mosquitos become a problem.  The windows don’t have screens, so while we have to keep the windows open at night to let the cooler air in we are getting bit by mosquitos.  This year I decided to put a mosquito net around our bed which hasn’t been too effective.  Today I bought wall plug-ins that are supposed to repel mosquitos….wish us luck!

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La Kermesse is the end-of-school party held each year at the end of school.  The party is on a rotation where one year they will have the kids sing and/or dance and have a bounce house and the next year the kids don’t perform but they have a bunch of different games for the kids to play.  This year was games and the kids had a lot of fun fishing for ducks, playing a marble game, choosing a prize and playing on the playground.  We didn’t stay very long because it was really hot and we wanted to get the kids to bed at their normal time, but some people stay as late as 11pm and there is food served as well as beer! Bonne vacances!

For a few years now, Ryan has been saying he wanted a champagne sword.  At first I thought he was joking, and then I realized he really thought it would be a good souvenir to take home with us.  I kept avoiding getting that as a gift when birthdays or holidays came around, and finally for Father’s Day this year I decided I would get it for him.  When the timing didn’t work out and I wound up not getting it, our friends came to the rescue.  They had wanted to give Ryan a gift to thank him for the tickets to the race in Le Mans, so when we went to their house for our weekly F1 race watch party they presented him with a champagne sword.  His eyes lit up like a girl receiving an engagement ring!  Needless to say, it was put to the test right away and Ryan successfully opened a bottle of champagne on the first try.

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Y’all.  Every year Makenna’s dance recital happens to be on one of the hottest days of summer.  This year was no exception, being on one of the evenings during the major heat wave where it was 104 degrees….in a gymnasium with no air conditioning.  We seriously considered not taking her, as there were other shows and end-of-year activities that were cancelled due to the heat.  But we toughed it out since it was her last recital in France.  Thankfully I bought tickets as soon as they went on sale and I got seats in the very first row which was slightly cooler than the seats at the top.  The recital was so cute, as they danced to a song in French called “what is life?”  We had a great experience with the dance school here and we will surely miss our dance days!

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Since we arrived in France, Ryan has worked at the 24h race in Le Mans every year.  I had wanted to go and experience with him, but with kids that is never easy.  Being that this was his last time before we move back, we decided we would all go…and bring some friends!

We rented an Airbnb with 2 other families not far from the track, and headed up on Friday.  Friday evening there was a parade through the town with the drivers, so we planned on going to that and then eating at a restaurant.  As we were walking to the parade, the guys noticed a nice Porsche car and were admiring it…but as they kept walking and the car pulled in front of a fancy hotel, I glanced over and saw Patrick Dempsey step out!  I should mention that in the months leading up to the race, I kept saying that my mission for the weekend was to find Patrick Dempsey, because he is a co-owner of one of the race teams and is always there.  I couldn’t believe my dream was coming true within hours of the weekend starting!  I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by, so I yelled out his name and when he turned around I asked if I could take a picture with him.  He was really friendly and he looked just as good in person as he did in Grey’s Anatomy!  🙂 After I calmed down from the excitement, we watched the parade and ate a nice Italian meal.  We also had quite a few laughs with our friends after we put the kids to bed and played Cards Against Humanity.

Saturday morning we headed to the track.  We walked around, bought some souvenirs, and got to go onto the track for the “grid walk” before the race where we could see the race cars up close.  The race started and we watched in awe for awhile, and the kids loved it!  Then Ryan took us to see the Michelin tent where they keep all the tires and send new ones down to the track.  We also got to see his office where he works during the race.  While he went to get some work done, the rest of us went to eat dinner at one of the restaurants.  As we were finishing up, Ryan called and said that he had a pass for me and Katie to go to in the Michelin guest lounge next to the track!  It was such an awesome experience, looking straight down outside the window of the lounge and seeing the race and the cars coming in for a pit stop.  Of course, we had to take advantage of a free glass of champagne while in there!  Ryan had to stay at the track that night to work, so the rest of us headed back to the house and put the kids to bed.

On Sunday morning we headed back to the track to watch more of the race before it ended.  After watching the race for awhile, we saw the ending and headed to an area where we were allowed onto the track to see the winning car drive by and the winners receive their trophies.  A professional photographer for the race wound up taking a photo of Reese on Ryan’s shoulders while watching the trophy ceremony and sent us the photo…what a great memory from the weekend and from Ryan’s career here in France!

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When someone in our expat group said they were selling tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert in Lyon, my friend Katie and I decided we should buy the tickets and make a girls weekend out of it.  The last time we went to Lyon, we took the train but we knew we we wanted to shop at the big flea market so we drove.  We arrived Saturday around noon and shopped at the mall for a few hours, then headed to old Lyon for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant.  After dinner we crossed a bridge that had hearts with notes on them tied to the bars like the love lock bridge in Paris.  Everything looked so pretty at night!  We walked along the river to a river boat bar.  They had some fruit infused alcohol which Katie tried and said it tasted like moonshine, and the DJ was playing oldies music that must be really popular here because the crowd was going crazy for it.

On Sunday morning we were on a mission to get to “Les Puces du Canal”, an awesome flew market in Lyon.  It’s huge and part of it is inside a warehouse, some of it is outside, and the rest are little storefronts set up in old shipping containers.  There is a mix of modern high-end items, restored antiques, and reasonably priced items.  You can even find a few restaurants and food trucks to stop for a coffee or for lunch.  We found a few things we liked but couldn’t fit them in my little Citroen but we did wind up taking a few things home with us, and we even found a little decorating inspiration along the way.

The next part of our girls weekend was the concert!  We took the tram to the concert venue and shopped for a few souvenirs (I got Makenna a tshirt) then headed in to the floor seating of the open-air arena.  I have only been to 2 concerts before and had never been to an arena like that.  It was also really neat because when Ed Sheeran came on, it was just him and no band or anything.  He was really good and sounded just the same as he does on the radio.

Monday morning we found a cute café for breakfast, and Starbucks for a big coffee, before heading home.

It was such a nice girls weekend and reminded me of how much I like Lyon!

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For Easter this year, we decided to spend the weekend with some friends and looked for an Airbnb not far from us that would fit 3 families and have a yard for the kids to play in.  We found a house just outside of Tulle and headed down Saturday morning.  Before we were able to check in, we walked around Tulle where they had a farmers market set up and then visited the cathedral.  After a nice lunch outside, we headed to the house.  We were surprised to see that behind the fence in the back yard were goats!  When we went into the backyard, we were a little disappointed that the swing set that we saw in the photos was pretty run down and even had a nail sticking out…but with caution the kids were able to enjoy it a little bit.  The kids had a great time running around the yard chasing bubbles and kicking a ball around, which made me excited to move back and have a house with a yard for them to play in.

The house had a lot of “quirks” about it to say the least.  Unbeknownst to us, the house was the primary residence of the owners so all of their belongings were all over the house….including their passport and tax documents sitting on the desk in the bedroom!  There were a lot of flaws like the people had built the house themselves.  We took it all in stride and made the best of it which turned out to be a great, memorable weekend!

After the kids played for awhile, we colored eggs.  That night after we put the kids to bed we hung out playing card games and our friend Steve found a disco light, so he set it up… which seemed appropriate with the quirkiness of the house, and of course added to the fun.  Then we worked on putting the kids’ Easter baskets together.

The next morning the kids had a great time opening their baskets and playing with some of their new things.  Staci, who was a teacher back home, had the kids make bunny ear hats.  While the kids were busy crafting, Steve hid the Easter eggs outside.  The kids had so much fun doing the egg hunt!  Then I made a carrot cake while the other ladies prepared a delicious dinner.  That night the kids went to bed and us adults had one of the most fun nights playing a random game the guys created….we all made towers with the Legos that we found in the house, and then we used our kids’ matchbox cars to try and knock down each other’s towers.

It was such a fun weekend and a really nice way to spend the holiday when we couldn’t spend it with our families.  I can’t believe we’ll be HOME for Easter next year!

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It may sound cliché, but I really can’t believe my first-born is 5 years old!  I also can’t believe Makenna has celebrated all of her birthdays in France.  Sadly, this is the last one.  Her birthday was on a Thursday, so I made a cookie cake for her to bring to school.  Cookie cakes aren’t really known here, so the kids loved it and the teacher asked me for the recipe so she could put it in the kids’ notebooks.  Makenna’s brasserie owner friend, Didier, has the same birthday so like last year we brought him some cake, had a drink together and sang “Happy Birthday” in French and English.

On Saturday, we had a unicorn themed birthday party at our apartment.  Makenna had 3 friends from school come, as well as her American friend Sylvia and then 2 of our friends’ kids.  I am so lucky to have some very talented friends, and one of them drew a unicorn for a “pin the tail on the unicorn” game and she also did face painting during the party.  My other friend made a beautiful unicorn cake.  After Makenna opened gifts, I had a little photo area set up where we took photos with a Polaroid camera and the kids had unicorn-themed props.

Throwing a party for 7 kids ages 5 and under is a lot of work, but it was so worth it and Makenna had a great time!  Next year I look forward to having a yard, and living in a warmer climate, so we can have the parties outside 🙂

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Being that this was Ryan’s last birthday in France, he wanted to celebrate by having a French themed party with some of our friends.  We all took it very seriously, as you can see from the photos.  Everyone came dressed in striped shirts, berets, scarves etc.  And what is a French party without wine and baguettes?!  We also had typical French aperitifs of Kir and Ricard.  For dessert, everyone brought a few pastries to share.  We had so much fun that we kept the kids up until midnight!