FrenchWards

Bonjour amis,

It's been awhile. I have been trying to conjure some wit out of the busy lives we are carving out for ourselves here to share with you. School is out for the two week Toussain Holiday. I am starting to think of it as the 2 week INsane holiday. Pretty much everyone sends their children to their parents' house for the entire vacation which is fabulous for them, not so much for us as there are no kids around to play with our lovely children. This means all family all the time.....yay.

All the boys now have boy bikes. Micah gave up his girl bike for a bike that is literally labelled "boy". Bob bought a used bike from an homme who lives an hour or so north from here. So far, we're not sure that was a great idea. It has some issues. I am still waiting to find the right bike for me. I am happy running through the beautiful countryside for now.

As a follow up to my failed marathon of the last post, I waltzed right into that darn prefecture and got my darn residence card aucun problem. Except that I still can't leave the country until December after I go back there for the actual sticker in my passport. But still.

Jasper and Micah got to go to a Minecraft "workshop" in Lyon where they sat in a small, warm room full of boys (can you smell it?) and played Minecraft like they so often do. Only this time we got to drive to Lyon and pay 25 euros for them to play for two and half hours. Sounds a little like a rip off except...it was the first 2.5 hours we had had without them in two months!! Get your mind out of the gutter, we went walking around the lovely city of Lyon in a section called La Croix Rousse. It is currently where you live if you are a Lyon hipster. It was formerly where you lived if you were a Canut, which is a silk worker. Apparently in the 18th century, Lyon was centre of silk making in Europe, so it is said. One of the cool things you can find there are the hidden tunnels known as traboules that the silk workers used to transport their silk to the Saône river. We walked through a few, they were cool, they also smelled like pee.

Since I last posted we went to a couple of social events with our friendly neighbors on "the Rue". They are a close knit group of awesome folks that have dared the awkwardness of befriending us. These events prove to be fun and extremely exhausting trying to speak french or trying not to feel awkward, very unsuccessfully on both accounts.

The second event was actually a sort of fundraiser (roll eyes now) but french style. It was actually a fundraiser to raise money for a giant party known as the Conscrits. This event will happen in Fevrier and consists of a week to 10 days of drinking for those who are participating. We may or may not attend any part of this event. It is unclear (as so many things are to us) who goes to this party. The Conscrits event, in France, is unique to the Beaujolais area. It originated in our neighboring town and the "capital" of Beaujolais, Villefranche. (Yes the place with the awesome Sunday market, which is actually every day except Tuesday and Thursday, but I digress. ) This event was created as a last hurrah for the soldiers being drafted into the army. It took place the night before the draft where one out of two twenty year old men would be sent to war the next day. It is known to be a time where all men were equal, the rich and the poor and no one knew who would go and who would not. So they partied hard. Now, they celebrate every year to celebrate a 10 year group; for those who turn 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 etc etc that year. So this year it was "the 4s" those born in 2004, 1994, 1984 and so on etc. Now women do it as well as men and it does not have to do with being drafted but it is a great community builder and a good time. So the party we went to was a taste of it, we drank we danced to a live band whom had their own dancers, we watched our friend do a dance routine because she is a conscrit AND we had a babysitter(!!!) We got home at 2 am. So to me, that was worthy of your time to read about, I hope you think so too.

And then my last bit of "news" that I will share is that we finally made it to Paris, as per Micah's request for his up coming birthday. It was awesome and all the things that Paris is known to be. (Mis)Quoting Bob, the amazing thing about Paris is that it doesn't have to try to be Paris, it just is Paris and it lives up to all the hype without even trying. I believe much the way that say NYC or London do in their own ways. We stayed just outside the city in an apartment we found on AirBnb, which was clean and comfortable, not exactly what we were hoping for but good for the last minute. We rode the metro everywhere and walked what seemed to be hundreds of miles. The kids did great. We climbed the steps to the second floor of the Eiffel tower and took the elevator to the top. We went to the Louvre, and l'Arc du Triomphe. I think we saw about 1/100th of the things that we would have liked to, but that's how it goes, especially with kids.

Queue the fotos:

Minecraft club, can you smell it now?

La Croix Rousse in the rain

Farmer Ted gets a new car

Conscrits

This years group, the "5"s, doing their dance routine

This is Christophe, he is one of the neighbors that invited us, he happens to be the president of the conscrit for the "4" year, which was, in fact, last years group that happened in Fevrier.

School picture time

Find the yank

Mercredis a la piscine-Micah's class goes to the pool every Wednesday. I go too.

Panini at the mall

Swans on the Saône

A bike ride from home

Just in case you miss Chuck-a-rama when you're in France (we did not go there, just took the pic)

We got a lot of goodies at the second hand gear sales that happened last week.

Encore le prefecture

Back at the prefecture

Triumphant

Paris!

Le museé d'armee

Sure missed Uncle Scott at this musee. We needed some Euro war history knowledge.

Shout out Mantua

The Charles De Gaulle exhibit. Too fancy for itself, the über tech didn't really work.

Shaa

Heck oui

Napolean's tombe

Beers and crepes by the tour. It was fun being a tourist.

climbing the stairs to the second etage

I was hesitant to take the elevator to the top but was certainly glad I did.

Paris Italian dinner at a tourist spot, 21:30 o'clock, spendy but friendly

Je suis fatigué
Mental note: don't take left overs home on the metro, it gets awfully crowded at 11pm to carry a pizza box.
Awkwarrrrrd.

Le Louvre

The Nike of Samothrace

She needs no intro

My future as an artist

Caravaggio

Taking kids to a gigantic art museum

Oh Michel

le Metro

Art deco Cité stop, the stop for Notre Dame

Alors..

HA! Yeah right, have you met our children?

Joan

Therese

Micah artist shot

Micah artist shot to the face

Pont Des Arts

Who's this Mike guy?

I do

Jasper added a lock for his future love. Micah kept his lock as a souvenir. Jasper admitted later that he was sad that he left his lock there....

Love's lock lost

Dans les ramparts

Mexican rollerblade show

Photo shoot

Jardin des tuileries

L'arc

Oh no you didn't!

For the unknown soldier, powerful exhibit

Atop L'arc

Sucks to be them

Au revoir Paris!

But not before ..

The playmobile "fun park" aka Someone kill us now.

This room filled with about 3 times this many people. No one say "ebola"
We managed to take 2 hours to make the 15 mile trip here from Paris, after failing Versailles due to not finding PARKING!! You win some you lose some.

The kids loved it......

Á bientot amis! (don't I look relaxed behind the wheel? not.)

Bon matin amis!

TGIV!

Automne has arrived and it is hot and steamy here in the Beaujoulais. It has been raining but seems to be averaging 70 degrees F. Great for the skin, weird for the season.

Most of my updates are of the domestic nature. Both kids finally have bikes. Micah's is purple and says "100% pour les filles". Jasper's is very big. He was set on gears in the front and the back. The fellow at the shop disapproved of the size; doesn't follow protocol. Alas, we followed American protocol, which is more of the Honey Badger nature, we takes what we wants.

We also installed some swings on the, up until now, empty swing set on the property. Good times for about 10 minutes. Now they sit in the rain lonely.

Jasper started his tennis lessons. He likes them, though they are "too easy". I disagree.

I have started my "French class" and my art class. I include quotation marks because while I thought this would be a language class, it is more a culture class. I may have mentioned that there are many emigrants from Morocco and Algiers here. This class seems aimed toward helping the women assimilate into the French culture. I am unsure of what is generally known or not known. We are going over some language, things like the days of the week and family names but all of these women speak French what seems to be fluently. Mind you they also speak "arabique". So, I don't know if they are unfamiliar with the french alphabet or if they can read in arabic or what. There is an age range from young to old and there are women who wear burkas and who don't. It is pretty interesting, the subject material a little easy, like Jasper's tennis class, but ultimately, I am pretty into it.

As for art. I have never taken an art class in my life so why not take one where I can barely understand the instruction? Pretty smart non? The other 3 women taking the class have had quite a bit of training I think, judging on their sketches of the bulldog statue. I will include my sketch in the photo section. I am proud of it but I think perhaps I should not be.

On other exciting fronts, Bob completed the "Run in Lyon" marathon. He got almost the exact same time that he had with the Top of Utah marathon that he ran 2 years ago. I think he was hoping for better. I am proud of him. I think he will be running the Beaujolais marathon in November. I will abstain from writing anything judgmental or smarmy about his choices as he reads this blog.

While Bob was running and running and running in the rain and running, etc. the boys and I went to the Museum of Miniatures. This is a museum full of props, costumes and paraphernalia from actual movie sets. And then there are the 2 floors of miniature rooms and scenes and silhouette art. It was a very cool museum. I have to include some of the millions of pictures I felt like I needed to take there.

I had my own sort of marathon trying to obtain my residency permit this week. Unlike Bob's marathon, I failed to finish. I will have to try again. I, however, won't make the same mistake of getting up at 6 am, riding the standing room only train to Lyon, standing in line for 2 hours with the other 500 people, getting a ticket, waiting in the waiting room with my hungry kids that joined me with Bob at 9, just to be denied. I'll just get there at 9, skip the line because I am a scientifique and bring all the stupid paperwork. I won't have to almost cry. I won't have to go to the mall of shame and eat McDonalds with my children to make up for the miserable morning they were forced to have.

I may have failed on the residency permit and parenting but we did get to discover the awesome park, Le Parc de la Tête d'Or in Lyon, which includes an African zoo and was overall delightful. We also attended a little soiré at a cafe for other hapless souls whom decided to take sabbatical in France. The kids got to meet other kids that actually spoke English and we got to exchange stories with others who were fumbling around having a good time living la vie français.

Other big news is that we have finally secured a car. It is a little sad to give up the motor free life but overall it will be a nice addition to the family. The 2 week fall break is coming up. Micah wants to go to Paris, maybe we will. Otherwise we feel that we are in a deficit of local castle exploration. We also want to check out the Massif central. It includes cliffs and rivers and caves and dormant volcanoes.

We continue to not know French very well, all of us. I continue to be frustrated that we are not learning more quickly. I am especially anxious about the kids' lack of French, especially Jasper, because alas that is how it can be being the first born. I have high expectations for him, then I remember that I can't even remember my name half the time, who the heck am I to judge? I will keep forcing myself to believe that it will happen, for all of us. I like to think that the frustration is born of concern. There are many lessons we are (I am) learning here, most of which have nothing to do with France. I hope that I will learn them well enough to keep them with me when we return home.

Alors, enough waxing philosophique, here are some fotos. I hope that you like them.

Bonne Week-end!!