People ask me, "How did you end up in France staying at a French families home?" The short answer is, "I have no idea" but the more accurate answer is my sister. My nephew's ex-girlfriend Naomi was a nanny for a family in the outskirts of Paris and met Nathalie. When my sister came to France on vacation in January, Nathalie asked if Sue knew any families that would be interested in hosting her 13 year old son for a couple of weeks so that he could learn English. I raised my hand and said "pick me".
We invited Lorenzo to stay with us for three weeks. It was an adventure filled 3 weeks as we showed him the sights and sounds of being an American. It was fun but super tiring. Balin was gone Monday-Friday every week so he too was tired.
We spent time on the boat surfing, wake boarding and tubing, of which Lorenzo like tubing the most. We headed to Seattle to have a look around - staying in Greenlake in an Airbnb for the night. I have to say that we were all surprised at how many people live in Seattle. I thought it was crowded 15 years ago when we lived there, but it has grown significantly since then. My brother Dan, his wife Catherine and my nephew Alex took all the kids out sailing our one night in Seattle and by the sounds of it everyone had a great time.
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| Cliff jumping in Coeur d alene |
After 3 weeks of running around the Northwest, I was in need of a vacation and it was time for Lorenzo to head home to France. I had invited Balin's mom to join us for a week and she gladly obliged. We met her in Seattle and we all flew over to Paris, where Lorenzo's mom met us.
They live in a small village called Barbizon, which is an hour by train outside of Paris. It's charming cobblestone streets, light brown stone houses with colored shutters and doors have been wooing people for hundreds of years. It's famous for being the home for dozens of Impressionist painters in the 1800's and being a hunting ground for the nearby royalty. It's pretty spectacular this little town and I'm so thankful we're staying here.
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| Elliot the dog with his pink unicorn we brought him. |
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| The gate leading to the street from Nathalie's home. |
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| We went out for dinner and the cute waiter (he was 21) brought Perrin a wine glass. She tried it, said it was actually good and then gave the rest to me. |
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| Walking down to the boulangerie each morning to buy fresh bread. Love! |
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| Learning how to use my camera...over exposed these shots at Fontainnbleau |
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| After a couple of ostentatious rooms, we all tired of the glamour of the reigning class in France. Ice cream and a walk in the gardens finished our time in Fontainebleau. |
Aug. 9 - I can't tell you what day it is as it's all a blur. I do know we woke up to rain this morning and decided that our plans of going to Versaille to picnic in the gardens probably wasn't going to be the best idea. So we changed directions and headed out to Provins, a mid-evil town that is still intact. Pretty impressive actually, though we all have found that being a tourist is hard work and we're tired.
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