Mazie and Randy have been practicing French horse terminology flashcards for today! Before school they rode their bikes to the morning lesson. Wow, hard to believe we live close and can walk or ride bikes!  The owner gave Mazie a pair of riding pants from a donation pile given to her by other rides. She is borrowing a helmet and boots and using Cara’s tack box for each lesson. Happy Happy Girl!

What have we learned:

We missed the running of the bulls festival, pinecones look gold, school gets better on week 3, Lamborghini makes tractors, Zach can make cookies here, the location of a running field for Cody, and snails cross paths in the morning.

Lightning storms can be fierce, do not go to the grocery store on Wednesdays, Cody still loves his Pooh Bear, Cody and Bella have a daily face off, and how to fix a running toilet in France.

Randy made a very tasty meal with unidentified meat (ham) he bought at the butchers, snails sleep on tall grasses, the church parking lot is FULL if you are late, cushions need to be stored away when it rains, and the Fiat has 6 gears.

Aldi sells Trader Joe’s items, buying train tickets can take 10 minutes to 3 hours even with a French speaking friend helping, most French people do not want to pet your dog or rather do not want to impose on you to ask, to pet your dog, most French people do not wave hi or smile, most French people say bonjour to everyone in the morning, in our family we use crayfish, crawdad and crawfish, white horses and brown horses in the same field separate and will not mingle.

We continue to look for walking places for Cody to run and enjoy his life. Just up the street seems to be perfect. He can run off leash, kids can bike, puddles appear after a rain, vineyards are on the right,  a throwing and fetching field is on the left and on the next ridge up ahead is the biggest wine barrel ever seen! Saturday Cody and the kids enjoyed the puddles of mud, while I enjoyed an afternoon of a tired Cody. 

Today’s driving outing led us via Mazie’s maps, to the pet store and a new town, Sommieres. At the pet store I was trying to let the cashier know that I speak English not French, because I still do not understand French after 4 weeks. Instead of letting her know, I told her to speak English…I didn’t even realize it until I was back in the car…so RUDE of me. She responded well and in English. For this I was grateful and even more so now that I have realized my gross error. We headed to Sommieres to see a bridge because it was only 20 minutes away. On our drive there we found ourselves behind a Ford Ranger truck with a Montana license plate in the rear window. A little bit of home for us. 

Sommieres has a Saturday market scene, which we will visit another day. Google maps, not Mazie Maps, got us turned around and we ended up in a neighborhood with tiny roads and a barricade at the bottom. My reverse manual driving skills were put to the test, along with tight squeeze driving. The picture does not demonstrate depth nor width well.

Around 6pm we headed up the street to visit and learn about horse riding lessons. I am thankful Randy can speak, listen AND converse in French. (I have written this before.) The entire 70 minute introduction and getting to know you was all French and through Randy. We even gathered escaping ponies while we were seeing the center. Mazie will begin Wednesday morning, before school. The entire lesson will be in French so Randy will have a briefing of French horse vocabulary before then with Mazie. After horse, Zach headed on his bike to another field and threw a round of discs. 

As a teacher, September typically translates to the time to attend school and formally learn. We, including myself, have many, many things to learn this year! The trip into the city during “school hours” sent one child over the edge with the magnitude of people and their motion, while setting the other one up to need extra school time to get back on track. I HAD NO IDEA! School has been challenging in many ways for one in particular. My office has changed locations again. School has lasted until 8 pm some nights. (Next week we understand the idea of remote schooling and finish around 3pm with ALL assignments done.)

Learning how to live in a new country takes time. Learning how to learn online takes time. Learning anything usually takes time, even if it is just taking time away from something else to learn.  

Mazie completed her first online science experiment on density using colored sugar water. It was pretty cool to do and a ton of fun.

Just yesterday I wanted to cry after finishing grocery shopping, even though I was successful. I navigated the aisles of yogurt, yes 2 aisles for a total of 3 sides lined with yogurt types, flavors and brands!!!  I found familiar food for this week’s dinner. (salmon, steak tacos and eggs)

I even found printer ink and a sewing kit. Yet I still wanted to cry once I was back in the car. I have been in 5 different grocery stores in the past 3 weeks. Hopefully, I will learn which store I like and which store has what I want. I need to learn how to communicate in French in a grocery store. My life often feels like the panorama picture below. The sky is 1/2 bright, cheery, clear and doing well. The sky is also 1/2 stormy and unpredictable, waiting for the next thing to happen. I am thankful Randy can speak, listen and converse in French.

As I post this 9/8… I also found an Aldi and bought Trader Joe’s Cranberries, went to another groc store much like Wal-mart and found Kraft Mac and Cheese for less than $4 and refrigerated milk! Still took 3 hours to go to these 2 stores that were literally across the round-a-bout from each other. And I still wanted to cry for some reason.

Today we stayed home from our French church and had a quiet morning drawing and reading.  At 3:30pm we zoomed into our church service back home, Grace Community Pres. It was comforting to see familiar faces, the back of heads, and hear English. I did not leave church mentally exhausted today! My Aunt Dale sent individualized monthly art lessons and an art supply kit for each kid. I enjoyed doing art all week long.

Our weekend ended with a short drive to a hiking place with incredible views Table d’orientation du Puech des Mourgues. One review mentioned a 20 minute hike from the parking lot. Perfect, we thought.  Randy made a picnic dinner and we took off, bringing Cody too. Google maps and our understanding of the directions only had us go around a triangular block one extra time. We are getting better! 

We found the parking lot and the path to the top. The exposed path to the top was dry and rocky. Randy and I looked at each other both thinking, “Should we do this? We will be in pain in the morning.” Randy was 6 weeks post knee surgery, I am 5 months into plantar fasciitis, and Cody is 10 months old. We ventured on not knowing the route ahead, yet understanding the future pain to come. The route was beautiful, very rocky, and NOT recommended for strollers or skates! We saw a guy rock climbing, a guy running, a small party of young 20’s, and a family with smaller kids than ours.

The view was absolutely amazing. We could see mountain peaks, the Mediterranean Sea, and rolling hills. These rolling hills reminded us of the Blue Ridge Mountains back home. We watched the sunset, relaxed, and ate our dinner. 

Eventually, we noticed the other family leaving the top. Hmm, we realized it was about to get dark and we had at least 20 minutes to walk on a rocky path. Could we make it in time to the bottom before dark? We did not bring flashlights and our phones were on low battery. We took off, the path seemed different. I found myself commenting on things I had not noticed on the way up, such as the tall carin formations, 6 patches of dug up dirt, a piece of flat rock that you could balance on and tilt back and forth. Great, we started down the wrong path! The light was quickly fading into the ground.

I will spare you the minute by minute details, however we made it back to the car just as the last light vanished into darkness.

We needed the weekend just to recover from different aspects of life. The kids, individually, spent some of the weekend submitting assignments not done properly and finishing up their school work. Not one complaint was heard. Randy is wrapping up his sickness, we hope. Cody is continuing to find things that result in destruction. I find myself contemplating life through reading devotions, figuring out how and what to prepare for meals, and juggling the emotions of all of us.  

The pool remains a source of happiness. The grass was cut using an electric lawnmower. Randy commented it felt and sounded like vacuuming the grass.

Glass bottles were recycled, which entailed actually taking them up the street and dropping them into a circle hole in a box. Cody and I have been exploring the area through our walks. Cody and Mazie have been working on dog tricks. She is a great teacher and gives Cody an outlet for his puppy energy. Cut and paste the address below for the international puppy star!

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipM2Nqz-ELTQLR4V-kJQdt2xdGCq7VrmWx6Mtobz/photo/AF1QipO8vL6UTuHyWHvLFPUm1ZUjZkrAb7oD-T07d8hX

Friday night Mazie and I had the night out. Mazie Maps was on her game again as we maneuvered swiftly through villages and roundabouts amidst Friday night rush hour and tourists. We enjoyed the familiarity, layout, and cafe of IKEA. We ended the night on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Truth be had, the pictures at the beach are unfiltered and do not relay that we spent 3.5 minutes on the shore. The mosquitoes were horrendous, forcing us to leave and drive home. Still it was a great way to end the first week of school.

On the road again

Just can’t wait to get on the road again…

Goin’ places that I’ve never been

Seein’ things that I may never see again

And I can’t wait to get on the road again

-Willie Nelson

I love it when a song from the past starts playing in my head about my current experiences. 

Today I went with Marie to look for composition books for school. The truth is I was going alone and after going in and out of the house 3 times looking for my phone I just decided to leave and find my way by myself without Google or Mazie maps. (I had some idea of where I was going) My rational, in Uganda I did not have a phone and managed. I stopped by Marie’s to let her know what brave thing I was doing without a phone. She also needed to go so Hannah, Marie and I took off in Marie’s car. She showed me where the Lidl was located and took me to a store that smelled and looked like a bookstore as we entered. As we mazed through the store guitars lined the walls, another turn displayed office and craft supplies, followed by cake decorating and toys consisting of Legos and Playmobil. The photos below compare French paper versus American paper.

Later in the day we invited Marie, Noah and Hannah over to swim and have tacos with us. Before they arrived I decided I was going to Lidl by myself. I did it! Check out a grocery store located on the 2nd floor. The afternoon and evening were delightful, kids laughing and splashing while mommas were chatting. Randy continued to recover from his sickness.

Someone asked me if I still feel like I am on vacation or has real life set in? My reply, “Oh this is real!” One is sick, one week of school is happening, one by one the kids are arranging to meet the teachers via video chatting, more than one piece of clothing is still dirty and needing to be washed AND dried outside (because it is actually faster than the dryer), one batch of after school cookies are being made AND devoured, at least one dinner needs to be made nightly, less than one year old puppy Cody continues to find rare treasures to destroy, luckily does not digest them like his brother Oakley, and oh, I am making one dinner in the instant pot tonight.

This week after school, I took the kids to a skatepark in a nearby village called Jacou. In America this would not be a big deal for me, however this was my FIRST driving experience in France and I did it. I highly recommend Mazie Maps, she is very thorough in giving directions and we arrived without missing any turns. The kids enjoyed scootering on the ramps and Cody enjoyed chasing balls in a little wooded area, while he was still keeping an eye on Zach and Mazie and the wheeling devices he doesn’t like. We left at sunset and drove home without using any given directions. The next day I mentioned this to a French friend here and she jokingly laughed and commented, “Good, it is a straight road!” Yes it is, with a few round-a-bouts, traffic lights, speed limit reminders, and humps. It is nice to have someone who understands, speaks French and English, and can joke with me.