She's walkin'! (action shots included)

As of today, Amelia is an official WALKER! She has toyed and flirted with the idea off and on for some time, but she has definitely made the move to the bi-ped mode.

These pictures are just so action-packed, and I'm such an amateur photographer, I know there are some occasional blurs. Just think of it as MOTION!

Now that Amelia is walking, life around here will never be the same, that's for sure!

(And yes, I was moving furniture today...hence the strange lack of stuff in places one would expect to see stuff.)

Hair Excitement

Amelia's hair is getting longer, and the curls are so darling! I know it doesn't look so long in pictures--that's because it's curled up. But you should see her in the bath tub (or, the bath sink, to be more exact). It's pretty long these days!

Meelsie's hair is so cute. But as a curly-haired gal myself, I know the day will come when she and I will commiserate together about the hazards and pitfalls of curly locks. Like mother, like daughter, right? :-)

In anticipation of more hair and summer fun, I ordered the product line-up from Carol's Daughter. It should arrive this week. I can't wait to "do hair" with my baby girl!

We interrupt this travelogue...

....to tell you that Meelsie is legal in her front-facing car seat.

At her 15 month check-up this week, we learned she finally weighs twenty pounds (10th percentile) and she's thirty inches long (25th percentile).

She breezed through every other part of the exam...except the three shots in her little thighs. Poor baby!

Actually, our doctor was pretty thrilled at how much growing progress she has made in the last few months. (Shhhhh! Let's not tell him it was all those chicken nuggets in France!)

Part Trois: Monaco

Trivia: In the movie "Princess Diaries" (AKA "Princess Diarrheas" before the girls could read), the fictional country of Genovia is based on the real country of Monaco. So, of course, we had to go to Monaco.

Trivia: Monaco has the best, freshest-smelling, cleanest and most beautiful public restrooms in all of Europe....or at least in all of the Europe restrooms I have visited.

I'm not saying these two points of trivia are in any way related. But when you're traveling with a family of little girls, they are both pretty important.

But I digress. (Dave would say, "What's new?") Without further ado, here are some pics:

The harbor in Monaco.

We had fun imagining who owned all of the huge yachts!
Two of our own princesses.
Princess #3...she had a great time,

but found herself a bit more stroller-bound than the big girls.
Abs....10 years old, but looking older, don't ya think?

(Don't remind her daddy.)
Al, with eyes the color of the sea!
The whole fam on the roof of the national aquarium.
It looks like a postcard!

Overlooking the sea...

Monaco's army is smaller than its national symphony! :-)

And finally, the famous casino. Which, of course, I have already

seen...in various James Bond and Jason Bourne-esque movies!

France part deux

We loved the village of Cassis (rhymes with "tree")! We ended up there because we couldn't work our first choice (whose name I have already forgotten) into our schedule. I think Cassis ended up being among our favorites, so we're glad our "best plan" didn't work out.

The drive to Cassis goes through some mountains and through lots of vineyards. Apparently Cassis is considered the "poor man's Riviera" and a big off the beaten path, but we thought it was beautiful and so special. We loved exploring (read: eating and shopping) in Cassis.

This is what we saw as we walked into the village.

Just a typical day, wading in the Mediterranean Sea!

This is the beautiful lunch I blogged about a few posts ago...

fresh fish RIGHT from the sea!

The cafe where we lunched is in the middle with the brown awning.

And here are a couple of jeunes filles americaines on the pier!

Finally, Allison is the one in the family who has an artistic eye.

Here are a couple of her photos:

A tree grows in Cassis...
Can you tell what this is?

Honeys, we're home!

Ok, so we've been home for awhile now. To quote a blogging/Ethiopia baby mama friend, I have been a negligent blogger.

In my defense, I have tried to blog, but couldn't get the pictures to upload. True to my nature, when the situation involved wading into the weeds of details, I found something else to do instead. But today, I am determined! Plus, it's rainy, so what else do I have to do?

So, here are some pictures and some narrative, too.

We spent the first week in Aix en Provence. We picked Aix because it is a fairly central town in the region of Provence. Also, it was big enough to provide plenty of exploring for us (read: eat and shop and go to the markets), and everywhere else we wanted to visit was fairly close by.

Here are Dave and the girls right outside our apartment in Aix.
The living room in our apartment....

the building is about three hundred years old,
but the apartment had been fabulously renovated in 2007.
(Too bad I didn't think to snap pictures

before it assumed that "lived in" look!)

The old tower on our way to our market...

...and this is the daily market less than a block from the apartment.
We picked up fresh strawberries, cheese and bread each day!

Finally, here's a shout out to a special friend...

you know who you are!!

This is just what our rental car looked like.

There were actually three rows of seats, and it was just right for our family. The best and most important feature was the GPS. I think we would still be wandering the hill towns of the Luberon Valley if we hadn't had it!

We explored Provence every day. It really is just like I hoped and imagined it would be. Well, maybe it was even a bit better!

On our way to Arles, we drove under this Roman aquaduct.

Arles is where Vincent Van Gogh lived

and painted for several years.

There was an ancient Roman colliseum there, too.

After Arles, we drove over to Les Baux de Provence. This was one of our favorite villages. Les Baux is way up in Les Alpilles, a range of stoney mountains in the south of France. Because of its incredible position, it was a defensive stronghold in the Middle Ages, complete with ramparts and a serious castle. All we could think about was how much WORK it would have taken to build this village on the side of a rocky mountain. And it was so beautiful.

We explored the village (read: shopped and ate), and Dave and the big girls climbed up to the castle ruins.

Look at all the stone someone hewed and

hauled and used to build with!
Can you imagine?
A linen shop (where I picked up some kitchen towels).
The view up to the castle from the village.

Just blogging about the trip makes me long to go back.

Next installment: Cassis and Monaco!

Eating our way through France...

Specifically:

• Abby eats crepes and pastries every 5-10 minutes;
  


• I can't say Dave is drinking wine every 10 minutes, but I get the sense he does enjoy the whole have-a-glass-of-wine-at-a-French-cafe scene. If he starts wearing a beret and smoking cigarettes, we'll have to do an intervention. Or, I'll leave him to his own devices without a translator!;
  


• I had doral (some kind of yummy fish) STRAIGHT AND FRESH from the Mediterranean Sea today...while LOOKING at the Mediterranean while eating in a restaurant in the port town of Cassis;
  


• True to her carnivorous, carbo-loving form, Allison enjoys the Charolais variety of beef...and she is quite a baguette hound;
  
  
• And Meelsie seems to be missing basic old familiar food...and was a bit too happy to have some frites (that's French fries, which are not actually French) at a McDonald's where we accidentally / not on purpose found ourselves mid-morning today. I should have bought a bunch of boxes of chicken McNuggets (they don't ever go bad, do they, because I don't think they're real food?) which I could pop out of the diaper bag for her eating pleasure whenever we pull up to a classy French joint.

I wish I could upload photos, but alas, I'll have to share pictures when we get home.

Yesterday we drove northwest of Aix to Arles, Les Baux and St. Remy de Provence. (And yes, the GPS works pretty well--as long as I translate the French for Dave the Driver--and our French driving experience has been far more pleasant than last summer's Italy driving experience!)

Arles is the town (village?) where Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne painted. I took a photo of Dave and Abby outside the house where Van Gogh's famous "Bedroom at Arles" was painted (malheureusement, la maison etait ferme! Boo!).

Since we're so artsy, it should be known that a print of "Bedroom at Arles" hangs in our very own bedroom at home--ha! Here's what the famous painting looks like:

After Arles, we went to an amazing medieval village called Les Baux de Provence. The town and its castle date from the eighth century. It was amazing! Here is a picture (that someone else took) of Les Baux:
St. Remy de Provence is another beautiful old town. Unfortunately, many of the shops there are closed on Tuesdays, so we didn't stay long. Another of St. Remy de Provence's claims to fame is that Van Gogh was institutionalized there for about a year. Hmmmm...

Last night we dined at "Les Deux Garcons," a famous restaurant here in Aix that opened in 1792. Apparently it was a favorite of Paul Cezanne. (Also, I'm pretty sure it's the only restaurant I have ever been to that is listed in the Michelin Guide.)

After we sat down, our waiter offered us "an apperatif" to drink called, "pastis." Having recently re-read "A Year in Provence," I was all eager to drink pastis....because Mayle's friends and acquaintances in the book drink pastis like it's going out of style.

Anyway, the waiter brought Dave and me a couple of tall, narrow glasses. Each had about 2 inches of cloudy liquid, and about 8 inches of...nothing. Dave and I each took suspicious sips. Then we breathed fire across the table at one another. My my my, that stuff was STRONG!!!!

After several minutes, the non-English-speaking waiter (by the way, we haven't found ANY English speakers down in these parts...not a single speaker of English....so it's a good thing I know enough French to be dangerous!) was able to convey to us that the 8 inches of...nothing...in our glasses was meant to be filled, by us, with water. Upon adding 80% water to the highly-potent pastis base, we ended up with a somewhat palatable licorice-tasting beverage. It wasn't that bad, but I do think it's an acquired taste.

Today we drove over to a fabulous village called Cassis. Oh la la! It was so wonderful. Cassis is supposedly the "poor man's St. Tropez," but we didn't see anything poor about it. It was beautiful and quaint, and the girls loved taking off their shoes at the Mediterranean Sea. (I fear Amelia was wishing for Chicken McNuggets....but at least she was nice about it.)This is someone else's photo of Cassis. We ate at one of the buildings right in the middle of the row. Formidable!

On the agenda for tomorrow: Monaco. Friday we're off to the "Hill Towns of Luberon," then we travel to Paris Saturday. The days are going by too fast!

Aix en Provence

Happy Birthday today, Dave!

After 24 hours of planes, trains and automobiles, we arrived at our apartment in Aix en Provence late yesterday afternoon.

The adventure began with Dave forgetting his passport and taking a $300 round trip cab ride from the airport back home to retrieve it from the scanner where he was making copies before we left. He arrived at the airport 20 minutes before our flight was to leave (the rest of us were on the plane--ha!)and had to elbow his way through security to catch the train to terminal C...the farthest terminal from the main terminal. Boy am I glad I wasn't involved in the forgetting-the-passport-incident!!! Yikes!

Anyway, he barely made the flight. After an initial hour of Amelia crying and scared out of her wits on the leg from Chicago to Paris, we settled in for a few hours of sleep. Once we arrived in Paris, we took the high speed train to our depot in Aix en Provence, where we picked up our lime green rental car, and drove to our apartment. True to form, we endured another Jason Bourne-esque adventure with Dave at the wheel as he navigated extremely narrow one way streets...going the wrong way at speeds too fast for the situation...and this with the help of a GPS this time!

Finally, we arrived at our destination at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon just in time to get settled in to our apartment and then visit the recommended Brasserie around the corner for dinner. Now, we're ready to begin the R&R and tour the region in the coming 5 days we have here.

This morning we woke up and strolled down to the Sunday Farmer's Market (pictured above) just a few blocks from the apartment. We came home with fresh fruits and plenty of lavender, which is indigenous to the area.

Who knows what's in store for tomorrow?

Microbes and a cute picture and we're leaving tomorrow!

For those of you with young children. It's NEVER too late to start fearing the dreaded Science Project. At our school, it is a requirement for fourth grade. The rest of the students will turn their projects in on March 25. Since we'll be out of town then, Abby is turning her project in today.

Here's my disclaimer: Sure, she chose a bit of a tricky project. But we didn't put it off and we did budget our time wisely.

It's the darn MICROBES.

They didn't grow on our schedule. They took their own sweet time to grow, in spite of the tasty agar we fed them.


And Abby couldn't finish the project until she knew how her experiment was going to turn out.

We finally got it all put together yesterday. Yea!

Here is the finished project. We're very proud of her hard scientific research, in spite of those pesky microbes.

But as I said, no matter the age of one's young children: it's never too late to start dreading the Science Project!

Finally, here's a cute picture of Meelsie to hold you over until we return....


...because we leave for France at the crack of dawn tomorrow!

Au revoir! A bientot! A toute a l'heure!

And by the way, a rubbing alcohol solution is the best microbe-killer. Lysol is a close second. And a weak bleach solution is the worst!)

The Loss of a Hero

The orphans of Ethiopia have lost a great friend and savior. Mrs. Haregewoin Teferra, from Melissa Fay Greene's book "There Is No Me Without You" passed away yesterday, March 17, 2009.

If you haven't read "There Is No Me Without You," I can't recommend it highly enough! It will change your life.

Oh ma bonté!

"Oh ma bonté!" means, "Oh my goodness!" in French.

It is the sound of a French person who is perhaps shocked, overwhelmed or generally freaked out.

It is also the sound of a Longmontian mom who will BE in France....WITH her whole family....FOR two weeks....IN less than a week.

And that Longmontian mom HAS started to write her to-do list. But she hasn't yet started checking things off the to-do list.

And, oh yeah. One of the Longmontian mom's daughters has a science experiment to finish and project-ize before they all leave the country.

So the Longmontian mom is freaking out.

Oh ma bonté!