Zip Line at Le Bois

Today I took Jessica and Maddux to a local outdoor place that included zip lining and an assortment of obstacles between trees.  These obstacles were all 50 feet or more in the air.  I supervised......we are for sure going to do this again.

St Suzanne

We took Mike and Jean and my parents to St Suzanne, one of the oldest medieval towns in France. We thought they had jousting on Sundays, but we were misinformed. They are hosting a medieval festival July 8-9th, so perhaps we will go back. Still it was fun to explore the town and the chateau. Everyone climbed to the top and also enjoyed the views from the town wall. While everyone was enjoying the scenery, Steve and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to sneak away for a local beer. ;-> We were sitting in the cafe with a St Suzanne lager when everyone reappeared, kind of funny, but genius on our part! It was a delicious local beer and perfect on a hot day!

Also, for anyone in the area, this is a very fun town to visit with a lot of cute shops. We all particularly enjoyed a shop where they were making soap by hand. We all left with some homemade soaps.

Pappy & London climbing the stairs

View from the top

Steve found the right place, a Kronenbourg stand. Too bad it wasn't operating, they were just setting up tents for the upcoming festival!

Ice Cream for the kids, Beer for the adults......YUMMY!

Fun at the beach in Arromanches/Normandy

This is more of the fun side of Normandy. We stayed at the Hotel de la Marine right on the beach which was such a nice change of scenery from the country! We had dinner at the restaurant overlooking the beach, explored the artificial ports from WWII when the tide went out and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and of course, another carousel!!! I believe at this point London can smell if there is an operating carousel in the area!!

Carousel ride #?????

Carousel ride with Dad

Playing with Pappy

Maddux & Jessica exploring the artificial ports once the tide went out

This photo sums up our entire trip....Pappy in hot pursuit of London!

Grammy, Pappy & London on the beaches of Arromanches by the ports

Pappy & London enjoying the beach

Beautiful French sunset

Jessica, Grammy, London & Pappy after a day of exploring

Pappy Back to the USA - Saddest Day of Vacation

Today Pappy is leaving for Florida.  Everybody will miss him but nobody as much as London.  She is extremely attached to his attention and love.

Seriously, this morning just broke my heart, London was so sad and so was I! We certainly wish he stayed the whole time! London was telling him 'no go, pappy, no airplane.'

London was holding on tight, "no go pappy"

"no airplane pappy'

Saddest face ever! This could break anyone's heart. She sure loves her Pappy.

Bon Voyage Pappy, Have a safe trip!

A few of Pappy's pictures he shared with us from his adventures:

Normandy Experience

This was such an amazing experience and education in WWII. We all learned so much from the museum in Caen and then to visit the beaches was quite moving. I'm certain every one has chills at some point during our visit.

London with her favorite airplane in the museum

Family picture at the museum while we were waiting on everyone else.

London's infamous 'over the shoulder' pose next to an army jeep.
(It wasn't easy keeping her from climbing on this jeep)

For some reason London was fascinated with this photo in the museum. She kept blowing these ladies kisses and 'holding their hands.'

Favorite part of the Caen Memorial Museum - THE PLAYROOM!!! This is a very kid-friendly museum with an amazing play area to keep children from seeing too many war images. We all took turns playing with her here.

No words can describe the feeling you get when you arrive at the American Cemetery.

My dad and I found this name at the American cemetery, we need to look into some family ancestry

American Cemetery Memorial
This is fascinating, the water in the Memorial is actually red in memory of  Omaha Beach

Pappy, London & Maddux in the Memorial

Pointe du Hoc

Seeing these cliffs in person make the story so much more amazing.  I cannot comprehend how those men made it up the cliffs in a matter of minutes. 

View over Pointe du Hoc from an intact German bunker

Inside the German bunker.
The wood on the ceiling throughout the bunker was completely charred from fire throwers.

Fete de Musique - Meslay du Maine

This was our first music festival in the small town, Meslay du Maine beside our chateau. This was Mike & Jean's first night in France and the caretakers on the property, Paul & Donna joined us for the festivities too. The cafes had  set up picnic tables outside to enjoy the music. The menu consisted of moules frites or entrecote frites and beer or wine....pretty yummy choices! 

As far as the music goes, we were quite excited to see what a french music festival would be like. When we arrived they had a stage set up and a lot of chairs. The music turned out to be what we thought was the high school orchestra/band. It wasn't quite what we had expected, but all in all it was a lot of fun.

London had a blast making French 'friends.' Although there was a bit of a language barrier and age difference, the girls she met were very sweet to her and London was so excited to have 'friends.'

London sitting between her favorite men in this world - Dad & Pappy!

London's 'friends' - 

Trying to fit in with the BIG girls

What a big girl! Perhaps her french is better than mine!! ;->

Dad & London waiting for the music

Let's go dance!

Yay, the music is starting!

Loving the music......or perhaps she has a crush on the drummer????

HAPPY HAPPY, COUNTRY COUNTRY!!!!

At any point in my life prior to this trip, if you would have told me that I would enjoy spending my evenings playing outside and visiting chickens, cows & horses, I probably would have laughed. But its true, one of our favorite evening pastimes is cleaning up after dinner and going to visit the chickens with our dinner scraps. Then we continue for a walk to visit the cows before we come back to the front steps of the house and love on Tolstoy & Pushkin, the sweet dogs on the property. What are we going to do when we get back to Dallas and have no chickens, cows, horses or goats on our property?? Poor London is going to certainly be in for an adjustment!!! I thought I was definitely a city girl, but give me the French countryside and I'm perfectly happy. ;->

 Look, Pappy - Chickens!!!

Feed them!!!

Chickens having some dinner!

Did anyone ever think they would see this?? Steve looking for some fresh eggs for tomorrow's breakfast!

No eggs today, we will try again tomorrow.