Seneca's First Day of School

Here in France you start school at 3. It's a bit young, at least for what I am used to in the States, but felt it was good to have her go. We decided to put her in the International School; which consists of two days English and two days French. I really wanted to send her to a French to school learn the language quicker, but for some reason, it just didn't work out.

She enjoys school, especially the English days and still is having a bit of a hard time with the French ones. We hope she gets used to it soon.

Airplane

Pictures of various people in our family

Trip to the North

Matt had a week off from work and so we decided to explore a bit of the North West. Here is our route:

#1 Château de Chenonceau within the Chateau de la Loire valley.

#2 Blois, France. We stopped here on our way to our hotel. Cute little town.

#3 Fougeres, France. Very cool fortress town close to the Breton border.

#4 Mt. Saint Michel

#5 Normandy...very sobering...

List of soldiers they could not find bodies for.

Pointe du Hoc where US soldiers climbed the wall to attack the Germans

Huge holes from the bombing

"mommy, i look at a telescope"...so cute!

Seneca stopped and prayed at some of these head stones 

More pictures of the American Cemetery

#6 Disneyland Paris!! Yahoo! So much fun!

#7 Paris...so, this was funny. our camera died and we forgot to bring our charger. so we bought a disposable. so, stay tuned for these pictures later.

The first thing we did was take the Bateaux Mouches tour down the Seine river. This was the best! We were able to really see the highlights of the city this way.

Next we went to the Notre Dame, les Invalides, la Tour Eiffel, Palais de Chaillot, Champs-Elysees, and the Arc de Triomphe.

#8 Versailles. Unfortunately, by the time we got to this location is was Saturday. We were pooped and needed to drive 8.5 hours back home. So, we just looked around the exterior of the chateau and then made our way home.

We had a great trip but know we need to head back up to explore Paris and Versailles.

Happy Birthday Seni Rae!

We cannot believe that our sweet Seni Rae is 3! Oh, she is such a doll. We are so grateful to have been given such a wonderful gift.

Here are some fun pictures of her special day!

Friday morning breakfast with her princess dishes and yummy cereal!

On Saturday we had a party with her friends at a local park. It was a lot of fun. The theme was Dora. So we had the children go on an adventure. The first stop was a "hold hand" race (instead of three legged race). The second stop was to have a water balloon toss; which turned into a water fight. The third stop, they shot their water guns at Swiper (Matt). 

shooting Swiper

love that she has been able to wear this shirt three years in a row!

after shooting Swiper, we hit the pinata.

Then the adventure was over. We had fun give-aways, cake and ice cream.

a friend of ours who loves making patisseries, made seneca's cake. it was amazing! (sorry it's sideways...not sure why. the original is not.)

Anyway, we had a great time! Thanks to all of our friends who came and shared this fun day with Seneca.

fun during the summer

we went to a friends house for a bbq and matt loved the hammock

seneca's good friend emilie...she is being silly

she and her good friend again at mcdonald's playing

at a moules et frits festival

watching a movie together

before matt and i head to bed we check on seni and usually we find her naked

the centre ville was offering free pony rides...

seneca loved it!

This is how we Finger Paint

Need I say more?

Our most recent get-away!

We went on another road trip in July. My aunt Linda and her husband have been serving a mission, for our church, in Genova, Italy for the past 18 months. July was the end for them! A few of my cousins came to Italy to tour around a bit before, bringing Linda and her husband back home. We decided to join them on some of their adventures! This is what we did....
1. Turin, Italy. About 4 hours from us is Turin. We decided to stop here and check out this old Olympic town to see what it had to offer.

2. From here we went to Milan, Italy. I remember going here when I was 17 years old with my mom. My grandfather served a mission here.

love this duomo!

3. From here we traveled to Como, Italy to meet with my Aunt Linda, her husband, my cousin Stacie and her husband. This was a wonderful experience as we have family living in Como from my maternal grandfather's side. We didn't know them very well, nor did we speak any Italian, but we were able to enjoy a wonderful evening with them all!

4. Afterward, we headed to Zermatt, Switzerland! Oh, this was also amazingly beautiful! Unfortunately, we were not able to see the Matterhorn. It was too rainy! :(

the people used to build here homes like this to keep the mice from entering.

rain..rain...rain

cemetery for those who had died trying to climb/descend the Matterhorn.

view from our hotel

5. From here we were going to go to Venice, but the trip was getting a bit too long for Seni and I so, we decided to head towards home. On our way, we stopped in Chamonix, France, briefly.

Matt with a large glacier behind him.

Picture of the cute town.

6. From here we went to Grenoble, France.

shout out to daddiooooo!

Bastille Day fireworks!

Seneca was not comfortable with the fireworks and wanted to wear her glasses.

"les bulles" we took this up to the top of the mountain to get a good view of the city.

beautiful!

7. whew! we made it home! c'etait bien!

:)