Sorry it has been a while since I have updated. The last 3 weeks in France were crazy and we have had to hit the ground running here in the states. I wanted to share the last bits of our family summer adventure.
Last 3 weeks in Marseille:
1. The first week was spent with all 3 kids in an English church VBS. They had fun and made some new friends. Most of the kids only spoke French, though.
(This picture is of the one play date Mei got to have with a sweet girl from the US she met at the English camp. We were sad it was the end of summer that they met because they really hit it off as you can tell:)
Kevin and I spent the week between 9:30-3:30 exploring the city, poking around antique shops and having long lunches.
(This is "Francine from France" who owned the Antique shop right next to our apartment.
She was such a joy to pop in to see and try to talk to. She does not know English and we struggled with French, but the love and warmth of her welcome did not need understandable words)
It was a lovely week for us to reconnect after a long summer of having the kids around 24/7. One day we even took a day trip to Aix. It was a great day trip that included checking out the flea market and food market. We grabbed lunch at the food market and had a very yummy picnic on a park bench on the main street.
Market in Aix en Provence
That Saturday we planned to go on a day trip with the kids and Justine to see the Lavender fields a couple hours away. We even borrowed a car from Pete and Kevin braved the highway! The problem was we hit very bad traffic because it was the weekend of a holiday weekend. It took us 1 ½ hours just to get 30 min away and kids felt car sick and so did I. So we stopped in Aix and had lunch. While we were there, we heard that all the lavender fields had already been harvested! So we decided to spend a few hours in Aix and call it a day.
It is a good thing because that was the day I got some kind of stomach bug. When we got home that night, my misery started.
2. So the 2nd (to the last) week started with me battling a very bad GI bug. We were all planning to go on a over-night church history trip in the south of France but when it was time to leave Monday, I could not get 10 ft from the bathroom. I knew it would slow them down so I stayed behind in the apartment alone for 2 days. I mostly slept that whole week and took lots of trips to the bathroom. By Friday, I took my first trip out to a French Dr. She gave me lots of meds that I know the FDA has not yet approved. I was very dehydrated and I could not keep anything in me most of the week. Happy that the meds worked and I started turning the corner the beginning of the 3rd (and last) week there.
So the last week we squeezed in some things we still wanted to do before we left like:
We lead a hymn sing at the English Church:
We got to go Cassis which is an hour further down the coast. It is very beautiful!
(We rented a paddle boat and I took our kids and Mary Ellen out. It would have been more fun if the water was not ice cold because it had a little slide. Still very fun, though!)
We played volleyball one night at the beach with the interns and some people from the French church.
Mei practiced cartwheels on the beach
The sun does not set until close to 10pm at night so this was one of the only sun sets we saw all summer.
We went to Chateu eau D'If (think Count of Monte Cristo). This is in Marseille and was very fun to go visit. We watched the movie as a family before we went.
We took a ferry out to it. The kids enjoyed the ferry ride up top!
This was used as a fort, then a jail and now is a museum.
We got to have a wrap up lunch with the team in Cassis:
One of the things we talked to the interns about in closing out their time was who they had to say goodbye to and what closure looks like. For me, it was taking pictures of some of the favorite spots and people that we connected with this summer. Francine at the Antique shop was on of those people. (above) and also our "pizza guy" at the corner. We walked past his pizza truck every night and ended up getting the kids a pizza many nights:)
This is my favorite window in France. Our apartment backed up to this building so I would see these women hanging out their laundry every day and I would see the cats jump up on the window sill. I felt like a stalker taking pictures from my living room, but I wanted to capture the beauty of this everyday moment so kept clicking:)
This was taken at Cinq Ave close to where we lived. When I snapped this, I thought of one of Robert Doisneau's pictures that is my favorite. Robert took lots of pictures in Paris 50-60 years ago. This reminds me of one his pictures of a women crossing traffic with a stroller from the 50s.
Then the interns left that last Friday in July and we took the train to Paris with the family. When else would we be 3 hrs from Paris?
We have been planning this trip since the Spring and I was so excited to take them to one of my favorite cities! The last time Kevin and I were in Paris, it was the week Amelia was born in China!
We did not know that at the time, but I have a journal I wrote to her before we got her and I have entries from our Paris trip in 2004 and it lines up with her birthday. It was a dream to take her to Paris one day. I never dreamed it would even be possible when she was 7! We stayed close to my favorite street, Rue Cler. Rick Steves’ guidebook got me hooked on this street many years ago.
There is more I could say and may more pictures I could edit to put up if I had time. We had a great adventure as a family. I am pretty sure the kids will remember this summer by the sea. I hope they remember seeing how God works in different places. God IS at work all over the world and I love that we got to expand the vision of who God is for our children. I also pray they focus on remembering our family time together and all the fun we had. I am so grateful we had this summer together especially now that we are back in our routine of school, sports, homework and fighting to have time together as a family. The days are long, but the years are short to I have to treasure the moments we have together.
Thanks for following along on our little adventure this summer by the sea...
To God be the Glory
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