Bonjour Mes Amis!

Nous avons arrivés en France! Well, by the time I am able to post this entry we will have been here about a month. Which means, I have been sans internet for a month! Can you say “disconnected from the outside world”? How did we ever get by 10 or so years ago before the internet was all the rage? I miss my email, Facebook, my chats and my Christian Mommies online group... I never realized how less isolated those outlets made me feel when I was staying home in Greenville. I even had lots of friends and activities in real life there... It would definitely come in handy now.

That said, I have already made some friends here... even had one before we arrived! Kim was in my french class in Greenville and you can visit her awesome blog by clicking on Cabes in France on my blog list. She and her husband have been such a blessing to us. They greeted us when we arrived with a hot meal and a bottle of wine and we were ever so grateful. She babysat the kids for us the following day while Freddie and I attended an important meeting at his new office regarding administrative issues for our move. That day was the first day I ever experienced jet lag and, to put it rather bluntly, I thought I was in hell. I felt awful and was so tired – physically and mentally. The lenses I was peering through weren't being favorful to our new home. I have to admit, I had a few passing “what on earth where we thinking?” thoughts those first couple of days and shed a few tired tears. But, by day three, the clouds and fog parted and I was ready for whatever adventure and lack of communication France was ready to give us. And it was ready. :)

I will back up a little to our trip from the US to Europe. I could almost literally feel the prayers being prayed over us. I don't think it could have gone much better minus a few interesting incidents in the Paris airport during our layover. But, we got to meet some interesting people so I am sure God had a hand in that anyways. I attached a video of the older two's reaction to the take off from Columbia. It was priceless. They have both flown before but Joshua was less than 2 and Sophia was five weeks so, needless to say, they don't remember. They thought flying was super cool. Emily cried for about 15 minutes as we were descending to Atlanta but that was all of the crying she did the entire way to Clermont – again, minus our layover in Paris. She and Sophia slept the entire way from Atlanta to Paris. Sophia was able to curl up her petite little body and slept soundly in her seat while her head rested on me. I don't think Josh and Freddie had as comfortable a trip over the Atlantic but Joshua did sleep most of the way. Thank you for your prayers (and thank you God for Benadryl and ear numbing drops).

We had a lovely five hour layover in Paris. It was freezing there and the airport is quite drafty. The kids thought the snow was fabulous and wanted to go and play. We found a spot to hang out while we waited for our connecting flight and we ate croissants and other pastries and walked and met a mother and her daughter from Colombia, South America. She spoke no French or English. How ironic. While I spoke to her... excuse me, while I tried to speak to her I could think of all kinds of French words and phrases to use and, of course, English, but could not, for the life of me, think of any Spanish words. Not even GRACIAS? Hello, Jennifer? Have you not seen Dora enough to at least know that one? And, of course, now that I am in France and need to speak a little français... the french escapes me. Alas. So, anyways, this lady was so friendly. So loving to my Sophia. It was somewhat of an awkward experience. Her daughter came over in what I thought was an attempt to initiate play with Sophia. Again, she only speaks Spanish so we muddled through that and they ended up coloring together in one of the little girl's coloring books. All of a sudden, the little girl gets up in a huff, marches over to the trash can and trashes her coloring book. It appears because Sophia is coloring on her page. I was confused. Do I offer her a coloring book of ours and encourage this erratic behavior? Do I not? I really like the Mom and she is very apologetic. Hmm... Well, of course we are sitting right next to each other so there is still interaction between our children. The little girl has a tiny Eiffel Tower snow globe. Sophia picks it up.... and promptly drops it and glass and water and fake snow are everywhere. I think if the little girl had been a little bit older she may have punched Sophia in the nose. She was furious and sad and just heartbroken. So, meanwhile, Sophia is on the verge of tears thinking she is going to get a spanking. Little cute Colombian girl is angry and crying. Her mother is profusely apologizing and saying it is ok in Spanish while I am saying I am sorry in English and neither of us really know what we are saying but assuming based on hand gestures and facial expressions. I am red as a beet and frantically picking up glass shards from the carpet while trying to assure Sophia that she is not in trouble and a spanking is not in her future. I discreetly ask my dear husband to go to the little travel shop and purchase the little girl another snow globe and I decided to give her Joshua's Spiderman coloring book. Not exactly an even trade for the trashed My Little Pony, but, it was all we had. She was not happy about that. Alas, I tried to make amends. At that point, they either had a flight to catch or the mother thought it was best to find a new location to hang out. We all said our farewells and she came over and hugged and kissed Sophia. It was one of those strange moments after you meet someone briefly where realize you will never see them again in your life. I will always remember them though. I wish them well!

An hour after getting on our next flight were we in our new home - Clermont-Ferrand, France. A man from a real estate company met us here and guided us through the airport and claims for lost luggage. He helped us into our rental car - a Renault Espace... Europe's version of a mini-van called a monospace here. It is much smaller than my Honda Odyssey but all three of our car seats fit and we had plenty of room for our luggage. After we loaded up... we headed to our temporary apartment.