Hello London and Welcome Elaine

Wow, a lot has happened since our last post. And because so much has happened, it explains why it’s been months before I’ve been able to post anything here. Let’s start with our move to London. We said goodbye to Paris and arrived in London at the very end of May, just in time to move into our new place on June 1. The move itself was a complete whirlwind and I think we got in over our heads. Without Nate or I really taking any time off of work, we moved in, bought all new furniture (as we were coming from a furnished place in Paris), found a nursery for Josephine and then went through a settling in process over a 3 week period.

And then of course the unexpected things popped up that you just don’t have time for. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and came down with a horrible sinus cold which knocked me out for a week and a half. This meant Nate had to do a lot of the furniture buying, unpacking and other household chores. Oh and we started getting these mysterious bug bites which turned out to be bird mites. A few visits from pest control and 2 months later, that finally got resolved. We didn’t have internet for 10 days which doesn’t sound awful but it’s crazy how much we really do depend on it. And through all of this I was making sure we were all set up with a GP and registered at a hospital for when Elaine arrived. It was a very busy, very stressful time indeed and I’m so glad that’s behind us.

Oh but Nate and I were able to get away for a day of London sightseeing and lunch to celebrate our anniversary. Happy 10th anniversary to us!

Sightseeing with Mom and Dad

And just as we were starting to finally feel remotely settled, well that’s when Elaine made her arrival. She came on her due date of August 22. Thankfully this was after my parents arrived so we had someone to watch Josephine while we were at the hospital. I had started my maternity leave in early August which gave me a week to rest before my parents arrived. Then I had a few days to do some fun stuff in London with them before Elaine came. Timing-wise it all worked out perfectly.

Hello Elaine!

Now we are adjusting to being a family of four. Josephine absolutely adores Elaine and loves being a big sister. She is our little helper for sure. She loves helping with diaper changes and always makes sure to tell us when Elaine is crying or has spit up. It’s really sweet although she does have her moments and we need to remind her to be gentle with her. But she always wants to know where Elaine is and what she’s doing and gives her kisses any opportunity she gets.

Sisters!

It’s been 5 months since we arrived and we haven’t had much time to really enjoy our new city. Life is finally settling down now though and I feel like we can start exploring and enjoying London.

Skiing in Austria

Ok, so this blog post is way overdue. We did a ski trip in Serfaus, Austria for a week at the beginning of March and it’s now almost June. In the interest of catching up, I’m going to just give a quick overview of the highlights.

• Serfaus, Austria - Same place we went last year. Same friends. Same hotel. Same great experience.
• Nate was happy - he got to ski 5 out of the 6 days we were there. I being pregnant did not ski and instead was super happy relaxing, having a spa day and taking leisurely walks outside.
• Josephine had fun running around in the snow, taking a gondola ride to meet daddy for lunch, sledding, playing in the indoor pool and exploring the kids club at the hotel (Let’s be truthful, this one made all of us happy. While it took Josephine a bit of adjusting to get dropped off here, she did really love their big slide and all the fun things to do and we got to have free time to do the things mentioned above).

And that about sums up our week in Austria. We once again had a fantastic experience at the hotel with all food being included plus daycare. The weather was a bit colder and snowy in the beginning of the week and the sun came out at the end of the week. It truly felt like a restful, relaxing vacation. And those can be hard to come by when you have a toddler with you.

Big Changes Coming Up

It looks like 2016 will be a year filled with a couple of big changes for us. First off, Nate has received a great job opportunity through Nasdaq. However this new position is based in London. That means as of June 1 we will leave Paris and make a new home in London. He’ll get a chance to try out management and see how he likes it.

And on top of this, I am pregnant and due at the end of August. So all the more reason we want to get to London as soon as we can to get settled.

As for London, Nate and I took a quick trip there a couple of weeks ago as we are working with an agency to help us find a new home. We don’t want to (nor do we have time to deal with) a temporary home so we want to find a home and move into it right when we get there. We spent a day with the agency and saw 15-16 different places. Lots of variety which was good. There was one place in particular that we both liked and lucky for us, the landlord accepted our offer. Our new home will be in Parsons Green, in the southwest part of London. We are just finalizing the tenancy agreement now so barring anything unexpected, we should be able to get the keys on June 1. We’re really excited about the neighborhood as it had been recommended by a couple of people. It’s very family friendly, has a few good market streets with shops and restaurants and should make a good new home for us.

Our visas also came through this past week so we are officially allowed to move to London. Things are all moving in the right direction.

As for the new baby. We found out we’re expecting a girl! No big surprise there I suppose as our family seems to definitely favor girls over boys. We’re very excited though and Josephine loves to talk about her “baby sister”.

Now that we have a place to live, that’s created a whole new list of things to do. I’m working on finding a hospital for delivery, a doctor and childcare. It’s definitely a busy time right now trying to get everything organized but I’ll be excited to get to London and get settled there.

I’ll definitely miss Paris and I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that we’re leaving. I guess I have too much other stuff occupying me for the time being. I know for sure I’ll miss the boulangeries, cheese and cheap but great wine. But I have to admit, I’m also really excited about living in an English speaking country again.

The countdown is on. Only 3 weekends left here in Paris. Hard to believe that we’re moving to yet another country. Let the adventure continue!

New Year, More Visitors

It’s been a few months since we’ve had some visitors and the start of the year started off with a string of them.

It all started with my birthday weekend when my good friend Kristine flew out on my actual birthday to celebrate with me. We had Wilma babysit and spent that Friday night out just adults. Then Kristine and I had some quality time to catch up and did dinner and a Crazy Horse show Saturday night. As for Crazy Horse, think Moulin Rouge but racier. It was recommended so a new experience for us both. We had such a great time together. There’s nothing like being able to spend your birthday with a good friend and your family. The long weekend went way too fast of course.

Then in mid-February we had a quick but fun visit from our friends Ben and Abby. They were only making a one night stop in Paris before they headed to Chamonix for a ski adventure. Once again we had Wilma babysit and went out for dinner and drinks. Sadly we didn’t get any pictures with them but so great to finally have them visit us in Paris!

And then right after their visit we got a special visit from Nicole, Michael and Ava. They spent a few nights in Paris before heading to Berlin and then London. Unfortunately due to our crazy schedules we weren’t able to spend time with them during the day but had a great time spending our evenings together.

Always fun catching up with friends and family here in Paris!!!

And New Year's in Arizona

We don’t like to stay home too long so after getting back to Paris from Annecy, we spent 2 nights at home before we boarded a flight to Arizona. This time it was to visit Nate’s grandma as well as his parents who flew in from Medford to meet us there. It was a quick trip as we only stayed for 5 nights over New Year’s but we hadn’t seen Grandma since Josephine was 3.5 months old so we were way overdue for a visit. It was an extra bonus that Nate’s parents, Bill and Dee, could meet us there as well.

Our travel day was exhausting as we connected in London and Josephine slept perhaps 1-2 hours the entire trip. But we survived.  We arrived in Phoenix around 8pm so had a chance to say hello to everyone, get settled and then finally crash after our long day of travel. We actually all slept fairly well, Josephine being the most important one for this, and woke up before 6am. I always love traveling that direction because you wake up early, not tired and you can get so much more out of your day!

New Year's Brunch

We basically spent the next few days eating all of the foods we had been talking about/craving/looking forward to (Mexican was an immediate first of course), going to Target, doing some shopping and most importantly just getting a chance to visit with family and relax. It was actually a really relaxing trip, minus the bit of jet lag, as we didn’t pile too much on our plates. We had a low key NYE and a lovely New Year’s brunch where Grandma lives.

As with all of our trips, they go by too fast and before we know it, it’s time to pack up and head home. We specifically chose to not go anywhere else in the Bay Area on this trip as we had limited amount of time and needed to get back to work at the beginning of January. Next time, a visit to the Bay Area will certainly be in order though!

And of course we have to support our Ducks

Christmas in Annecy

Nate and I decided that for this past Christmas, we wanted to stay in Europe. We were in the US the Christmas before so it just seemed right to stay here. And lucky for us, my sister and her family, our cousin, my parents, and even my brother-in-law’s family were all able to join us. It made for quite the Christmas celebration, especially for being so far from home!

We decided to head to Annecy here in France not too far from Geneva and the alps. We had never been there before but had seen pictures and it seemed like a quaint French town that was a perfect place to spend Christmas. The town sits on a lake and it gets into the Christmas spirit with Christmas markets, lights and decorations all around town. Being a large group, we rented two apartments not far from each other.


We arrived along with my parents a few days ahead of the rest of the group so we had time to stroll around the town, check out the food market, take a walk by the lake and just relax. It was just what we wanted.

Everyone else arrived the day before Christmas Eve and we had fun catching up with them and preparing for the Christmas festivities. Josephine had a blast with her three cousins as well. The last time she saw them was back in April when we went to Slovenia so now that she’s a bit older, she had even more fun playing with them.

We went to John and Julie’s apartment for Christmas Eve dinner and then church on Christmas morning and back to our apartment for Christmas dinner. It was a typical family Christmas set in a lovely French town.

After Christmas we all had one more day together before we would be parting ways. We spent a leisurely day in the town. They had an area where the kids went for pony rides (Josephine wanted no part in that) and we all could go ice skating.

It was yet another Christmas to remember surrounded by family. We are very blessed!

Merry Christmas!

Bordeaux Birthday!

Synonymous with wine of course, Bordeaux is both a city in France and a region in the south west part of the country.  And not just any region, but the most famous and recognizable wine region in the world.  It's a fairly sizable region too and one that we have been to on two previous visits to the area.  What we had not yet done was spend any time in the actual city and drive the famous "La route des Châteaux" which as a wine enthusiast is a fermented grape juice and yeast Mecca of sorts. 

Wine shop is this way!

With the desire to go, we figured what better occasion than the 2nd birthday of 1 JoJo Bean!  After setting the bar high for her first birthday by celebrating in Bourgogne, we had to find a way to keep with the wine country theme and set up a long weekend in Bordeaux.

Logistically, Bordeaux is pretty easy to get to from Paris.  You simply take the TGV train for about 3 and half hours and there you are, no sweat.  Having learned a tough lesson in September when traveling to Aix, we decided it a better idea this time to travel in the morning and try to get there before nap time.  (hard to say whose nap we're talking about, Bean or Daddy, but that's a different story)  So arriving at our apartment rental by about 13:30 on Thursday we started to settle in for our long weekend.  This day also coincidentally happened to be Thanksgiving in the US, though we find ourselves forgetting that fact sometimes, save for the part where we were able to watch football this first night in town.  So that helped.

The best winemaker's have muddy boots

Friday being our first full day, we rented a car for the day to drive the aforementioned Route D2 winding past many of the 1855 Bordeaux classification Grands Crus Classés wines and appellations such as Margaux, Saint Julien, and Sainte Estephe.  When you think about driving through Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, even the Rogue Valley, you come across many signs, wine tastings, and opportunities to buy wines from the area.  Being extraordinarily French, the Route D2 is the exact opposite.  Other than seeing vineyards in every direction, there really isn't much else that is inviting you to stop, taste, and leave your money behind.  This is a very normal French experience, and the exact opposite of what you would see in the US.

Mouton Rothschild

What was however very inviting was a little country French Bistro where we stopped for lunch.  I had found the place ahead of time and it turned out to be a very enjoyable lunch with the most friendly French proprietaries running the place.  After lunch we drove along a bit more, with a few stops along the way for pictures.  Unwinding our way back into town, we made it back to our apartment for a quiet evening and of course a glass of wine.

Lunch with a glass of Bordeaux

Saturday was our day to explore the town of Bordeaux which is most definitely a bigger city.  While the city is fairly decent size, the old center of town is very accessible and even has what seemed to be a very new, modern tram system which makes it easy to get around.  On the recommendation of a colleague of mine who lives in Bordeaux, we had another great restaurant recommendation then wandered our way to a large park in the middle of town.  This park not only had a giant grass area for Bean to run around on, but also had some great slides and swings to play on as well.  Once we were able to peel her away from the park we continued to work our way back to our place.  We were very impressed by the city of Bordeaux, lots of shopping, interesting wine shops and wine bars, (one of which we visited twice) and a really fun atmosphere.  Highly recommend the place for a few nights of fun should you every find yourself touring around France.

Love this park!

The last and most important part of the whole weekend was to celebrate Bean's birthday, afterall turning 2 is a very big deal!  Especially when you have fully grasped the concept of opening presents and blowing out candles!  Oh, and I think we also had the realization that when the candles are out - you get to eat cake!

Blow out the candles!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our always entertaining, always fun, and always so very sweet Joséphine Bean!