couleurs de printemps (colors of spring)

The vivid couleurs de printemps are fading almost as fast as they came. The past two weeks have been an overload on the color spectrum. The blossoms fill our eyes with wonder and our noses with sweet fragrance. My olfactory sense will forever remind me of this magical spring in Fontainebleau. Hope you enjoy this little visual feast...wish I could make it scratch and sniff!

Le grand pain (Big Bread)

I couldn't resist the last purchase of the day...Le grand pain! It's sold by the kilo and this particular loaf cost about 13 euros. It was hilarious to carry this big old thing through the streets of Paris, in the subway and on the train. One guy on the subway said, "you better get a lot of cheese to go with that bread!" I'm pretty satisfied with simple pleasures and lugging this grand pain was FUN. It was even more fun to see the looks on the kids faces when we returned home. It was a big bread feast for dinner. We had bread with jam and cheese. There's even plenty of left-overs for tomorrows French toast breakfast!

lèche-vitrines (window shopping)

Paris is fun no matter what. It's even more fun when you are with a bunch of friends and you don't have an agenda. Today Tracie Boyer, Tifiny Reed, Tracey Thomas and I roamed the streets, soaked in the sights and ate lots of tasty treats. Before lunch we shared ice cream from Berthillon. We thought we might go to a museum or two, but instead we ended up lèche-vitrines - this phrase in French actually means "licking the windows"...Kind of like window shopping...you want to buy, but you don't...you just stand at the window and drool.

I need to note here that Tracie Boyer (on the right) is the first friend I met in France. We had only been here one day. We were standing in line at the Carrefour jet lagged and shell shocked. Tracie was in line ahead of us and when she heard us speaking English she said hello and introduced herself. After a small conversation we learned that our kids were going to the same international school. We exchanged numbers and the next day she telephoned to invite us to a picnic in the forest. Talk about stretching out the hand of friendship.



We fond this sign hilarious, especially on a day when lots of things were on strike!

spécialité du français (speciality of the French)

The strikers were out in force today. Another greve (strike) which could be the start of many to come this summer. The trains to Paris were running at only half capacity. The buses to and from school were NOT running at all. It's a difficult place to get around when you rely on public transport. I ventured out with three girlfriends. We had planned this excursion weeks ago so we were not going to let the greve get us down. Our train to Paris was 25 minutes late...that was the only glitch in our entire day. Lucky us!

At our first subway stop we encountered some strikers. It wasn't exactly the most riotous or forceful demonstration. We stopped to ask the policemen why they had such fancy shin guard protectors. They were quite chatty. One of them waved his hand toward the crowd and said, "La greve est une spécialité du français!" (the strike is a specialty of the French). Let's hope this little "spécialité" doesn't get too out of hand.

Utah

I went shopping in France and found shirts with prints from Utah. How weird is that? I wanted to find shirts with French writing. Of all the places in the world I'm flabbergasted that they would have shirts from my city in the USA. It's really not such a big world after all.

The Connollys

Natalie and Jeff Connolly stopped by for a few days. They were on their way home from a 10 day vacation in Spain and we were sooo glad they put France on their docket. They had planned to take the train from the airport to our village, but due to many complicated train schedules they missed all available lines. After lots of map reading and international phone calls we connected late Sunday night/Monday morning (1am) and I picked them up from the train station in Melun. We pretty much laughed the whole way home. Little adventures like that seem to make a trip that much more memorable!

We had fun doing our little local stops together. Jeff bought Natalie and I French hats which I'm sure will come in handy this summer. We felt so fashionable walking through the marche. Natalie and I met in college where we both joined the same sorority. She has been a life-long friend ever since. Both Natalie and Jeff are TALL. I feel like a regular shrimp when I stand next to them...they are wonderful people to look up to. So talented, nice and FUN. The kids really enjoyed another set of parents to play with and tease. The last night for the Connolly's visit we received more visitors - Jose and Christina. It was a good-bye and welcome dinner all wrapped up into one evening. Thanks for coming Natalie & Jeff!

Spencer

Today marks Spencer's 14th birthday...his "Golden Birthday" no less. That means that he turned 14 on the 14th. France is a pretty cool place to celebrate your golden birthday. Lucky for him it was a half day of school so he got to chill and do whatever he wanted this afternoon. Somehow life as the only boy has it's advantages.Today he had Olivia, Clara & Lilly calling him "Sir Spencer". I guess that's birthday royalty.

We have loved having Spencer in our family. He's athletic, busy, creative, debonaire, exciting, fabulous, great, handsome, interesting, jolly, krafty, likable, masculine, nice, outrageous, personable, quick, rowdy, sensational, terrific, unbelievable, vivacious, wild, x-treme, young, zany. Happy Birthday Spencer!!!!

Deena Rutter

More good luck came our way when Deena Rutter came to visit. In Salt Lake City both Deena and Tifiny live on my same street. We all love Browning Circle so much that we don’t think we ever want to sell our homes and move. For this reason alone it was great fun to venture into Paris with the three of us on Friday…we decided that it will be so much fun when we are 85 and sitting on our front steps reminiscing about that day we tromped all over Paris in 2008! We covered some pretty good ground and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. No one even needed a jacket! Deena is a very talented artist (check out her blog). She designs all of those fun scrapbook papers & boxes.. All along the way she found new patterns and textiles to help inspire her next projects. It was a fabulous day to soak up the atmosphere of Paris in the springtime!


From the look of it all and the bags we took home it goes without saying that "Girls know how to have fun!"

Muguet (Lily of the Valley)

May first was Labor Day in France – yet another national holiday. As you drive along the forest road there were multiple vendors selling little clusters of muguet. Many of them were tied in clumps with moss on the bottom and tied together with a thin white thread. From my research I learned that King Henry of France started the holiday when he presented all of the Ladies in Waiting with the tender lilies. A couple hundred years later it was designated as a national holiday and now it’s just a great reason to stay home from work and enjoy walking in the forest searching for lily of the valley. Tradition says you present it to your friends for good luck.

When the Ames were visiting they bought me several bouquets of roses and one little lily of the valley plant. Little did any of us know of the history behind this little flower – but I consider it my “Great Luck” to have them as friends. Monique taught me a song about the flower that she learned as a young girl:

White coral bells upon a slender stalk
Lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.

Oh don’t you wish that you could hear them ring?
That would happen only when the fairy’s sing.

C1- B- A- G- E- F- A- G- F- E- C- A- D- F- E- G- C1- E1- D1- B- C1

The Ames Family

Nothing quite like having best friends. We have been lucky enough to be best friends with the Ames family for 14 years. We met when Spencer and Gabrielle were just weeks old and we've been having adventures together ever since. It was a blast to show them around France...shop at the markets...see incredible sites and laugh ourselves sick every night at dinner.

Taylor and Stuart have now biked together in Pennsylvania, Moab, Norway and France...where next boys?
Monique is about one of the funnest people I know. She is as her parents say, "A delight to feed!" She can ooh and ahh and make you feel like everything you give her is the best she's ever had. I think we came pretty close to solving the worlds problems as we drove through France. Life is always interesting with Monique!
A farewell crepe breakfast. Even though we were all pooped by this point in our adventures we would have kept going if only they could have stayed another week. Thanks for visiting guys! We love you all!!!!

Aix en Provence

The lavender fields were not yet in bloom in Provence, however we were lucky enough to hit the flower market in Aix on our drive home. The lilacs, poppies and peonies were amazing and the air was so fragrant - better than the perfume factory!

We wandered around the market and then found the food marche. Everything seems to be in season now and the fresh peas, strawberries and tomatoes were delicious to sample.

One last time

We had to play one last time at the beach, make one last sand sculpture and go out for one last yummy seafood dinner...thank goodness it wasn't our last day with the Ames. They followed us back to Fontainebleau for a few more days of fun!

Fontaine Parfume

We thought it would be cool to see how some of that famous French parfume is concocted, maybe even pick up a bottle of eau de toilette. What started out as an early morning drive turned ugly fast. Taylor & Stuart had all of the little kids in their car. Poor guys. 20 minutes into the drive Parker threw up. We figured he was just car sick, but then a few minutes later it happened again and just before we reached our destination Schuyler got sick. Taylor doesn't do throw up. I'm surprised he didn't take a turn just from the smell in the car. Both dads were awesome and took care of that ugly business. When we finally got to the Fonaine Parfume factory Shuyler and Parker were so miserable. We found it ironic that the car should smell so disgusting on the day we were driving to the parfume factory!


The walk through the parfume factory was fine, but not quite as interesting as we had hoped. Our noses were on overload by the time we reached the gift shop and no one was interested in any more smelly stuff. We opted for a crepe lunch and then headed back to relax the rest of the afternoon.