"Only one is a wanderer. Two together are always going somewhere."
(A line from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo)
We're not really wanderers. Kinda - we may wander through mountains and along rivers, navigating college campuses or family reunions...but in the end, we've got each other.
On our way back, Fran and Devon spotted a sign at a restaurant for Crepes. We stopped, of course. I mean, we were in France.
While looking over the list of crepes available, Berkley also saw something he wanted everyone to try: Escargot.
I accepted the challenge.
Out came the food.
Here's how Bridger felt about his Nutella crepe:
Here's how Bridger felt about the Escargot:
(I laugh EVERY TIME I look at this)
As for me:
I came.
I consumed.
I conquered.
It was...soily. I mean, if you can get past the undeniably soily aftertaste, and the fact that you are using a fork specifically designed to remove SNAILS from their SHELLS and then put them into your mouth, the buttery garlic sauce they use to try to cover it all up wasn't that bad. Sorry all you escargot lovers out there...
We stopped at the grocery store. I was reminded how very much I don't speak French. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to weigh the stupid carrots. But we did it! I also saw giant vacuum-packed, frozen bags of escargot in the freezer area. It's no joke.
Back at the farm house we threw some frozen pizzas into an oven we had NO idea how to work. The first one turned out to be what Berkley and I like to call "Cajun". I wish I could say we learned our lesson, but that was not the last thing we burnt in that oven...
After putting our tired, wiggley kids to bed, we enjoyed some good Fran and Devon time. Did I already mention how awesome they are? Then hit the hay ourselves.
Sunday morning we took things slow. The weather outside was misty and wet. We ate a good, slow breakfast, let the kids play, fed the chickens, explored a bi, getting all the shoes involved completely soaked, and watched General Conference. After getting a bit stir-crazy we did venture out for a drive in the afternoon to the surrounding small towns. Fran and Devon spotted a small play yard behind an old church and we stopped to let the kids play there for a while. Across the fence was a horse we threw apples to - only to realize he had an entire apple tree of his own on his side of the fence. Ha!
After a homemade meal of Indian food (Coconut Korma, anyone? soooo good) we once again sent the kids to bed to make room for more Fran and Devon time. Scattegories. It turns out that if you put a slight amount of pressure on me, I can't think of one single solitary "thing that you wear" that starts with the letter "R". I did not win. Monday we were up for a real adventure again. After much deliberation, we settled on Bayeux. Bayeaux? Never heard of it?
Neither had I. But guess who HAD: Berkley. And he was nerding out about going there to see the "Bayeaux Tapestry". He'd been talking about it since the idea of going to Normandy even came about. The rest of us were like "um...cool?" but because he was so excited, we decided to hit it up. Guess what: The Bayeaux Tapestry did NOT disappoint. It turned out to be AWESOME.
One small stretch of the incredibly long tapestry. Note: this is
a photo I took of a postcard we bought (see details below)
Not only is the Bayeaux Tapestry almost 1,000 YEARS OLD, it is also 70 METERS LONG and tells the story of William the Conqueror, which happens to be pretty epic. IT WAS SO COOL. They gave you a headset where the tapestry started, and as you walked along it, it told you the whole story and what was happening in the pictures embroidered on each panel. Think epic children's book that someone reads to you while you look at the pictures, except instead of it being pictures printed on pages it's super-detailed picturesembroidered on cloth that is literally 1,000 years old. And somehow it has survived. All this time. YEAH. It was cool.
Close-up of some of the embroidery. Again, photo of a
postcard that I bought.
Did I mention it was super-detailed? Seriously. It was amazing. I was admittedly wrong about Berkley's over-exuberance to see this thing, and thoroughly enjoyed nerding-out about it myself.
Walking toward the Cathedral
in Bayeaux
Also, Bayeux was a really cool town. It had a gorgeous cathedral and, of course, an amazing French bakery, complete with GIANT eclairs that we decided were heavy enough they could have been used in William the Conqueror's battle to render people unconscious.
After Bayeux, we headed to Caen, which we struggled to pronounce out loud all day. We parked next to a giant castle, we did some shopping, listed to a street musician play "Hotel California" just for us dumb Americans, and rode a carousel. It was fun :)
We stayed up way too late on Monday night trying to soak in the last of our kid-free time with Devon and Fran. We woke up the next day, packed up, fed the chickens one last time, wrangled all of the kids together for one last group photo, and then drove 8 hours home. THAT was definitely part of the adventure. The kids are turning into quite the road warriors :)
Feeding the chickens, checking for eggs.
Violet, after finding 5 eggs: "This is the best day of my life."
Group photo! You should have seen the other ones...
A few more photos are included below, as always, for memory's sake. And let me just say this one more time: Devon and Fran and their kids are the best. Yeah for successful adventures!
Fran and Violet
The whole crew on the move
Enjoying our massive, delicious eclairs
Carousel in Caen!
Remember how I took photos of the postcards? Well, photos
Weren't allowed, for obvious reasons. Here's a photo of the back
of one of the post cards, in case you're curious about the
copyright jibberjabber and who took the original photo :)
So, when our friends Devon and Fran suggested months ago that we take a trip together, we readily agreed. It took us a while to figure out WHERE exactly we wanted to go, but in the end we settled on the Normandy region of France.
The adventure began on a Friday afternoon when we all hopped in the car and began our 8-hour car ride. This is quite the task with a 5 year old, almost 3 year old, and 6 month old. After a stop at a french McDonald's (complete with indoor play-place, of course) and many different toys and stories, we did finally arrive at the small farm house we were renting for the weekend. Fran and Devon stayed up waiting for us (it was almost 2 am). Aren't they amazing?
In the morning we awoke to barn cats skittering around at the windows, hungry chickens, and excited, squealy children. Did I mention that our kids love Devon and Fran's kids? We took our time eating breakfast and stretching our bones a bit, but ultimately hopped back into the car, excited to explore the region.
Omaha Beach
Our first outing was a visit to Omaha Beach on the Normandy coast. I'm going to take a moment here to briefly break away from the light-heartedness of this post to talk about this visit. I would be lying if I didn't say that visiting Omaha Beach was a major, major influence in my desire to visit Normandy. It had been on my bucket list from the beginning of our stint in Europe, but, as it is out of the way of pretty much everything, I wasn't sure it would ever happen.
But it did.
Omaha Beach is the site of the D-Day landings that left 2,000 American soldiers dead in a matter of hours.
This visit, for me, was so, so...man. I just don't know how to describe it.
Honestly, it was so emotional. The weight of what happened there was so very real to me. Again, it's hard to know how to describe it. Berkley and I had studied up on the D-Day invasion in preparation for this trip, and man...it made it so meaningful.
As we were driving up to the beach, the minute the sand and the ocean came into view, I could see in my mind's eye hundreds and hundreds of boats approaching the beach, coming to a horrific, horrific battle. I got all choked up just trying to tell the kids that this was an important place. It could have been a perfectly normal visit to a beautiful beach. The kids ran and played and fell in the water and got filthy. Fran even caught a frog. We watched horses run by on the sand, and the waves crashing. Kites were being flown. The view was gorgeous. But you know what? It wasn't normal. It felt deep, and my heart was heavy with the knowledge of what had happened there. As we walked along the in the perfect, fine, beautiful sand... as I gazed up at the American flag flying in the wind... as I watched the children play.... I just wept. I wept for the men storming the beach who died there without a sliver of a chance of survival. I wept for their families. I wept for the survivors who's lives would never, ever be the same after seeing what they did. I wept for the young, 16-year old German soldiers (this was the end of the war, remember?) just doing what they were told to do. I wept for the tragic situation of it all. My emotions were so close to the surface all day, and still are everytime I think about it. I just shed a lot of tears. How I felt was actually pretty surprising and a little unexpected, but very real. It was beautiful. It felt so surreal to watch my children play in the very sand that was once stained red. It felt like hallowed ground, but I was glad that people were allowed to play - it made me think of life, and renewal, and freedom. Yeah...just...indescribable. I'll never forget going there and how it made me feel. Never.
Normandy American Cemetery
After visiting the beach, we got in the car went down the road to the Normandy American Cemetery, where almost 10,000 are buried.
They had a beautiful visitors center, with a lot of really good information, old gear, and stories of real men and women who served in the area. It helped deepen the picture of not only the D-Day invasion, but the entire battle in the region.
And the cemetery...
...Man.
Again. Hallowed Ground. Marker after marker. Real men. Real women. Their names. Where they were from. When they died.
I paused at a grave marked "Here Rests in Honored Glory a Comrade in Arms Known But to God". I felt so grateful that was written, because indeed, God knows who is there, and that their body is important. I marveled at the beauty of my belief that someday, through Christ, everyone will be resurrected. Everyone, everyone will have their bodies back, united with their souls, perfect and unblemished.
Again, tears were shed.
We heard taps and watched them take the flag down. There were many, many people there, but no one moved. Everyone, from many nations, stood, facing the flag, still and silent.
I felt privileged to be there, to honor those men and women.
Whew...what a visit.
We drove through the countryside to get back to our little house. It's beautiful there - small French towns, with large fields and stone barns. The people seem happy.
It was really cool to be there, and I thought, often, of my grandfather, who came through Normandy after the D-Day invasions. He traveled through that same area. We didn't make it up to Cherbourg, where the POW camp he worked in was originally located, but I did think of him often. Stay tuned for part 2 to hear about the rest of our trip...
(Just so you know: this is a long post. More of a journal entry for me, of sorts. It was a fun trip, though, and I want to remember the details. Lots of photos to look through too :) ) So, a while back - a whiiiiile back (mid-summer) - we took a trip to visit some dear friends of Berkley's family. Way back in the 70's, Berkley's parents lived neat Stuttgart, Germany for about 2 years. Their neighbors, Frau Frank and her family, became some of their best friends, and they've maintained their relationship over all of these years. Their daughter, Stephi, and her husband Wilfried now have a cool farm, and invited us to come visit. We naturally wanted to meet them in person and soon discovered that these people are super-duper-amazing:)
On the drive down we took a couple of "detours". The first was a beautiful hiking trail that we discovered as we stopped to get gas. It had a great overlook, and it just felt sooo nice to get our feet on some dirt paths and walk amongst the trees. It seemed to be part of a large trail network, which made me really want to return some day and do a giant backpacking trip across Germany.
On the way down, we also decided to visit the Maginot Line, which lies along the border between France and Germany.
So...what is the Maginot Line?
Walker crew in front of a massive bunker/entrance to one of
the bunkers.
Basically, after WWI France was like "hey, we never wanna do THAT again. Let's build a massive defensive line between us and Germany!" So along their entire shared border with Germany they dug out this massive line with huge artillery cannons, guns, underground living space for everyone it would take to enforce it, etc, etc. HUGE endeavor. Massive.
Then Germany conquered The Neatherlands and invaded France through that border instead.
Whoops...
In one of the tunnels.
One tunnel extended over
a kilometer to the next
big bunker where the
ginormous guns were
But it was cool to visit. Juniper was pretty freaked out the whole time, and kept saying she "didn't want any bad guys to come".
Oops...I guess we need to be better in our description of what we're seeing when we go to old WWII historical sites in the future. Bridger, however, was fascinated.
From there we drove to Stephi's. Their house is a BIG house. Biggest one we've been in by far since we moved here. But what? How? Well, they took a massive old barn and turned it into a house! It's pretty amazing. Don't start trying to imagine a barn that just happens to be dry-walled and painted on the inside...you'd actually never be able to tell! The barn was split up into different levels with a big, winding staircase that goes up through the middle. Big windows, a big deck, bedrooms, etc. I tried to take a photo of it from the outside, but you can't really see it from the photos because of the big tree in the front. No matter - a photo wouldn't do it justice anyways.
When we arrived (later than expected) they had a nice Abendbrot for us before we hit the hay. The kids were sooo excited to sleep on mattresses next to each other on the floor (and be out of the car in a big, cool house). Actually when they found out that they were sleeping on mattresses next to each other, they spontaneously burst into a wrestling match:
We did eventually get them down to dinner, and despite the wrestling, they did indeed sleep well.
Breakfast with Stephi, Wilfried and family!
The next morning we awoke to an awesome breakfast of amazing Bretzels from the bakery, other bread, homemade jams and jellies, fruit, cheeses, schinkenwurst and more. But what were our kids most excited about? Chocolate milk.
Of course.
It was pretty much all they consumed actually.
Pshhh...kids.
Awesome wooden toys and tractors
After breakfast the kids broke into these two huge baskets that Stephi had full of wooden figures. They were soooo cool, and she had everything you could possibly imagine, from Zebras to Native Americans and canoes. THEN Jana (her oldest daughter) busted out the toy tractors. Ohhhh man...we could barely peel Bridger away to go see the REAL tractors. But we did! Out we went, around their property to explore, and explore we did. They had tractors, trampolines, a Gator, a swimming pool, a grilling area complete with a grill shack for the winter and an underground cool room for the summer. They had a dog and cats and goats and geese...the fun just didn't stop. It was like heaven for the kids. And the gardens - ohhhh the gardens. Full of beautiful flowers and good things to eat. IT WAS SO COOOOOOL.
Then Jana took Bridger around in the tractor. Juniper sat in there for a minute, but after the tractor drove forward out of the barn NOPE, she was outta there. Both kids were happily climbing around on the equipment, though.
Bridger and Jana in the tractor
Wilfried, Stephi's husband, explained to us while we were standing their that they actually own a relatively small amount of land, but they own the harvesting equipment, so they harvest for the farmers in the area that DON'T own harvesting equipment. It's a busy 4 weeks of the summer, but they enjoy it. It was fun seeing Jana, the oldest daughter, happily climb into her combine and drive away :) She really loves it!
Also, let me say this: having grown up amongst rolling hills of wheat and barley, being in farm country, and even better wheat and barley country, was a big breath of fresh air for me. Although I've been home to visit the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington where I grew up, I've missed harvest time for the past 6 years or so. So being on Stephi and Wilfried's farm during harvest? It felt familiar. It felt good. It felt like home :)
Now...
It had rained the day before, so we were lucky that Wilfried got a break from harvesting and he and Stephi took all of us in their van to a nearby town called Bad Wildbad where they had a "funicular" that took us up the mountain side into the famous Black Forest, and along a raised platform path. It was called the Baumwipfelpfad Schwartzwald. It was so beautiful, and good to be in the woods again (WITH PINE TREES!).
Us on the forest platform in the Black Forest, just outside of Bad Wildbad
The platform was cool, complete with learning stations and obstacle courses for the kids. At the end they had a MAASSSSIVE slide you could go down! Bridger kept running ahead of us on the path, and didn't seem as interested in all of the stuff that I thought he'd be interested in. He doesn't normally run ahead of us, but after I lost sight of him a couple of times and had to chase him down, I squatted down for a little chat.
"Bridger - you need to make sure you can see us, okay?"
"Okaaaay..."
"Why do you keep running ahead??"
Blank look, forward...
"Are you just excited about the slide at the end??"
"YEAH".
Suddenly it all made sense.
And who wouldn't be excited about this slide?
When we got there we walked around and around AND AROUND to get up to the viewing station at the top. But Bridger? Nope. BORRRRING. He didn't want to go see some stinkin' view at the top. He wanted to stop just a couple of rings short of the top and go straight down the slide...of course!
Approaching the SLIDE! (and overlook)
It took some coaxing, but we finally did get the little boy (fueled all morning by almost only chocolate milk) to go all the way to the top with us, enjoy the view and EAT SOME LUNCH (more Bretzel) before heading to the slide, which he, of course, loved. Also, since it took him about 30 seconds to get down, and the rest of us about 5 minutes to walk around and AROUND down, he managed to find a little cool little log/stick structure someone had built in the woods and play there for a bit. Fun! After getting back, our original plan was to go into Jettingen, where everyone was celebrating a brand new Marktplatz (town square). When we got back, however, the kids wanted nothing to do with the carousel, the face painting, the food and the fun...nooooo no...they wanted to play on the farm!! So we let them, of course. Swimming and fresh raspberries were the afternoon theme.
We did eventually make it to the Marktplatz celebration, where we ate some good food, drank some fresh milk from Stephi's friend's farm, and listened to some music while the kids dannnnnced and danced and danced.
Whew.
Whatta day.
That night we were ready to sleep, but guess who wasn't?
Juniper.
It was just tooo much for her little mind to comprehend...her entire family in the same room...in a big cool house...on a farm...
All night....whispers...
"Daddy....daaaDDDY. DAADDDY!"
Berkley was a champ, and despite the little whisperer, we all felt pretty well rested the next day.
Sunday morning we went back to the Marktplatz, where all of the towns church congregations were gathering to celebrate the completion of the new Martkplatz together at an outdoor Sunday church meeting. Cool, huh? After church we headed back for more fun at the farm.
Waiting to ride the ponies
We spent the afternoon riding around on this two-person car-bike thing, trampoline, climbing in the now empty barn (harvest was on, with the fields now being dry enough!) and even pony rides at the riding barn down the street. Did I mention that Stephi is connected with everyone and anyone??
Lana, Frau Frank, Stella and Juniper
In the evening we grilled in their awesome little grill corner. It was delicious, of course, and man was Juniper exhausted. She could barely stay awake! It was so weird. She's not normally like that. But, off to bed she went. We all slept well in the big, amazing house filled with amazing people, and in the morning had one more incredible breakfast of Bretzeln, cheeses, homemade jams and jellies, meats and more. It was hard to say goodbye to these friends, and clear how easy it would be for the Walkers to stay connected with this family over the years. Stephi is full of kindness. Her house is beautiful, and full of love. Wilfried makes you feel like you're important. They smile often and genuinely care. They fed us the BEST food. They made us feel at home. Lana looked after little Stella so carefully. David swam with Bridger in the pool. Jana patiently listened to Bridger talk on and on and on as she drove him around in the combine...I could go on. In the end, they're truly are such generous, amazing people.
Wilfriend, Stephi, and the Walker Crew. Bridger insisted that Stella
"sit on his shoulders"
History lesson from Dad at Schloss Heidelberg
On the drive home, we decided to make a stop in Heidelberg. We'd been there once before, but wanted to see the castle again! After huffing it up the hill (and up a TON of unexpected stairs WITH the stroller) we took an awesome tour of the castle there.
It was a great stop for Berkley and I, but not exactly kid-friendly (lots of listening to boring explanations and not being allowed to touch stuff). We thought we could make it the last 2 1/2 hours home without stopping, but no, no. How foolish we were. Stella was crying, Juniper was complaining her mouth hurt when we gave her some chocolate, and Bridger started having a panic attack that, LITERALLY, he would forget the giant Combine that he got to ride on ("Agh! I can't see the combine when I close my eyes! I am going to forget all about it!"). This led to a much needed pit-stop at McDonalds on our final leg home. Overall, fantastic trip. It's hard to travel more than 2 hours at a time with a 4-month old. It does, however, make for many opportunities to stop for little adventures. Below are a few more photos from this trip.
Bridger and some giant wrenches in the tunnels of the Maginot Line
Stephi holding Stella as she chows-down on her first real food: a Bretzel, of course!
Bedhead Juniper playing with a tractor
Juniper was NOT convinced that riding Heidi the goat was a good idea
Wheat and a little boy in heaven
Bridger and Emily
Sweet Juniper
On the way down via funicular!
Wooden Toys
Look, Ma, a pony!
More wooden toys!
Wheat. So beautiful.
Frau Frank looking after Stella
Wonderful Frau Frank
Princess at Schloss Heidelberg
One of the cool entrance gates to the
castle. This one, in particular, was
erected overnight as a surprise gift
from the king to his wife
