Normandy (part 2): Escargot, the Bayeaux Tapestry, and more

When I last left this story, we'd just visited Omaha Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery. These two amazing visits took us pretty much all day, so with hearts full and empty stomachs, we started heading back to our little farm house. 

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 pictures embroidered 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 :) 

Normandy (part 1): Omaha Beach

Traveling with friends is awesome.

Especially when they are awesome friends.

It's like awesome awesomeness.

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...