Jamie Jetsets

We had originally planned to head down to Nice after visiting the south of France, but Jamie had to get back to work so he could take a business trip. He headed over to Paris for 2 days and then over to Milan. We were both excited that he would get to go Milan, we had come up with a list of where we would like to visit when we first moved over and the one place we couldn't quite figure out was Italy. We were constantly traveling during the summer and I am flight restricted after 32 weeks so there just wasn't time (I know, boo hoo for us). We figure we got the much, much better deal expecting a new little one (just 4 weeks left and getting so excited!!) and will leave Italy on our list of places to see in the future! But it was exciting to us that Jamie would get to see at least a little part of Italy.

Jamie had hoped to see the Last Supper which is in Milan, but when we got there it was a 3 week wait for tickets! He was able to go see the Milan Cathedral, Duomo di Milano.

Front of Cathedral

Gorgeous carvings all over the church, even only seeing them in pictures, they are just beautiful.

One of the main stained glass lit from within at night

So very intricate

He also stopped next door to see the world's oldest mall.

Jamie said it was a beautiful city and the food was just amazing with fresh fish and pasta. He spent most of his days in meetings but was able to sneak out to look around a bit and the team made sure he ate well.

As for us? We learned to wedge ourself into our tiny dolly stroller...

We were able to catch up on sleep and run a few loads of wash before Jamie flew back in, drove out to get us and then turned around a few hours later to get on another plane!

Pepieux, France

We had some time on our last day to explore out town, although these pictures are kind of collected from our entire time there. It was so nice to have a "low key" part of our travels where we had places to go but it wasn't like we were trying to see everything possible, we just kind of got to live in France and it was wonderful.

Basically what I looked like the entire time...I wish I was joking.

You really do walk everywhere, so even though I am massively pregnant in this attractive photo, we all broke even on the weight gain, and it was delicious!

She kept right up with me! Actually her favorite treat were these "yogurts", I thought they looked like yogurt but when I opened them they were more like a dessert mousse (a layer of yogurt and then of whipped cream) and she was in heaven!!

We were right in the heart of wine country, this press was just down the street

Wandering through the vineyards

It was harvest season so all of the grapes were ripe

Just testing

Checking out the geese and chicken coop

We then headed to the Toulouse airport, about an hour away, to head on home! I would have been extremely sad to leave if we were not heading back in just a week!

Halloween!

I think I mentioned last year that England celebrates Halloween a little different than in the states - it is much more low key and there is no trick or treating. There are costumes and decorations in some of the stores, along with a few bags of candy but it is more of an afterthought next to the huge Christmas displays. Our church does a small celebration, started by an American a few years ago, so we knew Hadley would be able to at least dress up for something! (if there is no trick or treating I can't quite figure out what people dress up for...) Since I don't have a sewing machine over here we decided Hadley would be a fairy - she loves all things pink and glitter. My mom bought her this cute tutu and I found a set of wings and had planned on doing all sorts of fun Halloween activities the week before... then I got sick.

Basically it was one of those weeks you wish you never moved away from your own mom - Hadley had the stomach flu the earlier Friday (it was pretty mild/no fever so I assumed it may have been something she ate) and had come down with a cold/cough, that Monday I cracked a tooth that I had the root canal done on, then Tuesday I went into false labor - luckily I have had real labor (and spoke with a good nurse) so there were no midnight trips to London, but it feels close enough to real labor and there is no hope of an epidural anywhere in sight - turns out the stomach flu can cause false labor and we followed Tuesday and Wednesday with the flu, and finally we capped it off with a really bad cold that basically wiped me out on the couch again. So none of my plans were completed by Saturday and I decided in the morning we would just skip the activity and plan on Halloween next year - I then remembered my Mother celebrating all sorts of Holidays sick and realized it just didn't matter! So we rallied and it wasn't pretty but we got it done!! So here is our Halloween -

Sick Mama Style!

Card just for Hadley arrived from Grandma - seriously, nobody celebrates holidays like my Mom.

Instead of lovingly decorating sugar cookies, we just popped into the local french bakery and bought our goodies.

This one is actually a little embarrassing, I had signed up to "decorate a car" for the trunk or treat, from my experience this means maybe some streamers/pumpkin or whatever but it is mostly about the candy. That morning while we hit up the bakery I found a bag of Halloween balloons and figured we were set. We we get there and there are no lights in the parking lot and about 12 cars lined up...all completely over the top decorated - like ghouls and smoke, creepy lights and sparklers. I had Jamie blow up the balloons and realized that the tape I brought to hang our lame decorations wouldn't even hold up in the wind (realized it after Jamie had to go chase down 4 of them that blew away). So I shoved them all back in the trunk, spread out the candy (it really is the point, we gave out handfuls) and Jamie tried not to make eye contact with our neighbors.

Our little fairy checking out the big kids

It was so cold she had to wear a sweatshirt, but the tutu and wings turned out really cute.

Enjoying her loot - she only got 4 candy bars, we ate those and allowed her a few gummy bears, she seems happy enough!

Her favorite part of the evening? The balloons when we got home! Kept calling it "bubba" which is her word when we blow bubbles, I guess it does kind of look like a big bubble!

And finally tonight we "carved" pumpkins! We had Jamie draw on the tiny pumpkin I found with a sharpie - it was perfect, no mess and fit her attention span!

I think she likes it!

Tomorrow is actually Halloween and I think the neighbor is sending her two kids over so we can give them candy, but other than that there isn't anything going on. I am so glad we celebrated at least a little bit and we have some pictures and memories to show!

Carcassone, France and Minerve, France

I do realize that nobody wants to see pictures from our trip more than a month ago - it is like the vacation slideshow that just won't end...but I need to get it documented!

On our 2nd day in Pepieux we headed out the Carcassone, it is a fortress town that still looks right out of medieval times! It has all the fortress walls and is in a really secure location in the valley - we read all of the history of it and basically it has transferred hands of different kingdoms numerous times but was never taken over in battle, it is still awe inspiring to hear how old places are compared to the "newness" of the US.

Entrance into the town, the entire town existed inside the safe walls

When you enter all of the narrow streets are filled with novelty/tourist shops, it appears that many people come for the shopping and forget to check out the actual structure! It was really cute though and fun to wander through the shops.

Jamie testing out the archery angles

View from one of the curtain walls, France really is gorgeous

One of the lookout points

They had a cathedral within the walls and we were fascinated with this stained glass window, you can't really see it but it tells all of the stories from the Old Testament branching out from Adam and Eve in the lower center pane.

The next day we headed out to Minerve, a city literally on a cliff!

We started the day with a little Beauty and the Beast - the different owners had collected french inspired movies and books for children, a really cute idea.

On our walk up to the city

Literally on the cliff, I could not imagine living here!!

The only "entrance" into the city

Narrow little streets, it wasn't a very big town but had a few little shops and restaurants to check out. It was just so interesting to see a different kind of town, and feel a bit transported to an earlier time.

Narbonne, France and Pepieux, France

I get quite a few questions about how/why we travel with a toddler, I wish I could have just videoed Jamie getting us to Narbonne and use it as the answer! He is amazing. On the front end I do alot of research on location, timing and packing...but nobody can execute like Jamie. We flew into Barcelona and figured the cheapest way to get to southern France was to take the train to Narbonne and then drive to Pepieux. This means that Jamie carried our suitcase, carseat, carryon while I pushed Hadley in the stroller with the portacrib (a super light bjorn one) and he navigated the metro to the train, got us on the train, navigated the train changes and then when we arrived in Narbonne and the car rental "at" the station was 3 blocks away, didn't even break a sweat and hauled everything down the street...and you better believe when they wanted to charge us more than we had agreed that we left with the original price. He then navigated us safely to the house - switching sides of the road again and on little roads with new rules. Everyone seriously needs a Jamie when traveling.

She has gotten to be quite the pro herself.

Jamie's older brother owns a house in Pepieux, France, a tiny town in the south. He shares it with a few other families and this year they were assigned September, since he has kids in school and knew we were close, he generously offered to let us use it. It was perfect, it was so nice to be in a home away from home in a sleepy little town with bakeries down the street, sunshine and a interesting sights. They had been the year before and had suggestions on the best bakeries and sights that would be interesting/kid friendly.

Local Bakery, frequented 2-3 times a day

We needed fresh bread...

...and our daily dose of pastries.

Picture leaving the town, it didn't even have a stoplight! Just a few houses in the heart of wine country. There was a little corner store, a pharmacy and bakery and that was about it!

Picture while driving, beautiful. It reminded me of Napa and the whole area with the hills reminded us of California.

The next day we woke up late (well I did, Jamie got up with Hadley) ate pastries and headed to the beach back near Narbonne. It was off season so pretty quiet but still warm and the water was cool but not too bad. Hadley was in heaven!!

She LOVES the water and kept begging one of us to take her out into the ocean, she would stay in until she had blue lips and started shivering and we made her warm up.

Barcelona Food

The food needed it's own post! We really loved Barcelona, it has been an amazing experience to be in so many different cities back to back. Barcelona is very compact and most things are right within a short walk and we discovered although I am not a big seafood/tapas fan we loved all the fresh produce and meats available.

We found an outdoor market that had these fresh fruit drinks (agua fresca is the closest to describe them) we went back a few times and I wish I could find them here! I thought Hadley and I could share one, but she needed her own!

We checked out the churros in chocolate, Hadley approved.

They were delish

Horchata, Jamie has always raved about this! It wasn't a favorite for me but he was happy. I keep reading it is from a Chuffa Nut (nothing like the mexican horchata) although my nut despising husband insists it is from a Chuffa Seed.

We finally got wise and instead of braving restaurants with a tired toddler for overpriced food, we stopped at a local bakery and then picked up cheese and an assortment of meats. It was perfect.

Look at that smile! Jamie also picked up a melon he remembered eating on his mission, it was amazing! We couldn't quite figure out what it would be called in the states, neither of us have ever seen it.

I didn't quite get pictures of everything we tried, Jamie ate a few potato pancake sandwiches, we stopped for a few pastries and we found these vanilla cookies that Hadley loved, along with the yogurt and Magdelanas we found Barcelona to be extremely tasty!

Barcelona, Spain Day 3

I really just need to finish all of our vacation posts, I am still way behind! I am 6 weeks from delivery and slipping into nesting mode, for most people this means a burst of energy and creativeness resulting in darling decorations and hand sewn blankets, but for me? It means making spreadsheets, detailed research, organizing drawers/closets, ordering baby health products online late at night, stocking the freezer and borderline antisocial behavior. This would be why my mother is receiving packages from Amazon on a weekly basis, I have all the paperwork for insurance already filled out (international requires enough to make a novel), my utensil drawer is sparkling and I owe about 10 people email responses. It was the exact same when I was pregnant with Hadley. We are so very excited for her to arrive, and at least the house will be organized the first week! Bless my sweet mother for being willing to sew the baby quilt (my little sis did Hadley's). Even blogging is losing appeal and I need to get them done before I sink completely!

The third day in Spain we decided to explore a few of Gaudi's works. We started with the Sagrada Familia which amazingly is still under construction. I will be honest - I wasn't prepared to like his work, in all of the travel guides they showed the most bizarre parts to entice tourists and I was expecting some kind of modern weirdness. Instead it truly was gorgeous, not classic styles but really beautiful and interesting with stories behind so many ideas he chose. It also is huge, we couldn't get a picture of the entire structure so it is a bit choppy looking at the pictures.

Nativity facade, so many symbols

The Passion Facade it was designed by a different artist, Gaudi knew he would not see the completion of the building and left basic designs but really wanted each artist that took over to use their own creativity. This was stark and harsh and initially I didn't like it, but they explained that the style was used to evoke exactly those emotions to better related the story of the cruxifiction.

This is one of my favorite pictures even though it is a bit blurry.

This would be what caused our excitement, the inside was stunning. It was so light and interesting, he took inspiration from nature and each element is supposed to relate to natural beauty.

In the museum section they had information on how the building is designed, it appears that Gaudi was a architect first, an artist second. This is a miniature for reference and they would build different sections in plaster, I thought they meant like a few inches high, but the plaster pieces were a good 10 feet. He would come up with a theory and since it hadn't been tested before he would build a model since it was cheaper than trying it for the first time in stone - it looked really labor intensive! He also used gravity to determine parabolas for acoustics, it was fascinating.

Jamie was able to take an elevator to the top of the building (no pregnant ladies or strollers allowed so Hadley and I hung out and people watched).

Overlooking the city

We then walked through a good chunk of Barcelona to figure out the bus system and get to Park Guell. It brought back memories for Jamie from the Mission, although he doesn't recall having to drag a large, unpleasant pregnant lady a who kept asking how much further...

It was not at all what I expected, there were trees and small building scattered around, but no grass. I was envisioning something along the lines of the large parks in England. The pieces that were scattered about the park were really interesting, some looked like cement trees, some overhangs supported bird homes and random sculptures everywhere.

This section was cordoned off, there were so many people we couldn't get a good shot of the mosaic benches in the overlook area.

Overlooking the city (behind all of the people)

In front of the famous gecko (lizard? dragon?) There were so many people this is the best picture we got!

We were able to wander around for awhile and let Hadley explore and then we headed back for our last night. We took a detour to experience some of Barcelona's best food...