My Life in France: Part two ~ The fun side!

I sounded like I hated life yesterday.  Not true.  I actually love love love my life.  I am so thankful for my blessings.  There are hard things that come along with this crazy life we lead, but I would take them, hands down, any day. 

As you know, my husband is black, from the Bahamas, brought up in a different way than I was.  Not bad, but different.  I love who he is and it is only from God that he could be the man he is from what he has been through.  In our marriage we deal with raising mixed kids, dealing with comprising with not only eachother, but our cultures, dealing with the differences and difficulties being an interracial family brings, etc. etc.  Some people would think about how hard it is and how they wouldn't choose it, some might think I am crazy and say it isn't a big deal (they are wrong) and some, although I think very few, might sympathize with me. 

I love exposing my sons to the multiple cultures that we are a part of.  We go from Simi Valley, mostly white, to the Bahamas, mostly black, to France, where they just don't care.  We are more 'normal' here they any of the other countries we live.  No one looks at us funny or stares, it is normal.  Yes, both other places we are not normal.  Although that doesn't bother me, I welcome stares and questions!  But I love that my sons get such a great experience in life.  Many people never visit these places, and we get to live there!  Blessings!

I love love love learning another language.  I feel so good after I have conversations in French.  I just got off the phone with one of my friends not to long ago and I feel so proud of myself.  I can communicate in another language.  It is so fun, and I love it.  It is becoming weird to me (I know it isn't really weird) that people only speak one language and don't care to know another.  If you have the chance, take it! 

I love the different cultures.  I love going to the Bahamas, because I love the people.  Yes, I love the beaches too, but I love our friends and family there.  We are so welcomed and loved.  Everyone is so hospitible and relaxed.  No problems, no hurry, just chill.  I love it.  I miss them when we aren't there and love it when we get the chance to visit. 
I love France also for the nice people we have met.  I have been overwhelmed with the kindness some of these people have shown us.  I know France is known for more of a rude, uptight place, but once you get to know the people, I think more personally, they can really blow you away.  I was not so sure I would be so nice to someone in California living there, not speaking the language very well.  I know now I would.  I love how it isn't 'keeping up with the Joneses' here.  (another phrase that didn't quite transfer to French)  The houses are nice and small and cozy.  No one tries to be too rich or show off their nice cars, or make you feel like you have less. I am convinced you wouldn't know if these people were poor or wealthy. 

I also love the way living here has forced me to have an open mind about other countries and the way they do things.  For example, they have here somethin called CAF.  It basically gives money to people who have kids, French or not.  I don't think it is the smartest idea.  That is why France is going broke.  But among all of the benefits of CAF there is one that allows a new mother to quit work and she receives a stipend each month to stay home with her newborn baby until the baby is 3 and after that schooling is free.  I think it is good incentive to allows mothers to stay home with their children.  Just my opinion, what do I really know about that stuff?

Anyway, now today I might sound like I am gloating a bit or something.  I think that people are different and enjoy many different things and I think there are many people who could not and would not want to live our life.  And that is okay.  But personally, I enjoy it.  Now if I could only conquer this language!!

My Life in France: Part one ~ the difficult side

Today I sat with some of my French friends speaking Franglais (little english, little french) and they were fascinated by me and the way I choose to live my life.  The way I choose to think about things and handle what a lot of people can't and wouldn't handle.  (I tell me husband everyday how lucky he is to have me, don't worry! :))  Anyway, I thought it might be an interesting thing to write about.  Because people don't often think about the things that might be hard for me or different or crazy.  It sounds romantic to live in another coutry, learn another language etc etc.  And for me it is.  I choose to like it.  But don't be fooled, it is not easy.  Let me break it down a bit.

I have two kids.  Mothers out there know how hard it is to raise kids.  Most of the time we have other mothers around us, and back home I do too (but thank God for facebook!), to help us, give opinions, and offer different suggestions as to rearing kids.  I personally love it, once it is offered in a humble, loving way, bring it on!  Here I don't have that.  I don't have people who think the same way.  I do know other moms and might ask for advice, but I am not sure we are raising the same type of kids.  I want my boys to grow up strong and independent and able to 'handle business' (a phrase which this morning I could not translate into French).  I am not sure how having a binki at the age of 5 affects these kids, maybe it has none at all, but it is just weird to me.  Why there are kids screaming and crying throwing fits and peeing their pants when their parents leave and my son waves by and smiles.  That most definitely could be personality, don't get me wrong, but I do think that Lavar as a man in Tae's life has had a huge impact on how Tae is.  I am proud of him.  France isn't exactly known for the toughest nation... But who knows, just a thought.

Think about a grocery store run.  Easy, right?  Just run right in, grab what you need and bounce.  Wait, I don't know where it is.  Okay, how do you say 'where is the peanut butter?'  Wait, they don't have peanut butter here, how do I describe peanut butter?  'beurre de cacahuètes'?  Il est quelque chose american, il s'appelle peanut butter?'  (it is something american, it is called peanutbutter) Yep, not so easy anymore!  Now, lately, I am a lot better at my French that I don't have problems any more. 

Hanging out with friends.  Here is a tough one.  Because as I mentioned, I don't have too much trouble in the grocery store or simple conversations like that anymore.  But I have a few friends who do not speak english.  We have nice conversations and I am getting a ton better.  But here is the absolute worst.  I am trying to explain something and they just stare at me.  They cannot understand what I am saying.  What?  Seriously, you can't understand?  Man, am I that bad?  I was so encouraged with this whole conversation, and now I feel as stupid as ever.  Or, here is another one.  They make a joke in French, but I didn't get it, and I laugh just to get out of asking what they meant.  But then they catch me with the fake laugh.  ugh  stupid again.

Or when I get Tae from school and the teacher asks me or I have something to ask.  It is hard.  Once again, I am getting better, but it is just every day things that people wouldn't think of that I have to. 

Obvisouly the hard things like missing family and friends back home.  But that isn't so hard for me anymore.(sorry mom! jk)  I love my family.  But I know that someday I will be back living close to them.  And when that day comes, I will enjoy it.  But I don't want to spend my time here wishing I was somewhere else.  How silly would that be?  I want to experience everything and make sure I have no regrets from the time we lived here. 

I know I sounds like Debbie Downer today.  But don't get my wrong, I love my life.  I am so thankful that the Lord has given us such a wonderful opportunity.  I don't think 'normal' would cut it for me.  But later I will write about the things that I love about living here.  Just thought I would share!

Oh and down side of learning another language.  I am already a horrible speller.  Now with learning another language, I can't spell anything.  So disreguard (sp?) my mistakes.  And I can't find words in English sometimes, like it is hard to sometimes put a sentence together because I try to think in French.  Just a side note!

Milan

Okay, so this is a serious bummer.  Our computer was broken, as you might know, and the other day we finally got it back!  I was excited on so many levels and decided to load all of the pictures onto it.  Since we haven't had a computer in a while, I had a ton of pictures and the memory space on the camera was full.  So I chose the option to delete the pictures after loading them... I am sure you can guess what happened next.  The previous two posts I got up and then after that the computer crashed again.  I lost all of my pictures from Milan and Christmas.  And every other picture I had on my computer... Talk about a serious bummer. 

Milan was great.  Beautiful drive, fun family time, awesome new culture.  I loved it.  Not really a city built for families, but if you know our family, we make things work!  We had a good time stayed at a nice apartment/hotel so I could cook to save some money... (hmmm... where's the vacation for me?)  But it was nice.  I did the things I wanted to do, see Duomo, a huge beautiful cathedral, eat pizza, see the Last Supper (well sort of see it. Ok maybe not), and eat gelato.  My favorite being... you guessed it!  Gelato!  It was heavenly.  I don't know if there are words.  It was awesome.  I want to go back just for the gelato.  Duomo was the next coolest.  Here is a picture of it I found from the internet.

Pretty awesome, huh?  The only difference is that when we were there, the weather was terrible.  But still a beautiful thing!

We actually got some family pictures too, but like I mentioned, they are all gone... forever!  Okay, a little dramatic, but seriously, bummer. 

I had some awesome pictures of the Alps too.  beautiful!  Did you know that people live in the Alps??  Like up in the mountains?  I had no idea.  I know I sound pretty stupid right now, but that is crazy to me.  That has to be freezing.  And pretty exclusive too.  I definitely couldn't handle it.  But I guess these people are used to it.  Thank goodness there isn't any teams in the Alps.  No thank you!

I am so thankful this year to be able to experience so many more things.  Like this trip to Italy, the trip we took to Switzerland in October, and my trip coming up to London (YAY!), and yet another trip to Switzerland when my family comes.  What awesome experiences.  I love my life!

Fête des Lumières

This was a highlight date night for me.  I think Lavar too.  Every year in Lyon they have what is called the Fête des Lumières.  It is pretty huge and aparently millions of people go every year.  It is a place where light techies and students studying that kind of stuff can go to show their stuff.  It was so cool.  We are only 45 minutes from Lyon, but one of our French friends advised us that it would be wise to take the train because of how packed it gets there.  Lavar didn't like that idea too much, he likes to be in more control of situations with our car, but I convinced him, thinking the train would be fun!  Not only was it fun, it was completely needed.  Lavar did indeed later say, 'you were right.'  And I cherished it. 

Telling me he was going to steal my goves. I don't think so.

Still love him!

 We started off the evening dropping off our boys at our friends house who, wait for it, watched them overnight!!!  Then we headed out to the train station.  It was C.O.L.D.  I offered Lavar a pair of gloves and he said he was fine that he would put his hand in his pocket.  Then I said "what if I want to hold your hand?"  He then replied "I'll hold it in my pocket."  Well, not to gloat or anything, but his hands were freezing and once again, I was right.  This night was lookin' good for momma!  (I do love my husband, and was sad that he was cold, but he should have listened to me. haha).  We started our night at a steak house.  Nice because it is kinda American.  It was in the center of a main shopping area in Lyon.  It was lovely.  I found a STARBUCKS!  Then we headed out.  I tried to take pictures, but the camera I was using wasn't all the great at night pictures.  Or opperater error, who knows.

Lighted birds

Waiting for dinner

Yep, Starbucks!

 Starbucks is a must have in a country where the coffee is basically shots of espresso.  Lavar didn't care so much, but he took the photo.  And he kept not getting Starbucks in the picture, so I was standing there for a good 5 to 10 minutes.  I know the French were thinking 'stupid american' on that one for sure.

This was supposed to be a face that you could see with the light in the steam.  not so much

 The lights were mostly pretty but seriously, nothing all that spectacular.  There were lines waiting to get into certain things, but we didn't wait...  The regular shows on the street was good enough for us.

More bird lights

Some 'street lamps'

something on the wall...

This one was kinda cool, they used a statue in the center and the horses all had green eyes.  The lights came on and went off.  It was neat.

Just in case you needed to know.

Man, it's blurry.  But a ton of people.

He looks huge! haha  He really isn't that scary, I promise.  Even though I am sure he would like you to think so.

lovey dovey

I'm trying to be hard core too... not so much

silly boy

Overall, the night was awesome.  Just us, train ride into the city, beautiful lights, just us, starbucks coffee, just us, getting out of the house, did I mention it was just us?  lol, all you moms out there understand what I'm sayin'.  I love my boys, but momma needs breaks every now and then!  Thank you to our friends who watched the boys!  We actually have another date night tonight!  A lot more simple, just dinner, but much needed.  Oh and to all my French friends, I would definitely suggest not taking the kiddos.  I did see strollers and the like there, but it was freezing and it just doesn't seem like it would be nearly as fun if you had to be worrying about the kids and such.  Just FYI.  But date night, awesome!

I'm Back!

D'accord, it has been too long!  At the beginning of December Eli, our lovely little Eli, pulled the cord of our computer and it tugged the computer off the counter it was on.  It wasn't that big of a tug, but it certainly messed up the computer.  We lost everything.  No pictures, no videos or anything we had before.  Serious bummer.  Most of our pictures are somewhere online or on my mom's computer, so not so bad, but still a bummer because I am sure we are missing some things.  I haven't really surveyed all the damages yet.  Not sure I want to...  Anyway, now that I am back, I have a lot of pictures to post!  First I will start with some randomness.  And I am not going to do it all in one day, (sorry mom!) but there are too many.

Our little Randy! (get it, Christmas Story)

My boys

He is very smart. Already reading!

Mom!

Look at that face!

Love that smile!

funny boy

me and my boys

handsome little boogers