Cole and Max's Adventures

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

10 Days in Provence

It's Mommy writing...

I had the most incredible opportunity to spend 10 days in Provence, France with my mom. She invited me for my 33rd birthday and I was thrilled but had no idea what a trip of a lifetime it would be. My uncle, Mom's twin brother, Mark, rented a home in the heart of Provence (Vacqueyras, France) for a month and invited my mom to join him for part of the time. She graciously invited me too knowing that France is in my blood and has been since my first trip there in high school. Here is just a glimpse of our 10 magical days in wine country under the Provencal sun.

We flew from JFK to Paris. But we found out in Paris that my suitcase didn't make it. Therefore, we had to wait for the next plane to arrive from JFK to get my bag. That caused us to have to rebook our train to Avignon. There were a few bumps on the way, but we still made it to Avignon only about 2 hours delayed. My uncle Mark picked us up at the airport and drove us to the sleepy village of Vacqueyras which was about 20 minutes away.

Mark kept us busy the first afternoon so we wouldn't crash. We visited this cute little village above, close to Vacqueyras called Gigondas. We actually ate at this outdoor cafe a different day.

A street in Gigondas... just a typical street in any of the beautiful villages we visited. Everything was pristine and picture perfect!!

Love this, just hanging out in front of someone's home.

View from top of Gigondas

Every morning, Mark would make coffee for us and we'd walk down to the Boulangerie (bakery) in the center of the village to pick up croissants.

My favorite spot at Maison des Fontaines - the house where we stayed. This is on their back terrace. I would sit in the lounge chair out here and read my books as I looked out to the vinyards and Provence countryside.

Cheeses at the market in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue

Soaps at the same market

Baskets

A cute window, I can't even remember which village this was in... maybe Rousillon?

Another picturesque window

Mom, Mark and I at David Restaurant in Rousillon. Mark had visited this restaurant 16 years ago with his 16 month old son, David, so it held very special meaning.

At the top of the castle - La Barroux

Lunch in Gigondas

Lavendar at market in Vaison la Romaine

Midevil village at top of Vaison la Romaine

One of our favorite meals at Le Mesclun in Seguret. This was my dessert, wow!

The "after dessert" they brought out to go with our coffee... they spelled the name of the restaurant in chocolate and made a cool design in cocoa powder.... woah, over the top amazing!!

Beautiful vinyards near our house

Mom and I went on a walk around the vinyards one evening

The back gate at our house with terrace above

The village where our house was - Vacqueyras... it was the sweetest, sleepiest little village. They had a small market one morning that was so cute!

The sweet flower shop in Vacqueyras

Amazing cliffs at Les Baux

Mom and Mark at our favorite restaurant in Les Baux - La Cabro d'Or

My best meal - sea bass on zuchinni at La Cabro d'Or

Also the best dessert there - a white chocolate mousse and inside was a dark chocolate ball filled with melted chocolate. Raspberries on top with raspberry sorbet... unbelieveable!!

The complimentary "after desserts" that they bring with coffee...

Mom and I LOVED that restaurant!

We had a chance to visit Aix-en-Provence while there. It is the city where I studied in college. It was about an hour and a half drive. I remembered it somewhat but had a hard time finding my school. It seemed SO much bigger than what I remembered from 12 years ago.

Flower market in Aix

Delicious pizza and Heinekens in Aix

Pizza was SO good!

Back at the house on the terrace!

Amazing view of Gordes, built into the cliffs

This experience was more than I could have ever hoped for. It was a a time to relax, rejuvenate, refocus and spend time with my mom and Uncle Mark... something that meant more to me than I even realized until I was there. I feel very blessed to have such loving and generous family and it felt so amazing when I returned home to my heart... my boys... Craig, Cole and Max.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

It's A Scorcher!!!

It has been super, super hot lately!!! We did venture outside for a little while to play on Connor and Grayson's new playset!

We tried to get a few pics of all the boys - me, Connor, Max and Grayson

A hot summer day is not complete without a water squirter fight in my big boys and rain boots!

I wanted someone to have a water fight with. Mommy and Max both said no, so we went over and knocked on our neighbor, Noah's door, and he was game!

Lately I have been very into doing "science experiments"... I ask Mommy often if we can do one. (Ever since the lava experiment...) Anyway, Mommy looked up a few on the computer and this one is called "Color Changing Milk"... it was so neat! When you put dishsoap on the end of a qtip in a dish filled with milk and a few drops of food coloring, the color bursts out like a star when the dishsoap hits the milk and food coloring.

Which lead to another science experiment I thought of... what happens when you put sprinkles in water? We found out the water turns colors (and we used up a lot of sprinkles!)

Last Friday, our friend, Noah, had his 2 year birthday party. It was a nautical theme and his Mommy had so many cute special touches. This is a pic of Cooper, me and Reid... the big boys.

Noah the birthday boy!

Max eating fun fruit and worms out of these cute ice cream bowls.

Max, me, Reid, Cooper and Noah in front of the sail boat Miss Erica made....so fun!

Daddy was out of town last weekend for work, so Max, Mommy and I went to Topeka. GG and Poppy took us to the coolest waterpark ever! They had this really fun slide that I went down a million times.

Max liked the fountains!

Thanks GG and Poppy!

And we did the lazy river too!

While in Topeka, we also got to see Mommy's friend, Katherine's baby, Charlotte. Doesn't it look like I'm holding a doll? She is just the cutest thing ever!

Max and I love baby Charlotte!

To celebrate Mommy's birthday, we went to dinner with our family and got to play outside afterward. Here's me, Connor and Max in some chairs just our size.

Having fun running around!

Maxy is saying "CHEESE!"

Monday, July 16, 2012

Concert in Old OP

Here was one of the other fun activities we did last weekend. We met our friends, Maya and Nolan, for pizza and a jazz concert in the park at Old OP. Us kids were more interested in running around than listening to the music. We had a blast, though! Here's me and Nolan.

We all liked this guitar man statue in the park.

Maya is so sweet to my mommy! Here are some of the things she told my Mommy last night... "Linsey, I love you. I love your sunglasses. They are beautiful." If we had a sister, Mommy would want her to be like Maya!

Max was most likely pointing to a puppy. He made friends with all the puppies in the park that evening. He still loves puppies so much!

We taught Maya and Nolan how to play "Duck, Duck, Goose"... it was so fun!

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Summer Activities

It's been a while since I've posted pictures. We were all down and out with a horrible virus for about 10 days and had a big medical scare with Max. We are all finally back on track and so thankful to be healthy again! Daddy never got sick, but Max, Mommy and I were terribly sick. We weren't feeling very good on the 4th but we were so tired of being cooped up, that we ventured out for a few minutes to our neighborhood 4th of July parade. We didn't last long!

Me, Daddy, Murph and Max, it was so hot!

We all collapsed when we got home and decided that was not the best idea to go out yet!

We were lucky to get to meet our new little 2nd cousins once we were all feeling better. Jack, Lily and their parents, Brett & Alyssa (Brett is Mommy's cousin) visited us from South Carolina. Max and I had SO much fun playing with Jack and Lily who are 5 months old. They were so cute and good! Wish we had gotten to see them more, next time!

Max was being funny, he wanted to sit on the couch for the picture but wouldn't scoot over closer to us!

Max and Mommy at baby music class! I get to play with the Beyers while they go to music class together this summer.

Miss Trilla is the best music teacher ever. She taught me when I was little too. Max absolutely loves this book from music class - Zoo Train. He sings it constantly... "Oh we're riding on the Allee Allee O, the Allee Allee O, the Allee Allee O..."

After music class, Mommy and Max pick me up and we go to swimming lessons with Reid. I LOVE swimming lessons, I tell Miss Ashley that too and also started liking putting my face in the water a lot. My favorite part is at the end of class when we get to jump in. I love to do my jumps!

On Friday night, we had an outing with our friends, we rode the "Ice Cream Train"... it was SUCH a blast!!! The train took us out for a ride and we got ice cream while on-board. It was such a beautiful evening and we were so excited to have a night out with friends after being cooped up for so long! Here's Reid and me. (I had to bring my Spiderman glove, of course. I've been wearing my full costume pretty much non-stop the last several days, but Mommy said it was too hot to wear it on the train, but I did get to bring my glove!)

Maxy eating his ice cream with Mommy!

Reid, Matt, Emma and Jennifer

My sweet baby brother

Cooper, Reid and me

Jeff, Noah, Erica and Cooper

Matt and Reid

Me and Daddy

Such a fun time! We had a couple other fun get togethers with friends this weekend, but unfortunately didn't get any pics. We are so blessed for our amazing friends!