France

In December, the three of us went to France! We spent about half our time in Paris and half in Dampierre, where Thomas's family has a house. It is the cutest little French village. I LOVE walking around it; I always expect people to pop out of the windows and start singing "Bonjour" from Beauty and the Beast. Anyway. We mainly went so that Jamie could meet his French relatives (and vice versa). Thomas's cousin Vincent has a baby a few months younger than Jamie, so it was pretty much all about the babies!

Jamie and Adam meeting for the first time

cousins & second cousins

Papy with his 2 great-grandsons

Here we are with Thomas's aunt and uncle...

...and with his grandparents.

We didn't do much sight-seeing since we weren't there very long and wanted to spend most of our time just with family. But Thomas & I and Vincent & Juliette (and the babies, of course) did make one day trip to Orleans, where we had never been (though it is no real surprise that I had never been there). We went to the cathedral and walked around the city. It was very cold but we bundled up the babies and had a lot of fun.

We also were able to go out by ourselves a couple of times while Thomas's grandparents watched Jamie (how ridiculous is it that it's easier for us to go on a date in France than in Knoxville??). Here we are in Montmartre, with all of Paris behind us.

More pictures of the babies...

of course, Jamie tried to roll over on Adam

Just a note about our flights. Jamie was a fabulous traveler, far better than I anticipated on such long flights. He got plenty fussy at times, but really only when he was tired. It is so hard to get a baby to take a nap in a busy airport. Anyway, we had the worst luck on the way there. Our first flight, from Knoxville to Chicago, was delayed by about an hour for no good reason...and we only had an hour layover before the next flight. After arriving in Chicago and literally running through the airport (while pushing a stroller AND pulling a suitcase, I might add), we missed our flight to Paris by about 5 minutes. That five minutes ended up costing us about 12 hours worth of further delays and missed flights. On the plus side, Jamie has an unexpected extra stamp in his passport from the several hours we spent in Manchester.

We thought we were going to have an equally ridiculous time of it getting home because the entire airport was closed when we got there, no flights in or out because of a few inches of a snow, but we ended up only being a little bit delayed and still made our connecting flight to Knoxville. We were extremely lucky; Thomas's dad got stuck in London for like 4 extra DAYS because Heathrow completely shut down over 4 inches of snow. If there is anything this trip taught me, it is that, for some reason, Europe isn't really equipped to handle snow.

Other than the nonsense with our flights and all the neige, it was a wonderful trip!

Jamie at Charles de Gaulle