I Can't Remember the Name of this Town

(Eddie reminded me that it's St Malo)

Brittany was a bit chilly for the first few days we were there. But we found plenty of things to do. We walked thru an old fortified city, and walked along the beach.


Andrew went on a real pirate ship,
and had a fit when he got into trouble because he went in the water.
He also forgot his flip flops by the waters edge, so we all watched Ed run back across the beach to retrieve them.

Le Mont Saint Michel

One of the most amazing places I've ever been!
It was our first activity in France, and a great way to start out the trip. There were a ton of stairs, but it was worth the climb to the top.

Bonjour!

Juliette on the drive to France

We spent the first week in France, in Brittany. It was lovely.
This was the house we stayed in.
Please excuse my blurry pictures, some were taken with my phone.





9 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, lots of space, wireless internet.
It was great, and a great location, it was especially great because the kids each had their own room, and for some reason the jet lag made the sleep in until about 9 EVERY DAY! It was so awesome! It really doesn't get better that having your kids sleep for 12-14 hours at night.

The First Few Days

The first few days were spent eating, seeing, and doing.
We went to Oddie's to satisfy the craving for greasy savories, to Ashoka for the longest Indian meal EVER (where Andrew slept on the floor the whole time, and Juliette acted as if she'd had a red bull), to the Trafford Centre to shop for a suitable shirt for Andrew to wear at the wedding, and all sorts of other things that were the norm when we lived there. We even went to Costco.
Juliette helped Eddie and David work on the VW. She even stole Eddie's snack.




Friday, and Henry's wedding came way too soon. I was set to do the brides hair, and had to get up early to go to the hotel. Edward was left to get the kids ready, and deal with all the mayhem that went on back at Heightside. We were supposed to leave from the reception to drive to France.
The wedding was beautiful, not that I saw much of it, because Juliette wanted desperately to sit with Edward on the stand, but I was there for the important part, the sealing. Andrew did a great job walking down the aisle as part of the bridal party, and Juliette was as cooperative as a toddler can be.




It was an extremely long day for all of us, unfortunately I don't have a picture of Edward when he fell asleep while holding a sleeping Juliette, while we were waiting for the reception to start. There is a picture somewhere, I'm just not the one who took it.
It was a good day, and we managed to cram a ton into it.
We left the reception, went back to Heightside (if you're wondering, that's the name of David and Janet's house), packed the cars, and set off for Dover, and the ferry.

I Should Have Blogged About This Already

Our Trip was FABULOUS!
It started out with a few little hiccups, our check in agent had never checked in an infant on an international flight, and after trying to check in for 45 minutes, I was able to meet Edward at security, and we made it to the gate with only a few minutes to spare. At least when you don't have time to sit around the terminal, the kids don't have time to get dirty or bored, and you aren't tempted to buy any $14 muffins.



Our first flight to JFK was wonderful, both kids were extremely well behaved.
Our lay over in JFK was gross, because JFK is a gross airport, we won't be flying thru there again.
Our second flight was as good as the first one, if not BETTER! It wasn't full, so we had two rows to ourselves. This allowed us to each child to lay down and sleep almost the whole second flight. When we arrived in Manchester everyone, but me, had had at least 4 hours sleep, Juliette and Andrew probably had more like 6, and everyone was in good spirits when we got off the plane.