home....

Home sweet home amazing how exciting the thought of "HOME" always is...
Home, is it your mortgage, that structure that you own.. or perhaps owns you?
Is it that neighborhood that you grew up in?
Is home where your folks live, or his, or hers?
Is home where your church is?
>
Is home where your family and friends reside?
Is HOME where ever you are, as a family,


the proverbial... "home is where you hang your hat?" Home in this global community we live in, has come to be all these things...at least it has... to us.

One time we had the opportunity to be in Raleigh for ONE night, and one night only,

a few years after we'd adventured/lived THERE on an extended trip...

I can't tell you how desperately we tried to get into "our" old home...

It was after all only a hotel...

Would the staff we knew even work there anymore?

Would they remember us even if they did?

Would it have been redecorated?

Well we never found out,

for there was a "something or other" happening,

and EVERY room in the hotel was booked,

so we went to our usual standby favorite home away from home....

"The Embassy Suites".

We have lived in more Embassy Suites than any other hotel,

we've earned enough points to pay for countless weekend getaways,

and taken them all...

We are Embassy Suites snobs....

HiltonHonors members all the way baby!

Try as I might, when planning our trip to France,

I could not locate a single Embassy in all of Lyon...

and so we made a new home,

the Villa...

After leaving the Villa, or should I say

... after being evicted from our "French HOME"

... the place we hung our hats, snuggled under the sheets at night,

the place we played games, read books,

laughed, and cried, and ate amazing dinners...

after that torturous eviction, we moved into a hotel...

A French hotel...

and I did NOT wish to go... but go I did....

me, my bags, my kids and my stomach flu...

"Parisian Revenge" as apposed to Montezuma...

I finished the packing, went to see the Roman Aqueducts before officially leaving Lyon,
and moved in... into the hotel..

.Air conditioning is a great motivator when illness

and heatwave collide in YOUR time and space...

here we are at the Roman Aqueducts

just outside of Lyon!

just look at the artistry!!!!!

oo la la

romance :)

simply marvelous!

splendid to touch monuments only READ about in books...

seen in film...
and thus we finished out Adventure in France in a Mercure Hotel....

Viva la France....

Musty and needing of fresh paint, and serious spider web cleaning,

perhaps even a spray of some more TOXIC nature than normal

to kill them and keep them away...

The Mercure was to be our new.... dare I say it... "home away from home"...

"Wow, will that spider just drop on my head as I walk through the door?" Princess inquires...

we wait till the path is clear and dart in the building....

We know others have survived this place, heck...

they were the ones to tell us how horrible it is, and scare us half out of our wits;

that our grand adventure had come to ... this.

a hotel

in the country....

The hotel really must have been grand in it's hay day...

Swimming pool with a beautiful terrace full of tables overlooking it

and a restaurant/bar attached;

Spa overlooking the pool, tennis courts and table tennis...

inside overlooking the pool and terrace several pool tables all ready

looking eager indeed to be played upon,

just staring back at you with their green felt tops, patient an ready

with baskets at their six holes to catch the ball,

not to mention the proper light dangling above each one

advertising fun and laughter and memories to be made...

The whole flavorful scene looking very appealing to our children indeed...

Big kids playing pool!

don't be "Messing with Me!"

All of this looking a bit neglected.

Not the abhorrent awful "neglect" so often seen in shabby motels on the side of Route 66....

But the kind of neglected that just doesn't see what needs to be done...

Sometimes we see something so much, we just don't SEE it anymore...

Just don't see the dozens of spiderwebs,

the painting that needs to take place ;

the slow aging of a building is too young to be antique,

to modern to be trendy...

yet there they were, vacuuming, and doing their jobs...

do they never look up ? we wondered....

Hotel living is what we do....

Most people STAY at a hotel...

we do that sometimes...

but we also LIVE in hotels,

something most people never do...

though I have met some in my day...

Living in hotel after hotel, you learn it's rhythm, it's ways...

Like living on the Love Boat you learn who is who,

but usually ONLY after you are in your 3rd week... not before...

Before that, you are just another face in a sea of faces...

They are kind, and may treat you like YOU are special,

but you are just you...

and there are so many "you's" that are all being treated the same way,

how would you know?

Its week 3 that does it every time...

Even in Vieux Lyon it was in middle of our third week that the street musicians really SAW us, it was in middle of our 3rd that the Baker's staff wanted to know our names, and actually smiled a REAL smile and not an obligatory smile...

you can tell because the smile reaches their eyes and their souls are smiling at you.

It isn't just muscular, their face changes...

Now granted in the city, in the small neighborhood we lived in,

the change was more subtle,

but it WAS there, it was real....

and we all relished in it....

We wouldn't be staying at the Mercure long enough to know the maids, to laugh with the waiter and learn his family life...

We simply wouldn't BE here long enough to matter to the front desk staff,

or the maintenance crew...

We were "staying" at the Mercure... or sort of ... "living" ...

perhaps there is a word for the in between thing we were doing...

if there is, I don't know it...

What we did not expect to see was the apartment suites behind the building,

with patio tables and umbrellas and sliding glass doors...

yes all needing love and attention, but there none the less...

What we did not expect to see was the grassy field the kids would love to play in,

or the sidewalk that made them wish they had their scooters...

What we did not expect were the friends the children made

in the first couple hours of our arrival.

aren't they darling...

out comes the french english book to help them...

COMMUNICATE!

do you LOVE it?

i did :)

Children....how exciting was that?

No one cared now how cramped they felt, at least the children of our clan did not care...

They didn't care about anything at all,

except that they could play with the other children, play tennis, play tag, go swimming, it was for them a little vacation..

hardly one I WOULD HAVE picked,

but the one God had for them, while I rode out my illness...

because I could sit in the Air conditioning or lay down,

and watch out the big glass doors the children playing tag and practicing their french,

or try to speak some Dutch...

or what EVER they were all doing at any given moment...

It was worth the rumors of cockroaches...

I hadn't yet seen any, and rumors are simply that... rumors...

though they do make you a bit paranoid LET me tell YOU! :)

and by the way ...

JUST so you know,

WE never saw ANY! :)

What we didn't expect was to see,

evidence of a hotel undergoing a revival of sorts, even a comeback??

yes, subtle changes each day...

evidence only by watchful eyes like ours, eyes with experience...

Sure things didn't look so "glamorous" on the outside,

but there was potential here, and someone in the "in" saw it too,

and seemed to be making ALL the difference...

Right off Princess Ki made a friend, a lovely lovely girl,

whose father hit it off with my husband...

Whose father ended up being the new General Manager for the hotel,

who also was living temporarily one section down from us...

that NEW, fresh and perhaps even, that motivation behind the "difference"

we were seeing about the establishment perhaps?

The children also made friends with some great kids who were from Holland too,

and addresses were in fact exchanged :)

Indeed the Princess and her new found friend played and played,

and lunches were shared along with giggles,

like normal 9 & 10 year old girls will do... :)

they did NOT seem to mind the language barrier, and worked Hard to overcome it!

As families we went out to eat together,

even driving back to Lyon together for a day at Parc de tete d'or !

It was there, in the beautiful city park that we went on boat rides,

(isn't THIS relaxing???)can you say FROMAGE??? (cheese in French)Look at me Dad! Now THAT is the Life! Look at George!

He is having a relaxing trip indeed!

At the zoo, we
looked at funny monkeys,

and laughed and laughed at HOW silly they can be!We saw exotic birds and even saw the giraffe again! LOVE giraffes!! and many other wonderful creatures...

some exotic, some just... not!
We really enjoyed the free city zoo, and saw much more of it

this time than the other times we were there...

And a friendship was formed,
Isn't this a great photo of the kids?

Here is another surprise! Princess and the Penguin?

So many surprises, for example,

we didn't expect a friendship to form at all! :)

Certainly not a new one, THIS late in the game :)

Blessings from the Lord abound, for which we are thanful!

Here is George,our new French friend,

and his daughter is the lovely Princess Oria

(yes that is a code name... children really rather like them, and it does respect their privacy too you know :) ! )

And so our adventure continued ...

taking on a whole new perspective.. I confess to you...

I adore the French countryside..

retirement, or a yearly 3 month stint THERE would thrill me to pieces... I was thrilled with the sheer JOY of driving in the countryside,

the winding roads, the twists and turns,

and I fell madly in love with their turn arounds...

such brilliance

as I sit in the gridlock that IS American suburbia, each and every day...

waiting for green, even though traffic won't really move,

or notice the change from red to green anyways...

Oh the charm of the small villages,

oh yes the country villages,

the country roads

The

fields of sunflowers ...
the farm land so lovely and picturesque

lovely Abbeys like this one in Cremiu, oh my,

the French towns and chateau's...

Simply and utterly breathtakingly sweet...

did I mention the beautiful fields of sunflowers???

MOO to you too :)

And I say this all with a tast so bittersweet,
for my darling has dutifully brought me home,
as per my request, and he is once again relishing in our splendid finds...
Oh yes my friends, He even was there to see tour de france,
while standing in a TURN AROUND...
one I knew well, and passed by each day our waning trip lingered on...
I now understand the envious comments made to me,
and join you in the sinful debautchery of coveteousness...
How I long to hit the gas on those roads again,

many of the towns had intersections with crosses at them like this one here...

such a rememberance of a time gone by, and a faith forgotten by so many...

yet here there is no need for tearing down the past, here no need to cover up to destroy...

it is still here, a reminder, THAT isn't something we see much at home...

how I would relish to eat at at one of the excellent restaurants in Cremieu...

down town Cremieu ..

a real family favorite! here it is at night! Look up and see the watchtowers :)

How we loved to walk its streets, to explore it more deeply...

How much I longed to go to market in Morestel on a Sunday morning,

to see the delights offered there... And yet, this is what my husband is doing..

finishing my wish list of things to see... to do... to taste... to experience...

and he is doing it all with out me...

My re entry into "burbia" and its shameless display of "stripmalls"
& noxious corporate restaurants utterly LACKING in creativity,
into the daily grind of super grocery stores and costco's;
into caring for my home, rushing children to and from activities; is not, can I confess to you? NOT without it's bumpy landings...
We eat at the wrong times;
are tired at the wrong times,
still we are thrilled to be home among family, among friends;
and yet there is a part,
that misses the adventure,
that misses the rhythm we had gotten into as a family,
that misses the french countryside,
the french roads,
the french culture, and it's quiet, unrushed ways...
I didn't expect that when packing 4 months ago... I simply did not...

We do trips all the time, and always...

ALWAYS God does a work in us, individually, corporatly...

we always come back changed, grown, moved, and motivated...
and this time, with the rush of Rob's leaving to head back,

we feel somehow in limbo, so much to do, and yet so little time...

Summer rushing away, and a home, a life to reclaim...

all before the start of the NEXT school year, all before the start of the next adventure...

Because every day is another opportunity, you know..

everyday I wake up breathing is an adventure...

And when I lie awake at night, I can only thank God for that days adventure... big or small..

I can only thank HIM, for the air I breath,

hurt feelings mended

boo boo's kissed and made better,

a kitchen clean, and for flowers planted;

for family seen and loved, for friends who just "pop by",

I can only thank him, even for this longing,

even for the time alone as a "single" parent flying solo,

waiting for my best friends return...

yes I can only thank the Lord for the day...

and pray about tomorrows... because
every day is an adventure.....

be it frightening,

exciting,

relaxing

or taxing...

with God on our side...

EVERY day is an adventure..

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

and blessings to YOU...

have yourself a merry adventure today!