What do we miss?

We are often asked about what we miss from home...Goldfish is my first response!  It's a funny thing, those silly little cheddar crackers!  We really try to eat primarily fresh whole foods and very little out of the box, but we still miss Goldfish!  There is nothing quite like that here.

It's funny though, one day we will live somewhere else and will have a whole new list of things that we miss from our time here!

For example, the cocoa here is so dark and rich... Why anyone would prefer Hershey's, I do not know, except that you haven't experienced anything different.  Have you ever heard of speculoos?  It's kind of like graham crackers (which we can't get here) but better!  It is darker in color and a richer flavor.  You can buy speculoos ice cream, cookies, crumbs for baking and even comes in a jar like peanut butter.  Trader Joe's has a product that I've tasted, cookie butter, that must be the same.  It's pretty much sugar in a jar--something I wouldn't personally buy, but YUM!

Oh and the dark brown sugar.  It's nothing like our American brown sugar.  It's so dark and rich and full of flavor.  I made my first batch of cookies with it and they were the best cookies I think I've ever made!

Are you hungry yet?

We sure are missing some of our usual Mexican products and that is a tough one.  For now we will just get our Mexican food fix at a cute Mexican restaurant in centre.  We met there for lunch today and it was delicious!

Always nice to have a lunch date with Jeremy too :)

Back in the Swing

We are finally feeling back to normal on our usual schedule with school for the kids and for me, my social agenda!  This week, I started private lessons with a French tutor.  It brings back many fond memories of French class in high school.

A big highlight of our week was getting a package from Nana!  Among all of the goodies, Blakely is SO happy to have new playdoh.

The weather is pretty Seattle-like in that is rains often and is overcast a lot.  That said, if I were in Seattle, I would consider this a very good fall/winter compared to most.  We have some really great indoor pools here in Lux and often this is our Friday activity of choice.  We are lucky to get the pool almost to ourselves on Friday afternoons because all of the other kids are in school!  We are blessed to have a private school that allows us to elect our half days.

In the family pool, Colden loves the floating boats... You can also see a big black slide that runs outside of the building in the background... This is the best.  They boys climb two stories up to ride it down laughing and racing over and over.  We usually spend 30-45 minutes just on the slide.

I love how this pool was designed for young families... You can't see it here, but there is a family bathroom right next to the baby pool which is as warm as bath water.  They set out a basket of water toys for kids to use freely.

And if you have a baby who just needs to stay dry, a playpen!

That's what we are up to!!

My favorite thing about Lux

You can find something good in every city or town that you live... I usually find many things that I like in all of the places that I've lived.  But, the people you meet can make it really great.

For me, I met this super cute, super fun gal, Ariane, with two sweet little boys who live a stones throw from my house.  Scott is mentionable too :). He is kind and complimentary and always fun to be around!  Ariane has been such a great friend to explore Lux with, endure the long weeks when our husbands travel and endless play dates with our boys!  Next week, she is moving to Seattle and I will really miss her!

Of course there was a party!  I hosted a little brunch for her this week.. It was a fun and I am so happy to have met a few more of her friends!

Ariane said to me today... "This is not over". So sweet, agreed!  I now know how some of my friends felt when I moved.  I can't say that I really experienced that much before.  We (even growing up) were always the one's who moved.

We will look forward to our next visit, vacation together,  or whatever life brings!  Until then, you and your family will be missed!

Bonne année 2014

Happy New Year!

I have been anxious to start blogging regularly again, and that is just what I plan to do now that we made it through the busy holiday season and our schedule has turned to normal this week!

We are so excited and are feeling so incredibly blessed to have another year of adventure ahead.  This life here is such a dream for me and we plan on fulfilling some of our travel dreams this year as well.  I will do better at blogging more often, so please subscribe or check back often to see what we are up to!

We celebrated the end of 2013 with a trip to Paris.  I love Paris.  Probably due to my French language and history studies in my younger years.  I've been many times and it never disappoints.  In fact, I think it's better every time I go.  I think of it mostly as a romantic city.  So, this trip was a bit different!  We took the Martins (Jeremy's parents) and the boys.

This was the Martins first time in Paris (Robert's first trip out of the USA!!).

We didn't attempt to see everything, but we were sure not to miss a few favorite sites such as La Tour Eiffel, Cathédrale Notre Dame (below), Louvre (from the impressive exterior) and Jardin des Tuileries.

After soaking in the 850 year old cathedral, we strolled through Saint Germain, maybe my favorite area of Paris past the cute cafés, fancy pâtissiers and Paris fashion to Jardin du Luxembourg.  It was a bit disappointing to see the gardens dormant for winter, but the kids playground that we came to find made up for that!  We played for almost 2 hours before we felt the first few drops of rain.

We managed to wake up to another dry day in Paris!  We headed to the Eiffel Tower and then rested our feet on a Seine River Cruise.

We enjoyed some quite good café food near Musée du Louvre where the boys (also first-timers in Paris) were thrilled to get some little Eiffel Tower souvenirs and we took lots of pictures!