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Wow.. time flies when you're having a great time!  As of today we have been living here for a month 😬 WOW! Is it weird that I almost feel a panic coming on...? I have so many things I want to do still and I find myself wanting to do it all at once as if i'm going to miss out! We had a car for the first week but then for the past three weeks we have been living by bike. This has meant that we ride with the kids to school and back and I don't jet out in the evening for groceries because it's way too dark to go on our road at night by bike. Getting groceries from the local store means stopping my shopping when the little basket is feeling heavy because I need to carry it on my back on the way home. It has meant that I think about everything I am buying (only groceries, a few bus tickets and biking gloves for the kids).  Today Jeff and I went to the neighbouring town by bus to pick up a rental car that we will have for almost a month. I'm excited to have a little mo

Over the past two weeks we have experienced so much kindness from this sweet village. Our landlord, the teachers at the kids' schools, random people on the street, the sweet employees at the town supermarket.. the list goes on. In all of our travels I'm not sure I have ever been somewhere where everyone says hello on the street like they do here, it's so inviting and comforting. I know it is still early but I am so thankful for all of the little things that have helped us to feel welcome. A little more about the kids' schools: E is in a class with 3 and 5 year olds and we have 10 minutes where the gate to the school is open. You drop off your child in their classroom and take their backpack and jacket to another hallway where you also check off whether or not they will be having the cantine lunch or not. If your child is crying too much for you to escape before the gate closes they have to buzz you out :-p This may or may not have happened a few times. Poor little ga

It has been one week exactly since we stepped on French soil and what an adjustment it has been! Jeff and I were hit pretty hard with jet lag and then came the coughs and colds for both Jeff and I. Jeff sadly had it a lot worse than I did :(  Thankfully the kids have miraculously stayed healthy through it all!  We both are on the upswing and hopefully will be feeling great in no time.  School The kids all started school on Monday morning at 8:30. The boys attend the elementary school (grades 1-5) and E attends la maternelle (3, 4 and 5 year olds). I'm not sure if it is common in all kindergarten classes in France but here they mix the 3, 4 and 5 year olds so that the older ones can help out. Thankfully the two schools are about 30 meters apart. The school day starts at 8:30 and ends at 4:30 but there is a two hour break from classroom activities for lunch and playing. For lunch they head to the cantine where a lovely well balanced meal is served! We pay for this but it'

Here we are... we have arrived in the South of France! Thankfully the trip over wasn't too eventful yet sadly I think each of us only got about 2-3 hours of sleep within the 24 hours of travel. The boys don't seem too effected by the time change but E is waking up once a night and Jeff is not sleeping well at all. Hopefully we will be back to our regular sleeping schedule in a few days :)  We rented a car in Marseille when we arrived and Jeff had the pleasure of driving the speedy roads and roundabouts to our place an hour away. Yesterday and today we have spent time testing out our bikes, checking out the village (a small village of 2,200 inhabitants), settling into our new house, and chatting with our landlord. It has been great to use my French skills! If my UVIC French teachers are reading this, merci!  The kids are a little nervous about starting school on Monday but I think they will do well, and I'm ready to have some downtime of my own. We had a look