Heading home, or to our France home anyway

Just a quick note to say we are safely back in France, and will head to Paris this morning to meet up with some wonderful family friends, Kathy and Alex, and then all head back to our little village tonight. All of us enjoyed Ireland -- and with the exception of Liv, all of us said we'd like to go back some day. Livie gave no reason for her opinion, but expressed it confidently and with great conviction (no surprise there). I will post all the great pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

We are excited for the visit with Kathy and Alex. They arrived in France last week (I met them at the airport to help guide through that foggy-just-off-the-airplane chaos), got over jetlag, and then (with a bit of guidance from us (mostly John) on how to use the subway, etc.) have been exploring Paris.  We will show them around Burgundy the next few days and then we will all take a trip to the French Alps, including Mont Blanc, together.

I used to think of Kathy and Alex only as "my parents' friends" -- because they were. They lived in the same small Colorado town where I grew up, had sons who are a bit younger than I am, were involved in many of the same activities my family was (church, Boy Scouts, etc), and were always nice and good to talk to -- but not much more (at least for the teen-aged me).

As I left for university, Alex's work took them first to Arizona and then far north to Ft. McMurray, Alberta. They would always come back to visit Woodland Park, though, and usually stayed with my parents during these long visits. They hoped to one day return there... but it took a while, and on the way back, they spent a few years in Calgary -- right after the girls were born.

And that's when they became our friends, too. It started when we had to go up to Calgary to register Kate and Liv's birth at the American consulate there (and we had to do that right away to get them passports to fly to my brother's wedding celebration). Traveling with eight-week-old twins was a bit stressful, but they welcomed us into their home and took care of all of us, young and old. Over the next two years, whenever John had a conference that would take him out of town for a few days (and if neither of our parents could come up to visit), the five of us would travel to Calgary to visit Kathy and Alex, where John could go off to work and the kids and I could visit the science centre, the zoo, parks and more, while receiving a lot of help along the way.

Two years ago, Kathy and Alex got to return to Woodland Park at last -- so now we visit them there, or in Lethbridge when they come north, and now in France. And, just like old times, they will be helping me with the kids later this week when John goes to Lyon for a few days for work (you don't think I'd let them come to France and just relax, do you?).

Over the years, John and I have talked about how lucky our kids (and we) are to have so many people like them in their (and our) lives. In Lethbridge, in Montana, in Colorado, in the Pacific NW, and now in Japan and France and England, there are people of all ages who *like* them, listen to them, care about them, and want to hear their stories.

I keep thinking (hoping?) that maybe some of this love will ease the way during the tough years -- that when they are teenagers and believe John and I don't know ANYTHING, well, there will be a lot of other wonderful people they can turn to who *might* know just a little something. And maybe that will help.

(Yes, all of you who have HAD teenagers can just laugh away at this point, just like you did when I proclaimed pre-kids that I will *never* use television as a babysitter for my children.)

At any rate, at this point, we are very happy to have Kathy and Alex here, and to show them around beautiful Burgundy. We are also very glad to be getting back to our France home. As always, I like traveling, but I like coming "home" even more.