Winter Wonderland

Grandma and Grandpa surprised us with a visit this week! We are so happy they are here, Gabriella has been in heaven, as you can see below!

 I thought I was enjoying France before, but it doesn't even compare to how much fun it is now that Christmas has arrived!

 Grenoble has been transformed to a winter wonderland. There are Christmas markets all over the city with tons of fun stuff. The vendors have everything from cheese to clothes. We are loving Christmas here!

 There are no words for the picture below, she is just having a ton of fun. We also had our first snow fall this week and it was beautiful. 

These are a few of the candies vendors are selling at the market.

 We took a quick day trip back to Annecy yesterday, the snow was so pretty!

Winter has finally arrived here, but despite the cold, we are loving every minute of the season! 

Party Animal

Gabriella had a party with a few of her friends on Saturday night! Let me tell you, this girl is going to be trouble!! She loved having friends at her house.

 We played lots of games, and had a ton of fun. Gabriella laughed all night!

 Finally we had to settle everyone down and put on a movie, mickey mouse of course!

I think Gabriella would have stayed up all night if we'd let her. By 10:00 though, she was wearing thin, as you can see by the blank stare in this picture! We had tons of fun and can't wait to have everyone over again!

For the love of bread

 Well Gabriella hasn't picked up too many French habits, except for the love of bread! 

 In fact every time we go to the store, I pick up our flute first, and as you can see, she eats while I shop. I can't go to the store now with out picking up a flute, or she cries and points to where they are in the store. So funny.

 Today Gabriella wanted to dress just like Mommy. She had to wear her boots and her necklace. Too cute!!

She is such a little super model she poses for every picture now!

A Little Stir Crazy

It has been raining like crazy here all week, and Trevor was in a bike accident last weekend, so we have been  staying at home a lot this last week. At times I think we were all a little stir crazy so we had to have some fun with the camera. Trevor is starting to feel better. He is ok, he hurt his left leg really bad. He still can't walk too well on it. We're just lucky he didn't get hurt worse! 

 We bought an advent calendar to count down the days until we get to come home. Gabriella looks real happy about it in the picture below. She is actually having a lot of fun with it. The first day she ripped the door open and ate the chocolate before I could even taste it!

 It finally stopped raining today!!! So we got out and enjoyed the sun. There was some kind of protest going on by the park, but they had a band playing, so Gabriella and I enjoyed the music.

The picture below is of another band that was playing downtown today, I think everyone was happy it wasn't raining. 

 Since Trevor has been in bed most of the week, it's Gabriella's favorite place to play.

She keeps her dad company while he is slowly getting better.

Fall Time Fun

We have been having lots of fun this fall. Gabriella is all over the place! She loves to run now, and tries to jump but she can't quite get off the ground yet.  She learned lots of animal noises and she is jabbering all the time!

As you can tell from this video we are missing these faces like crazy over here!!

Our Copper and Coco are probably happy they don't have a toddler chasing them around the house anymore. But we sure miss them!

Random

Grenoble's Prefecture

 Trevor and Gabriella decided to have some fun with the electrical tape the other morning.

 At first Gabriella thought it was really fun, then she realized it would hurt if she pulled it off.

 Here mom, you take it. She decided it wasn't so fun after all.

As we were walking around downtown the other day, Trevor found Mary Poppins herself. We tried to chase her down to see if she would watch Gabriella, but she just disappeared right after we took this picture?!

Who doesn't love a chocolate eclare?

Getaway

Trevor finally had a day off this last weekend, so we jumped at the chance to have a mini vacation! We rented a car and drove to a few places we've been wanting to see. First up is the pont du gard, which is an old aquaduct that was built in 50 b.c. It was amazing to see, and Gabriella had tons of fun running around.

 Next is the city of Carcassonne, which is an old walled city that was built in the 4th century. It was amazing!

 The moat is still carved out, as you can see below. There is only one entrance to the city, through the draw bridge of course. This town was so much fun, it felt like we walked into a movie.

 I think Gabriella enjoyed this town more than Trevor and I. She ran around like it was a big playground.

 Next, we went to Nimes, which also was a beautiful city. We toured the arena, which is the most well preserved colosseum. Once again Gabriella loved it because she could climb up and down the stairs.

We made it home last night, and now Gabriella loves to set up the camera and take pictures of herself. She posed for a few last night with her dad!