Older Pictures

Here are a few older pictures from when we first arrived in France.

You know you're in France when...

Smoking is EVERYWHERE, I mean everywhere. You gotta love it when the tram doors are closing they hurry and suck down as much as they can. You especially know they're French when the pregnant women are smoking and they give you a dirty look for moving your baby away from their disgusting second hand smoke. Just wanted to give you all a laugh for the day!

La Peche

 Some of our new friends showed us a park we didn't know about this week and Gabriella is in heaven there. It's by the natural history museum here in Grenoble. In the picture above Gabriella is checking out the ducks, she tried to climb over the small fence, but wasn't successful.

 She loves these bouncy toys, as you can see by the huge grin she has on her face!

Well everyone knows that sweets are my weakness and living in France is not helping my bad habits. So let me introduce my new best friend and worst enemy! La peche (the peach), the bakery that is just a few blocks away from our house makes these and they are the best thing I have ever tasted!!

First of all it comes wrapped up like a present!

There it is my biggest weakness, and in case you were wondering of course it's filled with yummy cream!

Finally!

I can't honestly not believe it, but the internet at our house is finally working! To make a long story short, when we first signed up for service, they told us someone had to come to the apartment to install the phone line they said it would be 3-21 days before we'd have the internet at home. Well here we are 45 days later and 3 appointments that they never showed up for and all of sudden, it just started working. I don't understand these crazy people!
Anyways, we love our new apartment. We are the first ones to live in it, who would have thought we move to one of the oldest cities and end up in a brand new apartment?!

Here is our living room and kitchen. Don't mind the white white walls, our landlord said he didn't want to paint now and just have tenants ruin the paint. Lol, gotta love the French people.

 And my new clothes dryer. Lol it's not so bad, our clothes always smell fresh.

Here is a closer picture of our kitchen. Which I love. The stove is induction, which is just about the most amazing way to cook ever! It boils water in less than 30 seconds. I love it!!

On to more important things, Gabriella is doing great here. She is enjoying her new life, we ride the buses and trams to a new park just about everyday. She can't get enough of the parks lately.

 Yesterday I told Gabriella we were going to go to the store and that she needed to go get in her stroller. I went back into my room to grab my shoes and came out to find her with the shopping bag, pushing her baby's stroller, and her blanket wrapped around her all ready to go. She is so funny!

 Gabriella and myself can't get enough of the French pastries. It's a good thing I have to walk everywhere or else I would have doubled my weight by now!

 Crazy kid, her hair has gotten sooo long! She is growing up so fast. She has also gotten a few new teeth since we left.

This is the look I get when we ride the trams, it is fun for about 2 minutes and then Gabriella is ready to get off and do something more fun.

Overall we're doing really well. School is going well for Trevor, keeping him very busy. But we are enjoying living in France. The French are a different group of people, but we have met lots of nice people. Now that we have the internet at home, I will post more often and keep everyone updated.

Oh La La, Picture overload

The picture of Gabriella above explains how we are all feeling! We are loving life in France, but we are so overhwelmed. Life is so different here, let's just say the French do thing their way and when they want to do it. But we are having so much fun. Here are a few pics of what we have been doing.

The picture of above is of a park and castle by our house. It is so nice to visit, the park is huge and the castle is beautiful. Gabriella loves going to feed the swans, they eat right out of your hands!!

This is a fountain downtown Grenoble, it is a beautiful city!

These are pictures of Annecy, France. Which is one of the prettiest citites in the world!

These pics are at our apartment, it is so nice. We lucked out, it is brand new and we love it!

The picture below is in Geneva Switerzland, we didn't stay long, but it was sooo nice. All I have to say about Switerland is that it is expensive. We had to pay 40 euro just to get into the country. They gave us a sticker for our car to use their freeways. Well, we didn't think to keep the sticker since it was a rental car and then we found out that it is good for a year. So now if we want to go back to Switzerland, we'll have to pay 40 euro again. We are learning a lot of things the hard way, but it is a ton of fun!!

I know I am way behind on blogging, we don't have the internet at home yet. They are coming on Monday to install it, and then they said it will take 3 to 21 days before it will work. Who knows with the French, they are crazy. Today we were riding the tram into downtown and the driver came on and said we are done for the morning, you will have to walk the rest of the way. I didn't know that France was on strike today, so my mom, Gabriella and I walked the rest of the 2 miles downtown. You never know what you are going to get when you leave the house here. I guess that's what makes life interesting. I will try to keep updating as best I can, until then a bientot!

Dress Up Sunday

This last Sunday Gabriella wanted to wear her birthday skirt and we thought it was the perfect day to take a couple cute pictures.

She is growing up way too fast, I can hardly keep up with her anymore.

And as if she wasn't cute enough before, she found her great grandpa's hat and had to pose for more pictures.

She LOVES her cousins, as you can see in her smile below.

Mackenzie took great pictures of everyone playing in the grass!

Last but not least, the big news. We are officially moving to Grenoble France.

We fly out in less than 2 weeks. Trevor starts school on September 13th. We are so excited and nervous for this big change. If anyone has some advice on moving internationally, or taking a one year on a 10 hour flight, we would love to hear it!! I will try to keep the blog updated so everyone can see Gabriella growing!!

Updates

Well, it has been awhile. Gabriella has grown like crazy. She is loving the summer!!

At her last doctor's appointment, she hadn't gained very much weight, she has just gotten a lot taller. She is in the 25% for her weight, and the 50% for her height. She is a super healthy little girl and we are so thankful for that!

We sold our house in May, in preparation for Trevor going back to school for his MBA. He has been accepted to 5 different schools in Europe, but we choose Grenoble school of management. We will be moving to Grenoble, France at the beginning of September. As long as we get our French visas next week.

Gabriella loves to eat right now. Her favorite foods are scrambled eggs, pasta with Alfredo sauce, mac and cheese, string cheese, fruit snacks, and Popsicles with daddy! Her favorite thing to do right now is run around. She gets soo mad if you try to make her do anything. Everything has to be her way or no way right now. She says lots of things now such as mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, papa, I got it, no, yes, and lots more!

Gabriella has been having swimming lessons this summer, she is so funny about it. She loves to get in the pool and then she is ready to get back out and run around. She hated it when we dunked her under the water.