The New Year has arrived and with it, a chance to look back at the exciting Christmas week holiday we spent with one of our children who came to visit us in Angers. It was a fun week and we kept busy, despite it being bitterly cold and each of us getting mildly sick with
The holidays look a lot different this year and we’re not entirely sure how to feel about it. In the past, we’ve cut down our Christmas tree and decorated it with ornaments that we’ve collected over decades. We decorate the house. We make mountains of cookies and share them with our friends and family. We
The Christmas Market season is upon us and we walked through one of them recently in downtown Angers, complete with a Ferris Wheel, mulled wine and hot cocoa, traditional French foods like tartiflette and crêpes, roasted chestnuts, and a variety of gift items and handmade goods for sale. While not as spectacular as the Christmas
We have so much to be thankful for, living in the lovely Loire Valley in France. We count our blessings in all of these areas: Though we are missing our friends and family in the U.S., we hope that each of you are able to share time, meals, and traditions this week with those you
Quelle heure est-il? “What time is it?” Simple question, right? Not when you are learning French. The struggle to learn how to write and talk about the time of day is the frustrating experience that seems like it might break us right now, as there is unexpectedly so much nuance to learn about it. Expressions
Six months ago yesterday, we landed in France, full of hope and excitement for the adventure ahead. While the road has been bumpy at times, France has largely delivered a satisfying experience for us and we’re happy to have enjoyed it so far. We’ve made a few purchases lately to enhance our French living experience.
France changed from daylight savings time this past weekend and for the first time, our evening activities this week have happened in the twilight/dark. Greg snapped this lovely photo of the Cathédrale Saint-Maurice d’Angers on Sunday looking beautiful while the bells tolled on our way to dinner at a friend’s house. This was definitely an
I find myself posting less these days, not because there aren’t good and interesting things happening — there are, in fact we are working on a couple of new things that we’ll share soon. I think this is happening because living in France has become less like a “what adventure are we going to have
As mentioned recently in another post about our fall activities, we’re making a committed effort to increase our ability to speak and understand French. We’ve been taking French lessons twice weekly for the last three weeks. I can’t lie — it’s hard! Our teacher is tough and very focused on giving us a solid foundation
Yesterday was a day that epitomized what we hoped France would be like. We got up to a cool fall morning with some rain that ended by 10am, so the day was fresh. We hopped on the quiet and half empty tram (a novelty in a city with 45,000 university students) to go downtown to