Getting Ready...France here I come!

When I was 16, I took a two week trip to France with a group of other students and our French teacher. We had lots of fun the first week - visiting Paris, traveling to Rouen, Honfleur, St. Malo and Tours, hanging out, goofing off, and generally making our teacher think we were drunk the entire time. (We weren't, I promise...well, most of us weren't...there was this one instance with one of the guys who forgot the "only one glass of wine with dinner" rule, and we all worked together remarkably well to hide that situation from our teacher.) The second week we were there, we were each placed in a homestay. That is how I came to meet Gaelle, Guillaume, Kristine and Michel - my French family. I enjoyed staying with the immensely, and have since gone back to visit once for a week and once for a day (side trip from London). Gaelle stayed with us for a week and a half right after my husband and I got back from our honeymoon, and we most recently visited her, Guillaume and Gaelle's fiancé, Adrien, down in LA at the end of their Canada/US road trip.

At this time tomorrow, I will be beginning my first solo trip since I have been married to go witness the marriage of Gaelle and Adrien about 20 minutes outside of Paris. I am so looking forward to it!

Before I could go though, I had about a gazillion things to take care of. First, there will be one birthday party while I'm gone, and one that begins almost the minute I will step off the plane when I get home. We are going to try to stop by (mostly to keep me from falling asleep), so I have to have gifts done.

The first gift is for Wyatt, whose 2nd birthday I will miss, but who will probably be at the second birthday party. I went with a simple monster themed gift - monster pajamas, a little monster stuffed toy, and a crocheted beanie hat with horns. I got the horn pattern here.

 

The second gift is for Darren, who will be celebrating his 1st birthday the day I get back. For his gift, I went with a football theme - football/sport pajamas, a little soft football toy, and a crocheted football helmet hat. I got the pattern for the hat here, but had to do some adjusting to make it a little bigger than 0-6 months. Mostly, I just made the earflap circle bigger, and made more rows, while trying to keep the size ratios the same. I like how it turned out.

 



 While I'm on the first 10.5 hour flight (ugh), I have plans to make two of my textured infinity scarves - one for Gaelle and one for her mom. I also made them two simple little bracelets with Space Needle charms, and included a couple of recent family pictures in their gifts. I haven't gotten anything for the guys yet, but I'm thinking a little Seahawks something or other - you know, introduce them to American football :)

At this point, other than finish packing all the stuff I will still need to use tomorrow before I leave, I'm just waiting for Gaelle and Adrien's wedding gift (a Waterford "Our First Christmas" ornament) to arrive - fingers crossed on it showing up today!

Now, I'm off to spend the rest of naptime relaxing before my dad shows up to take us all out to dinner for James' birthday (which was 2 weeks ago). Yay for not having to cook!

So, until I return next week - Au revoir!

**UPDATE: Apparently, by relaxing, I meant hurriedly cleaning the house and taking pictures so I can show my French family. And by cleaning, I mean moving things out of sight of the camera lens :) On the plus side, the wedding gift arrived - hurray! Now, I can relax!**