April, Come She Will

April has been a really full month for us and a real turning point in settling in to life in Paris, our third month here.  The church plant at Ternes fully launched, and new acquaintances are becoming friends.  And perhaps most telling that we are settling into the daily routines of life and work was the little wave of homesickness I felt this week.  Maybe it was the pollen that went flying off the trees when the wind blew that put me in mind of spring in the south and the thick coating of yellow-green that settles over every surface.  

Meanwhile, here's what April was like for us in Paris.

April 1 - We went out early Sunday morning to a small park I'd found earlier in the week that was filled with blossoms to take some family Easter pictures.

April 2 - On a walk with friends from church I learned that muskrats have orange teeth.  They seem almost alien!

April 3 - I started making use of our host's espresso machine with the milk frother.  Hot, frothy milk is a delight.

April 5 - We spent an afternoon with a family in a suburb of Paris where all these blues caught my eye.  Can you spy the French flag?

April 6 - I love how these new leaves look almost like flowers.

April 7 - We spent a lot of Saturdays at the library this month where the kids attended writing workshops.  I really like this poster.

April 8 - The combination of French and a prosaic English name made me laugh.

April 9 - Seeing my kids reading always makes me happy.

April 10 - If it's more of a sedentary day homeschooling the kids, I've tried to go out for a little walk in the evening.  The cherry blossoms made April so beautiful.

April 11 - Isn't this park absolutely gorgeous?  We went in the evening twice this month, once after supper and once for a picnic.

April 12 - The kids were in the back playing with K.J., I was tired, and it was quiet, so I did some comfort-watching:  Sense and Sensibility.

April 13 - This was our blue-sky view the evening we had our picnic in the park.

April 14 - Black and whites of the city really make the architecture stand out.

April 15 - We now have a full month of services at the church plant behind us!  It's been wonderful to meet new people there.

April 16 - The evening light was beautiful when I went out to go to the store.

April 17 - Those blossoms were just killing it.

April 18 - I visited a big grocery store, and they had these massive leaves of aloe vera in the produce section, something I'd never before seen.

April 19 - The cheese aisle is filled with every kind of cheese possible.  Still, James requests that "orange, smooth cheese."

April 20 - Lua arrived, and we took her on a walk through Tuileries to help her stay awake.  Aren't the tulips bright and beautiful?

April 21 - Walking back from a book exchange with ladies from church I discovered some wisteria.  I love it.

April 22 - Waiting in line for ice cream after church last Sunday; it was another gorgeous day!

April 23 - Sometimes a boy just wants to do math in bed.

April 24 - When James saw this picture he said, "I look like a teenager!"  He is growing tall.

April 25 - This is our friendly indifferent neighborhood cat.

April 26 - There's a little park near the American Embassy that's a good destination when I just need to stretch my legs before bed.  I spotted these white tulips there last week.

April 27 - It seems like every picture is one I took on the way to the grocery store, because I am constantly going to the grocery store here.  I thought it would be nice to sit and read for a minute before making it to the store, but I wasn't on the bench 5 minutes before a breeze swept through this tree, covering my black pants in pollen.

April 28 - The windowboxes are lovely this time of year.

April 29 - We were really excited last night coming home from church because we've always wanted to get off at Franklin D. Roosevelt because it has such a fun, 1940s vibe to it, but we've never had a reason to until then.

April 30 - See ya, April!

"April, come she will

when streams are ripe 

and swelled with rain..."

- Simon and Garfunkel - 

April is definitely sending us off with rain and cold today.  Hopefully it's been more pleasant wherever you are.

Friday Favorites, vol. iv

This week I'm loving...

1.  this acoustic cover of A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman

It's good morning music.

2. YouTube videos

This is a funny one for me because when YouTube first came on the scene I was vehemently against wasting my time watching people be stupid on the internet, but now it's the home of so many really smart and creative people helping me explain particle accelerators to my kids...and to me!  This week I started using it to supplement history, too.  We were reading about the first kings of England this week, and we all liked this one.

3.  re-reading Flavia de Luce books

I got behind reading new books in this series, so I started re-reading ones I've already previously read to have the stories fresh in my mind.  They're so good I accidentally read three in three days this past week.  If you like cozy British mysteries and precocious young female protagonists, these are for you.  Alan Bradley is master of a good simile.

4.  going to bed earlier

Part of why I could read three books in three days was I abandoned my before bed TV habit for a before bed reading habit and consequently fell asleep earlier.  I like watching TV, but I also like being a happier human the next day.  What to do...

5.  getting to spend my days learning history and science

I was just watching yet another YouTube video about the phases of matter with the kids (we've gotten into a routine of reading about a topic, then searching for a video that goes along with it), and it hit me, "I get to spend my days learning about history and science.  This is amazing."  I love history.  My brain doesn't compute science as well; I can't comprehend so much of what I read about the invisible world of electrons.  But I'm amazed at the people who can comprehend it and the God who created it all.  And I'm really grateful I get to learn even just a little bit more about these things.

“What intrigued me more than anything was 

finding out the way in which everything, 

all of creation—all of it!—was held together 

by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, 

inexplicable comfort  in knowing that somewhere, 

even though we couldn’t see it in our own world, 

there was real stability.”

- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley - 

Morecambe Bay, Grange-over-Sands, and Getting Lost in the Yorkshire Dales

Each week I've been going through pictures from various adventures and outings from the past year that I didn't have time to edit or record, like this rare solo-parenting adventure I had with the kids after dropping K.J. off in Morecambe at the beginning of his coast-to-coast bike ride last May.

I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day and being on the coast before making the drive back to North Yorkshire, but my specialty isn't planning things like K.J.'s is...it's making it up as I go along, which sometimes results in a few false starts, as it did on this day.  We began with a meandering walk back to the car park where we'd left our car after seeing K.J. and the other cyclists off on their journey.  

The start of the bike trail was a lot further away than K.J. had thought, so it took us longer than expected to get back to the car, by which time we had received a parking ticket.  I was upset about it, but James was so bothered by our criminal activity I had to calm down and reassure him that all was well, it was only a parking ticket.  Then came the task of deciding where to go next.  I was traveling without cash, which is always a mistake in England, and perhaps anywhere you have to pay for parking.  After spending a lot of time trying to get the pay-by-phone option to work in the small village car park we were in, we decided to look for the nearest McDonald's instead.  I didn't want to risk a second parking ticket that day.

Even McDonald's was an adventure.  The parking lot was so small and crowded that after circling it twice I finally followed the lead of a few other cars and just parked on the side of the entrance road.  I spent most of lunch trying to pick out a good coastal town to visit and finally decided upon something K.J. never would have, because it was a little out of the way.

North Yorkshire is northeast of here, but we took a little detour through the south side of the Lake District.  As a beach trip, we were unsuccessful.  We ended up at a beach with signs warning of quicksand, which can be dangerous on this coastline, so we basically waved to Morecambe Bay and hightailed it to the park and a really lovely walking trail.

Adventuring is sometimes a bit of a bust.  We had a mantra whenever we went out in North Yorkshire:  "What do we need for an adventure?"  The answers usually included happy hearts, grateful hearts, and the right shoes.  I should add pocket change to this list.

We didn't have the beach day we were after, but we did discover the most amazing trees on our walk to the town in search of refreshment.  We walked because there was no way we were leaving the parking space we were able to pay for by card.

It really was such a gorgeous day.  You could feed the ducks, and the grass was a carpet of daisies.  We found a cafe and cold drinks, Millionaire Shortbread for the kids and a quiche for me.

There were a couple of trees in England that had colored leaves in the spring, and I thought they were such a beautiful contrast to all the new greens.

The journey home from here should have been straightforward, but of course it wasn't with me in the driver's seat.  I missed a turn, and so instead of skirting the Yorkshire Dales National Park we went right through it in all its winding glory.  It was a glorious evening all around, but we were in the middle of nowhere, and at one point on a narrow track that was barely a road, up and down hills, making the kids carsick.  Everyone was tired and hungry, but on the bright side, we also stumbled on the remains of a castle connected with King Arthur.  Getting lost in England has its advantages.

 Where are we?

It wasn't a perfectly planned adventure, but I loved it anyway.  As you can see, even getting lost, I kept stopping to take pictures because it was a beautiful detour.  I think we all ate chips for dinner and went soundly to our slumber when we arrived home.