Another relatively unexciting weekend for us, with one notable exception. Saturday was rainy and lazy, the kind of day when you look out the windows and think it is in the 50s and are surprised to step outside and find it is actually near 70. Sunday was much better, approaching hot in the afternoon with big, warm gusts of wind. We power washed the pool cover for the second time – it is always a two-step process to get the winter crap off and prevent a build up of spring pollen – and did some other outdoor work before having the in-laws over for dinner.<\/p>\n
Oh, Sunday was also the day we suddenly had two 20-something kids in the family. Or I should say ladies, more properly. It was C\u2019s chance to age out of teen-dom. She got a special Starbucks order in the morning, she picked the dinner choice for the evening. Otherwise she had a fairly chill birthday.<\/p>\n
The big family event of the weekend was M getting on a plane Friday afternoon and heading to France for two months. Her flights were uneventful and we got a text just after 4:00 AM Saturday telling us she had made it to Paris. It worked out really well that one of her current roommates, sorority sisters, and best friends just happens to be one of her roommates in France. And lives 10 minutes from us here in Indy. So they flew from here to Detroit and Detroit to Paris together.<\/p>\n
After working through immigration they grabbed an Uber to head to the main train station. She sent us videos of driving around the Arc de Triomphe and near the Eiffel Tower. Once at the train station they chilled for a couple hours before the nearly three-hour trip to Nantes, their home for the next seven weeks.<\/p>\n
Sunday afternoon (our time) M FaceTimed us and gave us a video tour of the Air BNB where they are staying. She loves it and the area they are in. One of her other best friends lived in it last summer, so it came highly recommended. Her only complaint was after crashing Saturday evening and sleeping well into Sunday, they discovered the grocery store nearest to them is only open for three hours on Sunday mornings. They were going to get up early and buy food this morning before their classes began.<\/p>\n
She has two other roommates. I believe one is also from UC but the other is from somewhere else outside the US. Those girls had not yet arrived when we talked to her Sunday.<\/p>\n
They are studying at the Audencia Business School. All classes are in English, which is fortunate since M speaks no French! We\u2019ll see if she picks any up over the next two months.<\/p>\n
They already have their first weekend trip planned, heading to Barcelona this coming weekend. They also get a three-day weekend as Monday is a bank holiday in France, so they\u2019ll get plenty of time to explore.<\/p>\n
I know several of you have sent your kids overseas to study and travel. I\u2019m guessing you all had the same weird feeling I had when M left. You are proud of them and trust that they are adults with a support system and will be fine. But they are also across an ocean and if anything happens and she needs us, it will not be easy to get to her. It\u2019s like sending her to college again, but in some ways not nearly as stressful while in other ways much more stressful.<\/p>\n
We are excited to follow her journey and looking forward to seeing her again in London in two months.<\/p>\n
This is L\u2019s finals week, although she has just two tests. She took over M\u2019s car while she is gone, C claimed her old car. We have a couple months before we need to add a fifth car to the family collection. Sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another relatively unexciting weekend for us, with one notable exception. Saturday was rainy and lazy, the kind of day when you look out the windows and think it is in the 50s and are surprised to step outside and find it is actually near 70. Sunday was much better, approaching hot in the afternoon with big, warm gusts of wind. We power washed the pool cover for the second time – it is always a two-step process to get the winter crap off and prevent a build up of spring pollen – and did some other outdoor work before having the in-laws over for dinner. Oh, Sunday was also the day we suddenly had two 20-something kids in the family. Or I should say ladies, more properly. It was C\u2019s chance to age out of teen-dom. She got a special Starbucks order in the morning, she picked the dinner choice for the evening. Otherwise she had a fairly chill birthday. M\u2019s Summer Adventure Begins The big family event of the weekend was M getting on a plane Friday afternoon and heading to France for two months. Her flights were uneventful and we got a text just after 4:00 AM Saturday telling us she had made it to Paris. It worked out really well that one of her current roommates, sorority sisters, and best friends just happens to be one of her roommates in France. And lives 10 minutes from us here in Indy. So they flew from here to Detroit and Detroit to Paris together. After working through immigration they grabbed an Uber to head to the main train station. She sent us videos of driving around the Arc de Triomphe and near the Eiffel Tower. Once at the train station they chilled for a couple hours before the nearly three-hour trip to Nantes, their home for the next seven weeks. Sunday afternoon (our time) M FaceTimed us and gave us a video tour of the Air BNB where they are staying. She loves it and the area they are in. One of her other best friends lived in it last summer, so it came highly recommended. Her only complaint was after crashing Saturday evening and sleeping well into Sunday, they discovered the grocery store nearest to them is only open for three hours on Sunday mornings. They were going to get up early and buy food this morning before their classes began. She has two other roommates. I believe one is also from UC but the other is from somewhere else outside the US. Those girls had not yet arrived when we talked to her Sunday. They are studying at the Audencia Business School. All classes are in English, which is fortunate since M speaks no French! We\u2019ll see if she picks any up over the next two months. They already have their first weekend trip planned, heading to Barcelona this coming weekend. They also get a three-day weekend as Monday is a bank holiday in France, so they\u2019ll get plenty of time to explore. I know several of you have sent your kids overseas to study and travel. I\u2019m guessing you all had the same weird feeling I had when M left. You are proud of them and trust that they are adults with a support system and will be fine. But they are also across an ocean and if anything happens and she needs us, it will not be easy to get to her. It\u2019s like sending her to college again, but in some ways not nearly as stressful while in other ways much more stressful. We are excited to follow her journey and looking forward to seeing her again in London in two months. This is L\u2019s finals week, although she has just two tests. She took over M\u2019s car while she is gone, C claimed her old car. We have a couple months before we need to add a fifth car to the family collection. Sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,26,14,22],"class_list":["post-17302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-college","tag-family","tag-parenting","tag-travel"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17302"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17305,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17302\/revisions\/17305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}