Found Fall, Winter and the End of the Rainbow

Finally, the promised pictures of our recent trip to France...

Warning: picture overload, enter at your own risk!

As mentioned in the title, we found multiple things while we there

Fall in the French Countryside

We love to visit Noah's grandparent's house. It was built by his great-grandfather (so the boy's great-great-grandfather), and is so beautiful. This is the first time we've had the privilege of seeing it in Autumn, and it was just what we had needed! Apparently the leaves did eventually change and fall in the forest around Istanbul, but up until the day we left we had pretty much seen nothing. I just love fall, and all the fabulous colors; so I was thrilled to finally get my fill of them.

A real fall experience including a downpour of apples from the apple tree! That's when you know it is truly time for the harvest season.

The boys also thoroughly enjoyed playing in raking all the leaves! They couldn't get enough.

Porter even helped Meme prune some flowers in the garden. Getting his fill of yard work while he can.

Family

Next we found a whole bunch of family members to spend some fabulous quality time with! We got to see many of Noah's relatives which was so nice. It is especially nice to give the boys every chance they can get to be with their great-grandparents.

A four generation shot

The boys with their Meme (great-grandmother)

Porter and Pepe (great-grandfather)

The boys hanging out with daddy and Cousin Raphael

Porter and Cousin Claire -aka "the only girl in the family"!

(Pepe did have a sister-but Claire is the only girl within the last three generations)

I'm so glad to have some more female influence when we visit, and she is just awesome. The boys just adore her!

We enjoyed getting to relax by a real fire as it started to get chilly outside.

Georges, Michelle, Raphael and us...just relaxing together!

Can I just say again that the boys have the entire family wrapped around their fingers?! They sure get plenty of loves and attention when we visit!

We did miss getting to see a few other family members that were far away, but it was wonderful to see those who where there!

Touristy things

When we go to France one of my favorite things to visit is Pompadour- a gift by Louis XV to his mistress, Madame Pompadour. It is a beautiful Chateau that we just love.

Do you think he is strong enough?

It was also a stop on the route through France of Richard the Lionheart. This was Porter's favorite thing of the trip, being that he has been recently a huge fan of Disney's animated version of Robin Hood. (the one with King Richard -who is a Lion if you'll remember)

Lastly, it is also the home of the French National Stud (hippodrome). There were not any horses out today, but we have seen some other times and the boys love to watch! It is such a pretty area, I love it all.

Ocean Views

For those of you who are wondering where the pictures of the Eiffel Tower are, I'm sorry to disappoint. We have been to Paris multiple times before, and still love to go when we are with others, but this trip we decided to just hit some of our other spots in the lesser-known corners of France. We headed to Nantes to see another of Noah's uncles and his family and did some new exploring in that region. We drove out to the Atlantic coast and stopped in this village (sadly I don't know it's name) to walk around and smell the sea air! It had a beautiful coastline.

It was also full of these little "private" beaches that were surrounded by rocks, but had little staircases leading down to the sand. They were pretty cool, I wouldn't mind spending some more time there in the future! Perhaps, on a warmer day though...

PORNIC

After driving along the coast a bit, we headed to Pornic. Now Pornic is special. Why you ask? Well, for several reasons. First of all, it is right on the coast, and has a beautiful boardwalk that literally takes you out along the water. The town is built right on the little harbor and the shops are so fun. It is great fun to walk around and be right in the midst of the boats. There is also a beautiful Chateau on the water which is pretty great.

Now all of those make it nice, but what makes it great, is that it is home to my FAVORITE ice cream in the WORLD. No joke. I've tried many, in multiple countries. (Not like the super bowl "World Champions", no offense) I really have looked far and wide, and this stuff is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. It is mostly different sorbets, but they are famous for their strawberry flavor. They have it in soft serve, plain or mixed with others or a delicious vanilla-or in hard form. The possibilities are endless! I've never found anything else remotely like it! I have no idea how they make it so different and amazing compared to other strawberry ice cream, but they do!

When we go in the warmer months we get like 5 ice cream cones before we leave for the day. It was pretty chilly this day (and they don't have indoor seating) but we toughed it out. It was SO worth it. We only got 2 cones each though, and then found out they had insulated containers so we took some with us home about an hour away! YUM!

The boys have been sold on it for sure!

The view while you sit and eat is terrific. Picture perfect!

Other Fun Festivities

While in Nantes we did some other really fun things, including getting some tasty Kebabs at "Istanbul Kebab"! They were impressed with Noah's Turkish, but oddly enough we laughed because the family running it was actually from Izmir, not Istanbul.

The cute cousins-sans Nico. I just thought this picture was great, the boys adore their cousins!

Nantes is also where Jules Verne is from (of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, and of course Back to the Future 3 fame). They have a fantastic museum place there based on some of his type of inventions/machines. They are amazing, and it was really a cool exhibit. Totally worth going if you are ever in Nantes! Now, my camera battery died during this, and for the Nautical museum we also went to (which was great) so these are the only pics I have.

Outside the museum they have this giant elephant...it is incredible! You can take rides on it, and it walks around in a giant loop. It is HUGE and kind of scared the boys though! This picture was taken before it was moving.

The boys and Noah's uncle Michel

They have carousels in tons of malls there, and the boys begged and begged to go. Porter turns out was not such a huge fan (I think he is scarred from the one on the National Mall, which admittedly does go VERY fast). Ronan, on the other hand, could not get enough! He went three times on this one and screamed when we left.

Lastly in our exploring of Brittany they took us to this cool little village that still uses the real thatched roofs! They were amazing!! It is apparently a dying craft, so it was cool to see. This village is one of the only ones left. Apparently a good roof like this will last about 25 years.

New Roof

Old Roof

Sadly, I had some more pictures of the rest of the family that we visited here and from when we went down south near Toulouse that I can not get to load! So sorry, just use your imagination!

Also, while we were there (it was the very end of November) we were able to take the boys to Toys R Us and mail their letters to Santa. Here in Turkey, they did put up lights and have poinsettias, but the whole "Santa" thing is largely missed because they decorate for New Years. I was really happy then, that we were able to still get our fill of more traditional American Christmas fun. The toy stores and malls were all totally decked out, and we enjoyed getting in the holiday spirit.

Although we did get to see Santa at our Consulate party, this is about as close as we could come to getting a picture with Santa at the mall this year! These boys and their picture faces...they will be cracking me up for years to come!

Switzerland

Now lastly, just because I feel the need to document our first official trip to Switzerland I will throw in a few photos. This time we opted to fly into Geneva instead of Paris, being somewhat comparable in driving time to his grandparent's house. I am SO glad we did too. We flew in on a gorgeous sunny day with amazing views of the Alps. We did not spend too much time this trip in Geneva, just in and outs at the airport...but it was gorgeous, and it helped me with my longing for some mountains! (Colorado girl, remember). So though Geneva is quite close to the French border, we were still able to see what we could there and then drive the rest of the way through the French Alps. The colors were out in full force on our drive in and it was SO PRETTY! Of course, I in my genius-did not get any pictures, thinking I'll just get some on our way home. Well, the trip home helped us with one last thing....

We found WINTER in full force!

Now, I have to say we were actually pretty excited about it though; because it helped it feel like the holidays. We happened to leave on Thanksgiving weekend, and it just wouldn't be right without a good snowstorm to drive through! So anyway, for your viewing pleasure here are the only shots of Switzerland that I got! So, needless to say...the storm kind of ruined my plans. It was terrific just the same though, and I am happy to report that renting a car in Switzerland has it's advantages. Our car was equipped with snow tires and chains. We met people who had rented a car in Nice and were slipping and sliding everywhere! Those Swiss know what they are doing! We'll be going back for sure...and I promise much better photos next time of the Alps.

Oh yes, and we found the end of the rainbow! While up in Brittany we saw these two full amazing rainbows. The picture does not do it justice. It was fabulous, and the colors were brighter than any rainbow I have ever seen!

This first photo was from a ways off....

Turns out, when we kept driving the end of the rainbow was literally on the hood of car! It was crazy, and really fun. Truly, it was right there! So we got a laugh-but no pot of gold. Sorry folks, I think that is just a myth. Now we know.

So there you have it- the end of the rainbow, the end of our trip, the end of this post!

If you are still reading this you are amazing! Give yourself a pat on the back!