Less than 24 Hours...

Today we celebrate the last Sunday (otherwise known as the-loneliest-day-of-the-week-during-a-deployment) alone before the Phil comes home from the deployment.

Key Words to this Celebration:

"Le Gouter"= the only authorized snack in the daily French diet. It's *usually* just for kids, and it's always around four to five o'clock (after school). It's always something sweet, never salty, and usually it involves chocolate in some way or another. This snack helps kids (and maybe me) make it from the 12pm lunch to the seven thirty/eight o'clock dinner. It's also an event in the daily lives of French people where it's easy to socialize and invite people over. (READ: I don't have to cook a four course meal for finicky French palates who assume Americans don't cook well. All I made was a cake, and kids will eat anything, even French kids).

Two Mom-friends from Lily's catholic school = when they come to my house for the "gouter"there are 9 children between the two of them! Ah, good Catholics. The most surprising moment of the afternoon was when the one mom-friend stepped outside for a cigarette. I will NEVER get over how many and how often French people smoke. Have I mentioned before Phil bought stock in Philip-Morris since we moved here?

Le retour des Papas= tomorrow all our husbands/daddies return from their four and half month deployment. And we are all thrilled.

La Fête = An occasion to celebrate together, let the kids run wild, drink coffee, and hope that the clock turns faster!

This was the first round of kids who sat to eat the "gouter". Zachary might have been at the table for both sittings! I wish I had a picture of my friends, but that would have still seemed weird to them I think...does that give you an idea as to where I am on the friendship-gauge?

Living for Monday afternoon!

Sanity Check

We took a much needed trip back to the US. There are no words to describe how tiring and draining it feels to constantly be "out of my element". I do have a real life here now--friends, activities, places to be--so that's good...but what is always difficult is that I'm constantly unsure of myself and situations and directions and words...I mean I have friends, but I'm never one hundred percent positive that what I said to them is what I meant to say to them...I have activities to do, but I'm usually introduced as "the american" meaning right from the start people know I'm sorta different...and when I'm out and about, I never have tons of confidence that I'm doing things the "right" way, or blending in, or following the system. And after awhile...after looking like a fool multiple times a day, each day of the week...I'm exhausted...and I just wanted to escape.****

So we did. And literally I could feel a huge burden falling off my shoulders the moment our plane touched down in Philly. America! Understanding overheard conversations on cell phones, smelling familiar smells in the food courts, and watching people walk and drink coffee at the same time (gasp!) were all welcome signs that we were home.

And then there's my amazing family. I just needed to see them. I needed to have some time with my Dad and my Mom and my sisters. My kids are little. Traveling and "seeing the world' is sorta lost on them. But what they do understand is that when they are with their cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents there is ALWAYS laughing and running and loving and kissing. And in my opinion, that is WAY more important.

Here are some pictures from our days in Ohio.

Getting there...23 hours of travel. Including driving seventy minutes to the Marseille airport...a satellite long-term parking lot, a bus to the terminal, all at 4am in the morning. Three flights, the longest trans-Atlantic one being 8.5 hours. The boy wasn't phased by any of it. He had a little bag of eight cars and played like this for HOURS! He was so, so good.

She was also a very good, little traveler. She slept for about four hours on the longest flight.

And it might have been because I poured a tiny bit of this red wine into her apple juice. Don't judge me unless you too have done a 23 hour trip alone with two kids five and under. I put the same amount of wine in Zachary's juice, but he didn't get sleepy at all. Of course.

Cousins reunited at last! We were able to see nearly all our cousins this time (minus OK cousins), and it was so, so special!

Boy cousins waking up.

We arrived just in time for a winter storm. This is Zachary's first real adventure in snow. He loved it!

Sledding in Grandma's and Grandpa's backyard!

This picture sums up why I wanted to come home. My Dad needed to play cars with his grandkids. As it was, he wasn't going to see them for a year in between visits. And I couldn't stomach it. He's too good of a Grandpa--it wouldn't have been fair to Lily and Zachary.

We got to eat at Wendy's. And about a thousand other favorites. Did I have Mexican food nearly everyday? Yes, I did.

On a frigid day when we were getting a little house-bound (with seven kids under the age of 5 running around), my Mom arranged a tour of the local fire house. The kids thought it was fantastic! Especially this boy who LIVES for "firetrucks".

All the Johnson-girls' kids---too much fun all together. And look at that flag on the truck. There is something magical about returning home to YOUR country.

Thanks Mom and Dad and Kimmy and Rachel and Kristina for all re-arranging your schedules at the last minute to make time for us. Our twelve days there were full of memory-making moments and morale boosting fun that will get us through this next week....until Phil COMES HOME!!!!

***I don't want to give the impression that we don't like living here. There are days (lots and lots of days) when I LOVE living here. There are moments when I think I'll never want to leave because the weather is perfect or because the scenery is too beautiful or because the food is so good or because I "successfully" spoke French for an hour. But it's been very eye-opening living in a foreign country basically alone (while Phil's been on deployment). That has been extremely difficult and challenging on every level. I lack confidence sometimes. Oh how I wish I could be someone who didn't give a hoot about making a scene or making a mistake in front of people...someone who exuded self-assurance and competency and assertiveness. But I'm not naturally like that (even in the US) and I think in a lot of ways this experience of living abroad is incredibly beneficial and good for me personally.