Spring in France
Anyone who has lived in Seattle long enough can tell you that March is a perfect time to go on vacation. Our winter brings rain and grey days, and although most people begin anticipating Spring around March, Seattle isn’t ready yet. If you go out of town for a few weeks in early Spring to get a break from the wet, a bit of rain on and off when you return is no big thing.
Now, most people decide to go somewhere warm and tropical, say, Hawaii. Our original plan WAS to go to one of the islands, but instead we decided to take a trip near family. Tom’s mum Charmian has a friend with a house in the South of France, and she graciously allowed our family, along with Charmian, and Tom’s brother Sam’s family, to stay in her holiday home. So for two weeks this March, the Hobbs family vacationed in Montazels, France.
There was a risk that the weather in France would be equal to Spring in Seattle. In fact, on our arrival we were met first with a torrent of rain, but a day later it turned warm, sunny and clear, and stayed that way for the duration of our visit. This allowed us to spend a lot of time outdoors, which was wonderful for the kids.
Montazels is in the Aude region of France, with the nearby Rennes-le-Château made famous by popularity of Dan Brown‘s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. In fact, we were told that the actual house we stayed in was the house the 19th-century priest Bérenger Saunière lived in.
Rennes-le-Château:
This is the Aude region of Southern France:
The village of Montazels is a quiet, small town with epic skies, mountain views, and a peaceful river running through the valley. The local grocery and shops were a perfect distance for a morning stroll, and the nearby hills and mountain terrain challenged Emily and I with our hikes and runs.
The house was connected to a row of houses so it was three levels tall and had a long back garden. It was a great environment to house 2 full families and grandma, and still allowed for a sense of privacy as well as communal gathering spaces. Since the weather was so beautiful, we spent a large part of our time out in the back garden.
Emily out the window:
The back garden, view from the back fence:
Jen gives Evie a tickle:
Uncle Sam gives Jacob a tickle:
Jacob helped out with the weeding:
Grandma Charmian only spent the weekend, but had a great time with the kids:
Evie was unsure about Cora in the beginning, but they were fast friends by the end of the trip:
Jacob received many surprises from Grandma Charmian and Sam and Emily:
Typical Evie posture (her current motto: ‘I don’t want to’ as an answer to everything):
Auntie Jen eating breakfast with Cora (Evie allowed it this time):
Here is a video of Jacob and Evie playing ‘Round and Round the Garden’ with Cora:
Breakfast in the house (lots of croissants!):
Jacob took photos too. Here is a self-portrait:
The highlight of the evening (or morning) was running around the (dry) fountain in the center of the village:
Feeding the ducks in the river:
At the ‘hippie’ market Esperaza. This was our Sunday event. Lots of people watching. It has a very Johnny Depp-vibe to it (I was waiting for him to show up actually).
Filing up water and playing in the paddling pool at Alet-les-Bains:
Visiting the the fortified Cité de Carcassonne:
Swimming and playing in the lake at Puivert:
It was a loooong day:
We spent a lot of time in Rennes-les-Bains. They had an outdoor public pool, a walk along the river where we picnic and play in the water.
We were so sad to leave Sam, Emily, Cora, and Charmian. The kids still miss them weeks later. I am already eager to plan the next trip…maybe Portugal next time (at least I will know some of the language this time). Luckily, we returned home to amazing weather. Seattle is doing it right this year…lots of Spring sunshine with small bits of rain to keep the plants satisfied.
Now we are gearing up for a busy month. Next weekend Jacob and I will receive a Capoeira cord at Fenix Fintess’ Batizado. Anyone can come and watch. It’s at 3:30 on Saturday the 28th of April. This week I have workshops with guest artist:
The week after the batizado Tom’s dad Andrew will come for a 3 week visit. The kids are so excited to see grandad and are talking about it all the time. There is also another BIG EVENT that week. Jacob is turning 4! I can’t believe he is a big little guy now. We are having a birthday party at the Mt. Baker Community Clubhouse on Sunday, May 6th. Yay Jacob!
Au Revoir
Tomorrow we are off to France for two weeks. Tom’s mum has a friend with a house near Carcassonne that we will be staying in with Sam, Emily, Cora, and Tom’s mum. We haven’t seen Cora since she was 6 months old, so it will be great to see her walking and starting to talk. I am excited to see the cousins interact and hope the weather plays nice so we can have some much needed outdoor time.
I haven’t researched much about France, and even though I’ve lived in Europe, this is my first visit to the country. All I really know is that Carcassonne has this gigantic castle, which I’m sure will amuse the kids.
Most Seattlites will tell you that it is imperative to take a vacation around March in order to survive the raining season up here. This year isn’t as wet as last year and when the sun decides to come out, Seattle is breathtaking. Usually people book trips to Hawaii or somewhere south and warm, but we want to take our time off to visit with family so this shared holiday to France is just what we need.
We’ve been keeping busy over the winter by playing at the indoor gymnastics playground, going to soccer class, and Jacob just started Capoeira, which he has taken too amazingly well.
Evie and our pal Alder, who I watch on Thursdays, accompany us to soccer and have fun playing while Jacob is in class.
And thanks to Tom’s mum, we have a membership at Seattle’s Children’s Museum where we retreat to on rainy days.
We’ve been preparing for spring by sowing our vegetable seeds for our P-patch. Seattle has small garden spaces around the city that you can garden in, and we were just awarded a tiny 75 square foot space. We are also hoping to plant some vegetables around our garden. The kids had a lot of fun planting the seeds.
Hopefully we will be able to plant the sprouts soon after our trip to France, although if the recent on-again-off-again snowy weather is any indication of things to come, we may be waiting until May. We had a few epic snow falls and crisp days this winter– hilariously these snowfalls close down the city (ok, it is somewhat understandable as the city is pretty hilly, but people get downright apocalyptic at the sight of a snowflake over here). The kids enjoy watching the snow fall, and if it accumulates, they love to play in it.
Usually the snow brings crisp skies and views of the far off mountains. We can even see Mt. Rainier from our bedroom window!
Snowflakes aside I can say we are ready for spring and the lovely long days that summer brings.
Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays! This year we are staying in Seattle for the holidays, and although we will not have any family members joining us, we will be celebrating with our closest friends. On Christmas Eve we are having our first party in our new home. Christmas day we will join up with the Nelson’s at their house with their visiting family. For Tom’s birthday this year (a few days before Christmas) we will take a day trip to the mountains to play in the snow.
This morning we made our Christmas cookies. I say that like we do it every year…the thing is, this is the first time we’ve ever made Christmas cookies. Tom was a bit overwhelmed with the colors and sprinkles, but of course I reminded him that indeed, we are in America and this is how we do things here (the English don’t do Christmas cookies, they do things like minced pies, which actually don’t have minced meat in them but things like figs…go figure). Jacob helped make the dough and cut out the majority of the cookies himself (hence the very ‘homemade’ look). He also iced about half of the cookies (this is where I admit I gave the broken ones to him to ‘practice on’). His cookies actually looked about as good as mine did, with a few exceptions.
Even daddy helped out by icing a few cookies.
We also went downtown to Macy’s and Jacob sat on Santa’s lap and told him what he wanted for Christmas. Evie wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with that. Hence Jacob flying solo in the photo.
On the way home we stopped at the top of the Children’s Museum to check out the massive train display. I figured I can bring my laptop here next week and get some work done while the kids watch the scene. Really, if it was just Jacob I could probably get away with it. It IS in a food court…with bathrooms.
This year we got our Christmas tree at Swanson’s Nursery. It is a living tree and we are keeping it nice and cold on the balcony until a few days before Christmas when we will bring it in the house to stand tall above the presents. After the holidays we will donate the tree and it will be planted in Carkeek Park. I believe this is a start of a new family tradition.
Fall has been lovely in the new house/neighborhood. Our street and nearby Judkins Park have many mature trees and lovely fall leaves. We’ve enjoyed exploring the new neighborhood and have met many friendly and cool neighbors.
As Evie is now talking and walking, the kids are starting to play together more. Evie will pull trains along the track with Jacob and they both will play with their babies.
Near the end of Fall, we had a family photoshoot at Gas Works Park. Some of the pics are a bit dorky, but all in all we got a few cute shots. At least now we have a few photos of all four of us together.
Other Fall activities included a trip to the pumpkin patch and, of course, Trick or Treating on Halloween. Grandma Charmian was visiting from England just before Halloween and was able to come along with us and the Nelsons to the pumpkin patch.
We went Trick or Treating with our friend Isadora and her mom Katie in Columbia City. Isa and her mommy were pirates, and Jacob and Evie were monkeys (I was a banana, but the costume was pretty short lived). We got home just in time for it to be dark and for daddy to take the kids on a neighborhood Trick or Treat with our adorable neighbor Bryn and her daddy.
2011 rounded out to an eventful and busy year. We are looking forward to all the wonderful things that 2012 brings, hopefully to all!
New House and Summer Recap
It’s official- we just bought a house. We are getting the keys at the end of the week and will be moving this and next weekend. We are really excited, although sad to leave our Columbia City neighborhood. The new house is in the Judkins Park neighborhood, in the Central District not far from Madrona. We were drawn to the area as it is just as diverse as Columbia City and it has beautiful parks and great schools.
The house is a modern three-story 4-star Built Green house sharing a wall and a city lot with a single-story 1900 bungalow (we will live in the new dwelling, another family lives in the small farmhouse). It sits in the space of the old driveway, its new walkway reusing the broken concrete from the driveway. The house has solar tubes for hot water, dual-flush toilets, heated floors, and was built with locally-sourced and reclaimed materials.
Here are some news articles written about the house when it was built in 2007:
This all comes at the end of a lovely summer here in Seattle. We had a lot of sun and warm nights which is a big change from a San Francisco summer. We took a trip to Orcas Island for Evie’s first birthday at the end of June. Jacob was so excited to take a ferry.
And Evie thought it was pretty great too.
We stayed in Judd Cove, near Eastsound. It was a beautiful weekend.
The kids and the dogs had a blast playing in the water.
Jacob collected a lot of rocks and shells.
And we were able to spend time at the beach nearby.
And we hiked up high for a view of all the Islands.
We celebrated Evie’s first birthday at a wonderful restaurant, which made her a special birthday treat.
In August and September Tom’s dad Andrew came for a visit.
We went to an Alaskan Salmon Bake party with Tom’s work friends.
Jacob was quick to make friends.
Near the end of August the weather was amazing and we visited friends in North Beach.
There is a train that passes through the perimeter of the beach.
And we were able to take ANOTHER ferry ride to Whidbey Island where we hung out at the beautiful Double Bluff Beach for an afternoon.
There was a lot of driftwood along the beach and we built a small shelter.
On September 10th our cul-de-sac had it’s annual ‘Dead End’ Block Party. There were 10 bands that played all day long. It drew a very big crowd!
Since September 11th is our friend Dave’s birthday, we also sang Happy Birthday and had cake.
The bands carried on throughout the night.
Our neighbor Dan, who MCs the event, let Jacob and his friend Aedan have a turn on the mic. They did not disappoint!
We visited the Museum of Flight with grandad, which was a lot of fun.
And we had a lot of fun playing by the water at Seward Park.
All in all, it was a superb summer. We were sad to say goodbye to grandad, but we should see him again in the Spring. Grandma Charmian is coming for a visit in just a few days now, just in time to help us move into our new house (lucky her!).
We are pretty sure that Grandma Charmian will witness Evie’s first steps. She is getting so close to walking. Right now she stands on her own and will walk with a hand, and occasionally will let go and take a step. Very exciting!
Spring Travels
This May was our first world tour as a family of 4! We started out visiting family in England, where we met Jacob and Evie’s new cousin Cora. Tom’s brother Sam became a proud papa in December. We couldn’t be more thrilled for him and Emily!
Jacob and Evie quickly fell in love with Cora, as did Tom and I.
We took a weekend away with Sam and Emily to these amazing Eco Cabins in North Yorkshire called Brompton Lakes.
On our way to Tom’s mum’s house we stopped at Big Sheep Little Cow farm attraction where we toured the farm and were able to pet and feed the animals.
Jacob and his Uncle Sam drove the play tractor combine.
Evie and Cora loved watching and hearing all of the animals.
Grandma Charmian was nice enough to let us ALL stay at her house. She got lots of time with Cora, Evie and Jacob. The kids were thrilled to spend time with Grandma!
We had a lovely, sunny afternoon at Newby Hall and gardens.
Next we visited Tom’s dad in Barnsley where Jacob helped him out in his garden.
Jacob was lucky that grandad had a park right next to his house!
And Jacob and Evie’s great-grandma Jean was able to come up for a visit. We had a lovely day!
It was time for us to continue our journey, so we drove down to Oxford for a quick stop at Emily’s mum and dad’s house who were very sweet in letting us stay the night so we could catch the bus to Heathrow very early in the morning. We also were able to visit with Vicky, Dan, Beatrix and Harvey as well as Mark who all came to Oxford for the afternoon.
We had such a great time in England and we were sad to say goodbye. But our journey wasn’t over yet! Next stop- Detroit where we met our great-nephew, baby Joey! Joey was nearly a month younger than Cora, but was born over 2 months premature so he was a little guy in comparison.
What a cutie pie! We spent the day at the zoo and had a lot of fun (except for the train- Joey didn’t like that part).
Since the Dugan family is SO BIG and so spread out, we had a few outings where everyone could come and meet up. Here we are at Roger’s Roost with my parents and the lower half of my family (Michelle, Shelly and Noah), and, apparently an annoying stack of chairs.
Jacob also had a small birthday celebration (again!) at my sister Jill’s house. Of course he was thrilled!
Here we got to visit with my sister Jill and Jacob and Evie’s cousin Brittanie.
We also got to see my sister Jackie and her daughter Shelby.
Do you think Jacob is getting tired of getting his picture taken? Well, yeah, let’s just say the rest of the photos didn’t turn out all that hot (sorry to my friend Heather- it was great to see you though!).
We also visited Jacob and Evie’s cousins Carly and Stephanie, where they were sweet enough to let Jacob play with a load of toys in their play room.
Yes, we really do have a big family and we were fortunate that my sister Julie and my brother-in-law Nick graciously let us stay at their house during the visit. We were also thrilled to have my recently graduated (double major- material sciences and astro physics I might add) nephew Thomas home from Michigan State. We somehow slacked on photos at their house- boo.
Close by Julie and Nick’s are our friends Jim and Nicole, who’s adorable kids Turner and Brolin are the same age as Jacob and Evie. We also met up with our friends Yuen and Clint and their kids Max and Mabel and even Yuen’s daughter Izze joined us later. It was toddler chaos at it’s best.
It was sad to say goodbye, once again. Tom had to leave for Grand Rapids a day before us for a work meeting, so my mom and my sister Julie took the flight back to Seattle with us and hung around for a week. It was so nice to have them around and to show them a bit of the city. We were so sad when they left!
Pretty sure we are going to stay put for a while….well, until the end of the month when we take a family trip to the San Juan Islands for our 10th wedding anniversary. Yes, we are bringing the kids. And the dogs.
