Summer 2009

And the best thing we had done in a longtime... an ultra super last minute decision trip! It was a Saturday morning in Grenoble. We weren't sure what to do of our day, so we thought about heading to Lyon as we had never really visited the city. We got dressed for the day and packed Paul with a couple of diapers and wipies, part of his daily need. We road for an hour and as we were entering Lyon we saw a sign that read "Paris" as we passed by the first motorway exit. The second motorway exit showed the same sign, we needed to head straight to get to Paris. I said to Vincent "we should go to Paris instead" and he said "Okay" and followed the signs!!! Five hours later we were in Paris searching for a hotel! Along the way Sofía kept insulting us, saying that we were irresponsible parents and that that was not to be done!! She had homework to do! We said it's only for one night... but of course stayed for 2 nights and 3 days and ended up going to Eurodisnery as well! She skipped one day of school and it was hard to explain to her teacher why :-D! We had a blast and will never forget that trip! Amongst other reasons because we wore the same clothes night and day during our whole stay!









Now back to reality... and School! Some miscelaneaous activities of September...







This was a really good trip for me. I got to see my parents... little did we know that my dad had only a few more weeks left at that point... He already started feeling a pain at the bottom of his back and quickly getting tired. Somehow, at that point we thought it wasn't really something to worry about. I am really happy that he enjoyed the kids in this trip and viceversa!

We also got to go to Playa Colorada, which is probably the beach I went to the most as a child. The water is deep turquoise-greenish and the sand is red. If you take a "peñero" (small fishing boat) it will take you to a quick tour around the islands in the back as well as to "la piscina", which is a spot in the middle of the sea where the water is crystal clear blue! We also took the kids to Expanzoo, a zoo in Caracas dedicated to baby animals. Most of the employees are handicapped. It's quite an interesting site and a great place to go with children! Of course, we also had a traditional family meeting at my Uncle Kunito's, where the kids went for a ride on Tuti's new motorcycle! Another exciting happening was that my brother gave my daughter a speech about how monsters really exist (with a live demo included) and that parents lie about their non-existance. Nowadays, 2 years later, Sofía can still remind me of how she's scared of monsters because her uncle told her about them. He shall not worry though... one day he'll have children and I shall get back at him! Jajajaja! ;-)



















We then here took a last minute decision that the kids and I would head off to Venezuela. I was homesick.



After that week, then the 4 of us headed to the Italian Rivera aiming to visit Portofino and then back to Grenoble





We visited Siena and Firenze. I had a marvelous time at l'Uffizi!



















This July was a bit particular. Vincent took the kids to Saverne for a week to spend some time with Raphael and Romain. After that, they came back and we almost immediately headed to Italy, where Milena and Gerard had rented a house for a week close to Firenze. It turned out that the house was a castle!