A little update

We went up to Metz 2 weeks ago to celebrate the 80^th birthday of Valerie’s uncle. On the way up there as we passed the toll booth just outside of Metz, the temperature registered 10 degrees. “Welcome to the Arctic”. Yes, it was cold, fricken cold! Metz is a beautiful city but I have trouble understanding how people can endure winter there. I know it doesn’t get as cold as the midwest of the US (especially recent temps in the Midwest) but come on how do you live in this weather. I guess California weather is ingrained in me.

We didn’t spend much time outside since it was so cold but we did manage to get out and buy a few things since January in France is “Les Soldes” meaning “Sale time”. Valerie and I both managed to find a couple of things to buy plus everything is generally cheaper in Metz than in Lyon which makes it easier to find good bargains.

News from Mathieu

Mathieu is starting to talk. He is blabbing about everything saying mama and papa for the most part to the right person and he is saying “doudou” which is the French term for “preferred stuffed animal”. When he arrives at daycare in the morning he runs over to the “doudou” wall, finds his doudou and says “doudou”. He even says “toutou” which is the slang term for dog.

He is really easygoing. We can take him anywhere and he just seems to get along with whoever is there. Last night we went to dinner with some friends and we left him down at the end of the table in a high chair. He was having a blast with throwing his arms up in the air with our friend Irvin for half the night.

Anyway, we were up in the mountains last weekend with friends but we didn’t get to go boarding but we are heading back up this weekend to board. We did take Mathieu out on the sled. I will post some pics in the next few days. He is not sure about the whole sled and snow thing yet. I think we are going to have to wait until next year.

Traveling with Baby

2 weeks ago we took our first weekend road trip with Mathieu. It was a 4 hour trip up to Metz (In the north of France) to visit family for Easter. Mathieu decided not to sleep the first night which basically killed me and Valerie. He woke up crying every hour or so and we didn’t get any sleep that night. We aren’t sure what caused it but something was bothering him. Maybe he had a slight ear ache. The following night he was back to normal.

We did get a break on Saturday. Valerie’s godchild babysat while we spent the afternoon in Luxembourg with her cousin. Luxembourg is a beautiful city. I wasn’t expecting it to be so nice. There was even some sort of American festival going on. They were selling hotdogs (not real beer steamed hotdogs which I miss eating at Weiner Works), buffalo wings and baked potatoes with live country and blues music for entertainment. We didn’t partake in the festival though; instead we went to an American eatery and order some fish n chips and a few beers. It was pretty good but they served us way too much food and we couldn’t finish. There were no Americans eating there but there were plenty of British.

Overall, the weekend went well. Mathieu seemed to handle the trip pretty well. But the real traveling test will come this weekend when we head to Venice. The plane fight is only 1 hour 30 mins which is short in comparison to the flight we are going to take at the end of the month to the US. Hopefully, we will all pass with flying colors and not piss off too many passengers due to a crying kid.