Kid-Free weekend!

AKA, the best thing ever. Frédéric's mom came last weekend to keep the kids for us overnight while we went to a wedding in Lille. We are less than two hours away from Lille, but weddings in France tend to last far into the night, so we stayed overnight up there.

The drive wasn't bad at all, especially since it was so QUIET! No fights to break up! No arguing, no whining or complaining!

And what's not to like about driving through this kind of countryside? It is one of the things I love most about living here.

We drove by the Chateau de Coucy, which we've visited a couple of times.

We did NOT know we were going through Belgium to get to northern France, but that is what the GPS told us was the shortest route, so we did. And it was slightly shorter.

We drove by "Joyful Heart."

Arriving back across the border into France, we saw this church.

And this... castle? Maybe?

And this clock tower.

The wedding was beautiful, and we enjoyed getting to see friends we don't see all that often anymore. Congratulations to Emi and Jean-Simon! I met Emi in 1996 in Marseille, when she was 11 and I was 18. Time flies... she is now an RN and her husband is in medical school.

Part of the best weekend ever was getting to sleep in until 9:45 Sunday morning (and still make it to church with plenty of time to spare, it was only a 10 minutes drive from our hotel to the church - and we found a parking spot right away. I'd LOVE to have that here!!). Maybe we should move to Lille...

On our way home, we wondered if my friend Emiley hadn't flown over for the weekend... it does have a Florida plate...