Columbia, Missouri

Now that our trip is almost over, I guess I should update the blog on what we've been doing!

We started our Thanksgiving travels with a visit to my brother and his family in Columbia, Missouri. We missed out on a visit with friends there since their kids were sick, but we had a nice couple of days anyway, and the boys enjoyed playing with their cousin, Caitlyn.

Benjamin also appreciated his initiation to the Wii.

And we got started on our Thanksgiving game-playing with the Game of Things... which we started playing about 14 years ago, long before the Hasbro version came out, and now we regret not patenting our idea!

Let the Thanksgiving Tour begin!

We made it to the US last Friday, 23 hours after we left our house. I'm still not sure how a 9-hour plane trip + a 1.5-hour plane trip = 23 hours of travel, but it does. It could have been a bit shorter, but the Delta gate agent wanted to seat the four of us in four completely separate seats... which wouldn't have been a big problem for us, but might have been for the people seated next to our monst... uh, kids. Actually, on our second attempt, they pulled the same nonsense again, but we accepted because we were afraid if we refused, they wouldn't find seats for us on the last flight of the day. As it turned out, on that flight, there were enough people coming in late from a connecting flight that we had time to trade seats with other people. 

(In France, we tend to say, "It's an airplane, not a train," meaning that you need to arrive an hour or two early to board a flight. That doesn't appear to be the case in the US, where you can board a flight five minutes before take-off. Extremely surprising post-9/11, but there it is.) 

Frédéric thought he was clever, making me sit by Noah on the Atlanta-St Louis leg of the flight... but Noah pulled one over on him by sleeping the entire time, while Benjamin took over whining duty. 

We have spent our week visiting friends and family in St Louis and doing our annual shopping. 

Today we leave for Columbia, Missouri to visit my little brother and his family. Monday they and we will go to Bentonville, Arkansas, then Tulsa, then southern Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, the highlight of our trip every year.

Grocery Shopping with Noah

A couple of weeks ago, Frédéric and Noah were getting ready to go to the store. 

Noah: Wait Daddy! I need my list!
Frédéric: Ok, let's write your list. What is on your list?
Noah: Chocolate.
Frédéric: Ok. What else?
Noah: Vinegar.
Frédéric: Uh... ok. And what kind of fruit do you want?
Noah: Candy!
Frédéric: Candy?
Noah: M&Ms.
Frédéric: Ok, M&Ms, but what kind of fruit? Bananas, apples...
Noah: Bananas. And apples too.
Benjamin, interjecting: And I want those orange thing. Clementines.
F: Ok. What else, Noah?
Benjamin, to Noah: And not things that cost too much!
Noah: Ice cream.
Benjamin: Ice cream costs a lot!
Noah: Ok, that is good, I have my list. Cucumbers. We will buy cucumbers because I like them. 

Yes, I am sure my future daughters-in-law will thank me for raising men who know how to grocery shop.

* * * * *

In other news, we are almost ready to leave for the US for Thanksgiving! That is, we are all packed, but there is no guarantee there will be space on the flight for us. Ah, the joys of traveling standby.

And some more Toussaint visiting!

After some schedule-juggling and matching, we found that the only time to get together with the Monnoyeur family before our trip was immediately after the Dubort family left. So the Monnoyeurs came over Sunday evening, and spent Sunday and Monday nights with us.

The nice weather lasted through Monday, so we took the kids out for a bit. Our neighbor across the street gave the girls a couple of roses, one of which contained a tiny snail, to their great joy (but not that of my boys, who wouldn't touch it).

They named it Isabelle and sang songs to it. Then they brought the roses, complete with snail, inside the house, where they stayed until the girls took them home, accompanied by the tiny snail.

We took a walk back through the beet fields, and found a mountain of beets waiting to be picked up.

Played some more ping pong...

And let the kids do a Halloween candy hunt in the yard just before it got too dark. They waited patiently by the door until the candy was hidden. 

 

The boys and I visited a couple of houses with them on Tuesday - they are looking for a vacation home out this way and we hope they will find one!

Noah was NOT happy to see them leave. He was ready to ditch Frédéric and me and go home with them, and sobbed when we told him he couldn't. "I want to go with them, because me likes them!" he cried. Through his tears, he waved goodbye and sniffled, "See you Sunday!"

More Toussaint visiting

Saturday evening, Frédéric's childhood friends Eric and Natacha Dubort and their kids, Alexandre and Mathieu, came over to spend the night. Alexandre and Benjamin got a kick out of seeing elementary school class pictures where their dads were their age. 

We were fortunate to have gorgeous weather, so we got to try out the neighborhood ping pong table for the first time in the five years we've lived here.

The spectators were enthralled.

The boys played up on top of the hill.

and played battle tops.

Everyone got in on the ping pong action.

And there was a game of Puppet Ping Pong, too.

Eric just got transferred to southwestern France, near Spain, so next time we get together, we may have to take the airplane and make a whole vacation of it.