Family reunions x 2

Wow, it's been so long that I'm not even sure where to begin. Right after we finished painting the exterior of our house, we traveled to Minnesota & Wisconsin for a family reunion. Lots of fun at the lake, no phone/internet for much of the time, and cousins/grandparents/aunts/uncles galore.

May 2014

While I was visiting family, Eric traveled to France to teach a creative nonfiction with the Paris Writers' Workshop. He hopped down to Nice afterwards to enroll the kids in school, set up utilities, and take care of other paperwork in preparation for purchasing the apartment. We were supposed to close while Eric was in France, but the mortgage company was so backlogged that we  rescheduled for the end of July.

During these 2 weeks away, Ivy decided to stop sleeping and to become a barnacle. She clung to me all day long and had to be carried around nonstop. And at night she went from waking up 1-2 times to 4-6-8+ times. Nothing except nursing would settle her down. She's also started this new thing of crying so hard that she pukes within a few minutes, sometimes even less than a minute. She gets so worked up if I don't tend to her immediately. Normally I'd let her fuss, but all my kids were in the same room with me. Some nights we had multiple chain reactions of one child setting off all the others. No fun.

Plus with this puking thing, letting Ivy fuss simply isn't an option right now. I am so mystified by babies' sleep habits. She's also had a runny nose and intermittent low fevers. I am crossing my fingers that all of these pieces form a puzzle that equals "teething." I *think* I can feel all 4 molars starting to come through.

We got home last weekend and had to turn around almost immediately to the French consulate to apply for 1-year visas. We had a three-hours drive to the nearest consulate; we counted ourselves lucky, because some people live 15-18+ hours away). We arrived, only to find out that the appointment we had booked way in advance was only for Eric. Even though we are all applying together, we were supposed to book six separate appointments. I searched all over the consulate website and didn't find anything about that rule...until I looked again found some fine print on the "terms and conditions" page of the online booking system. Not exactly easy to find!

I had to stay outside with the kids while Eric spent several hours waiting in line, asking for an exception, waiting in line again, asking again. The next available appointments were a week out, when we would be gone to another family reunion in California. We would have to cancel our entire trip, forego our airline tickets, and make another trip to the consulate.

The third time at the counter, Eric almost unconsciously switched over to speaking French. He explained our time constraints and travel plans and asked again if we could all submit our applications. The visa officer--who'd been yelled at by a very disgruntled man in front of Eric--finally said, "okay, fine, I'll take your applications. Go get your family." Woohoo! The whole time the visa officer was swearing and muttering (in French of course). We were super polite and thanked him profusely at the end. He replied, "I didn't even get my break." (J'ai pas eu ma pause.) Translation: "you're welcome, I guess."

We've been home just a few days, and we are leaving almost immediately for California. While we're gone, our work crew is going to finish renovating our master bathroom. Just in time for us to leave the country!

Our house is turned upside-down as we are filling storage boxes and deciding which things to bring with us to France. At least we only have to clean out our closets and bathrooms. Everything else stays--kitchen dishes/appliances, furnishings, pictures, etc. We found an amazing family to rent our house that was looking for a fully furnished home. Win-win.