La Rentree

It's already been 3 weeks since we arrived back in France. Of course time flies, even when you're intentionally trying to slow down. ;-) That said, life has felt a lot less crazy since wrapping up our very full summer.

The last few weeks have been spent settling back into our life here and also transitioning back to school. After arriving in August we had 1 full week and 2 weekends before school started up again. We took advantage of the time to head to the lake, reunite with friends, unpack, get the house in order, and get everything ready for the start of school.

Love this one of Lola and her buddies! She actually took this herself!

(notice the brother of one of her friend's trying to sneak in the back, ha!)

What'a return to France without a return to SWEETS!! ;-)

Exploring some trails not too far from our house!

"Back to School" is definitely an event in the States but it seems to have an even larger cultural meaning here in France. It's known as "La Rentree"; literally translated as "The Return". And of course it applies to all the kids heading back to school but interestingly seems to apply to everyone heading back to work too. After summer holidays, which for many people in France extend throughout the month of August, it really is a return to work and school. Refreshed and re-charged it's a time to start new projects and new health regimens. Much like we use the New Year as our time for renewal, La Rentree seems to serve this purpose in France.  And everywhere you go you hear the same wishes for a "Bonne Rentree"; "Good Return".

Thankfully the girls first two weeks of school have been really good! Such a sharp contrast from La Rentree of last year! If you're new to the blog, you should definitely head back and read some of those posts from last September. The struggle was real; for them and us alike! This year, all in all, it's been quite smooth. Certainly helps that they returned to the same school and to the same friends. They know French and knew what to expect. Both girls seem quite happy with their new teachers and ready to take on the year. Teah was a bit more nervous than Lola leading up to the first day. Admittedly without us speaking any French over the summer, she had lost some of her confidence and was scared she was going to struggle. But she quickly jumped right back onto the French "wagon" and had a great first day!

First day pics!

I can't believe these 2; first day of 2nd and 3rd grade.

Also known here in France as CE1 and CE2 respectively.

Reunited with friends!!

Lola's friend showing off her new back-pack that actually says on it "All You Need is Lola". Ha!

Getting lined up in their classes. Mind you this is the only day throughout the entire year that parents are allowed within the school gates!!

Teah walking in with her buddy! For those of you who followed along last year you might recall that Marc had to walk Teah in as she was a crying mess the first day. Notice today...smiling, walking confidently, holding hands with her friend.  Ahhhhhhh (that's my sigh of relief)!

La Rentree is also the start of a new sports year. After-school sports and activities are organized quite a bit differently here. They follow the school year, so you have to sign up at the start of school and you pay for the entire year. There's no such thing as track in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. Whatever you pick, you're doing ALL year! You do get all the school holidays and the summer off though.

Trying to learn what activities are available and get the girls signed up before the classes were full was a real endeavor. No easy-breezy websites to peruse like we might expect in the States. Nope! Each city, town, or commune has a "Forum", which is a half-day generally held at the local "Maison-des-Sports" (literally translated as House of Sports). All the activities available in that area have a booth and advertise their sport, schedule, etc. Here's the kicker though. Don't expect to just meander around taking it all in and then deciding later what you want to do. Oh no! That won't work. You have to decide right then and there what you're kid's going to do, sign-up, register, and pay on the spot to reserve your spot! But what if you just want to try a class you ask?? Well it depends on the activity. It seems like most of them want you to register and write a check for the whole year and then come to the first class. You have to decide after the 2nd class and if you choose not to continue then you get your money back. Okay. Fair enough. Except.......if you've spent the first 2 weeks trying something that your kid decides they don't want to do, guess what.......everything else has filled up!! Not so easy to change your mind.

This was just 1 room at the Thonon Forum!! I have never seen anything like this before. Every possible sport or activity you can imagine (over 150!); for kids and adults alike.

Marc working at the swim team booth with the head coach and another parent. By the way, this so happens to be the same team he swam for as a kid! Full circle, people!

With Lola it was pretty easy. She knew she wanted to get back into swimming and there's only one swim team, so decision made. Except they have a really long waiting list for new swimmers. The coach told us that he actually had parents lined up at 3am before the Forum to sign their kid up!! Can you believe that?! 3 am!!! I can't imagine being motivated enough to do that. Thankfully Lola (and Teah if she wanted) was assured a spot on the team once Marc decided to accept a coaching position for them. Yup!! As much as Marc did not think he wanted to keep coaching, he did want to get back to swimming and teaching, and while he works towards creating his swim school it seemed like a good opportunity to connect himself into the swimming world here. So back to the pool!

With Teah though, not so easy. She wanted to get back into dance. Okay. That narrowed it down, except there's a bunch of different dance schools and classes at different times and different locations. And trying to be mindful of Lola's swim practice schedule made it a bit challenging to find some classes that would work. Needless to say we signed-up to try 3 different classes and got on a waiting list for a 4th class. We have 1 more class to try this week but it looks like she's narrowing it down to a Wed afternoon ballet class and a Tuesday evening class that combines several different dance styles including flamenco and rhythmic gymnastics; should be interesting.

A modern/jazz class she tried.

And a ballet class. I won't even try to point her out! ;-)

For Marc and I we too feel like we've had a "Rentree" back into work. I'm getting back into my groove writing, posting, and Skyping with clients, while Marc is getting ready to start coaching this week!

Here's to a good return and renewed success in whatever your endeavors this Fall. Wishing everyone a "Bonne Rentree"!!

Passing The Torch

I’m really happy to share that our house has officially sold!! This last week escrow closed and not only did we get a very good price for our home but we got the added benefit of passing it on to someone who is a perfect fit.

When we first decided to sell our home I couldn’t help but hope that we might be fortunate enough to not only get multiple offers at or above our asking price but that we might also get to “select” a person or family that would be the best fit. A person that we would feel happy to take over the care-taking of our home that we have loved for over a decade. A person that would be a welcome addition to our lovely neighborhood and valley.

Well we actually found this person. Marc was lucky enough to be home when she first came to tour the property with her realtor. He definitely thought she was nice and showed a genuine excitement for our home. Later she admitted that within minutes of arriving she knew it was the home she wanted. She submitted her offer with a heartfelt letter expressing her love of our home, the redwoods, and the valley. Assuring us that she would care and love the home in the same way we had.

When we decided to accept her offer I immediately hoped that we might have the opportunity to meet her before we left. Not sure how we were going to swing it but hoping we could. Well sure enough, the universe intervened. The next day I was busily running errands and going to appointments. One thing on my To Do list was to head into the bank to close my business account. When I got there I sat down with the banker and she of course wanted to know why I was closing my account. I explained to her that I was moving abroad and when she asked where, I responded with France. Well no sooner did I say this then the woman standing next to me, working with another banker, leaned over and said “Excuse me, but would you happen to be Dionne?” Shocked that she might know me, I replied “yes”. She proceeded to tell me that she was Zoe, the woman who was buying my house!!! OMG. I immediately jumped up and gave her a hug. We were both a bit overwhelmed with emotion. The bank tellers immediately wanted to know the occasion and joined us in the celebration. Even the Manager came over to know what was going on and proceeded to make an announcement to the entire bank, that Bank of Marin has the best customers! Ha!! It was quite a moment.

We agreed to have her swing by the house on Saturday, before we were hoping to head out. She came by, bringing (much-appreciated) pastries, and we spent the next 2 hours together; sharing stories about the house, about each other, about the ins-and-outs of the house and property. We walked the property. She asked to know where we had buried our dog and actually took a moment over his grave to pay her respects. We told her about how our girls had been born in the bedroom and she got a bit emotional. We could tell that she loved our home, almost as much as we did, and that she really did want to move there for all the right reasons. I have to admit this eased some of my emotional turmoil and felt like a passing of the torch. I'm looking forward to taking her up on her invitation to stop by next summer and say hi.

With this incredible task behind us we can truly begin to look towards our future and the new home we will be creating in France.

A Summer To Remember

Okay so admittedly I've been a bit off the grid. So sorry for those of you who have been faithfully following along with my blog. I had every great intention to continue with my posts over the summer but......well, it didn't happen did it?! Let me see if I can explain why.

First off, I was not prepared for the initial overwhelm and anxiety of being back in the Bay Area. Feeling like a fish out of water. The price of things, especially food, feels more than I remembered. The rushing around, the incredibly long stretches of time in the car. Why is everything so far away?! I had forgotten all these things. It's actually kind of comical that an appointment with our insurance agent is 40 minutes away!! Really?! If we drove 40 minutes in France we'd be up at a ski resort. Marc pointed out the ridiculousness of this and how absurd it would be to drive up to the ski resort to see our insurance agent.

But in some far away place in my memory this is totally normal and actually, the really scary part, is that after only 2 months back in California it was starting to feel "normal" again. I could literally see myself getting sucked back in to the hustle and bustle and actually, strangely, enjoying it! I realized something about myself, a bit of an epiphany perhaps. My "Type A", hyper-productive, personality thrives off of the busy, always bordering on the edge of chaos, lifestyle. But the other half to this epiphany, and the really important part, is that I could also see how totally unhealthy it is for me. How I would be right back on the path to burn-out. It was actually quite an "ah-ha" for me and I feel even more grateful that we decided to choose another path, a path that will hopefully be more balanced and less crazy in France.

There was of course the gargantuan task of preparing our house to sell and going through everything that we own. Of course this played into my anxiety and overwhelm. Marc worked tirelessly on the house for over 6 weeks; replacing siding, rebuilding stairs, replacing decking, and simply cleaning the entire property. He lost 10 lbs just from the sheer increase of physical activity.

After our renter moved out of the main house, we had 2 days to clean and paint the entire inside of the house, before the photographer was scheduled to arrive to take photos of the house for the listing. I stayed up until 2am the night before cleaning and prepping each room, while Marc followed with paint and brush. I set my alarm at 7am to make sure we got up with plenty of time to finish before the photographer arrived at noon. Marc was not in bed. Sure enough I found him in the house finishing painting the kitchen. He literally painted the entire night!! It was such a physical and emotional push to finish everything on time but the house was nothing short of beautiful by the end.

Yes!! That really is a mama and baby deer sleeping outside our window. Oh how I love the forest!

It was a complete emotional roller-coaster to say good-bye to our house of over 12 years. It's our first home, it's where both of our daughters were born (literally, in our bedroom), and where our dog is buried. It's part of a community of friends and neighbors that I just can't imagine being so lucky to have again. And the redwoods.....they speak for themselves. To say we're not sad about this would not be honest. At one tearful point of saying good-bye to the house, my oldest daughter, Lola, in an effort to comfort me pointed out that I was the one who decided to leave and that I should be excited. It's not easy holding totally different emotions at the same time and I proceeded to explain to her that I could feel sad about one thing while also feeling excited about something else.

Thankfully these moments of overwhelm and emotional ups and downs were cushioned by time with friends and family. And oh how truly lovely that was. The girls bounced from play date to sleep-over to play date and basically lived a dream summer with all their buddies. I am so utterly thankful for our amazing friends that essentially took care of our kids so we could take care of the house. You know who you are and THANK YOU again!!!

 

The other immense undertaking was whittling down all of our belongings to what would fit into 5 suitcases and a 7x7x4 crate! The only word I can find to describe this project was EXHAUSTING! There were many moments when I truly didn't thing we would get it done in time. Thankfully we did get it done but it came at a cost. The final push left me in bed with a migraine and unfortunately caused me to miss a final dinner with some friends.

In case you've never had to do this before, let me share how it went down. First, there's the obvious "I LOVE this and I absolutely must find a way to fit it on the crate" and the "I'm over this, let's get rid of it" (read.....yard sale, consignment store, & donations). This took some time but wasn't too emotionally draining. The next layer of course is harder. This is the layer where you have to decide about whether to make room for something that you like, you don't really want to get rid of it, but you're not sure it's going to fit. Once those two steps we're done, then came the actual packing everything up into boxes and trying to keep it to the dimensions of the crate. We taped out a section on our patio and attempted to arrange boxes to get an idea of how much we could actually fit. Next, every single box has to be labeled and followed with an electronic master list that you provide to the shipping company. This is super important in getting your stuff through customs once it arrives in Europe. The final step (the oh-so-super-fun step that left me with a migraine) included the final emptying of the house and shed, the final packing, loading up the U-Haul, and driving an hour and a half (south of San Francisco) to the freight company to pack up the crate. When we arrived they brought the crate out to us. We had to put it together, then got to work packing it.....much like a tetris game actually.

The base layer done.

Middle layer. This definitely took a few attempts at re-arranging to make it work.

The final loot; minus a few items we shoved up on top before closing the doors.

There it is; packed, fastened, taped, and labeled. Waiting for the forklift to take it back inside and get it ready to load on a truck. 

Thankfully Marc has a talent of being a master packer. We actually made it all fit, an hour and a half later. We nervously left our crate and all of our most precious belongings in this crate with the freight company and drove the U-Haul back to Marin. The plan for the crate is that it will be trucked to South Carolina where it will then be put in a shipping container with a bunch of other crates and put aboard a cargo ship. It will take about 2 1/2 weeks for the ship to cross the Atlantic where it will dock in the Netherlands. There it will clear customs and be put on a truck to France. All of this could take anywhere from 2-3 months. So.....fingers crossed we see it (and all our stuff) again.

After all this was done, we were able to pack up our suitcases with what was left, clean up the house, officially say good-bye to our home, and head back to France.

Some final pictures and a swing in the hammock before driving away.

Oh yeah, and between all the above, Marc and I actually worked quite a bit.  So not to make any excuses or anything for having neglected "A French Remedy" but.....it was quite a whirlwind of a summer. And now......now, we're back in France. Unpacking and settling in to our new life here. Getting the girls ready to start another year of French school and all that this year has in store for us. Much more to come so stay tuned and ride along on this journey with us.