Family Vacation

We've had plenty of travel opportunities since moving to Europe and have enjoyed being able to do some intensive site-seeing.  However, the vacations we've had have not been very restful.  We decided that it was high time for a "do-nothing" vacation.  So we had our first relaxing, low-key vacation as a family a few weeks ago.  We found a house to rent in the teeny-tiny town of Braux, just north-west of Dijon, FR.  It was a perfect location and just what we had hoped.  We took walks in our little village, played on the jungle gym in the back yard, ate peaches off the tree and grapes off the vine, swam in the pool and did a little non-intensive site-seeing.  I want to go back...

 We went to a local market (about 15 minutes away) our first morning there.  We bought honey, some green beans, bread and jam (ooh, the jam was good!).  We strolled through a community garage sale and then had beef bourguignon and lasagna for lunch at a little cafe.  Laura took time to play in the pedestrian zone while mama finished eating.

 She's growing up...doesn't she look like a little girl here?

 Anything can be a toy when you are 22 months old.  This chain entertained her for at least 5 minutes.

 There were three rental houses on the property in addition to the house where the landlord lived.  Our neighbors were Austrian and (of course) spoke excellent English.  There were 8 of them traveling together (2 families) and they invited us to their brick oven pizza night.  It was fun!  We rolled out our dough, choose our ingredients and then had to bake our pizza in the brick oven without shoving it into the ashes.  It is hard!!  Everyone made a pizza and then shared it with the rest of the group.  I was stuffed by the end of the night.  I also experienced having goat cheese (yum!), tuna (not so yum), creme fraiche (didn't really notice it), an egg (not too bad) and various other unusual ingredients on my pizza.  It was a fun evening and an enjoyable new experience.  Meanwhile Laura dozed away next door while we watched her on the monitor - it was a night out!

 My pizza had goat cheese, zucchini, olives, peppers, bacon and creme fraiche.  I thought it was pretty good and it didn't get singed a bit.

 On our way back from a walk in our little village (also a belly shot for those who have been asking).

This is what Laura does when we tell her to smile.  She's also gotten so heavy that she now requires the two arm hold :)

We visited Flavigny - another teeny little town - one rainy morning.  They are known for their anise factory as well as being the film location for the movie Chocolat.  It was a very quaint town with lots of ups and downs.  I loved the pretty stone house and all the beautiful flowers decorating them.  We had a delicious lunch at the co-op cafeteria (quiche for me and potatoes and roast chicken for Tom) and just enjoyed a slow morning. 

 The gate to the city.

For our last outing, we drove across the valley (10 minutes) to an old chateau and church on a hilltop.  They were closed, but we enjoyed walking the grounds around them.  The view were beautiful and we were the only people there.  It was so peaceful and quiet.  Laura discovered that chestnuts are fun to hunt and we found a plethora of them!  Her constant chant was "nother un" meaning she wanted to find more to step on and extract them from their spiny shells.

All in all it was a great vacation.  Just the rest and together time we needed in the midst of Tom's crazy work and preparations for Baby Brother's arrival.

More pictures to come!  We also saw our friends Matt and Stephanie, but I don't have any photographic evidence...yet!