Here are B and I on Halloween Night, In the morning our truck arrived!

Can you spot Bridget and Nick? Bridget is in Blue. This is the lone with 7 loops or something crazy like that. Thankfully Matthew is NOT tall enough yet and SOMEONE had to keep him company!

Richmond Park

This is the Park that is about 1/2 mile form our house. It is many hundreds of acres of everything, trails, roads, woods. There are bike paths, horse, paths, running paths, playgrounds, huge fields etc.etc. It was a former hunting ground for the Royal families, and the animals left are protected. As a result, there are these huge herds of Red and Fallow Deer. This is where I run most days. Not being a deer naturalist, I have learned a lot through the fall! As I was coming over a ridge one day, I came upon a huge herd with 1 VERY LARGE male.(like the picture I have put in) Off in the distance was another male that all the others were walking away from. As I continued on, I came over another ridge to find a HUGE lone deer sitting just off the running path. As I got closer, he stood up and lowered his horns at me. I racked my brain from years of Animal Planet .."what do you do when deer attack?" I had no idea. There wasn't much room, there were other people in the distance, I could see the headlines..."American Gored by Deer", I knew I couldn't out run him. In the end, I just kept a steady pace, gave him as much berth as I could on the path and kept going. he tracked me with his antlers, but let me pass. The NEXT day, there were all sorts of signs posted about "aggressive deer" in the fall rutting season. According to my expert advisor(Carroll Thomas), by the time you seem a male alone in the Fall, he has lost a few battles and is NOT a happy guy. Today will be my first day running since "the cull" started. Not sure what I will find today...but I WILL stay on the main drag and not venture off into the woods!

1/2 term break and OUR STUFF!!!!!

I should take a moment to bring everyone up to speed. It has been 13 weeks since out stuff left Seattle(12 for us) and it FINALLY came on Halloween. The month of October flew by with homework and school activities and finally we had a week of for 1/2 term break. A lovely friend of Frank's offered us his home outside of Paris to use as our home base as we explored the French countryside. It was truly beautiful. We went to several WWI and WWII sites and they were most impressive!

Our first stop was VIMY Ridge, where there is a Canadian Memorial from WWI. It was a key battle that the Canadians led to take the ridge. They have left the original trenches and tunnels intact and it is amazing to walk among them knowing that on either side were to opposing troops. At places they were 20 yds at most.

Our next stop was the beaches of Normandy where the D-Day invasion took place. We opted for Juno beach where there is another Canadian Memorial and scattered across the beaches are shelled out bunkers that held the German cannons. Again, spectacular beaches, gorgeous weather and the museum in CAEN does a fantastic job of walking you through the history .

We then needed a break and spent a day at Parc du Asterix(home of Europe's largest rollercoaster) and then a day trip in Paris.

We came home to find a HUGE truck at our house unpacking into our driveway. 20 mins later, they were gone and our house was full of boxes...most importantly..they all fit!

That was Halloween morning and we were to go to a friend's house for Halloween. Now let me say, Halloween is a weird experience here. It seems there are a lot of mixed feelings about it. Frank's co-workers complained that it was too commercial. We went out, and about 1 in 10 houses gave out candy. Others answered the door, but had nothing to give, others had only 1 or 2 pieces of candy so gave those and told the others to share(there were 8 kids in our group). One gave a 2 # coin and told the kids to share. People, either have the holiday or don't but really IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CANDY!!!!!! Am I the only one who gets that? In the end, we went back to the party where there was lots of food and treats and all were happy in the end. Whew.

We are now back to school in full swing with tests and reports. Bridget is struggling with :"the language that shall not be named" (French). She and Frank sit down most nights to get through her homework. She has been dropped in to a high level French class so she doesn't even have the basics. So I went out and got us some French 101 books and we have been making a go at it. We made her navigate/read French signs, order from the menu and event try to talk to people while we were in France. I am sure you can imagine the faces we got! The boys, on the other hand, are in beginning French and have quite the little accents.

I have spent the last few days digging out of boxes....a lot changes in 13 weeks. Mainly, all the clothes you thought would still fit your children...do not! Ah well, less to bring back :)

This week is "Fireworks Night" or "Guy Fawkes Day" or " Bonfire night". We have 2 events to go to, we will see how we do this week and will report in on this new holiday!

We did a tour of the French countryside during 1/2 term break. This first set of pictures if from Vimy Ridge. A famous WWI battle site on the western front that the Canadian troops led the battle that won. Here is par of the area we saw...the sign reads warning "unexploded bombs!"
Here are the boys in a German "pill box" on one of the trenches
As part of the memorial, the Canadian's left the trenches and tunnels intact. Now, overgrown with grass, was all mud during the battle. Each side of these craters would be manned by opposing armies! As you can see...very, very close range.
This is Bridget heading down into one of the many tunnels used to supply the troops at the front. The go on for miles underground!

Here is one small herd you find as you travel through the park
We had to stop as this little guy was running across the field toward us..just to get to the other side
As I was wondering how they manage the population, there was this sign on the gate one morning

Bridget sick with "flu", this was her first day out!


Here are a few shots around Richmond Park. Some of you know about my 'deer" encounter. Here is one of the unhappy fellows I ran across. The signs came up LATER!