A year in...

Wow, a whole year! I finished reading the book "The Happiness Project" this weekend and at the end of the book, there was a quote "The days are long, but the years are short". Some days have seemed forever long here. The language barrier, Ken not getting home from work until after 7 every night, transitioning Ava into school, learning to cook, navigating doctor appointments, riding my bike everywhere in the rain, snow or shine. Looking back, I don't know how we survived those first couple of months of trying to figure everything out, living out of suitcases and in a hotel (with a mouse!). I am pretty confident that my love of French wine started pretty early on!

Things have gotten easier, although some days still feel very long. The language is still a problem. Ava has the best pronunciation and corrects Ken and I all of the time. I transitioned from working part-time to being a stay at home Mom. Any of you that do it or have done it knows that it is a blessing to be able to stay home with your kids, but sometimes you just need to get away! This year, Ava is in school 4 full days (2 days she goes 8:30-4:30 and 2 days she goes 8:30-5:30). She went from not wanting to go to school last year to loving school this year. Beckett now goes to the creche (which is just like daycare) 2 days a week so that I can have my French lessons and have a little time to myself. He loves his teachers and goes running in when I drop him off. Ken still works late almost every night, but we have gotten used to that too. I plan on doing the whole dinner/bath/bedtime routine by myself and if he makes it home earlier, it is a bonus. We have figured out a schedule so that I do not need to do the grocery shopping on my bike anymore, which has made things way easier for me!

There have been many great things that have happened this past year. With Ava being in school, I have been able to connect and become friends with lots of other Moms. I don't know what we would have done without them. We all have kids the same ages and all are away from our families, so we pretty much get together all of the time. The vacations we have taken have been amazing. Strasbourg is in such a great location that we have been able to drive to all of our vacations and have been able to see so many things. I love road trips in Europe! We drove an hour to the Vosges Mountains today to go sledding and it was absolutely beautiful. I told Ken on the way home that I love being able to live here.

On the way home today from the Vosges Mountains.

The most difficult thing, of course, is being away from our friends and family back home. It is hard when we miss big things. We have missed holidays. I have missed a couple of special babies being born and will miss another one next month (or sooner if he decides to come early!). This is when I feel the most sad and homesick. But, I know that this is only a temporary situation and after a couple more years, we will be back in Grand Rapids feeling like our years in France seemed so short.