After an uneventful drive down from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Chicago and a cramped but mercifully short flight from Chicago to Boston, Fred, Simon and I all boarded the flight to Paris. We were, once again, lucky to get an extra seat to ourselves despite the small plane and all slept relatively well during the short hop across the Atlantic. Simon had a bit of subsequent jet-lag due to the short night, but we all recovered well and were on our feet in no time.

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that despite the calendar saying that it was early October, the weather still thought it was June. Simon thoroughly enjoyed playing ball and eating outside in his Mamy and Pepe's beautiful garden. As it cooled down in the days to follow, he also enjoyed raking leaves with his father (something we don't get to do very often!!!).
Simon's Mamy prepared daily feasts for us and we spent a lot of time eating delicious food (and we'll now spend even more time trying to lose the weight we put on!!!). I think we shocked her a bit by letting Simon eat with his hands instead of feeding him directly - but he won't eat very much unless he can do it himself! Until he can use a spoon correctly, it's a bit of a messy endeavor.

Genevieve and Francois, Simon's grandparents, have a very child-friendly home. They put up security gates to keep Simon from cascading down their steps and brought out enormous Tupperware bins of toys. Simon was particularly enamoured by his Pepe's collection of trucks and spend many hours taking them out of their display case and giving them to anyone around. He and his Pepe definitely bonded.

In between making us scrumption meals and doing all of our laundry all of the time (merci, Genevieve!!!!), Simon's Mamy took us out for several walks to enjoy the beautiful Indian summer. Fred's parents live about a 45 minute drive outside of Paris and about a 5 minute drive from Versailles. While we did find time to walk in the Versailles gardens and around town, we only went into Paris once!!!! The photos from that day are lovely, but Simon was atrocious. In fact, Fred and I rate that day as the worst he has ever had. It turned out that he was cutting 2 molars and a bottom canine... but it still sucked.

Just a little aside that goes with this photo - Fred received the papers from the LA French Embassy on our return to Vanuatu which means that Simon is officially French now! He took Simon down to the Consulate this afternoon in order to get him a passport. Both the US and France accept dual citizenship, so he will never have to make a final choice regarding his nationality. Go dual nationality!
This is a cute photo from that ill-fated day with Mr. Mouthy. We did have a brief moment of respite from Simon's temper when we ran across some very talented breakdancers which we all had a great time watching. I constantly forget just how wonderful Paris can be when the sun is shining... which, unfortunately, is only for about three weeks out of the year.
As our visit waned, the weather got colder and the sky greyer. We were actually pleased about this as we wanted to put on our warm (but not too warm!) clothes and go for autumn walks. Simon spent the last week wearing his flying fox jacket that my mother made for him, garnering many smiles and comments. I loved wearing my knee-high leather boots and Fred his San Diego Padre's hoody.
Since our return, a few people have asked me to give the highlights of our long trip. It's been hard for me to respond to that question because, while we did a whole lot of travelling, we did a whole lot of wonderful nothing once we got to our destination. This trip was about introducing Simon to and catching up with family, sitting around and talking over a good meal, getting to know our nieces and nephews a little bit better, catching up with good friends and spending some much needed time with our distant loved-ones. Simon, while an excellent little traveller, didn't want to let us out of his sight for very long and we were happy to humour him. This meant that Fred and I didn't get much down time together (except for one lovely night when we went out to eat in the restaurant where we had our wedding dinner) but we did get the time that we wanted and needed with friends and family. We definitely came back rested, happy and feeling in the loop a bit.
Unfortunately, our camera broke half-way through our trip to France and so I did not get to take photos from our visits with good friends. We were grateful to spend a boisterous, joyous weekend outside of Lyon with the Marze family. We were so pleased to meet Ines and Naelle, the lovely little twins that Fred's friend, Stephan, and his lovely wife, Loubna, had about three months ago. I loved having lunch with my friends Catherine and Tara, catching up with them and getting all the goss.
One of the very most wonderful parts of our trip was seeing Simon warm slowly but surely up to his distant family. It's a big ask from a one-year old to meet lots of new people into whose arms he's supposed to jump immediately because he's family. It took him a while to warm up, but after much patient trying from my family and Fred's, he's gotten to know everyone a bit better. We're going to ensure that those connections aren't lost by printing, framing and hanging some of the better photos from this trip on our "family photo wall" and having Simon wish everyone a goodnight by name every night.
Some of my faves from the trip:
Simon enjoying a sunny day and a good play with his Aunt Charlotte.

Simon and Pepe sharing a joke.

After a not-so-bad but oh-so-long flight from London to LA, we stopped at my brother's home for three days to catch our breath and get back into a proper sleeping pattern. Simon had some wicked jet-lag for the first two days which meant that Fred and I were also exhausted. Despite the fatigue, though, we really enjoyed spending some quality time with Will, Carol, Gretty, Adam and Luke. Will took some time off work and so we were able to go for walks and lunches as a family.

On the very last leg of our journey, we took a night flight from LA to Nadi. We had a blessed extra seat and Simon fit into the bassinet provided for sleeping. This absolutely darling photo was taken after Simon woke from sleeping SEVEN hours of a ten hour flight. Little angel.

This is a photo of me smiling a huge smile of delight when I realised that I had just slept for six consecutive hours and there were only three hours left in the flight. Little did I realise that our stay in Nadi airport was going to be extended from the five hour layover that we had planned into a ten hour unplanned layover. So frustrating when you're only a couple hours away from home!!!! But frankly, as this was the worst thing that happened when taking 11 different flights for a total flying time of 53hours with a 1 year old... it really wasn't that bad at all.

And now back to our regular programming.