A quick hop over the pond

Below are a few pictures from our long day of travel. We flew from Salt Lake to Houston on a small Skywest jet and then from Houston to Charles deGaulle in Paris on an Air France Boeing 777. Jesse was the odd person out and had to sit next to an East Indian couple across the aisle from us since Sophie, Logan and Dallas had to have an adult sitting with them. It was a pretty uneventful flight. We were grateful for individual TV monitors in the headrests so everybody could entertain themselves. We are also grateful for the miracle of sleeping aids. We checked 14 50-pound bags of luggage, two car seats and a stroller. We also carried on seven backpacks, two violins, and five other bags. When we arrived we had all of our gear except Tifiny's bag with the bulk of her clothes in it. It was still sitting in Salt Lake City.

When we arrived in Paris we picked up our rental minivan and, our friend and across the street neighbor from SLC, Taylor Randall, met us at the airport with his newly acquired minivan minus all of the back seats. (Taylor and his family are living in the same village we are as he teaches at INSEAD University this year.) Between the two vehicles we squeezed everything and everybody in and headed south toward Fontainebleau (FB) and our soon to be rental home in Bourron Marlotte. Taylor took us past the church building in Melun and Annie's school in FB on the way. Bourron Marlotte is about 7 km south of Fontainebleau.

After saying Bon Jour to the rest of the Randall clan on the way to our house, our landlord, Christoph Zott, (a professor at INSEAD who is in Barcelona this year on sabbatical) met us at the house and we moved all of our gear in and let the kids explore for a bit. We knew we had to keep them awake as long as possible so we could get over the jet lag quickly. The rest of the day was spent stopping by the kids new school in BM and trying to get some info on registration and then heading north to Carrefour for some food shopping. By the end of the day everyone was pretty worn out as evidenced by the second to last photo at the end of this post.

Leaving Grandpa and Grandma Tullis' with a Suburban full of gear.
Waiting on Air France jet before takeoff
Waking up from a drugged sleep over the Atlantic.
The luggage train at Charles de Gaulle on its way to the rental car counter.
A very long first day for the kids.

Trying to stock up with some items from Carrefour.