Mom, Is France Inside or Outside?: London- Hampton Court

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

London- Hampton Court

April 21, 2008

We packed up and left Wales for England, Our first stop was Hampton Court.

You can see it in the distance.

Our family in front of Hampton Court.

There are animal statues that line the main entrance, the kids each picked their favorite to have their picture taken by.

It seems like yesterday we were here for the 1st time-the journey that started it all.

The Tudor kitchens were the kids favorite part of the tour.

I am glad I don't have to cook in a big open fire every night.

We wish we had a brick oven to make all this good bread.

Walking through the alley into the courtyard of the palace.

The gardens were full of beautiful spring flowers.

It makes us feel like summer really may come.

The kids were pros in the maze-they were able to guide us right to the center.

Now we have to find our way out of here.

One good lookin' guy- even at 42!

Here we are heading in to London, Mark did such a good job driving on the other side of the road, once we were inside the city it seemed a little more crazy to be on the "wrong" side.

We arrived at our friends the Smiths a little later than planned because of traffic but Andrea had Domino's pizza for the kids. They were pretty excited-we haven't had that in a while.

The Smiths have three children Charlotte, , & Christopher. Ours kids hit it off and had a great had a hard time going to sleep because they were having such a great time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

To the guy who never asks for anything but continues to give everything.

We love you!

Andrea was so great and supplied us with strawberries, chocolate and candles.

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How Did We End Up In Bourron Marlotte, France?

Almost 10 years in the making, this is one of the questions we get quite regularly so we thought we would give a brief history of how we got here. It all started back in 1998 when we made our first trip to London and Paris. We had such a good time that whenever we reminisced about our trip our discussions quickly turned to living in Europe when our kids were old enough.

Tifiny came back to Paris a couple of other times on her own to buy kids clothes and then we made another trip to Paris in the spring of 2001 together. After these trips, we would always discuss ways that we could end up here with our family.

In 2003, when we moved back to Salt Lake City we started our plan of saving up money to live in Europe. (This was done by fixing up houses which is an entirely different story.) We didn't know how we were going to get to Europe, where we would stay or exactly when we would do it, but we made up our minds it would happen in the not too distant future. We met some friends in our neighborhood who wanted to live in Spain, so thinking maybe Spanish language skills would be a greater asset than French skills, we went on a fact finding mission to Spain in March 2006.

We loved Spain and especially Barcelona, but we still couldn't get France out of our minds. Maybe it was a desire for good pastries, but when we got back from Spain we decided that we were going to France and we would do it in the fall of 2007 if possible. Sophie would be four by that time and Annie would still not be in high school. We actively began looking for places to rent in France and looked in various parts of the country visiting numerous different web sites to try and find something that would work. We looked at houses in Normandy, Nice, Provence, etc., but as we spent time looking we decided we should probably stay near Paris.

In November 2006, Tifiny booked flights using SkyMiles for her and the five kids to Paris leaving on August 26. We still didn't have a place to stay, but we knew we had to book the flights in order to be able to use SkyMiles. We were looking actively at living up near Versailles and had spoken to quite a few people about the area.

About this same time, we found out that our friend Taylor Randall had been offered a job at INSEAD University in Fontainebleau. He suggested that it might be easier for him to convince his family to go to France if they knew we would be nearby. Since we hadn't decided on a place yet, we began to look specifically around Fontainebleau. It soon became apparent that housing in Bourron Marlotte, where Taylor planned on living, was more expensive than the surrounding areas. The INSEAD housing web sites had the best information and we looked at houses in Grez, Recloses, Barbizon, Montigny, etc. You name a town near Fontainebleau and I am sure we looked at a house there online.

Fortunately for us, in April 2007, Taylor got an email from a professor at INSEAD who was going to Barcelona for the school year that was renting his house in Bourron Marlotte. He sent the email to us and we emailed back and forth with Chris Zott getting all the details and photos of the house. By the end of May we had worked out the details and signed a lease to stay in this wonderful home. We discovered we were only half a mile from the Randalls and a block from the school where Jesse, Dallas and Logan attend. It has been great living nearby the Randalls. I think the kids really enjoy being able to occasionally play with someone who is feeling and experiencing the same things. Mark likes being able to go running with Taylor at the drop of a hat and Tifiny likes being able to do things with Janet.

As for our landlords, the Zotts -- you couldn’t find nicer people if you tried. The house is great, everything works, it has a fabulous sunroom/dining room and it can really accommodate a lot of people. Well, so there you have it, that is the answer of how we ended up in Bourron Marlotte. Hope you can come see us before we leave in July. Au revoir.

Mom, Is France Inside or Outside?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

London- Hampton Court

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How Did We End Up In Bourron Marlotte, France?