adventures with mayer and grayson: france

we have been trying to take a family vacation since april...it's finally happening in june but that's for another post. troy took a couple days off last week. one day was to frühlingsfest and the other was last friday. we decided to head on over to france for the night and check out a couple of the towns. a friend of mine commented on facebook, that i made it sound like a day trip to tyson's corner (mall in virginia, sniff, sniff...i miss it so much). well, france is a day trip from our house. it's 1 1/2 hours from here. it's actually easier to get to france than most of germany from here.

i have heard many people talk about strausburg and have been bugging...i mean asking...troy to get his international driver's license so we could go and check it out. it's a little ridiculous to be that close to another country and not be able to go. anyhoo, he got it on tuesday and on friday we jumped into the car with one small suitcase and some snacks...at this point it was already my favorite trip - easiest prep ever. we drove the hour and half. we walked around when we first got there and sort of stumbled upon this huge cathedral, which, since we've been back home, troy has googled it and has all sorts of interesting facts but i can't remember anything he said. after lunch in a cafe, we walked around some more and found a huge playground and mayer played for quite a while. i did A LOT of window shopping but only bought a couple little things. the rest of the day was more of the same, walking around, dinner at another cafe, more playground shenanigans. the kids fell asleep pretty quickly that night.

the next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and checked out. we then took our one bag back to the car and checked out the saturday flea market that had just begun. i'm sure i would have found something to buy there had I not heard...."oh no! grayson! what happened?!....jenn!!" grayson popped the top off his sippy cup and had dumped his milk all over himself (we have since stopped using this sippy cup, now that mr. grayson has learned how to pop the top, he does it every time he has this cup). after a quick outfit change in the parking garage, we did one last loop around the town and then headed to the next town.

soufflenheim is another french town, it's claim to fame is it's pottery. i have seen some of it at the bazaars around germany. some of it I love, some of it...not so much. so, when i heard there was a whole town with nothing but pottery shop after pottery shop it was put on the must-see list. we arrived there around 11:15 and i found my favorite shop and bought a few pieces and then stumbled upon another store that was huge. an overly-friendly woman told me i better hurry up since the store closes from noon to 2pm. to which i asked which stores stayed open.

ummm.....yeah, the whole, entire town closes from 12-2pm.

anyone wanna guess what time it was?

11:50. so i quickly picked out a pitcher and filled troy in on the town's awesome hours. i decided that since the town was closed, we should head on home. plus, i was out of money, so the damage was done. i will definitely be heading back to this little town....preferably well before noon and even more preferably, without my children.

all in all, it was an awesome family weekend. everyone had a great time. and did i mention, it all fit in one suitcase? i foresee many more weekend trips in our future.