Philip and Jaime Connor

I need to take a quick break from my France posts to mark a momentous occasion. Well, two actually. Chase got one of his two front teeth while we were in France. Then the tooth next to it came in, I mean the one on the side, not the other front one. He has been lopsided ever since and the other front one just wouldn't come up although it was right beneath the surface. Joslyn, on the other hand, lost her front tooth and then the one one the side, so she had a gap, a tooth, and then another gap. She looked like a red neck. Anyway, yesterday Joslyn finally lost her other front tooth, and Chase finally gained his. All is right with the world. Chase's new teeth Joslyn's big gap

I was going to make this post include other activities that we did on Wednesday, but as I was writing I really felt that Oradour sur Glane should stand alone and have its own post, so here goes. We left Angouleme and headed for Paris. One of our stops was the town of Oradour Sur Glane. Here is a little history lesson to explain the importance of this place. On the 10th of June 1944, a group of soldiers from the Der Führer regiment of the 2nd SS-Panzer Division Das Reich entered and then surrounded the small town of Oradour-sur-Glane, near to the city of Limoges. At first, they told the Mayor, Jean Desourteaux, that there was to be an identity check and that everyone must go to the Champ de Foire (fairground) while this took place. After rounding up all the inhabitants that they could find, the SS then changed their story from that of an identity check, to one of searching for hidden arms and explosives. The soldiers then said that while they searched for the arms, the women and c...

November 3rd On Tuesday we got up early and went out into the French countryside. Our ultimate destination was Rocamadour, which is a Chateau and a church built on top of and into a cliff. On our way, we had a few stops at different Chateaus. The first one was not actually a planned stop. Dad had planned to drive past and point it out to us, but Chase had other plans. He got hungry so we pulled over so I could feed him. It ended up being such a cool place so it was great that we were able to have a chance to see it. It was one of the Chateaus that was sacked during the French Revolution, so it is still in ruins right now, although it is being rebuilt by a French couple. The chateau was actually closed that day, but when they heard that we were visiting from the States, they let us in and showed us two rooms that were still intact. One room was the chapel. It was a room where Charlemagne and Louis III (I think) had attended services. The other room was a dining hall. The sto...

November 2nd On Monday, we slept in. Chase and I woke up at 10:30 and felt well rested. We came down stairs and Mom was making crepes for breakfast. YUMMY! They were tasty and I tried mine with apricot jam and marzipan. I need Mom to give me that recipe! After breakfast we drove to the bank to get some money. While we were waiting for Dad to come back to the car we saw this old man standing at a bus stop with a baguette in his hand. It fit so well with our idea of a Frenchman, that we just had to take his picture. He probably thought we were crazy, because we were snapping pictures of him and laughing like loons. Next, we drove to a vantage point where we could see the old city of Angouleme. It is actually a very old city which dates back to at least 507 A.D. There are old walls and old churches and lots of history. It was beautiful. We drove up into the city and Mom and Dad took us to take pictures of these wall paintings that are all around town. They are all cartoons pa...

I can't believe that the trip to France has come and gone. I had been looking forward to it for so long and it seemed that it would never get here. Then all of a sudden, it was here and I was leaving, and now it is gone and I am back home and mostly recovered from some serious jet lag! I have so many things to blog about, that it will take several posts, so here it goes. October 29-October 31 Phil and the kids drove Chase and me to the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 10:00 p.m to Portland. Then from Portland, we were flying to Amsterdam, and then to Bordeaux, where my parents were going to meet us. When I got to the airport, they told me that the Portland flight had been cancelled. They rerouted me to Denver instead. When I arrived in Denver I was supposed to fly to Minneapolis, then to Amsterdam and then to Bordeaux, but the Minneapolis flight had been delayed to the point that I would miss my connector, so they told me I might have to wait until tomorrow. I ...